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Liz Elting co-founded TransPerfect in 1992. Today, TransPerfect the world’s largest privately held provider of language and business services with over $250 million in revenues. The company, which continues to be owned entirely by its co-founders, operates in 66 on 5 continents withover 1500 employees. Elting oversees the day-to-day operations of the company, headquartered in New York City. Elting has earned numerous awards for her outstanding entrepreneurship, including Working Woman's Entrepreneurial Excellence Award for Customer Service, the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and American Express and Entrepreneur’s Woman of the Year Award.

Under Elting’s leadership, TransPerfect has received numerous awards and distinctions. The company is a three-time honoree of the Inc. 5000 Award, a six-time honoree of the Deloitte Technology Fast 500, and multiple Stevie Awards for Sales and Customer Service. Crain's New York Business has ranked TransPerfect as one of the largest privately held companies, as well as one of the largest women-owned companies, seven years in a row. TransPerfect was also three times named one of the fastest-growing women-owned/led businesses in North America by Entrepreneur and the Women Presidents' Organization.

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Making Sure Brand Messages Aren’t Lost in Translation

Written on
Mar 30, 2011 
Author
Elizabeth Elting  |
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Making Sure Brand Messages Aren’t Lost in Translation

flag_smallADOTAS – Internet World Stats show that 86% of Web users live outside the United States. Many of them speak languages other than English, and capturing their business depends upon quality website translation, localization and international search engine optimization (ISEO). Increasingly, that business opportunity also hinges on extending multilingual campaigns to social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

There are several core tenets of ISEO that companies must follow to build compelling websites around the world. Many of these apply to social media, as well. To break into promising regions in the Americas, Europe and Asia, enterprises are applying these principles to all of their electronic communication points with customers.

Principle #1: Every word counts.

This is certainly true on a website, but the importance of word choice is magnified as businesses condense the content of their communication. Twitter’s strict length parameters, for example make every word choice a critical one. Translating for this kind of platform requires not only timesaving software solutions, but seasoned human translators, as well.

Multi-language tweets can be a valuable tool in numerous communities around the world, but 140 characters in English do not neatly translate into 140 characters in Spanish, for example. A proven translation solution is a must for any company eager to take advantage of the direct customer communication possible on social media platforms.

Principle #2: ISEO must evolve alongside international social media strategies.

International search marketing requires meaningful and fresh content that is keyword-specific. It demands descriptive tagging, rich media, social media distribution, and internal and external links. There is little value in going live with a website that is not optimized with these needs in mind. Only when international SEO and design are done in conjunction can a business be certain that customers will find it online.

For example, a young person in one part of the world may search for shoes using a slang term, such as, “tennis shoes,” “sneakers,” or “kicks,” not the literal translation of the English words. Furthermore, there are different search engines in different part of the world, such as the dominant Chinese search engine, Baidu, that will use an algorithm vastly different from Google’s to serve up results.

This is one reason why enterprises must adopt an integrated approach to ISEO that determines the right wording and creates consistent, relevant messages in ads, landing pages, social media posts and search engine marketing.

Principle #3: Prospects want choice in all matters, including language.

Any business pursuing customers online must consider the linguistic reality of the marketplace, even domestically. The latest American census results contained some important data for marketers.

The fastest growing segments in the U.S. are minorities, including Spanish-speaking residents. There is a largely untapped domestic market that is waiting for e-businesses to meet its needs with greater choice in multi-language content.

At home and abroad, businesses should extend choice in language preference. Depending on the country, any given website visitor might prefer French over English or Arabic over Spanish or any number of other possibilities. Don’t guess which language might be best. Instead, offer a language menu to reduce visitor frustration and increase the site’s effectiveness.

Making the most of social media around the world

The Web and evolving social media platforms make it easier than ever to reach customers in virtually any market. However, that easy access should not lull businesses into cutting corners as they localize their brand messages. Automated translation might be a quick, inexpensive way to launch global efforts, but for measurable return on investment and successful customer relationship building, follow the principles of smart ISEO.





Reader Comments.

Thanks for this great article. The importance of “seasoned human translators” cannot be underestimated. Would you outsource your SEO copywriting to just anyone? To the lowest bidder? To a machine? The same goes for your translation/localization needs. I would add one further point. Getting those “seasoned human translators” in on the project in the very early stages and ensuring they are in the loop and can work as a team with your SEO and copywriting pros. What do you need to do before you can localize? In-country market research? Keyword research? Early local testing of potential foreign-language messaging and keywords? Getting a professional translation/localization team in on the project from the get-go can help make sure you maximize ROI on your foreign-language websites.

Posted by Sara Freitas-Maltaverne | 4:39 am on March 31, 2011.

Great article! A proper “trans-creation” of a website will make all the difference when building a relationship with a potential customer.

Posted by Tami | 4:38 pm on March 31, 2011.

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