Is localization project management the only way to get into the film industry? Don’t let your education and degree limit your options. More topics – SDL increases its revenue by 28%, How to evaluate new international markets, The Russian market for gamers, Video localization tips, The role of an account manager.
This is episode #6 of my speaking practice, also known as the Localization Podcast 🙂 #localization and #translation news across social media delivered to you by the power of my voice.
Timestamps:
7:57 – Financial report from SDL for H1 2019
11:24 – Breakdown of localization per industry
20:57 – How to get into movie and media localization, is degree important?
31:45 – Attractiveness and accessibility of new markets for localization
40:55 – The gaming market in Russia
45:43 – Amara subtitling provides tips for localizing video
51:36 – What is the role of an account manager?
56:15 – Global SEO best practices
59:37 – 5 ways to improve localization strategy
Andrej Zito
Hello, ladies and gentlemen, this is Andre and this is the localization podcast. Episode Number six. I’m thinking how to start this episode. I have no idea. Oh, yeah, I know right now, the best thing for me to start is to greet everyone, regardless of where you’re coming from. And so I started sharing the podcast on Reddit on the localization subreddit. So Hello. I’m sharing this also mainly on LinkedIn, and also sharing on Twitter, and a little bit on Instagram. Stephanie, other platform that I’m using, probably not for promotion. Or is there something else? Oh, maybe, maybe YouTube. I forgot about YouTube, even though that’s like not the main platform for audio. But I still posted there. So maybe you’re coming from there. Hello, everyone, and welcome. So this week, and FYI, it’s Sunday 9:42pm.
Andrej Zito
For me, and I just started recording, and I was going through the article see yesterday on Slater. There’s not much content there, I think I’ll just only mentioned like one article about SDL very briefly. And the rest of the content will be coming from social media only. So this is kind of like an interesting shift. Because like, as I started doing the podcast, I know that I was trying to mainly focus on articles from Slater, but because they were usually about MMA, and I don’t know, IPO and stuff like that, not very practical things for our day to day lives. And maybe I just wasn’t going through the social media very thoroughly. But like, I get a lot of good stuff recently, from social media, and that’s specially Twitter and LinkedIn. And this episode will be recorded in slightly different format.
Andrej Zito
I mean, not format, I mean, like my talking will be still the same. It’s just my preparation has changed a little bit. Because I feel like I’m kind of under pressure, you know, because it’s already Sunday. So ideally, I want to be rendering the video today overnight, so that tomorrow, I can prepare the copy and I can be ready for cues they release. So because there’s like a lot of articles that I just discovered recently on Twitter, I haven’t made any notes. So I think I will be reading the articles during the recording. And maybe I just put in some labels so that I know which parts I need to delete so that you don’t have to suffer through a lot of pauses that I make anyway. But they’re just my way of speaking and trying to find the right words. Actually, I’m listening like a lot of Tim Ferriss podcast recently.
Andrej Zito
And he does pause, here and there as well. And he kind of does the same thing that I did that sometimes like, you know, like you pause to find a right and a breach or connect sentence or just find the right word. And then once you find it, you just fully unleash and then you just be like very quickly. I don’t even know why I mentioned it. Another thing that I should have mentioned right at the very beginning. And I think it’s the important thing for people who are listening to the podcast for the first time so I need to remember days for the next episode. And actually, let me just take a note of that because if I just say this and I continue recording for one hour I’ll go forget about this. Okay, so I took the note that for the next episode, I need to start with the following disclaimer.
Andrej Zito
And that is, for those of you who are listening for the first time, one of the reasons why I started doing a podcast is so that I can start, I mean, not start, so that I can practice speaking on my own without any super preparation or like, without script, and just try to organize my thoughts and explain them in the best way possible. So that’s why I’m still this way, I still see value of doing this. Just on my own, just for my case, like I’m trying to, I’m trying to care less about like other people’s opinions and judgments not like that, I would like be against constructive feedback. Not at all, but it’s more about like, the usual fear, like why people aren’t doing things is that because they’re afraid of what the feedback will be.
Andrej Zito
In any case, it is still probably like on my wish list, you know, to get some people on the podcast, and have them either as for guests, where I would just interview them and find out like about what they do, how they do things and will like, what is their background, starting from like childhood? Because like, we need to get very deep, you know, the landmark stuff. And the second possibility is that someone would comment on the news with me. But I would rather keep that just like a sole thing for now. And then I actually forgot about the well, it will be the third thing, but I should have skipped the second one. So the third thing would be drinking. And I think I mentioned this in the very first episode that I’m okay, now, I’m just thinking that this intro is like too long, but whatever.
Andrej Zito
So in the very first episode, I think that like one of the reasons why I started a podcast, and like, the direction that I wanted to do is that like, eventually, I want to have like a drinking podcast, or maybe like the drinking should be even video, you know, to make it more attractive to people. And the premise is very simple. You know, like, when people drink, they are more open, they’re more honest, they have less fear, they have less filters. And probably it will be much funnier than what I’m doing right now. Um, okay, so I’m turning into eight minutes now. And I still haven’t started with the main part. So let me get right into it. So the first article, and actually, it’s the first and the last one that I’m going to pick close later is about the love and hate as the L that rules our lives every day.
Andrej Zito
So SDL has recently announced the results for the first half of 2019. And their revenues are up by 28%. So it’s pretty good. And this is a result of a three year corporate transformation. And I don’t, I don’t have the details about it. What I learned from the article, just briefly is that sto has three divisions, language services, language technologies and content technologies. They’re pretty diversified when it comes to markets. So 41% is us 39% you and 15%. Eight back. And the biggest takeaway that I have here is surprisingly, and I was totally not aware of this is that they have 1400 in house linguists. And they say I think the CEO said that, because of that they have higher gross margins. So the idea of full in house language teams is kind of like unusual, at least in my experience, because typically lsps rely on freelancers, or like smaller vendor companies.
Andrej Zito
And the only company that no, there was like kind of like prioritize prioritizing, like having internal language teams was alpha. So that was the company that I worked for. I think of three years Before I had my short episode with homebridge, and before I started working for a global meet where I’m right now. So yeah, so this is this is kind of interesting how they can still keep the people on payroll and have higher margins because of that. And I was very surprised by that. Okay, and that ends the article. Okay, so now we’re going to look at social media. And originally, I thought I will have a few articles from the link in. But as I was checking the articles that I highlighted from LinkedIn, I think that the one that I selected, I thought it was like about, like how to measure localization ROI,
Andrej Zito
But in the internal, it’s just about measuring marketing ROI in general, which is not specific to localization. So I won’t be going into it, even though I think that the principles of marketing ROI still apply to localization, because it’s still marketing. The second thing that I have open here, and I think this may be coming from either Twitter or still LinkedIn, it doesn’t matter. And this is some nice chart from nim z. So I had no idea who name z is like, what kind of company they are. So they also do research within our industry. So I guess this is the second company that I know about, besides common sense advisory, which was like the main and the only research company that I knew from long time ago, because they used to partner up with Morabito a lot.
Andrej Zito
And that one of the conferences that we had like annual morale via, you know, for all employees, I think one of the guy from CSA was giving a speech at this at this event. Well, anyway, so this very nice chart is about industry verticals. And the leaders in each vertical. And this is basically like a breakdown of which industry is represented by? How much in Okay, I know, I know, I know, I am speaking very poorly today. Um, so anyway, so here’s a breakdown. So the biggest chunk is actually taking by the public sector, which is something again, that I have absolutely no experience with, and 18% of language services are for the public sector. And some of the leaders in this vertical art, the big word, I think I heard that maybe I was like, even applying for a job with them, that they do a lot of government translations, then we have complex or as the semantics, practice service, that’s probably some German.
Andrej Zito
And for some reason, I see a Canadian flag here. So I’m not sure what that actually means, like, does the Canadian government translate its own stuff? I have no idea. So that’s 18%. And that is actually like leading. Leading the chart. On the second place with 14% of language services is media localization. So this is Ott, however, TV and corporate videos. And there are a lot of companies here that I have never seen before. VSI I, you know, Zoo, live law Rev. dubbing brothers. So yeah, it is true that I have not a lot of experience. I mean, like we do localize media, but it’s within marketing. So nothing for Ott definitely not something like Hollywood. And this actually brings me to, to a post. That was on Reddit. And I think I let me actually quickly shirk. Because I think it was posted this week, or at least I provided my reply.
Andrej Zito
The last week and this guy was asking about working in the industry. So yeah, I replied four days ago. So I’m going to definitely speak about that. But let’s finish first when we started. So that was media localization at the second place. So third place with 13% is life sciences. So this is pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and car car. Oh, I have no idea what that stands for. And the leaders here are morning slight translations, we localize as the El transperfect. I knew about transperfect because I think they most of there are maybe like 50% of their revenues are coming from life sciences. And we have a kalat complex or our ws meraviglia. There’s even landbridge so there’s 13%. Next one is with 9%. We have a tie between healthcare interpreting. So this for hospitals, insurance and telemedicine, and then we have it.
Andrej Zito
So let’s first go through healthcare leaders because this is again, something that I have zero experience with, especially since this is interpretation. And it’s very difficult for me to read the logo. So the first one is like language line, some think they have white text on a blue background, kind of like a tilted rectangle. Then there’s Marquis, Sirocco, language link, cultural link, Stratos. indemand, propio and global. And the second industry tie, what is it? So this is definitely kind of like my forte and the industry where I have most of the experience. So these are software giants, hardware, unicorn startups and elearning. And the latest here are our ws meraviglia, SDL, patera. We localize. Then this company, which has like a very weird logo, I cannot or is it logos? Probably? their logo is like very, very weird. It’s not easy to decode it.
Andrej Zito
Then there’s star thing, star is it star transit. Then we have trust, perfect. And then we have app. And so that is the company that I mentioned recently. I think they’re Australia based and they’re big on data collection, if I’m not mistaken. So that was 9% of the whole language services. Then we have with 7% we have again, two industries. One of them is financial and legal. So this is translations for banks, FinTech auditors, legal companies and attorneys. And the leaders here are we look lice. Morningside Ecolab, lionbridge, sdoh transperfect pachira. In the second second, 7% is for marketing. So these are advertising firms, firms, oops, advertising firms and marketing departments. And the leaders here are data words, never heard of that. Ecolab. Language wire is the language wire. I can barely read it.
Andrej Zito
Start transit alpha. So finally, alpha. And that’s it. That’s 1% 6% we have translation of IP. That’s very interesting because I thought that IP would fall under legal translations, but I guess it doesn’t. And we have morning side translations on onea qu or Manya qu Center at Colette multilink and we localize and also our Ws the second 6% is technical. So this is Energy, Telecom, aviation construction and engineering in the leaders here, or siprotec, Karen akkurat. Okay, now that I’m actually doing this, I’m thinking like this part, like me trying to basically rephrase the whole chart is probably not a very exciting content. So if you drop by now, I understand it. So I’m going to speed it up. So that 6% We’re almost there. So there we have at 4%. It’s ecommerce and travel, and a 3%. It’s automotive, automotive.
Andrej Zito
Okay, so that’s this chart. So I’m going to add a note. And I’m going to go back to Reddit, because I didn’t originally select Reddit, because I thought there was nothing new because the comment that I provided was a few days ago, but I think I still think that it’s worth mentioning it. First of all, because the question was related to localization. Second, because I think it’s my reply. So by me sharing my answer, maybe you get to learn something more about me. And the third thing is that this is like an important topic, because I’m pretty sure that most of the people on this planet actually don’t have a job that they really are passionate about. And so they are just kind of like working, you know, to pay the bills and get by, or maybe they have like a lot of experience, for some reason,
Andrej Zito
For example, like me, and they are afraid to make a switch, or they think that if they make a switch day with their lifestyle, it would be affected or software like that. So here’s the question that was submitted by the user on the localization subreddit. What advice would you give someone who wants to work in film, or entertainment localization? I see that entertainment localization translation, don’t always receive recognition in the general localization industry. Does anyone here have experience working with projects involving localizing subtitles, audio or content? How did you get started? Do you still enjoy it? What quality qualities do you look for in someone who works in this field? So I’m gonna get some water. So my reply came a little bit later. In the meantime, there were two people who are like asking you for more specifics, like what he’s looking for.
Andrej Zito
And he replied that he’s looking into something like project management or coordinating. And then another user replied to dad, that he has seen some jobs mainly in Asia. And it’s probably good to get experience in any sort of project management, and then look for companies that handle topics that are interested to you, which I definitely agree with. But more than that, in my reply, and to this reply from the user, the the op, who asked the question, gave this information. That’s exactly what I hoped to do. And this is important. I’m currently working towards ama, I’m not sure what the fuck that means. Like, is it like masters? Probably masters in tech localization? I have no idea what tech localization means. So I’m currently working towards MA in tech localization.
Andrej Zito
But it wasn’t until recently that I realized I want to work in the film industry. I feel like I’m going in the wrong direction here. So first of all, I had no idea that you could study tech localization specifically, like, like, I have no idea like, what it even means like, like, why would you study like for three or four? I don’t even know like how long it takes to study localization or maybe like, even two years. Like what would you study for two years to learn? pec localization like what is your To learn, maybe it’s easy for me to ask this question since I have, like, several years of experience. But I mean, like, wouldn’t you just learn like localization in general? Like, does it even matter? Like if it’s tech or whatever? And so based on this comment that the user provided, this is my reply. So, here it goes. The closest I’ve come to this industry is an interview with Netflix, but I didn’t get the job.
Andrej Zito
They’re hiring for localization positions, check them out, although I’m not sure if they have any entry level positions, HBO and Amazon are in the same boat try? Not sure. Who does localization for theater movies, I would assume a local distributors question mark, better Polk Netflix and company, since they keep their localization in house for all the content that gets distributed globally on their platforms. If you really, really want to get into companies like Netflix, look for in turn jobs, or just keep bugging people on social with something valuable for them, or just engage in their conversations, and offer to work for free and experience. The question is, do you want to work for film or entertainment industry simply because you like movies or creative work? Or do you really see project management as something fulfilling and you’d like to do it within an industry you have passion for?
Andrej Zito
My theory is that project management is quite universal. Once you get to a certain level, it doesn’t matter what kind of projects you’re managing. Despite what many HR people say in their job posts. You deal with clients and their requirements, deadlines and budget, you work with a team of experts who will have a lot more exposure to the actual content. Like movie subtitles, voiceover promotional material, then you it may be nice to manage the localization of Stranger Things, season four. But most of your time, you’ll be writing emails, don’t fall into the trap of gaming testers. People who thinks they’ll be playing games for fun and getting paid for it. After a short time, it becomes a routine and you don’t get to enjoy the game, it’s just work. My point is you need to like project management, the industry is secondary.
Andrej Zito
If you see localization as an entry opportunity into the industry, go for it. But don’t limit your options just to localization simply because you’re going to have some stupid paper, aka degree. If the look is the industry appeals to you, there’s a lot more that you can do to get in. Especially if you have passion for something, Allison, then localization project management. So the reply, and this is I’m going to brag here, because I think I gave him pretty good answer. Because simply because like when he said that, he started, that he’s currently working on like a degree in tech localization, whatever that means. And then at some point, he realized that he wants to work for film industry. So the first thing that came to my mind was like, okay, so you found the passion for movie for whatever reason.
Andrej Zito
But because you already are studying something, which is not like a super great fit with your new discard passion. You somehow want to leverage the time and effort that you put into the studies or maybe the degree that you are going to get and try to like, use that as your leverage to get into the industry. But my point was like, you shouldn’t limit it just to that, because like, it’s just a stupid paper. It’s a degree like I have no degree in localization. I was just hired because they more like people during peak periods, and I just stuck to the industry for more than 1010 years now. And the point is also that I think maybe I was mentioning this already, or earlier in the podcast that I’m out to say this The right way. That because we already have like a certain past experience, it doesn’t mean that what we want to do in the future, like needs to be leveraged or like connected directly to the experience.
Andrej Zito
And this guy, since he’s studying, I think he’s still young. So like, he has like, a lot more options how to get into the industry. And so his original reply was like, This is exactly what I needed to read. Thank you. So I was very happy about it. But now that I’m reading this, he actually did edit his reply. And he added this think reading your reply, again, does make me admit to myself that film and creative work are things I’m more passionate about than general project management fee was filmed was my first exposure to foreign language and sparked my interest in language services, which is how I got into localization. Most of my experience in the localization and translation field, but it would be amazing if I could learn a new skill for entertainment. So, um, okay. I think there’s like, some words missing or something in his reply.
Andrej Zito
But, yeah, so this was the story of the Reddit. Okay, moving on to Twitter, where I have a bunch of articles that were interesting. And that I’m just reading now. Right before I start talking about them. First one is from motion point, and I think I mentioned and noticed motion point. Last week. They have like some new solution for for which I didn’t like their messaging, like their, their whole unique value proposition is based on them expecting me to understand what their key something means. It’s like, it’s like, wait, I got mixed up. So they have like an alternative solution to connectors and to API. We just find this. So that yeah, it’s called turnkey solution. Right now, I’m looking at their Twitter and their cover image is motion point. That’s their logo. And then the unique value proposition is the only turn key solution for multilingual websites.
Andrej Zito
What the fuck does turnkey mean? And I even try to answer this question, I think last time, and I still don’t get it. I don’t know why they put it there. It’s so confusing. Maybe I should just text someone. But I probably won’t do it because I don’t care. And so this article is about evaluating new international markets for your business. This is very interesting, and even a relevant topic for me. But I think oh, yeah, now I remember, I think it was maybe the first or the second episode of the podcast where I responded to some question, I’m not sure where it were exactly on which platform it was, but I was talking about there was a question about like, how do you decide which market to go to? And my whole answer is pretty much like you need to test things and take it slowly. So let’s see what the motion point people suggest.
Andrej Zito
I like this article. So they’re saying that there are two important criteria, one is the market attractiveness and the other one is its accessibility sorry, accessibility. So what does the market attractiveness means it means the likelihood of long term success in the market and how valuable it can be to your business goals. And the questions that you need to consider are Is this a profitable market for me, can I prosper there? are customers are willing to pay for my goods or services? What is the size of the market? How much of the addressable market can we expect? To serve, can we build the right relationships with this customer base? Can we expect to repeat business in this market? So this is all about the devalue on the investment. And then the second criteria is the market accessibility. Why do I say that way? accessibility?
Andrej Zito
Okay, that’s a bad word for me. So what it means is how logistically complex and potentially expensive market will be to serve. To determine a market’s accessibility ask questions such as, is it feasible for me to expand here? Do regulations prevent me from going there? Do I have the logistical infrastructure to go there are key questions to ask? Are there significant legal obstacles? Is the language barrier easy to manage? Can we afford to work in this market? What will my infrastructure requirements look like? So this is very much about the way this sounds to me like the accessibility thing is like figuring out the rules of the game. So attractiveness of market is about ROI. Accessibility is about how to get there, how to penetrate a market and how and if it’s, if it’s feasible. In the next section of this article is beyond attractiveness and accessibility for key questions.
Andrej Zito
So let’s see what else they suggest. What is the profile of your ideal customer? Where are your competitors doing business? What are the current technology trends and influences? How do we plan for the future? Okay, so this is quite generic. And here’s the final paragraph, which is test this test and localize. So this is kind of in line with what I was saying before. And I’m just going to quote the article it says, After determining market attractiveness and accessibility, the next step is to test the waters. Considered the low cost, low risk investment of localizing your website and digital channels, such as email and social media, to provide content in the preferred local language, establish distribution partnerships with local partners or wholesalers, or even popular virtual marketplaces to test product sales.
Andrej Zito
The best digital translation solutions can help you localize your website and content for omni channel I have no idea what it means. It also provide supporting technologies like API’s to integrate content into third party systems and marketplaces and localized omni channel assets. So this is where they start to pitch to potential customers or Yeah, um, so I’m thinking right now what to add to the SU testa status and localize so is the market the track TIFF what is the competition? Can we get there like what do we need to do do we need an office and stuff like that? But the best thing is definitely to test maybe you don’t even need to start selling their first maybe like you can start by like I don’t know doing some I don’t know like maybe you can just quickly like set up like some small microsite maybe drive some test traffic to it
Andrej Zito
And see like what would be the response like with people for example, like sign up for like, I don’t know, like pre sales or something like that. Like hey, we are coming to your market, you can buy the product or whatever. at a lower price now just leave your email and stuff like that, you know. So you don’t need to go go there physically and open an office and without like bullshit. You can just first tested like digital and like if there’s like a demand for the product or the service that you want to move into the country. So that was day. One We have next. The next thing if this actually refreshes, do narratives. And this is an article from our Oh, I thought okay. So as I was going through Twitter, I know it is posts from level up translation, which is, which is a company that I have mentioned several times on this podcast because I like their content that they’re creating.
Andrej Zito
I just didn’t like their thumbnails that they’re using, because they’re not optimized for certain platforms, because some of the text is truncated. And I discovered, and as I was going through Twitter and localization hashtag, I noticed that some of the articles that they recently posted are old ones into they’re basically doing new posts for old articles. And then they found this one which caught my attention, which was called keys to cracking the Russian video games market. And I hadn’t I hadn’t seen before, maybe I forgot about it. So I thought like a new article. But now that I’m actually going through it, I can see that it was published in December 2016. So it is quite old. So let me just quickly skim through this article. So you don’t have to wait for me to read it. Okay, I quickly went through the article and the important things that I see here.
Andrej Zito
Despite that, it’s an old article is that Russia generates 1.4 billion in the gaming market. with tons of growth still to enjoy. Russia is currently the 11th biggest gaming market in the world. And it’s the second most widely used language on Steam. So no reason why localizing into Russian is very key for the gaming industry. When it comes to the game formats. 27% is MMO games. 23% is casual web games, and 20% is mobile phone games. So there’s a lot of casual and social web games played in Russia. When it comes to platforms, Android is by far the most popular platform.
Andrej Zito
However, Apple IO still generates more revenue from paid downloads and in app purchases, which is a trend that is worldwide. And here are the localization best practices for the Russian market. So I’m just going to read through all the bullet points. adapt your UI allow more space for text and design dynamic buttons, and text box text boxes that adapt to their content. Okay. Test your fonts. Make sure the fonts using your game are compatible with Cyrillic, Cyrillic is Cyrillic arcylic correctors. Allow gamers to access the English version of your game. even give them the choice. Provide Russian subtitles for an English version of your game with the option to turn them on or off. Consider providing the Russian translated voiceovers and allow gamers to turn them on or off.
Andrej Zito
Ensure subtitles and voiceovers are accurate to the English text and dialogue. Get your spelling and grammar spot on with translations Make sure your use of Russian scripts and spacing are accurate. And I am I am now 15 minutes into the recording. And once again I’m starting to feel like my throat is getting super itchy even though I’m not feeling sick at all. He just all the stocking Okay, so I’m going to look for the next article. I’m going to try to speed it up a little bit. So the next article that I noticed on Twitter was from Amara. And I know Amara because I was recently. Not recently, not very recently, but some time ago I was looking for, like a subtitling app that I could use for the content for the video content that I was doing for YouTube, which I haven’t done much recently. I’m just doing the localization podcast now.
Andrej Zito
And so I stumble upon an IRA, which was pretty decent, but I just stuck to YouTube because YouTube provides automated captions. And because I just needed like one or two minute subtitles, subtitles for like one or two in the video. I decided to stick to YouTube because I just have to like make like few changes here and there. to correct the automatic, the automatically generated subtitles. So the article from Amara is about video localization getting more from your audio visual content. And this article is super, super fucking long. When it’s very broad. It starts by talking about like how video is important that 80% of global Internet traffic will be from video, and how much video is uploaded to YouTube. So they say that 500 hours of new videos uploaded to YouTube every minute.
Andrej Zito
So yeah, 87% of all businesses use video. Okay, thank you for that. Then they explain the basics of localization is saying that 72% of consumers worldwide spend most or all of their time on website, websites in their own language. Today’s buyers are less willing to purchase products and services that aren’t available in their own language. Okay, so this is standard. And at first, like when I was reading this, I was like, okay, like, we know this, but I guess like their target audience for this article is someone who just doesn’t know much about localization. So they need to understand why somebody would need videos and why somebody would need to localize them. And finally, we’re getting into something more practical. And here they describe like a process for, for for localizing subtitles.
Andrej Zito
So step one, transcription, convert the audio to text if there was no original script. Step two, timestamp the script transcript to create same language captions. QA of the newly created captions Step four, translation and localization. Step five, modify timestamps to match new corresponding subtitles depending on language. Step six new languages subtitles, QA review, minimum or one round of review. Okay, so that’s pretty, pretty basic. Is there anything I can add about us? Probably no. No, we have some tips for video localization. So this is still from Mrs. Block. Tip number one, include a research face. Every country has its own cultural norms and different ways of doing business, especially as we become more and more interdependent in global commerce.
Andrej Zito
Research doesn’t have to be difficult though, especially if you take the time to find reliable sources of information and localization experts to help you adapt your message to different cultures. It’s always good to have multiple sources to verify information. Blah, blah, blah. Okay. Tip number two don’t rely on automation for accuracy. So this basically means no nmt. Um, no machine generated subtitles, even though they’re cheapest. If you want your brand to be relatable and relevant in humans, Within a different geographic locations, human translators are the way to go. Tip number three use samples when working with a new localization service. Now, what does this mean? Okay, so they’re suggesting that you basically test them. So you chop the video into smaller one to two minute videos.
Andrej Zito
No into small one to two minute video subtitling orders so that you can verify the sorry, you so that you can evaluate the the vendor quality before you make the final decision. And tip number four, business planning is key. And this is basically about the ROI. So yeah, the the article wasn’t super helpful. Another thing that I noticed, and this is from a very new company, I haven’t seen them yet. They are called Terra translations. Let me look at their website, I mean, their homepage. And what did they say your English and Spanish language solution? So that’s their uvp. Not very, very convincing. Not very unique at all. So I guess they just specialize in the Spanish market. And I’m not sure if the images are like stock photo images, or if there are like, that’s how the team looks like.
Andrej Zito
But under the uvp, which is right on top of the hero image, which in this case is video, I’m actually inclined to, to think that their video playing in the background is actually their team, which wouldn’t be nice, because it makes things personal. So right under that they have like these three main categories. Well, it’s not like a category, but it’s like the benefits for the customers I would say. So the first thing is that they focus on project management who project management, then it’s our team. And then it’s cool to have like a lot of ISOs. And as you know, since I this the spice, the spice all the papers, all the standards and all the stupid degrees. So like when you have like ISO and you say like, hey, like that’s like our biggest value that you have some ISO, I’m always like, okay, you probably suck because you just stick to some stupid certifications, and you can think outside the box.
Andrej Zito
But anyway, their article is an Insider’s Guide to the role of an account manager. And when I saw this, I was surprised because this is where they actually say so this should be about the account manager at Terra translations. And the first paragraph is a day in the life of an account manager. Similar to a pm. No two days are alike in the world of an aim. The primary role of the aim is to be the dedicated point of contact for the client. their responsibilities include confirming projects on key, delivering drafts, preparing quotes and negotiating rates and deadlines. On top of attending regular meetings, webinars and events. aims are a resource to the client and building a proper report is of the utmost importance. So when I was first reading this, like confirming projects and preparing quotes, for like a task, the rest kind of like, okay, maybe fits, but
Andrej Zito
I’m not so convinced. And here’s account managers core skills. aims with a strong set of soft skills tend to excel and their role. One of the strongest skills that Ames can have is the ability to critically think and problem solve, hey, that’s me. Oftentimes, AMS must address difficult issues with clients, such as negotiating the budget or pushing back, unrealistic deadlines. Another valuable skill to have As an as is collaboration, okay, everybody needs to collaborate these days. Lastly, aim should encompass empathy, the ability to understand and anticipate the needs of both the client and the team will proactively hold problems before they start. Okay, that makes sense. And they are decision makers. Okay. So in the end, this was not the very interesting, I’m sorry, to bore you.
Andrej Zito
How many do I have left? There’s one article from MSDN, which is a bonded global SEO, and it’s an infographic. So let me look at that one next. So it’s titled, beyond global SEO best practices. You’ve got great content, but how do you gain an audience? So first impression, this is like a PDF. It’s like a full infographic. But it looks very nice. Like the design and the colors are clean. Match matching the SDL new brand, I think I really like the colors. So here’s the first thing include translation in your strategy from the start, implement a clearly visible language drop down. So that’s where you select the language for the website, localize rather than translate keywords. Okay, this is important. Add unique keywords to your terminology database. And sure your terminology database is supplied.
Andrej Zito
Confused here? What are we talking about, like terminology? When like localizing key words, doesn’t have much to do with the terminology or is it Oh, oh, you should add it to the database. Okay. Now, I think I got it. But first, of course, it means you need to do the research on the keywords and use your site map to target priority translation. What? There’s just two bullets for this point for the sitemap and it’s add fresh localized content continuously. translate your URLs using relevant terms. Okay, let’s just legislated like that. Create high quality, translatable content with global appeal and reach. Make sure your content is well organized, fix broken links and set redirects. integrate an XML sitemap for referencing and crawlability. Implement usage of href Lang to map to language specific content and serve the best search results for your audience.
Andrej Zito
Okay, that’s something that I have never heard before. Build Content around key elements, title tag, h1, h2 headlines, image out attributes, meta description text, okay, that’s nice. SEO is a marathon, not a sprint. Developing and translating more locally relevant content creates a continuous and memorable, memorable user experience. Okay, I like this. It’s pretty basic. But I like it. Okay, and I have two more, hopefully, I’ll be able to survive. So the first one is from text united. And I think they noticed text united. In the previous episode. They have this kind of like, nice, colorful logo. And they’re from actually they’re in Vienna. Hmm. And so their new article is, which was posted five days ago, is five ways to improve your localization strategy. So the first paragraph the opening paragraph is when you expand to foreign markets, you expect growth in website traffic, and you base of customers and finally an increase in sales.
Andrej Zito
What if none of this is happening, despite your efforts, let’s talk about a few ways that will help you improve your localization strategy and really nail your global conquest. So they have these five tips. Number one, review your content. Remember that not all of the elements of your brand might be suitable for everyone at any region. If you translated everything without checking up on your content first start over with a research on your target market. Okay, so that’s about what are we actually localizing for US market? Number two, hire local professionals. Okay, that’s pretty self explanatory. Number three, don’t just translate localize. So Okay. The whole article is about improving localization strategy. So I would assume that nobody is just blindly translating from A to B.
Andrej Zito
Tip number four, review translations the proper way. What is the proper way for them? So internal review can improve your strategy by adding a tremendous amount of value to translate content in country reviewer must make sure that the translation represents your company in the local market, and properly reflects all specific aspects and nuances of your products and services. And, okay, step number five is don’t forget about SEO translation. Okay, so this is about translating, and they literally translating instead of localizing. So not only what the human eye can read, but also what search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, and others see? Yeah, so like, when I review all these tips, maybe the first one would like reviewing your content and which one you think should be actually localized.
Andrej Zito
So it’s kind of going back to like the ROI of what we should look lies, and whether it’s going to bring us the value that we want. That’s like the only part that I would probably say that fits the title of the article. And that is wasted, improving your pocketbook, I just read your localization strategy. Because the other tips, they’re kind of like basics. So I really don’t like this article at all. In the last one, this is, again, a new company called the rubric. ru, br IC. And quick bio is global localization and translation services provider, Learn more at their blog. And the article that I found on Twitter is called controlling entropy in the UI localization. And I think that actually, I will top it right here, because that article was very, very technical, very engineering oriented, which actually, I’m not like, saying that engineering is not important.
Andrej Zito
I don’t know like how I would rephrase it and commented because there are like, in that article, there are like many examples of like, like, I’m from Cote. So with that being said, I think that’s all I have for today. So I’m running slightly over one hour. And it’s almost 11pm here. So I need to get start editing this whole thing. And we weren’t sure if I’ll be able to finish this today. I have to fuck. So that’s it. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening. I hope that you will tune in to the next episode. Next week. And it will be the last one that I will be recording in Vancouver because then in less than two weeks, I’ll be flying over to Philippines and I’ll be doing my content then there. So I hope that internet speed there in Philippines will be decent and I will still be able to upload stuff to YouTube.
Andrej Zito
Okay, I don’t want to prolong this any further because I want to use Get some popcorn and start doing the post editing. So thank you for listening and have a great day or evening wherever you are. Bye
