Building Global Trust & Engagement in a Time of Uncertainty

Even in times of uncertainty, there is still opportunity … opportunity to reach out to your customers, support your community, and let them know that you are here. In this global period of uncertainty, localization is a strong tool that more companies are leveraging, to ensure that their message is being properly communicated to their customers and communities around the world. This is because at the core of it, localization helps globally-minded companies transform their message, product, and all communication to resonate on a local level, regardless of which market they are in.

In this next post of our series exploring how localization is helping companies across the world power through this time of uncertainty, we break down the key facets of how global companies are still successfully managing localization efforts to engage their audiences.

1. Take control of your global brand message.

Up until now, your teams and your company overall has gone to great lengths to build the brand that you have today. All of this investment of valuable time, energy, and money into the content that you have been producing should not be hindered by uncertain times. In fact, now is the time to fully leverage of all of the localization processes you have already put in place to properly communicate (and alter, if necessary) your global brand message during this period.

Whether it is your website, blog posts, mobile app, or any other consumer touchpoint, make sure that the message you are communicating during this period is consistent and not left open to misinterpretation (especially by those generic in-browser auto-translation tools). Now is the time to take control of your brand message and localization will help you to do so.  By properly translating your content, your target audience will not only better understand your brand message, but more importantly, your values and solutions during this period of uncertainty.

2. Communicate and over-communicate.

This is a key best practice that you will find across all of our blog posts and other resources, and we will emphasize it here again. Communication is a universal best practice for both localization teams as well as companies to help provide more visibility and build trust during difficult periods. Communication is critical especially during moments of uncertainty, because it keeps teams and communities connected through the chaos and helps you to identify and express exactly what it is that can be controlled and supported.

For localization teams, this means making sure that whatever localization tool you are using, it can properly integrate or at least work alongside the communication tools you already have in place (from Slack and LexiQA to GitHub and KantanMT). This way, you will increase ease of collaboration and project transparency across teams. For companies reaching their global audiences, this means investing in localization more than ever before in order to best communicate all of your status updates, product releases, and team news in a timely and linguistically relevant manner.

3. Continue building awareness, trust, and loyalty with properly maintained websites.

Above all, this time of uncertainty has shown us the importance of remaining agile and adaptable to stay connected with customers and keep up with a rapidly changing environment. Agility and adaptability have long been two major reasons that companies have invested in localization, and the current climate is no exception. Even after you have launched your first localization efforts or deployed a new product in a new language, the work is not done there.

After localizing, it is vital to ensure that you are properly maintaining your global presence so you continue to maintain control of that global brand that you have worked so hard to build. To do so, make sure that you are staying on top of all your multilingual properties so they are up-to-date with the most relevant content and material. This will also lay the foundation for future optimization of your content, making sure you continue to drive engagement to and ROI from all your localized properties.

Localize to Engage Your Audiences & Take Control of the Uncertainty

The short of it is that humans simply naturally feel more connected to the companies that they feel know them best. With localization, you can show your community that you are not only truly invested in their culture and community, but are there for them with the content and products in the languages with which they are most familiar and comfortable.

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