Your company blog: while often neglected due to its perceived lack of purpose (and the commitment it requires), it is also a personal way to convey a message to a client base that isn’t possible with different forms of social media.
Far too many business owners forget that a comprehensive blogging strategy is essential for a company’s greater marketing plan: a company blog puts a face and personality to what appears to potential customers everywhere as a faceless entity offering a product or service. In short, it’s a cost-effective and simple way to connect to an audience and receive their feedback.
Breaking the Barriers
For businesses that have a presence in multiple countries, maintaining a blog that reaches different groups of people–who speak different languages–offers an intriguing challenge. Visiting a company’s website to find that their blog is in a different language is a turn-off. It creates a barrier between a customer and the business he is paying for a service. It’s impersonal and seems like the company isn’t making an effort to coalesce. A blog that is available in more than one language makes for a much more positive experience for the consumer; something many often pay more for, rather than dealing with an unknown, unfriendly commodity.
As the TheWebsiteCenter.com notes, customer trust and the website level of rectitude typically needs to be more significant when purchasing a service, as opposed to a product. A service implies an extended relationship, while purchasing a product usually ends when payment is accepted. A service, however, is an ongoing event, which requires constant communication to ensure the effectiveness of the relationship.
Connecting with the World
Connecting with the consumer is impossible with barriers. A potential customer will go elsewhere if they encounter anything that makes them feel uncomfortable or inconvenienced by the business they are about to give their money to. For companies with a business in multiple countries, a multilingual blog is a way to connect with potential consumers, as well as showing them they are dedicated to providing a comfortable business experience. More eyes will be privy to a blog that is available in different languages. It enhances a business’s internet presence by ranking the blog higher in non-English search engines, in addition to English search engines.
Having a multilingual blog provides new avenues for interaction with consumers, meaning a company can improve their product or service to fit the wants and needs of potential customers. Interaction is good: it helps create a relationship between two parties. Interaction with customers that are feeling-out different businesses makes it more likely they will choose your company, plain and simple.
Nothing to Lose
The process of setting-up a multilingual blog certainly isn’t a huge undertaking, by any means. Set-up is easy to do, and duplicate content doesn’t count across languages. There are specific companies that specialize in content development, integrating translation capabilities into their services.
The alternatives include using a dedicated translation service, or even just hiring someone that is fluent in the desired language. Site maintenance and coding often prove to be obstacles to companies focused on providing a service a product, so having someone with great familiarity with HTML, in addition to the desired languages, is essential for providing a respectable, friendly blog.
The ultimate goal of offering a blog in multiple languages is to make it as interactive and friendly as possible. By catering to the needs of potential consumers, offering blogs in different languages reaches to a wider base than offering posts in English, exclusively.
Sloan McKinney enjoys sharing her knowledge on International Communications with readers. She contributes some of her writing to TollFreeNumberNow.com, and specializes in topics of business globalization and technology.
