Here is a transcript generated by Otter.ai of The Content Mix podcast interview with VeraContent’s Shaheen Samavati and Kyler Canastra, and Adriana Carles, on how to optimize your global social media strategy:

Kyler Canastra 0:00
Hi, everyone, thanks for tuning in. Today we’re going to talk about one of my favorite topics, the particularities of content marketing in social media in Europe, with all the different languages spoken across the continent and so many cultural differences. How do you tailor campaigns to reach your target audiences here? Can you use the same marketing campaign for Germany or France? Can you use the same social media channels to reach people in both Spain and in Portugal? The short answer is no, but we’ll let the experts weigh in today. I’m here with my co host Shaheen Samavati, CEO of VeraContent, and Adriana Carles, head of content and social media at Ladenzeila. We’re delighted to welcome out of Diana back to the show. We first talked to her six months ago, she had recently started at Ladenzeila, where a big part of her role is managing international content and local social media pages for the company’s global shopper like brand. As a native of Venezuela. She has been based in Germany for the past seven years. And before Ladenzeila, she was a senior brand and Content Manager at another German tech company in the financial sector. So welcome back to the podcast, either Adriana, it’s great to have you back.

Adriana Carles 1:09
Thank you guys for having me back. Very excited to be here. And to have this very interesting discussion today.

Kyler Canastra 1:14
No, it’s so great to have you back and to have you meet Shaheen as well, to be on the show. Yeah, awesome. So when we last talked to you, and we learned a bit more about your career journey. And for those who haven’t listened, definitely go and check out that episode, which is titled content marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. But today, we like to get super specific and talk a bit more about the tactics for creating content that resonates with diverse markets across Europe, and how to get your strategy just right. I’ll also direct some of my questions to Shaheen, who built VeraContent, which is specialized in managing teams of linguists that run global content and social media marketing initiatives for diverse clients. So I guess we can get started. And I’m going to ask our first question, which is, I want to learn a bit more about your experiences, both of your experiences with localization? If you just tell us a bit more about what experience you have, then. Yeah,

Shaheen Samavati 2:06
I can go first, I guess. First, yeah, I mean, so my background is as a as a journalist, and I’m from the US and I’ve been living in Spain now for over a decade. And I started VeraContent, it’s kind of mentioned and really, my career transition from from journalism into translation, because I was living abroad in Spain, I had a lot of experience doing localizations into English, because people kind of, I realized there was this opportunity as a journalist to become a kind of expert translator on more creative kind of texts. And that’s kind of was the seed for what I’ve built my business. So now VeraContent, we do the same thing, but into many different languages, especially focusing on European languages. And now we’ve been six years doing this. So. And yeah, we work with people who are more writing profiles, but who also do translation so that we, yeah, focus on really adapting the text for the different markets. Yeah, so

Kyler Canastra 3:03
it wasn’t really something that you sought out, it was kind of, you know, you had a journalistic background. And then because of the needs that you saw in the market, you kind of figured why not like learn more about localization, start your own agency.

Shaheen Samavati 3:15
I also had, like, in house experiences. So I had worked as a as a, as a communication marketing manager as well. So I had experience kind of like outsourcing to others, and I saw the kind of gap in the in the market as well. So for quality translations, I lost struggle with working with different providers who didn’t meet my expectations at the time. So my problem

Kyler Canastra 3:35
is awesome. How about you at Vienna? I mean, we talked a bit more about your background and as someone who is, you know, multilingual and multicultural I’m sure it’s something that kind of felt natural to you.

Adriana Carles 3:45
Yeah, I mean, I think the the, the interesting thing is you know, coming from Latin America, where you know, everything is done I also I was working before and like markets, where you know, Spanish is the main language and although we do have like our cultural differences from you know, one country to another like how do you say this word here and that word there is kind of honey between countries, but then I moved to Europe right, where like, you travel a couple of hours and you’re in a completely different culture a completely different language. This was a whole new ballgame for me and I also had to kind of understand you know, that localization plays such an important part when you are working in Europe because you know, you have different markets that are super important relevant for your company and then how do you adapt that and how do you choose you know, which market is the most important ones or how do you you know, how do you do how do you get your message across so it has been you know, experience for me as a professional to kind of learn how to do this and you know, coming from you know, a complete different world and learning now okay, this is relevant and I need to adapt the way work and I need to about my content to fit this need. So you know, from the company perspective, you know, having like working with you know, translators and editors and locally Facial has been like a really relevant challenge for me and also for what I’m doing currently.

Kyler Canastra 5:05
For sure. And you know, as you just mentioned, the European market is so fragmented. And I think you’re saying before, it’s like for Shaheen, and I, being from the US, it’s like driving from one state to the next. It’s like, we don’t expect different language, different culture, but the same distance here. It’s just totally different. And there’s so many different languages and cultures, and you know, marketing resources only can go so far for localization. Exactly. I guess this is like the million dollar question that we all have. But like, how do you both decide where to prioritize? Like, how do you know, like, for this campaign, I need to localize and for the other one, I don’t. So I guess, like, what are these key factors that you consider when deciding when to localize or when to not localize?

Adriana Carles 5:45
can start, so I think like, for us as a company, we made like a business decision. So company wise, you know, we sat, we say, Okay, we have 13 markets, but of course, all of them are not as relevant. And we had to really just go down to the bottom line. So where are we making money? You know, where are we making the revenue profits? And where do we see the best growing opportunities in that market? Right? So I think it really came, it comes to us first as a business decision. So it’s a strategic decision from business, to say, which are our most relevant markets? And then based on that, of course, you say, Okay, where do you put your resources, right? So you’re not going to at least for us, it wasn’t like, we’re not where we got, we’re not going to put the same amount of resources, if we don’t have the relevancy and all the markets. And if, for example, I also had this discussion the other day with with a colleague from another company, you know, they want to move into, you know, into Europe or into German. And you know, and then they want to have the same languages or editors across the whole market. And I’m like, Okay, but what is it that you really want? Do you really want to have you know, is what is your focus? What is your priority market? And then based on that, you have to find out what is your resources, and for us, at least as a company, it was really understanding, you know, where is it that we’re going to grow? And then based on that, where we’re going to put more resources on creating unique content on that language? And where we were going to do more like translations or using other types of like, no, maybe outsourcing or freelancers. So that’s really that what came down to us. It’s a business decision in the end.

Kyler Canastra 7:19
Yeah, so for you, it’s really just Yeah, it makes sense. You know, wherever the demand is, but also, like, wherever you’re, you know, more revenue is going to be coming from which markets you want to focus on, and also understanding the markets and what’s better received there, in comparison to the others as well. Now, Shaheen. Do you agree with that? Or do you have, you know, a different experience in terms of Yeah,

Shaheen Samavati 7:38
well, I was just thinking, I mean, we work with, of course, a lot of different clients who have like very different approaches. And there’s obviously like a huge difference, depending on the size of the business and how much budget they have for localization, I’d say like, really large corporations, some of them are just, well, everywhere in a way like and they have really dedicated teams for for all the regions, and then they have, you know, in their in their localizing for even much smaller markets, I would say where you see, companies, especially startups or smaller companies, that are they have to prioritize more, they have to make more decisions. And of course, they need to be more strategic, strategic in general, like with where they want to sell where they want to enter the market. Because I mean, unless you’re already like a super well known brand, that’s Coca Cola in every market. Yeah, you have to kind of decide where where you want to start. So I think I totally agree with what Adrianna said, it’s, yeah, it’s not only a marketing decision, it’s a business decision, it has to be in line with your strategy and make sense. And it is expensive, of course, to the resources that you need to put into creating new materials for every market. So you need to be really strategic about how you

Kyler Canastra 8:47
pay exactly. Yeah, I feel like you both mentioned to, like, you know, the whole concept of resources. And I understand that you really touched upon the idea of like, well, maybe you have to, like outsource some things. And you know, with freelancers, if you don’t have the money, or the time to do that, it can be very difficult to really organize it and also, like, hit the target.

Shaheen Samavati 9:03
Well, I just wanted to make a point about what we were talking about before. Because one thing I’ve definitely seen with a lot of like, a lot of our clients are more like startups, I would say, and that you have to make those decisions about where they where they invest in localization. And of course, like the most common you see is people investing in like the largest markets, so like Germany, France, Spain, the UK, but like, I would say that we do definitely like see exceptions to that because of like a business reason focusing on on some other markets. So and we’ve also been we’ve we’ve done Scandinavian languages we’ve done like much smaller European languages in other parts of the world. I another thing I was going to mention is that sometimes we see people make a huge change as well. And oftentimes is that they think that they want to be in a lot of markets and then once they see like how much work that is, and then they’re like, Okay, maybe we should be in fewer If that’s something you’ve also seen,

Adriana Carles 10:03
yes, this is also something that we seen. And this is actually the reason why we went into a prioritization mode because we were in all the markets, we had, like, all the editors in our markets, and we saw, okay, this is not possible, you know, and this is also why we now like, focus on having, you know, prioritizing some markets, which are more relevant to us, where we put our, you know, our, you know, the eggs in this little basket, and then the other ones, it’s not that we don’t think they’re important, we do think that they’re important. But of course, we don’t put all the resources and I think that’s exactly where we were to the point were like, Okay, this is not possible. And then no, you know, for example, and we got to talk about social media later, but we have, like, 13 social media channels for each of our markets. And it was like, no, no real maintainence of the properly and now we’re like, okay, scratch that we need to reduce, you know, and, and just simplify, because it is impossible, like, unless you’re a big corporation, like you say that you have such big budgets and huge teams to manage that. I think that some, some companies is just a smart thing to do to think like, you know, really, where am I going to grow? And if it works, just roll it out in someplace else. But I think this focus, at least for us, it was important to take that step.

Kyler Canastra 11:15
Yeah. Cuz a lot of it’s trial and error, it seems like kind of you have to kind of feel it out, see how the your target target audience responds, and then decide later on if it’s worth investing or not, because both of you said it’s a lot of work. Now, I think that also like comes down to like, when you’re considering right, like approach to, you know, translating content and creating original content that also depends right on how it’s received, you know, from trial and error before. So how do you decide if you want to, like, create original content for a certain market or just translate from a certain country already have available in one language for one market? How do you know like, when, what content deserves more attention and when it doesn’t? So maybe either Ghana I don’t know, if you have experience with that,

Adriana Carles 11:58
um, I think like, for us, I think the hardest content to kind of translate so easily would be anything that’s related to like campaigns or anything that is on brand. So when you really need like to bring emotions and personality and like these catchphrases sound so amazing in English, but then, or like you want you want to put them in German, or like, Gehring, it’s like, Oh, my God, like, how do you say that? You know, I think this is the hardest part, I think this type of content deserves to be looked into, by the original language, you know, like, how do we say this in a way that this emotional right list this idea, you know, the same idea, and not with the exact same words is translated or it’s, it’s, it’s, like giving in this language, right. And this is what is hard. And this is where like, for example, when we have like, I don’t know, ideas for like, impact campaign, I don’t know, for sale or for something that we want to do that it’s like more on brand, that it’s more emotional, that we want to connect more. This is where we have the challenges, it’s not so easy to translate, it’s not easy to just do that across the languages. And we have to say, Okay, how is this like, going to work for in German, for example. And sometimes we, you know, at the beginning, we started doing first thing, English, and now what we’re doing is like, okay, because German is our main market, we do it in parallel, so German and English at the same time. So in a way that, okay, like, it makes sense for both languages, and then the other languages just come in after that in the discussion, but this is, for us, at least something that is really kind of like what we’re we’re working with right now. And then the second type of content that for us is really important. Also, to get it right is constant content that we do to our partners. So anything where we want to communicate to our main customers who are shops, right, so for this, we have decided as a company that we will communicate in our own 12 markets. So it’s a very nice challenge. We have to do other b2b content. Why? Because we decided that, you know, we want our partners to be able to understand us, you know, we want to speak their own language we want, you know, we’re, we’re, you know, we’re working with shops, I don’t know, like in the Czech Republic that, you know, have 2000 products. It’s not like a big shop, but we’re giving them the opportunity to display our products in our page, and we want to be able for them to understand this. And you know, we only speak in English, it’s, it’s very hard. So we have success managers for each of those markets. So that means that we also have content based on those markets. And everything we do from like sales outreach, every kind of sales material is done on the 12 mark for 12 languages. And this is a lot of work. I think this is I think the biggest chunk of work we have when it comes to localization and languages we have, I think the strategic decision to also make it that way and make it relevant for us.

Kyler Canastra 14:44
Yeah, I feel like you brought it really to like important factors. One is like, obviously if you have important information in a campaign, for example, that you need your you know, like the consumers right to understand, has to be in their language, but I also think you brought up a really good point which is emotion When a campaign has like an emotional pull to it, it’s so much easier. Like, I think as all of us write, we speak different languages. But I think when something resonates more with me, and maybe in my native language, which is English, so I think it’s so important if you really want to, like, you know, convey that emotion, it’s so much better to localize it, and to maybe start from scratch and write it and kind of, you know, brainstorm how to convey the same message losing an expression or saying that it’s gonna resonate with the audience. Now, Shaheen, in your experience, have you found similar trends or, or something

Shaheen Samavati 15:30
I was gonna say, like, I’d say, like, the most common circumstance where we’re creating like, totally original content in a different language is because of a particular campaign that the client is doing in one market that they might not be doing in the other ones. So it’s like, okay, we want to create a blog about this topic, we’re going to do a social media campaign on this topic for this market that we’re not doing in the others. So then, of course, that’s going to be all original. And then, but besides that, obviously, if it’s like something that is the same content in different markets, whether that’s a blog or social media posts, or, or whatever, it obviously doesn’t make sense to, like, reinvent the wheel. But, but we never do like straight translation, like, it’s always rethinking this does this work for the market? Do we need to change it, we might, like, even though we’re going to use as a basis, like the content from one market for the other, we’re still gonna think like, we might totally change it. Like, you know, for example, content calendar for social media, if we have a post about something, and when one marketing that doesn’t work well, on the other, we’re gonna rethink, like, Okay, what other posts could we do here, but, of course, if the content is usable, we’re gonna, we’re gonna make use of that, like, because we’ve already been in the resources to create, like, good piece of content, right, but just requires some critical thinking about what works and what doesn’t, and having the people who know those markets to make

Kyler Canastra 16:42
this thing. Yeah, that’s like a huge differentiating factor, right? When it comes to translation versus localization. Like whenever you can simply translate something, okay? That’s, you know, it’s pretty straightforward. But it’s not the same as you know, taking the extra step. But I think when I describe to people like what my company does, for example, and like what we do on a daily basis, it’s like, they actually, like, get shocked, because it’s like, they know what translation is, they never thought about how like, okay, when you’re localizing something, you have to change, you know, if you’re having a blog post with certain examples, that might have an impact in one market, you’re gonna have to go and find a similar example, in another market that can convey the same message, right. So it’s just such a more than just a translation, it’s kind of you can do it, like, you can create original content for each market. But you can also take the approach of having, you know, like, she was saying, Don’t reinvent the wheel, you already have the content, but just doing a good, localized translation of it. Kind of like to,

Shaheen Samavati 17:35
at the end, I said, I think like, the most difficult type of translation is like a claim or like some really important, you know, like title, something used in an advertisement or something, it’s like, that has to be like, exactly right. And did say, you can actually, for something that’s only like a five word translation, you can get several people involved in Spanish. Crazy. It’s

Adriana Carles 17:55
crazy. Yeah. I mean, the end, you’re always making compromises, right? Like, because it’s never, you’re never going to find that exact same thing, you know, you’re gonna find something similar, which, you know, gets the same note. And but in the end, this is like, I think these are definitely the hardest one these like, you know, smaller concepts, you know, to get because I have, you know, have this thing, like, the smaller and the catcher at the core messages, though, those are the hardest ones to kind of replicate across languages.

Shaheen Samavati 18:25
Okay, that remembers the project, we did our own slogan, say what you mean into seven? Is? Because actually, the word mean doesn’t exist in another language.

Kyler Canastra 18:37
I think it was easiest in German. I think that was like the easiest translation. But the other ones, the Romans, like, yeah, hard to, like, convey that same message. And I think we spent like weeks, like working with our collaborators.

Shaheen Samavati 18:50
And slogans are just so important to the business that you want to make sure you get it right. And spend a lot of time on it. Yeah, exactly.

Adriana Carles 18:55
You have to get it right. Yeah, exactly.

Kyler Canastra 18:57
The little things matter. But also now I guess, like another, you know, topic that comes up a lot in our field is like organic content versus content for paid advertising. And like, with localization, so how is it like to see approach change when it comes to like, if you’re working in something that’s organic, or you’re doing paid advertising? So as you’re gonna do, I don’t know if you have any, like insight on that?

Adriana Carles 19:19
Yeah, so I currently I do not. So this is not the area that I manage, particularly in London, Sally, we have like a complete different team of amazing people doing, you know, the paid stuff. But of course, we do work closely together. But a bit of the difference here is because, you know, paid is such a big chunk of the budget and also such a big chunk of, you know, the traffic that we get to our site. I think that, you know, we do have more people working on this team that are actually in house, as opposed to the organics from the organic side. Sometimes we work more, you know, outside or freelancing, and we and we kind of use more of the resources in we keep the resource in house for this because it’s really relevant to the business and this, I would say is a bit of the difference strategically. So let’s say that you know, maybe for the organic content, we just have some editors from some countries in house. For the paid stuff, we do have more in house resources like each they can a person, at least one person from each of the languages in the team. And I think depending on the size of, you know, they let the importance of the country that the more people on that team for that country, when it comes to the copies, of course, everything is shorter, right. So it’s not like you need tons of like, huge, A, it’s not huge amount of times. And this is also like these, these people are not only experts, writers, but they also understand how to implement the campaigns, which is so completely different from the profile that you need for people who are working the organic part, because you need, you know, people who can write who can do infographics who can do a lot of different types of content, while on the paid part, you know, copy is part of it. But there’s a lot of, you know, part of it like optimizing the campaign, and understanding how it works. So I think this is like for us, particularly how how the difference between both of them, I would say, but of course, there is some localisation that goes into it, and a lot of testing that goes into it. So for example, I sometimes look at the copies. And I’m like, from my perspective, like, this is not like, I don’t like this guy by the tone of voice, but it’s what works, you know. So in the end, that’s what matters. So this is a bit of the different I mean, it also matters to save organic, but it’s I think, in this case, you know, this objectiveness it’s really, it’s really easier, it’s so much easier to test things in the paid part than on the organic side. So I think this is also something that’s really relevant there. And that kind of also should help the organic part get better. But yeah, this is a bit of how we work when it comes to paid versus organic.

Kyler Canastra 21:41
So two different approaches. It’s kind of like out comparing apples and oranges. It’s completely different stuff really

Adriana Carles 21:48
different. Yeah, it’s so different. Yeah,

Shaheen Samavati 21:49
you have someone with a journalist background I’ve totally like grown in respect for people who are sales copywriters, because it’s such a different type of writing. And I mean, now I work with a lot of sales, copywriters, and it’s like, coming up with those snappy things and things that get your attention, it’s a different way of like thinking about creating copy, then, then when you’re writing something, like a longer form piece, for example.

Kyler Canastra 22:13
It’s gonna be like, really different for sure. And it’s like, as a writer, myself, and I used to be a copywriter, it was so hard for me to like, get into that mindset. But I think now with no practice, I can do it better. But still, you’d need to have a certain mindset in order to really get it right.

Shaheen Samavati 22:28
Didn’t work with like, certain writers for the more like journalistic kind of content and the more organic stuff. And then other writers for doing the more like that. And some people are just better at one thing than the other. So it makes sense. Exactly. to tap into those skills.

Adriana Carles 22:39
Yeah, I think this is the skill set. Right? It also depends on the type of I think here also depends on the type of company that you have, and the type of ads you have. Because for us, for example, because we’re like a product, you know, a lot of our ads are just product ads, you know? So it’s very different. So like, depending on what kind of company you have, what kind of skills that you need for that paid marketing team or for writing those copies, like if your marketing, I don’t know, a software, I think them it’s, it gets a little bit more complicated, because what will you need to put in that ad? It’s more about the benefits. So it also depends on the product that you have, and the skill set that you would need for the paid stuff? For sure.

Kyler Canastra 23:19
You’re sure. Now I think another challenge that we see a lot, especially like Shaheen and I at VeraContent and just many marketers are like, kind of figure out how to approach global social media, because that’s a whole nother ball game, right? It’s kind of, you know, this is you have all these different channels, should we be doing it in different languages, the same language a global page? So you know, we always are thinking like, what’s the right number of social media pages and platforms to have for a brand? And also like, does it make sense to really centralize running those pages or have local teams handled them? So I’m going to ask Shaheen first because I know she is an expert in this topic. So in your opinion, she is really happy to hear this. In your opinion, like what do you think is the right number of social media pages and platforms to have? And does it make sense to centralize it or to? Well, yeah,

Shaheen Samavati 24:06
it’s hard to be an expert, because it’s something that’s like changing all the time. But definitely, I’ve seen a lot of different things and a lot different things. And I’ve drawn some conclusions about what I think are the best practices, like very subjective. But yeah, I was, I think that like it was, well, probably around a little before we were starting very content, I’d say like, six or seven years ago, there was this boom of like, oh, there was like new tools available in social media where you could, you know, create multiple pages, especially on Facebook, that could be kind of redirected from your main page to the other language pages. And there was a lot of brands that like, wanted to take advantage of that. And then also, just I guess, there was just this idea in general that like brands were really figuring out how to use social media at that time. And it was like okay, we need to be present in all the local markets and a lot of a lot of people started making like a lot of pages in every And I think now we’re in a phase of, of people reining nine in a little bit and being more strategic. So but yeah, that’s kind of what we were talking about before. Like, I think at the end I mentioned, like creating a lot of social media pages and, and then deciding to produce them. And I think we’ve seen a lot of people doing the same thing. But of course, it is important to be in those markets where you feel like you need to really interact with the local, the local audience in their language, it depends how present you are in that market. And whether it really makes sense to do full localization for for one market or another. And I think also, a lot of our clients do take different approaches to like how much they localize for different platforms. And I do think still, that Facebook is probably the one platform that has the best tools for localization and make sense to do that if if it’s in line with your strategy. Or it’s other platforms, it’s a little bit less easy to make a good localized strategy, for example, Twitter, because there’s like such like a fast paced platform, like, and you need to put a lot of like, you need to be really interactive there. So you need to have a really dedicated resource. And it’s also just not, you have to have separate pages for everything. It’s not like you can have it all kind of consolidated, like you can on Facebook, they just have better tools for it. And so yeah, those are some of my,

Kyler Canastra 26:18
I was gonna say, it does really depend on the right channel, and like, you know, an Instagram maybe it’s not as important because it’s such a visual tool versus Facebook, where it is so. And I know you’ve had experience with this, because you’ve referred to it before. So what’s your opinion about oh,

Adriana Carles 26:34
no, I in my previous company was so easy. We just had English as a language for that. I was like, Yeah, created content. This is so much fun. And now I moved here we have 13 markets, and it’s just like, you know, okay, it’s, it’s gotten complicated, let’s say it, but I definitely agree with chatting here. Like, for example, like, you know, we were having now, like, like, a couple of years ago, they, you know, before I joined, like, you know, we have all the all the 13 markets had their own account, and it was managed by the country. So like, they would say, like an editor who is doing like a multi role of like, copywriting SEO blog. So they were doing everything at once. And I think that the problem with this kind of approach is that because you don’t have like a person specializing and actually knowing how the platform works, I mean, now social media has evolved in a way that is so relevant, and you really need an expertise, or even how to create content for the platform, how to pose when to post like, it’s really become its own thing. So this, to me, this approach of having like a one man show that does everything does not work anymore, really, it has to be somebody really looking into the platform, really looking into the numbers, understanding the audience, and then being able to build content to to match that. And that being said, we are now even moving from that approach of like, what do we do with these certain platforms, we, first of all, we do not have the resources to manage 13 platforms the right way, right, it was just not property. So we’re going back to like, reduce, you know, let’s focus really, where’s our focus? Again, going back to our business strategy, where do we where do we see the most important growth in the future, and here, we just kind of simplified into at least for our, like, main channels, where it’s like Instagram, you know, because we are in like a retail, e commerce. And we’re focusing on having two channels, actually, which is German, and then an English one for all our channels. And you would say, Wow, English for, like, the whole European market. Why, you know, because like, for us strategically, like, we’re not making huge money out of Instagram, you know, it’s the reality, it’s still organic. So we want to grow here, but we we grew, we want to grow more as a community and as a brand, that actually to sell. So our idea right now, this is something that we’re going to test out is actually having more of a community and we see other big brands also moving into this direction, you know, of having one global network in one language for some platforms, like, for example, or Instagram, as opposed to having like, I don’t know, spread across a not enough, not enough growth, putting money into little ones, instead of just building one big one. And this is the change that we’re now going to make. And we’re starting to make it so I can tell you in a couple of months, how it how it goes. And but honestly, it’s just that it’s resource wise, impossible to manage 13 platforms. And also, I do believe in this kind of centralized approach where there’s one team, you know, using one tool, because I think nowadays, tools are super important to do this correctly, where you can see your analytics, where you can post from one place, and it’s like, more consistent. So I think, for us, and in general, I think this is an approach that needs to be at least at least thought through based on the resources of the company and based on the role of each channel because like, for example, you you mentioned Twitter, right? And maybe for some companies, it doesn’t make sense to be on Twitter anymore, you know, and this is something that companies now have to think because we did go through the phase of like opening up all the channels, and then I’ve seen like, I’ve seen And I’ve had to go through the pain of like, okay, who owns this account, who has the email list as Twitter, please, to give us this account back. And this is not only in this company, like I’ve been to like, also my previous company, like trying to get back companies because accounts were open and nobody knew who owned them, the person left that company. So it’s really important to just keep this as centralized as possible. And with the expertise of the team also.

Kyler Canastra 30:27
Sure, I totally agree

Shaheen Samavati 30:29
with that point about, like, you should only do as many, as many channels or as many profiles as you can do well, and I think that really is different for every company. But it might be less than you’re doing now. But yeah, of course, if you like, like we were talking about before, if you’re at Coca Cola, or Microsoft, or whatever, you have the resources to do amazing. You don’t have the debt and the resources you need in every market. But if you don’t have those resources, you have to think about, like, Yeah, well, lately. Yeah. Yeah, you can either be posting really generic content once a week, maybe with a scheduling tool, but is that having the, is that having the impact that you want to have in that market? Right?

Kyler Canastra 31:09
Yeah. And something you both mentally I think, from you both mentioned, it’s just like, you really have to take a step back and see, like, what makes sense, I think, you know, the work that we do a very content and a lot of the companies are small to medium sized companies, they’re not these Coca Cola. So, you know, it’s really important that they could they have limited budgets, you know, we have to do something with like, a good purpose as well. So yeah, I think another, you know, factor, right, so we’ve already talked about, you know, should we centralize, or should we have different a lot of different channels. But I also think another thing that comes into play is, you know, do we repurpose the content that we’re using, are we like, you know, creating unique content for each channel that we’re on? So I don’t know, if you either have you have, you know, insight on that, or, you know, if you’re doing something for Instagram, are you going to be using the same type of content for Instagram, you’re gonna use them Facebook. So I feel like there’s a lot of, you know, decisions that have to be made as well in terms of the content itself, and what strategy you’re going to put behind it. So

Shaheen Samavati 32:03
I was making before, I think it’s like, increasingly important to really tailor tailor your content for the platform, because now like new content types are becoming possible on some of these different platforms. Like, as you know, Instagram is like increasingly becoming like, tick tock, so you can do different types of videos, and they need to be formatted in different ways. And basically, of course, you can repurpose it to some degree, but you do need to think about the platform and how you’re going to create that content for that platform. So that it’s, you know, I guess, displayed in the best possible way that it’s working with the algorithm of that platform. And then you’re kind of like, on top of the trends of like, what kind of content is working on that particular platform?

Adriana Carles 32:41
Yeah, 100% agree there. I think, of course, like we go back to, like, let’s not reinvent the wheel. I really love that, you know, there are some things that can be repurposed. Like, for example, now, we, you know, when we went about, like, we’re now in the process of like relaunching our or social media channels, and we went about like, first thinking what was going to be the role of each channel a bit to understand what kind of content we want it to create for that. And there are some content that you can’t use me for, for LinkedIn is obvious, right? This is like your either your lawyer channel or your partner channels. So the content that goes there is completely different than what you’re going to put like on an Instagram channel this, like, for example, for us as a company, right, because we are b2c b2b companies. So in the end, this really depends, right? So you, you, you have to think of that platform and the content type that you know, the audience that you have on the platform, and what is the role for you of this channel, because for example, you know, when it comes to Pinterest, pictures like this, you know, this whole other realm, you know, it’s very, you can get lots of traffic from paychecks, but the type of content that you have to have to get traffic to your site is very different than the type of content you can have, for example, for Instagram, which can be more about inspiration, and, you know, getting people to like things and learn about you. So like even when they are in which stage of the funnel they are the platforms work very differently. So I definitely think that you have to really think about the platform, the role of the platform, but you mentioned here with the the content types that work on each platform are completely different. So this is why I think it’s better to have less and with more quality than have been like all of them and not do them. Right. For sure. And nowadays, you know, it’s such an amount of work, you know, I love when people come up to me like, yeah, I want to open a channel, I’m like, they have no idea the amount of work that is required, like, I want to do these set of videos, like it’s so easy, you know, like, it’s just like, Let’s do him in three days, half a day of shooting and I’m like, they have no idea the amount of work you know, or like for example, when you know, like, they read like, oh tick tock is now great. And I’m like, Do you know how much work it gets? Takes On tick tock to record these reels. And especially as a company because as an individual, you can just go and do whatever you want. But as a company, you have, you know, business goals and you have things you have to do and you have teams and you have resources. So it’s not the same to do it on a personal level, but on a business level, right? And this is why I really think yes, you can repurpose content, but you really need to do it smartly. Again, what is the business school? For?

Shaheen Samavati 35:11
personal level, it’s like extremely time, people who are influencers, it’s because they’re spending all of their time doing. Exactly, that’s a good, very good point,

Kyler Canastra 35:20
as easy as we never think of a

Shaheen Samavati 35:23
little because they’re not, I mean, we’re not putting a value on their time. But if I mean, if you’re a teenager, and you have nothing else to do, and you’re just eight hours a day,

Kyler Canastra 35:31
which is exactly

Shaheen Samavati 35:34
a lot of cases, and there’s people obviously gonna make their careers out of doing that.

Adriana Carles 35:39
But But answering that I do think there are some things that you can repurpose. So I mean, I, I’ve seen other counseling, for example, we’re now doing this thing where we use some of the Instagram content to do on Facebook, right? Because I think these two platforms are things that can work for both of them and for our target audience, right. So it also depends on what kind of content you’re creating. So there are things that can repurpose, like, if you do a blog, I’m sure you can use this blog on several of your own platforms and spread it across. So you just have to kind of find the right balance, because it is not like, like you say, if you’re a Coca Cola, maybe you can have your own channel where this you know, I’ve seen these amazing channels where they have a specific role, and it’s just about sharing, or no unique content or user generated content. And wow, that is amazing when they manage to have that. But I would say for most of the other companies in the world, we do have to repurpose and recycle content in a smart way across them. Maybe split them up into pieces, edit it a bit to make sure it works on the other one, because if not, I mean, resource wise, it would be really impossible to do this.

Shaheen Samavati 36:48
I do agree with you that video, of course, is the most time consuming type of content to make generally. And I think if you have a good video, you have to repurpose it for all the platforms.

Kyler Canastra 36:58
Agree. Yeah, for sure.

Shaheen Samavati 37:00
But you need to edit it to fit the format of each one.

Kyler Canastra 37:04
But I also think this is where metrics come into play too. In terms of seeing what results you’re getting and what actually works as well. And I’m not a numbers person, but it is important to have the data to see like, ‘Okay, well, this type of content is working well, I’m going to try to repurpose it for another one and see what the results are.’ So a lot of it’s checking those numbers and seeing what the engagements like and what’s actually working and what’s not. So a lot of it’s touch and go. I feel like but also we were mentioning before to like the whole, it’s so important to plan. So a lot of times we were like we have different content calendars for different, you know, markets and channels. But I don’t know if you guys both have experience working with you know these calendars. But do you think like they also the calendar should be tailored for each channel and for each market as well? Or like in terms of localization? How does that work? In your opinion? Maybe Shaheen?

Shaheen Samavati 37:51
Yeah. I’m curious. Yeah, what what your best practices here, I mean, generally, like we tend to work. Yeah, we do like a month of planning at a time for like the different social accounts that we work on with our clients. So we tend to ideally get it approved a few weeks before the month. But you don’t want it to be too far in advance because it still needs to be relevant. So we’re actually we just had a, we did some content about this recently, the fact that you have to be willing to change it because it’s like things can happen and you want your your content to be relevant. Sometimes you have to throw out the window, the plan that you had. But yeah, we always we always plan. So we come up with a plan for the content. I mean, generally, like it kind of, I guess our approach to content calendars for social media is similar to the other types of pendant, like I mentioned, like we tried to translate directly as much as possible, or as little as possible. And especially because with social media, there’s so much like that is timely, or that is that particular to a market that there are a lot of changes do need to be made. But if we are, of course, it’s also practical to reuse some of what you have so so we have a calendar for whatever the primary language is for the client English oftentimes, so we do the original calendar in English. And then, you know, create calendars for the other markets. But the local community manager is the one who’s like, really making sure that that’s tailored and you know, using what’s appropriate from the English calendar, but also coming up with their own ideas and faculty specific market specific content for the market taking into account you know, local trends, political situation.

Kyler Canastra 39:27
All that’s nice, you guys. I love that point that you made that like okay, you should plan ahead, but at the same time, you need to like kind of be on your feet because you don’t know and we’ve seen this with you know, a pandemic and the war and all this stuff. Like things are changing right in every market. So you’re producing content that’s going to really connect with people but you have to like be in tune what’s going on. So you always you know, tomorrow something could happen and you get this post is not appropriate, then you’re going to have to change the approach so it’s super good to plan also to, you know, be I guess versatile in your approach. But for you Adriana, like what best practices do you have?

Adriana Carles 39:59
Yeah, mean I think it’s very similar, right? We do have like a calendar of I mean, especially because our industry in this case is a lot easier when it comes to the b2c calendar because we have certain dates that just happened throughout the year. So like, you know, spring summer this season fashion Christmas. So like q4 is like crazy seasons for us, because we have like, Black Friday winter sales. So like these, this calendar is easy for us to keep across different regions, right. But some differences based on I would say, I don’t know, dates, for example, Mother’s Day is not the same everywhere in Europe, father’s days, like, for example, super relevant in Austria, but not so relevant in Germany, right. So these are like the differences, the cultural differences that you mentioned, that you do need that kind of like, you know that that local experience to know the differences because like, if you manage it from one central place, and you don’t have a person who knows that you wouldn’t know how important Father’s Day is for Austria, that you need to do something relevant there on that day, right. And then you need to have that on your calendar, and you need to plan it in advance. And these are things that we do look into it. So like these special dates, I would say. But then of course, we do have other things like for example, when it comes to SEO and trends that we need to look at by country, you know, so when it comes to example, for SEO and trends, and this is what we’re talking about the data there, this you need to look into by country, because it’s very different what people, for example, in Spain are searching for right now, because of the weather, right? Let’s just look into that they like compared to what people are looking for in Germany. So like you do have to tailor your, your calendars to that to those trends. So like what you’re going to write what kind of products you’re going to offer, what kind of campaigns you’re going to have, based on those, you know, very much like data driven points, looking into what actual people are consuming, or they want. So in our case, we have to look at both things at the same time to kind of build those calendars. So we have like, I would say one like more global one for you know, that could work for several countries and one more local one based on specific trends that are happening in the market, but you have to react to like, like, like you’re saying right now.

Kyler Canastra 42:07
So true. I forgot about whether that’s even effective, in terms of what people are looking at for search over

Adriana Carles 42:12
super huge, like, you know, are there already people looking into summer and like, here, they’re buying winter jackets? For sure.

Shaheen Samavati 42:20
There’s gonna be like one, one tip, like one thing that’s like worked well, for us, though, it’s kind of like learned along the way of like doing a lot of these global social media projects is like creating these like surveys, or even just different ways to ask for feedback from the people in the markets. So whenever we like luncheon, a new a new social media page in a market will ask the community manager to like answer a bunch of questions about like, what they think will work and stuff just to make sure that well, that we’ve thought about everything, right. So like, so we kind of have like this checklist of topics to be like, you know, how would this work in this market, like, you know, what types of like, kind of getting their feedback on what they think will work, what approach we should take on social media, and how we, if what we have already is going to work in that market, or if we need to, like make some big changes. And then I think it’s also important to have just that ongoing communication with the person managing the page in the market. So we have like our project managers who, every month with the calendar are asking them like, okay, how can we make this more relevant for this market, but I think you can get into just like this routine of producing content, so it is important, like, proactively, like, think critically? What can we do better? How can we, you know, like, so I think every once in a while, like practically asking those people, the people in the markets, what ideas do you have? How can we

Kyler Canastra 43:42
like, Can we do it better? Yeah, you have to be aware of these things. Now, you mentioned Shaheen, the checklist like having that as a tool to help you when you’re when you’re planning your content. But for your content calendars, do you both use like any specific tools or things that help you, I mean, be helpful for our listeners, if they’re trying to, you know, implement a new strategy or new calendar to know what tools to use.

Shaheen Samavati 44:02
And we’re like, across the board, depending on the client, as you know, Kaylee. Um, I think the most common tool that are like many of our clients use is probably Trello just feels like really simple to use. And but I’d say it’s a combination of like Trello and spreadsheets. Yeah, and it’s funny because there are so many like fancy tools you can use to make content calendars, but it oftentimes it can be I mean, I definitely doing stuff yet, like we have, I mean, different clients use different things like we use Sprout Social, we say, Hootsuite you know like but um, but when it comes to planning the calendar it because so many other people who aren’t the day to day social media, like need to be involved in the decisions, it’s oftentimes easier to like, make, you know, the plan outside of those tools. So that’s what it’s something that’s, like, easy to be shared and people can comment on so that’s why we tend to use like, sheets or word collaborative. Yeah, exactly. And then we move that into A social media management tool to actually plan and schedule it varies widely depending on the client, because we need to work with whatever they’re already, you know, it’s kind of like embedded into their operations.

Adriana Carles 45:14
Yeah, I think right now we, I mean, I had all of that through my career. So like, I now we’re using like, you know, like you said, we plan the calendar in like a normal sheet in a normal meeting with people we aligned. So like, not all the stakeholders have access to all these tools. So like, because also, like, you know, when you’re in a smaller company, you can give licenses away to like, Hey, everybody, you know, so like, we do kind of plan things like in meetings, and we align, you know, in our case, our calendar, a lot of our calendars are aligned, sometimes even with sales team. So there’s a lot of alignment that takes place on a sheet, you know, and then gets shared and commented on. But then like, the daily stuff, I think, you know, I worked in the past with having amazing tools that, you know, you can do everything, even the workflow. So I’ve also had the opportunity to work with like, really great tools, like you’re saying, from the, you know, in the company, where everybody to a bigger company with bigger budgets, where we had, like, even the workflows be in there, and the whole calendar be there for social media, you know, like the global one, but then you can also split it by teams, like, for example, you have a stakeholder from sales that want a specific campaign, or if you want it, you know, like one of the other subsidiaries was doing their own thing, and people could see, and you see the different campaign views or different calendar views per month, per day, per channel? And I have to say that I really, because organizational wise, it’s a lot easier to manage teams like this than via sheets. But there are good tools. I mean, there are a lot of tools, like I mean, we just starting with Falcon a, you know, the social media management system, are a tool. So I think I think it is really important to have these tools because they do make life a lot easier. And then when you’re using the sheets, because a lot gets lost in translation, or which is the oldest one, which is the new version. And there’s like, for example, we had to struggle with, like having so many calendars that in the end, like when you search for it on your Google Drive, is it. Okay, which one is the last? The

Kyler Canastra 47:10
most recent one? Yeah, it really depends. You have to be organized. So whether you’re doing yourself or having a tool that really helps, yeah, makes a big difference. For sure. Now, we’ve come to the end of the interview. Um, but no, I think we’ve kind of had a really great discussion about all the different factors that go into localizing content. And I think we can clearly agree on right that, you know, you can’t speak the same way to one market, as you do with the other, especially here in Europe. But I think now we’ve kind of learned that there’s all these, you know, factors that go into, you know, should I localize here? Or should I not create original content? There’s so many things that go into it. So it’s not a simple yes, or no answer question. But at the same time, I think we can all agree on the fact that, you know, every market is different, and you really need to be, you know, listening to what’s actually going on each market to have an effective, you know, marketing campaign, basically. But I wanted to ask both of you, if you have any final thoughts, or, you know, piece of advice, you want to share their audience, you know, maybe a summary of, you know, the most important things that you’re passionate about when it comes to localization. So, Adriana, do you want to start?

Adriana Carles 48:14
Well, I, I’m not that localization expert, I have a person my team ICA, so shout out to you guys. She’s amazing. She does it like every day. And I’m just like, you know, odd to her, like how she managed this. But we signed up with a tool, a translation tool, and our game we change it completely was a game changer for us. Having a translation management system on board. So if anybody wants to start this journey of localizing content, this is something you really need to look into having a tool in place with translation memory, to really, you know, you can’t do this, like we’re now 2022. So you can’t do this. Like we were back in the, you know, the Dark Ages, really needs to, you’d really need to have this in place. And this will be like my closing like statement, we have this and it completely changes. So this is something you need to look into for sure, sure.

Kyler Canastra 49:01
And we love our translation tools. In the memories and stuff. It’s really helpful. Thank you. Yeah,

Shaheen Samavati 49:08
absolutely. Totally agree with that. Um, what would you say like my biggest takeaway from this whole conversation, I think is that obviously there’s like no right answer to exactly how much you should be localizing. I think it’s different for every business and like I said, has to do with your strategy, and has to be in line with your strategy. And then, yeah, I had a second point. But now I forget.

Kyler Canastra 49:27
I think it’s like what you said is you need to like you can’t just like produced content and forget about it. I think that’s really important. Like you have to I think we all can agree on that. You have to like stop and think throughout the campaign or throughout like, every month to be like, okay, is this working? Or does not you have to like be flexible with it?

Shaheen Samavati 49:43
Yeah, no, I think in the second point, you’re coming back to like a point that you made before about like. You should only do as much as you can do well, that’s an important takeaway as well. If you have to choose one, like think about what you can do really well. And sometimes, the decision is a little bit arbitrary. It’s like, okay, you could be on all these platforms, you just have to choose. You have to choose one or two, or three, or however many you can dedicate yourself to and do those really well. Maybe this other platform would also be great for your brand, but if you don’t have the resources for it, you have to just let it go for now.

Adriana Carles 50:15
Completely agree.

Kyler Canastra 50:18
It’s easier to just let it go and focus on what you’re good at. Which sometimes can be overwhelming when you have so many different things available to you. But simple is better, right? So I just want to thank both of you again for joining me today and sharing your such you know, rich insights with us. I’m sure our listeners are gonna be really excited. And we’re just really excited to have Shaheen back with us as well, after a bit of a break, and also to have Adriana back with us on the show. Thank you again, both of you for your insight. And thanks, everyone. Thank everyone for listening in. As you know, as always, for more perspectives on the content marketing industry in Europe, you can always go to veracontent.com/mix. And to also if you want to listen to Adriana’s previous interview with us, which I 100% recommend, it was a lot of fun to get to connect with her that first time, head to the same page and you can look her name up in the search bar. But if you also want to get in touch with everyone, I think the best way to reach out to her is on LinkedIn. If you want to get in touch with either Shaheen or myself, or if you have any interesting topics for an upcoming episode, feel free to reach out to us our email address, which is mix@veracontent.com and keep tuning in, as always, to the podcast for more interviews with content experts. So we’ll see you all next time. Thanks again.

Adriana Carles 51:30
Thank you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai