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Don’t Get Lost in Translations: Expanding Your Global Audience May Require Good Translation Services

by Media

 

This article was written by Rio Fontanilla (pictured),
content manager for Tomedes.

Non-profit organizations have many points of service delivery during which they might interact with people from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Many non-profits now have solid international audiences for their publications, events, courses and webinars, especially given our all-virtual world. Many help diverse communities, through literacy groups or immigration organizations perhaps. As such, below is the ultimate guide to working with translation services for non-profit organizations.

Why It’s Essential to Check Translations for Accuracy

What is a translation service? Translation services take text in one language and convert it into another language. It sounds simple enough, to the point where an app or Google could do it these days, right? Well, not always.

Unlike machines, human translators have an eye for things like tone, cultural background, industry terminology and the larger context of the document. Machine translation can often handle more casual interactions, but human translation services are still necessary for professional operations.

Some of the complex documents and messages translation services can handle, as they relate to non-profits, include:

  • Ads, PR messages, public service announcements and outreach campaigns
  • Financial documents, such as annual reports
  • Social media messages
  • Internal communications (usually if the non-profit is global), such as letters, technical documentation and emails
  • Presentations
  • Legal documents

All of these documents are too important to get lost in translation! For instance, a bungled legal document could mean voided contracts or failing to meet local regulations. An embarrassing snafu on a PR message could end up offending a certain demographic (especially these days!). A mistranslated technical document could result in someone following an incorrect procedure. These examples alone show why it’s important to check translations for accuracy and to ensure high quality translation services for non-profits.

How Much Do Translation Services Cost?

How much does it cost to translate a document? Costs can vary over different translation services, depending on the languages required and a range of other factors. As such, it’s important to shop around. Some factors that can affect cost include:

  • The level of speciality and training required. Legal translation can require a background in legal terminology and laws, for instance.
  • The size of the agency. Larger agencies often have to provide salaries for more support staff and other operational costs.
  • The length and complexity of the project. Longer and more detailed projects may affect rates.

Some freelancers charge by the hour; some charge by the word. Check references. A quality professional will charge enough to make a decent living.

How Do Translation Services Work?  

Quality translation services are much more than a line-by-line conversion of the copy from one language to another. A good translation service will have multiple levels of review worked into the process to make sure what you’re getting back is of the highest standard. A translation process may have the following steps:

  • The first step is often communication between the translator or agency and the client. The client may point out terminology, tone or core messages that must stay intact in the translation.
  • Next, the text is carefully translated by the language professional.
  • An editor or proofreader who speaks the target language natively should check the document at this point to make sure all relevant terminology stayed the same, as well as to review tone and other key parts of the message. They will check the new document against the original.
  • Another round of edits should make sure the layout of the translated document looks good and that it doesn’t have any garbled text or typos. It’s important to check for overall readability at this stage as well.

This is how a sample process may look. If you work with a freelance translator individually, he or she may handle these stages of review personally. Or how the document gets formatted could work slightly differently. Some translators make use of software to export and re-import text and most use computer-assisted translation tools such as translation memories. The important point is that there should be a few stages of review.

You might also want to double check the translation quality at your end once you get the document back. Find someone who is a native speaker of the language you are translating the message into and ask them to review the document. If you have an employee or volunteer within your organization who can do this, all the better. That person can make sure the document reads well in the new language and that it best represents the goals of the non-profit.

How to Find the Best Non-Profit Translation Services

A common way to find translation services is to ask around a professional network. People in the non-profit sector may well have favored translation services that they are happy to recommend. Because these recommended services are already known in the non-profit sector, you can be confident that you’re getting a translator who knows the non-profit world.

As a result, choosing a service that comes highly recommended within the non-profit space can offer peace of mind, knowing that the translator is not only skilled but also knowledgeable about the specific needs of this sector. Ortiz Schneider stands out as a premier language agency that specializes in providing such tailored translation services. Renowned for its expertise in handling complex documents, this agency has built a reputation within the non-profit community for delivering accurate and culturally appropriate translations.

Whether it’s translating grant proposals, newsletters, or advocacy materials, their team ensures that every project is approached with the care and precision it deserves. Their deep understanding of the non-profit sector allows them to offer a level of service that is not only linguistically accurate but also attuned to the mission-driven work of their clients. With Ortiz Schneider, non-profits can confidently communicate their message across language barriers, knowing they are working with a trusted partner.

You might also search online for “non-profit translation services” or variants of that term. You can use the results to compile a list of potential services and compare pricing, reviews, timescales, customer support and so forth.

Once you have your prospective translators or agencies in mind, make sure they:

  • Have an updated and professional-looking website.
  • Are detailed and timely in their communication. For instance, ask what their translation process is like to see how they assure quality. Does their response fill you with confidence?
  • Have a professional background, such as courses/degrees from an accredited university program, translation volunteer work or internships on their resume. Look out for translation certifications or memberships of professional organizations as well.
  • Demonstrate a track record of translating the types of documents you need, which you can check through portfolios, testimonials or references.

You can more easily ensure a good working experience with your chosen translator or agency if you take the time to make sure they have a professional background, are easy to communicate with and adhere to deadlines. Investing time upfront can bring peace of mind in the long run.

Bobcat

Beyond Virtual Events: 3 Replacements for Live Events That Are Taking Center Stage in 2021

by Media

The cancellation of live events in 2020 (and for most, at least the first half of 2021) has forced publishers to find new ways to connect buyers and sellers, particularly as sponsors shifted ad dollars earmarked for events into all-digital channels.

Virtual events were the obvious answer but if you talk to most publishers and sponsors privately, they’ll admit they see “traditional” virtual facsimiles of live events as a stopgap to be abandoned as soon as the world goes back to normal.

Here we look at three solutions developed in response to the crisis that have performed so well that they will continue to be offered even as live events return.

1.  Social Simulcasts

AC Business Media (ACBM) covers markets ranging from heavy construction to manufacturing to supply chain and that means serving sponsors with heavy equipment to sell. As events canceled, giving customers a way to get products in front of potential buyers was critical.

“We were at CONEXPO last March just as the world started imploding,” says ACBM Chief Digital Officer Kris Heineman. “Big manufacturers had already paid millions to ship machines out to the show but they didn’t come themselves because they didn’t want their staffs exposed to COVID. When events go away they’re not going to stop producing products, they’ll start looking for other outlets.”

While many publishers produced virtual product showcases within proprietary digital platforms, ACMB created simulcasts—basically live streaming—that leveraged social media to expand the reach of its audience.

In one example, ACBM created a single livestream that played simultaneously across the seven different Facebook pages devoted to its Construction brands.

“When we first started doing this, we were concerned that the channels would start overlapping with each other but it’s actually a case of more is more—with each platform you get a certain percentage of your overall audience,” says Heineman. “Let’s say you have 1 million Facebook followers—Facebook won’t let you organically reach all those people. But if you stream to 10 different Facebook pages, maybe you reach 40,000 here and 60,000 there, so it’s all complementary.”

ACBM created a simulcast for equipment manufacturer Bobcat that drove more than 100,000 views and 800 interactions in the first few days.

“For B2B, those are high numbers,” says Heineman. “When most people in B2B say they put something on Facebook they’re usually getting two or three interactions. Not everyone thinks there’s opportunity in B2B for social media but this product proves that wrong.”

Customers continue to clamor for the live streams even as ACBM begins exploring the return of live events. “We can’t produce enough video,” says Heineman. “We’re already sold out on some channels through 2021.”

[Editor’s note: For more on how ACBM is creating social simulcasts, register for our upcoming webcast this Thursday, March 25 at 1pm ET on New Revenue From Social Media: How To Build a Live Product Showcase.]

2. Marketing Services

Marketing services have grown faster than digital display advertising in B2B media for several years now but prior to last year still took a backseat to events as an overall revenue producer for most publishers.

Marketing services has always been tied closely to events for Government Executive Media Group (GEMG) but in 2020 came to the forefront by helping customers meet their event objectives when live events came to a standstill (and finished the year with revenue up 43 percent as a group while helping to drive 20 percent topline growth for the overall company).

Frank Salatto, GEMG

“It wasn’t just about helping customers achieve their event objectives with us but their event objectives writ large,” says Frank Salatto, Vice President and General Manager of Marketing and Communications at GEMG. “Honestly, we were part of the conversation with clients like never before in how to rebuild their event programs.”

GEMG transitioned quickly to an all-digital environment by turning large live events into multi-part integrated digital programs, using content as the connector to drive audience from one touchpoint to another.

“Digital events were part of that but it’s a series of digital events that would allow you to recreate what you would get with a live event but in between those you need additive content that keeps the conversation going,” says Salatto.

Data collection and diverse capabilities helped GEMG keep revenue whole for all but one live event booked prior to the pandemic.

“There is opportunity in the data that you can collect,” says Salatto. “That’s always been a pain point for live events. But in digital we know what customers are interacting with across a much longer time-period and we know more about them including how interested they are and how ready they are to buy.”

Branded websites proved to be a winner for GEMG last year and will continue to be a key product in 2021. “That turned out to be a great vehicle for brands to tell their story and drive sustained engagement over time but also a way for us to have a center piece for really large, long term programs and have tack-on revenue beyond the initial build,” says Salatto.

GEMG expects a similar marketing environment in 2021 and is looking to capitalize on its stable which includes branded microsites, immersive articles, video and audio, digital event integration and data visualization.

“We believe this is sustainable and there’s room to grow,” says Salatto. “The net of this is that 14 out of our 15 top clients have marketing services central to the program they bought with us. We are not a huge piece of the revenue pie as an individual unit but we are a driver of topline revenue and a significant part of the pathway to bigger revenue programs.”

3. Attendee Data

You’ve likely heard of first party data and third-party data but how about zero party data?

At our recent Business Information and Media Summit, Informa Markets chief digital officer Jason Brown, who leads a newly created group called Informa Markets DNA, showed how the company is finding new revenue by leveraging event audience data into a new take on lead gen that not only creates revenue in the interim but promises to elevate the value of Informa’s live events when they return.

That includes creating online marketplaces that are enhanced versions of the show directories that Informa produces for its live events. Customers can use the online marketplaces to search products and suppliers, discover new products via a recommendation engine, make connections, create a virtual “walking” or favorites list and register for other Informa physical and virtual events.

The online marketplaces also provide Informa with “zero party data” where users offer direct insight into their interests through their use of the marketplaces, which helps Informa create authenticated data that shows not only who a lead is also their buying intent.

“We take our first party data, the third-party data that we can buy or borrow and the zero-party data given to us by our audience when they are specifically after something and combine that information together to create something called authenticated data,” says Brown. “If we do all of that correctly, our gray cloud of a data lake becomes a green cloud of known buyer status. That’s where we can say who our buyer is and where they are in the funnel.”

In addition to the traditional model of offering leads as part of a one-off sponsorship, Informa is moving toward an annual subscription model that includes,

  • continuous access to fresh data
  • ability to count, segment and modify criteria for best data selection
  • intent scoring
  • ability to create a sales pipeline that feeds directly into the customer’s CRM

“Instead of bundling and packaging programs, this is an annual program that you can subscribe to and we can present different layers and opportunities to you,” says Brown.

SWE-015-Womens-History-Month-Cover-Photo-FB-V1-DJ-1536x674

Ideas to Monetize: Engage an Under-Represented Segment and Repurpose Your Archives

by Media

It’s Women’s History Month so today we highlight MDM’s sparkling new and already successful Women in Distribution awards, plus a history timeline—these can be effective in many ways—from the Society of Women Engineers. And lastly, a Today in History feature from a French publisher using AI-assisted content scores.

A publisher that I’m very familiar with their great work over the years, Modern Distribution Management, has started a new industry recognition awards program called Women in Distribution. Early in their soft launch, they had already received nearly three dozen nominations, and now with still a day to go, they are at 112 and counting!.

“It’s been the most successful awards launch we’ve had, and the nomination period is still open,” editor in chief Elizabeth Galentine wrote me. “We’re going to have the winners record a brief ‘acceptance speech’ to include during our virtual Future of Distribution event in April, and we’ll be writing profiles on each of the winners that will appear in MDM Premium and on mdm.com. (Putman Media also writes excellent winner profiles for their Influential Women in Manufacturing program.)

MDM’s program will recognize the exceptional job performance and overall industry influence of women in this traditionally male-dominated field. They will “showcase successful leaders who demonstrate excellence, all while breaking barriers and championing other women toward success.” In addition to the speeches that Galentine mentioned, they will also be inviting several of the winners to participate in an interactive discussion panel during that next virtual event.

In a blog post on their site, Galentine wrote that she sees the incredible response “as an indication that there is a growing hunger to recognize the outstanding accomplishments of women who are advancing this billion-dollar market.”

Programs that serve an under-represented segment of your audience can accomplish many things, foremost engaging that group in more of your overall programs and encouraging more outside your organization to join/subscribe/engage and advertise to reach that audience. The key is to follow through with that engagement. Feature the winners as experts on webinars, podcasts, blogs. Invite them to in-person events—when those return—to speak or lead roundtables.

Another good idea is to take advantage of the history of your niche or industry. The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) built a Women’s History Month Timeline, featuring the tagline, “Celebrate Herstory.” Also on the page is a link to their “Diverse Podcast”—recent episodes include Working From Home as a Dow Leader and Parent During a Pandemic; and Empowering Black Professionals in STEM with Kanika Tolver—and an ad for the National Security Agency’s Women in Stem program.

A couple of the entries include:

– In 1879, Ellen Swallow Richards joined the American Institute of Mining Engineers, becoming the first woman to be become a full member of any engineering society.

– In 1883, Emily Roebling oversaw the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge, which had been designed by her father-in-law and started by her husband. However, she did not receive official credit for her role until 1983.

Formed in 1950, SWE now has more than 40,000 members, both professional engineers and students. Through this timeline, they’re giving a big group added knowledge and even more reasons to take pride and renew and engage in their activities.

One more “historic” idea is a Today in History project that “has been the inspiration for a two-year collaborative research project between the publisher Ouest-France and the Belgian media organization Twipe.” Ouest-France will be using artificial intelligence to monetize their most popular evergreen archive content, already having come up with a content monetization predictive score for 30 million past articles.

About 50% of relevant articles were selected for republication, Twipe reports. “Of the articles with a high evergreen score, half got selected by journalists for republication.” Today in History has been rolled out in all their regional newsrooms. “We built an internal search engine based on the [score]. This allows the newsroom to select and re-publish evergreen content with a couple of clicks.”

This sounds like an incredible way to take advantage of evergreen content, something we all have plenty of. A publisher was just telling me how surprised he was that their best evergreen content still gets such good open rates. No surprise here.

StacyMelanie

Amplify New Voices, Cultivate Empathy, Ask and Listen to Ensure Balance and Diversity in Your Coverage

by COVID 19Media

“Amplifying new voices has been key to how we’ve covered both of these storylines,” Stacy Brooks Whatley (pictured right), director of communications and social media for the American Physiological Society, said in a terrific session at AM&P 2020 last fall titled Writing and Editing in the Time of COVID and Black Lives Matter. “Every one of our organizations has those super volunteers we rely on for so much. We tap them repeatedly for interviews, quotes, testimonials. We’ve had to do a lot more work to surface new individuals, new voices, particularly in the diversity space. There are a lot more people out there who we need to find and see what they’re all about.”

I had been meaning to write about this session—which also featured Melanie Padgett Powers, owner of MelEdits and managing editor of The Physiologist Magazine—for a while. Then this week, in the face of the horrific killings in the Atlanta area, I saw an article by Doris Truong, Poynter’s director of training and diversity, focusing on our language and biases. She included this line: “Journalists have the power to shape public perception, so it’s our job to dig deeper…”

That brought me back to this session and this from Padgett Powers: “Words matter. You as writers, editors, content creators have a lot of power. We are often the last ones who have the final say in what goes in the magazine, what the video looks like, what goes out in social media. We decide who to interview, what sources and how we’re going to cover things. But also language evolves. It’s not your job to robotically follow a [style book]. The best copy editors I know are not sticklers for language. They’re paying attention to how people speak and how language is evolving.”

What resonated most about this session is that neither panelist was pushing an agenda or a right or wrong way of doing things. Far from it, they were advocating more listening, outreach and having conversations among staff and members to determine the right language and approaches for your organization.

“As the protests heated up, it was clear that there was new urgency to execute on all of our long-term [diversity] strategies and really to just do a lot more,” Brooks Whatley said. “They’re changing the way and the frequency at which we talk about race, we think about diversity, we build community, we provide member benefits. Where COVID-19 taught us to be nimble, last summer’s reckoning on race is teaching us to stretch and widen the net.”

Padgett Powers emphasized that it also means we need to write with compassion. “We should always be serving the readers, especially at associations. We’re here to serve them, educate them, inform them and entertain them at times.”

It was a moving session that, five or so months later, resonates even louder. Brooks Whatley offered 5 Guiding Principles in dealing with these two huge and ongoing crises.

1. “Cultivate empathy has been a foundational writing and editing strategy for both of these stories,” she said. “In my opinion, this is a member benefit, the way we tell stories and convey point of view and the experience of our members. We really can demonstrate care for them as individuals for their stories and backgrounds.”

2. Embrace nuance. “There’s so much nuance in both of these stories,” Brooks Whatley said. “Both are intrinsically tied to politics and both are potentially tied to life and death. The key is not to be overwhelmed by the nuance but to expect it and embrace it. Maybe you have to ask questions, push boundaries, in order to educate yourself on a lot of these topics. Maybe the stories you were planning need to go in a different direction and that’s okay. The point is seeing value in communicating things differently.”

3. Be flexible. Brooks Whatley said this is huge in this moment. So many of us had to tear up our editorial calendar for the second half of last year and rethink 2021. For APS, the Olympics and an annual meeting were to be focal points. She then added this: “I am no fan of the themed issue. I really feel that for the diversity issue, if you’re doing it right it should be unnecessary; diversity should always be present. You’re going to see that in your stories, topics, sources, your images, your writers, all throughout, diversity should be there.”

4. Amplify new voices. In addition to the above, Brooks Whatley said that social media has been helpful for APS here. “In the science space there’s a #blackin movement, so ours is #blackinphysio,” she said. “Our members have organized this on their own and are doing a roll call and connecting with people in that space that may or may not be our members. That’s been excellent to see people not on our radar. It’s a great time for social media listening.” She also asked to reconsider who sits at your organization’s social media table. Reach out to the entire staff. “They might not be in publishing but might be people who engage with your members and if they’re different from you there’s a good chance they’re meeting members different from the ones you know. So this is a great time to bring them into the fold.”

5. Keep going. That means editorially and in the organizational efforts that you make. “We’re going to have to keep talking about both of these,” she said. “Set a mindset that you’re seeing [these issues] in the long term.”

Padgett Powers urged publications staff to “widen your network and listen and learn,” using social media to “get out of your bubble.” (She’s a big fan of Twitter to learn about varying viewpoints.) She stressed the importance of diversifying the writers you use, even though it “takes work.” She also suggested that if it comes down to a choice, “give up your seat. This is important; we need to represent these underrepresented groups.”

Brooks Whatley encouraged more conversations among your entire organization and members. “It’s important to ask people what they want to be called,” she said. “And to bounce ideas off of them. There are people in your organization who may have already raised their hands to help with these questions.”

APS asked members to update their demographic information because looking at photos isn’t always enough. Brooks Whatley has said they are now keeping track of who they highlight in all of their publications and outreach. “We’ve featured 170 members across our media channels,” she said. “This has been helpful in our diversity efforts. Non-white scientists can start to feel that we’re tokenizing them [if featured too often]. That’s not what we want.”

And lastly, she urged transparency. “We want to let people see the work that we’re doing.” She said the idea even came up to “do some sort of multimedia piece on the discussions we’ve been having. It could be useful for members to take [that] back to their institutions to help pull them along.”

Diversity drives innovation

SIIA President Speaks Out Against Racism

by PolicyPress Release

We were stunned by the recent senseless killing of eight people in Atlanta, six of them Asian Americans. It is not known with certainty at this time if the killer’s motive was based on race, but it is hard to ignore that race was at play and that there has been a pronounced increase of hate crimes toward Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in recent months. Silence is complicity. Those of us with public voices should use our platform to denounce hate and injustice when we see it. Fighting for equality, justice and an end to racism of all sorts is not just the morally correct thing to do, it is critical for the health of the industries we represent and our national economy overall. Innovation and economic growth spring from our ability to access the talents of all Americans, regardless of ethnicity, gender choice, political persuasion, faith or any other personal identity that others may use to divide us. We continue to make strides within our own organization to promote diversity, equity and inclusion and help our members deal with these complex but critical issues. More can always be done. Indeed, we can, and must, do better as a society.  But know that we will always speak out against racism and hate in all forms. Our hearts go out to those who were lost, and those who have suffered unjustifiable and horrific indignities.