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Video Localization – a whole new world of reach and engagement
April 16, 2019
Right now, the primary content strategy for businesses should be video marketing. Static images and text-only posts are no longer enough to resonate with your audience online. Video is an unequivocal marketing revolution and brands need to embrace this format wholeheartedly to reap its global rewards.
These stats offer eye-opening highlights:
- Social videos are shared 1200% more than text and images, combined.
- 5 billion YouTube videos are consumed every day.
- Video can raise email click-through rates by 200–300%.
- 6 billion video adverts are consumed online every year.
- 45% of users watch over an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos a week.
- 500 million people use Instagram Stories every day.
These statistics can’t be ignored. And when these lines of communication are so easily accessible, brands need to ensure their content resonates across linguistic boundaries. To achieve this, you need a solid video localization strategy.
The different kinds of video localization on the market
Over and above budget, turnaround time, and production value, video localization should be determined by the end-user. Additionally, it’s imperative that video localization is factored into the authoring process as early as possible (whether it’s your content partner managing the localization or an internal team).
- SubtitlesIs the video intended for someone scrolling through their social media feeds? If so, you may want to consider adding subtitles — 85% of Facebook videos and two thirds of Snapchat videos are watched on mute. If the piece of content is intended for multilingual audiences and your timings are tight, adding subtitles is a quick method for getting your message out there. According to research, subtitles improve comprehension, meaning your messaging is far more likely to be understood and remembered when using closed captions.
- VoiceoverDoes your video contain a lot of information or is it intended for research purposes? If so, you may want to open your contact list and get your favorite voiceover artist into the studio. Voiceovers lend themselves to multimedia assets such as eLearning courses, product and marketing videos, and instructional pieces because they allow the user to pause, rewind, and study at their leisure.
- Simple User InterfaceTechSmith explains: “It can be difficult to onboard users to new and complex interfaces and workflows. Too much information can easily overwhelm the user and make it difficult to keep the focus on the essential feature or functionality.”Enter the Simple User Interface (SUI) and our collaboration with TechSmith, the industry-leader in screen recording and screen capture. Essentially, SUI involves removing or simplifying unnecessary elements in favor of essential, recognizable iconography that multilingual markets can easily understand. A SUI interface is an excellent visual aid for quick, uncluttered user education because it takes cognitive overload out of the equation.For this reason, Rubric has teamed with TechSmith to make presentation easier through a marriage of simple visualization cues and scalable localization techniques.
Video Localization best practices
Consider the following best practices when laying down your video localization foundation:
- Inform your localization strategy by learning what your customers need and expect from video content.
- Aim for collaborative video localization from the get-go by commissioning the skills of a trusted Global Content Partner. Rubric’s partnership with TechSmith has resulted in high-quality marketing, tutorial, and onboarding videos that wouldn’t have been possible had they been attempted in siloes.
- Design your video with localization in mind by keeping things simple: use iconography instead of text, universal examples, and a simplified user interface.
- Ensure that you’re giving your end-user the information, context, and guidance they need.
In the end, whichever type of video localization you choose, it needs to account for your target market’s cultural nuances. For example:
- Does your subtitle lexicon include slang and other unique colloquialisms?
- Does your voiceover artist employ a cadence that your targeted audience will understand, enjoy, and respond to?
- Does your SUI use similar visual cues as the market it’s intended for?
Rubric is a customer-centric, Global Content Partner. We partner with multinational companies, like TechSmith, to help them achieve their global strategy goals. We’re pushing the boundaries of video localization and experimenting with new, innovative technologies for greater resonance across multilingual markets.
Check out even more about video localization in our Best Practices for Video Localization guide!