Today, 4.7 billion people use social media regularly thanks to technological advancements. That is more than half of all people on the planet! However, not every one of them is bilingual in English or your mother tongue.
What can be therefore done to use social media to reach the desired local market? Localize, that is what you do! The greatest method to make the most of social networks’ potential while reaching the relevant clients in the correct location and language is through social media localization. And that is exactly what an iGaming sector, which moves quickly, needs!
Without further ado, let’s look at how, in 9 deliberate steps, the social media activity of iGaming operators can be customized/localized:
1. Determine Your Market’s Target
A localization campaign’s first and most important stage is to determine where your website’s visitors are coming from. To accomplish this, analyze Google Analytics data and carefully choose the languages in which to adapt your social media material.
You may then determine which social media platforms and content categories are best for your iGaming organization in that location using this data.
2. Choose the Proper Channels
In order to create the groundwork for social media localization initiatives, this is the second step. According to “Statista”, Facebook is still the leading social media platform with 2.910 million users across the globe as of mid-2022. This, however, cannot apply to every region of the globe. VKontakte is quite well-liked in Russia, while Sina Weibo and QZone are the trendiest platforms in China.
Remember that the attractiveness of social media channels in a given nation can be influenced by the diverse trends, languages, cultures, and habits of local social media users.
3. Establish Distinct Local Social Media Pages
Similar to how websites have various domains for each country, each target country should have its own social media profile, especially if you plan to reach across more than a few target markets.
Once you have created individual local web pages for each nation, you can promote offers, odds, and news stories that are exclusive to that nation. To develop a more individualized strategy, you may also schedule your social media material around the regional calendar.
Additionally, recent blog entries that are shared through social media can indeed be linked to the pertinent language domains to further evoke a sense of place.
However, it is more practical to create just one page and then utilize all of the target languages inside one post if you are now only serving two or three markets. Depending on the geographic area you are aiming for, you can utilize the same graphic but convert the text so that it appears in a different language.
Due to a lack of resources (money, time, and staff), small iGaming businesses typically forego creating specialized social media accounts.
4. Curate Your Content for Social Media
TikTok as of recently, but Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube are all reliable sites for sharing and producing content. The same kind of content, however, cannot be used on every channel you have selected.
While giving significant live updates like half-time and end outcome, as well as (perhaps, most importantly for online sportsbooks; betting sites in the Netherlands, and others) real-time scoreboards, Twitter and Facebook Stories are ideal for sharing fancy visual content that demands greater consistency. If you consistently create video material or vlogs, Youtube is king.
Curating material for the platforms of choice is the key in this attempt.
5. Create Localization Strategies for Content
Then you can concentrate on what has to be translated after you understand where to submit your material.
Working with native specialists who are intimately familiar with their language, customs, and trends is recommended. You will be less likely to make embarrassing translation errors if you do it this way.
You can partake in hot themes like regional sporting events and the most recent scores from popular games in addition to providing flawless content translation to draw in local clients.
Planning your marketing localization effort in accordance with the regional calendar is another smart idea. You can advertise your service in this way to make the most of significant holidays and festivals.
Do not forget to localize and translate any accompanying visual materials that will be included with the translated text.
6. Keep an Eye Out for Details
Any successful localization practice will pay attention to even the slightest linguistic structural differences.
For example, spelling variations (British English or American English), time display (12-hour or 24-hour format), calendar formats (YY/MM/DD or DD/MM/YY), and currency formats (such as €, $, and £) are some of these distinctions that are crucial for the iGaming sector. Your content on social media will fit in with other postings in the language of your users if the proper formats are used.
7. Use Unicode Only
Anyone who produces Internet material still has trouble determining a text encoding scheme. This is so that standard characters do not become unintelligible blocks of text when employing the incorrect character encoding system.
It is safer if you begin with the Unicode decoding system for those who are brand-new to social media localization. Devices, search engines, and major operating systems all recognize it as the accepted character encoding scheme.
Some businesses even localize their postings in three different languages in one post: English, Target Language 1 and Target Language 2: Unicode and Locally Popular Encoding System, respectively.
8. Regional Page Management
Your page is prepared, localized content is updated frequently, and everything appears to be in order. But the narrative does not end there!
The mother firm is represented on each local social media profile. There will undoubtedly be a ton of iGaming-related queries flowing into your chatbox as tweets, comments, or other forms of communication.
Hiring a local team or individual who can represent your business in a professional manner and interact with users in their language is crucial for this. If the social media staff or rep can operate in the local timezone, all the better!
We are all aware of the significance of having excellent customer service for iGaming providers.
9. Improve Your Efficiency
Localizing social media is another option to venture into the uncharted area. Since everything is new, studying the data is the sole way to learn.
The analytics tools provided by Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and Twitter allow users to monitor the effectiveness of individual posts and pages. Another choice is to manage the postings and follow the important performance indicators across many platforms using third-party social media administration software like Buffer and Hootsuite.
You may learn more about the kinds of material that appeal to the majority of your followers by keeping a close eye on these statistics for each localized page. Then, you can continue to produce successful material and modify unsuccessful pieces.
Conclusion
Your iGaming firm will undoubtedly experience a higher interaction rate and more brand exposure once you have mastered the fundamentals of social media localization. These are only a few advantages of localizing social media. To fully enjoy the benefits of the methods described in this article, you must put them into practice.
You hold the numbers in your hands. Utilize them to your advantage!
