Video content is taking our world by storm. It’s estimated that by 2022, 82% of all consumer internet traffic will be from video content. But with all the companies and brands in the world today, consumers won’t take a second look at your product or service if they can’t understand your content. Thus, localizers need specific skills to modify and enhance your existing video content before you target an international audience.
But what skills do your video localizers need?
Find out below.
The Importance of Video Localization and Professional Localizers
If you aren’t sold on the importance of video localization and professional localizers yet, pay attention.
According to a Renderforest report, there are 5 billion YouTube videos and 100 million hours of video on Facebook watched—EVERY. DAY.
That’s a whole lotta content!
While total viewing time isn’t a direct correlation to business success, the numbers are promising.
In that same report, 90 percent of viewers said that product videos were helpful in their decision process. And if you’re looking to go viral, video content generates 12x more shares than text and image-based content.
So, if you’re selling a product or service, you better start creating localized video content that your viewers can engage with!
Do Video Localizers need a qualification?
Unlike product localizers that need specific skills, it’s not the same across the board for all types of localizers. Yes and no. While qualifications are a good metric for gauging your localizer’s skill, experience, and completed projects can be more accurate.
However, there are some useful qualifications for video localizers:
- Bachelor’s degree in the language which they specialize in
- Professional certificates from a translation or localization educator
- Degree in sound engineering (for your technical team)
Video Localization Skills
While qualifications can be important, the skills learned from education or through experience are what really matter.
Here are our top four video localization skills:
1. Research Skills
Research is the cornerstone of every video localization project. Your video localizers need to do deep background research around your target audience to optimize marketing materials.
Topics they need to research include:
- Cultural norms: Are there particular topics that shouldn’t be discussed in public?
- Audience’s expectation: What type of content does your audience like? Do they prefer funny commercials or straightforward advertisements?
- The country’s laws: Is it illegal to sell certain products or services? Does your original script contain offensive content?
Every country’s requirements are different, so make sure your video localizers know how to pinpoint this crucial information.
2. Planning and Time Management
Since there are many factors to double-check and edit within a video script, careful planning is a necessity. Your video localizer should have a proven process to ensure no detail is skipped—especially one that could land you in hot water.
Video localizers also need great time management skills since video content production is ongoing. It’s not enough to have a plan alone as execution is what actually gets the job done.
3. Technical Know-How
These days, video localizers should all have at least basic technical capabilities. Especially since computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools can speed up project completion. They also need to understand the instrument landing system.
If your localizer knows their way around software and the instrument landing system, you can leverage both the accuracy and speed of technology and the creativity and insight of humans.
Other skills that are useful for video localizers include:
- SEO: Search engine optimization is important for both written and video content. If your localizer has SEO knowledge they can help your content rank well in Google and on YouTube, and social media sites.
- HTML: HTML is the standard markup language used for web pages. Knowing this language allows localizers to embed videos into your website and be able to troubleshoot any errors.
4. Communication
Great communication between your localizer and other key stakeholders is key to completing your localization project on time. Your localizer should keep you up-to-date with how the project is going and let you know if there are any major issues that arise.
You can judge how well your chosen localizer (or localization company) communicates from your first interactions. If they are slow to follow up on your inquiry, they’ll likely be slow to warn you of any changes to the project schedule.
Do You Need the Best Video Localization Services?
The key to successful localization is ensuring that your video localizers have the skills on this list. These skills will ensure your video is ready on time, meets your audience’s expectations, and that the whole process is stress-free.
Need good Localization services? Then give us at Day Translations a call on 1-800-969-6853 to get a quote on your video localization project in less than ten minutes!