9 Steps to Achieve Social Media Localization for the iGaming Industry

Thanks to technology advancement, there are more than 3 billion active social media users around the world now. That’s almost half of the world’s population! But, not all of them speak English or your native language.

So, what can you do to tap into the target local market via social media? You localize! Social media localization is the best way to fully utilize the potential of social networks while targeting the right customers at the right place in the right language. And that’s exactly what our fast-paced iGaming industry needs!

So, without further ado, let’s see how we can localize the social media presence of iGaming operators in 9 strategic steps:

1. Identify Your Target Market

The first and foremost step of any localization campaign is to check where your website traffic is firing up from. You can do this by studying the data from Google Analytics and strategically pick the languages to localize your social media content.

From this data, you can then identify social media channels and content types that are the most effective for your iGaming business in that region.

2. Pick the Right Channels

This is the second step in laying the foundation of social media localization strategies. The “Digital in 2018” report by ‘We are Social’ and ‘Hootsuite’ reveals that Facebook is still the #1 social media giant with 2.167 million users worldwide in early 2018. But, this cannot be true for every part of the world. In Russia, VKontakte is extremely popular, while QZone and Sina Weibo are the hottest channels in China.

Keep in mind that local social media users have different behaviors, trends, culture and language which can affect the popularity of social media networks in that country.

3. Set up Separate Local Social Media Pages

Just like websites have separate domains for different countries, there should be dedicated social media pages for each targeted country, especially if you are going to reach out to more than a couple of target markets.

Once you have set up dedicated local pages for each country, you can drive country-specific promotions, deals, odds and breaking news that are relevant to that region only. You can also plan your social media content around the local calendar to create a more personalized approach.

What’s more is that new blog posts shared on social media can be linked back to the relevant language domains to add an extra flair of local experience.

However, if you are currently catering to only two or three markets, it makes more sense to only use one page and then use all the target languages in one post. You can use the same image but translate the text, so that it’s shown in another language, depending on the region you’re targeting.

That being said, small iGaming operators usually ignore setting up localized social media accounts due to the lack of time, budget, and manpower.

4. Curate Your Social Media Content

Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter are all good platforms to share and create content. But, you can’t use the same type of content for every network you have chosen.

Instagram is good for fancy visual content which requires more consistency, whereas Twitter and Facebook Stories are perfect for sharing important live updates such as real-time scoreboards, half-time, and final results. Youtube is the king if you regularly produce video contents or vlogs.

The key here is to curate content to fit the chosen platforms.

5. Build Content Localization Strategies

Once you know where to post your content, you can then focus on ‘what’ needs to be localized.

It is best to work with native professionals who can understand their language, culture, and trends inside out. This way, you will have a lesser chance of making embarrassing translation mistakes.

Apart from spot-on content translation, you can engage in hot topics like local sports tournaments and the latest results from trending games to grab the attention of local customers.

It is also a good practice to plan out your marketing localization campaign according to the local calendar. In this way, you can take full advantage of the important holidays and festivals to promote your service.

Don’t forget to translate and localize any visual content that will be posted along with the translated text as well.

6. Pay Attention to the Details

Giving attention to the smallest linguistic structural difference is a part of any good localization practice. Some of these differences that are important for the iGaming industry include currency format (e.g. $, ¥, £, €), calendar format (DD/MM/YY or YY/MM/DD), spelling differences (American English, British English), and time display (12 hr or 24 hr format) to name a few. By using correct formats, your social media content will blend in well with other posts in your users’ native language.

7. Stick to Unicode

Deciding on a character encoding system is still a headache for anyone who creates online content. That’s because using a wrong character encoding system will turn the standard characters into unreadable blocks of text.

For those who are new to social media localization, it is safer to start with the Unicode encoding system. It is recognized by major operating systems, search engines, and devices as the standard character encoding system.

Some companies go as far as localizing their posts with the 3-in-1 method: English, Target Language 1 (Unicode) and Target Language 2 (Locally popular encoding system) – all in one post.

8. Localized Page Management

So, you have your page ready, localized posts are updated regularly, and everything looks good to go. But, that’s not the end of the story!

Every local social media page represents the mother company. Without a doubt, there will be so many iGaming-related questions coming up as tweets, comments or rolling into your chatbox.

For that, it is important to hire a local team/person who can professionally represent your company and communicate with the users in their native language. Bonus point, if the social media team/representative can work in the local timezone!

We all know how important it is for iGaming operators to have top-notch customer service.

9. Optimize Your Performance

Social media localization is another way of setting foot into unknown territory. Everything is new, and the only way to learn is by studying the data.

Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, and Twitter offer their own analytics tools to keep track of the page and post performances. Another option is to use third-party social media management tools like Hootsuite and Buffer to manage the posts and track the key performance metrics of different channels in one place.

Keeping an eye on these data for each localized page will help you understand the type of content that resonates with most of your followers. Then, you can create more content that is doing well and tweak those which don’t suit their preferences.

Once you’ve mastered the basic steps of social media localization, your iGaming business will surely witness a higher engagement rate and greater brand awareness. Those are just a few of the benefits of social media localization. That’s why you really have to practice the steps mentioned in this article to truly experience its full advantages.

The numbers are in your hand. Make the best out of them!