How to cultivate a social media presence

In this month’s ‘Translation Industry Updates’, we’ll be sharing some top tips on marketing for translators and other freelancers. Whether you’re new to cultivating a professional presence on social media, or already an old hand, we hope our words will come in useful for you. So let’s get started! 

The first thing to consider in any kind of marketing activity is your audience. If you’re using social media for professional purposes, then it’s likely that you’re going to be focusing on selling yourself to potential clients, and keeping in touch with fellow translators that you might have made contacts with. For both of the above purposes, LinkedIn would seem the most obvious platform to focus on, but if you think you have an audience on one or more of the less supposedly ‘professional’ platforms then it could be worth posting there too. Regardless of where (or what) you publish on social media, it’s always important to be yourself and to try to strike a professional tone while still appearing warm and approachable. 

Social media content can be either written or audiovisual. If you’re a translator then the odds are that you love writing anyway, and this means that you’re in the lucky position of already having a great starting point for writing posts, articles and other interesting, engaging content. However, there’s still plenty of room to express yourself through visual rather than verbal means if you feel this would work well either as standalone content or as a complement to your writing. 

You can write about anything that you want to, and while there’s some debate as to how much ‘personal’ information it’s appropriate to share on social media, it’s always good to write about topics that genuinely interest you, so that this enthusiasm is passed on to your audience. Some of the many topics that you could consider approaching are: 

Challenges associated with your particular language pair 

Any interesting peculiarities about your source or target language(s)

Things you’ve learned while doing research into subject-specific terminology

Accomplishments that you’re proud of

Humorous mistranslations that you might have encountered in other places

Any conferences or meetups that you’ve attended

New languages or skills that you’re learning

Your experiences of working or studying abroad

In addition to topics like the ones we’ve mentioned above, you could also consider writing tips or tutorials, so that you can position yourself as an authoritative figure in your field, while also providing useful learning resources to help your fellow professionals. 

Alternatively, if you prefer to create visual content or reels, there’s still a lot of directions you could take your work in. Although translation may seem less obviously ‘given’ to creating visual content than other professions that create more tangible output, such as art and design, you can still create photographs, videos or images that are loosely related to translation, foreign languages and other cultures.

If photos are your thing, you could consider posting your own original photos of your home office, or the library, café or coworking office that you base yourself in, in addition to places you’ve visited where your working languages are spoken, and any social events that you might have attended with other freelancers that you know. Alternatively, online graphic design tools can come in really handy if you’re looking to create quotations set against a backdrop, or other visually appealing ways of presenting text. The free version of Canva can create surprisingly professional results even if you don’t have a background in graphic design, and if you’re short of photos then you can find a whole wealth of different free stock photographs on websites like Pexels and Unsplash.

As always when dealing with social media, posting for professional purposes can have its benefits and drawbacks, and while tools like LinkedIn are a great way to cultivate your unique voice and showcase your talents to other people, there are also the same innate issues associated with all social media platforms. One of the biggest issues can be the drain on your time, let alone your concentration or focus, so while it’s worth responding to comments and direct messages in a timely manner, it’s also best to set aside specific time periods for doing this, and avoiding the temptation to keep your social media accounts open on other tabs on your laptop, or enabling push notifications on your phone. 

Another thing to watch out for is comparing yourself to other people. It’s worth keeping in mind that we all tend to use social media to present the best, rather than the most realistic, version of ourselves, so try not to get too dragged down by other people’s LinkedIn flexing or fellow translators posting about ‘their most successful month ever’ at a time when you might not have a similar amount of work coming in. Equally well, it’s important not to get drawn into any trolling comments that other users might make, about you or anyone else on the platform and, most importantly, to keep yourself safe, as you should do on all social media. 

As a last piece of advice, it’s important to remember not to use any content or images that are not open-source or that you do not own the rights to, and if you quote another person’s research or arguments extensively in your writing then it’s worth crediting that person and referencing where you originally found their work. And as any translator will know, you should never reveal any kind of confidential information about your clients or any of the work you do for them. If you ever have doubts about whether you can share something on social media - and to what degree of detail - always ask first. 

We hope we’ve provided some practical insights into some ways that we can market ourselves as freelance professionals, but more importantly, we hope we’ve inspired you to write some articles, or publish some content, of your own. If you have any additional advice that you don’t feel that we’ve covered, you’re more than welcome to write about it in the comments. Alternatively, if you’ve written a blog or published an article or otherwise created work that you’re proud of, feel free to leave a link too. 

Happy writing (and publishing), and until the next time!