Multiple Language Support For Community

Hey!

I understand very well that it is tempting to offer multiple language support on your community. I am not a really big fan of this, mostly because I think it does not offer users the best experience possible. However I completely understand that it can still be an added value, especially for those customers who are not speaking English.

We also used to have a Dutch-speaking section on the TomTom community back in the days. You will not find it back because it has been removed by now (it was a pilot project that got discontinued).

What I would recommend you to think about when you start looking into more languages:

• Limited or general: Both have their pros and cons. The more rich and complex a product portfolio is, the more likely I would recommend to limit the scope of a subforum. Otherwise it might become too chaotic and users will have a hard time finding their answer.

• Inform: Let the users know why you have created these subforums and clearly explain that they should not post in other subforums in their own language. Also ask for their feedback, could be that you are overlooking something.

• Content: I would not copy too much content to the new language. If you know 3-5 topics which surely will be of interest to them, you can go and translate those. This can be a nice starting point, and also the subforums then will not look empty when you launch (which will benefit your users' activation, as they don't like to "sit in an empty restaurant").

Depending on your goals of offering multiple language support, you might also want to set yourself some KPIs to measure the success. If you want to have an option to disable these subforums in case you do not get the desired results, then I would also communicate this to the users when you start with this. It will manage their expectations and make it easier for you to "pull the plug", should it become necessary.

Deezer also has multiple languages supported on their community, and it is working really well. Maybe you also want to have a look their for some inspiration.

Cheers,

Julian

Hello,

I've recently been asked about offering multiple "language support" for our community.

Anyone have some ideas on the topic?

I know Sonos has a "Other language forums" category with two subforums; one for Swedish and the other for Norwegian - That seems like a good method.

Do you duplicate content for that language or let it organically grow?

I would like to hear from other's on possible options I can share with my leadership team.

I know Google Chrome allows for built-in translation but not everyone uses Google Chrome.

Hi Aluciani,

At Sonos we've let the content organically grow. We're starting slowly to build our own content for those languages, specifically topics that the Support department get a lot of questions about. This is showing to be rather time consuming, as the support team doesn't have a lot of time to build the content (this is the never-ending circle).

Best,
Ditte

Thanks for the comments and help everyone!

I'm going to create one or two language forums (based on feedback from our sales/support teams on where they would like us to focus) and seed some info, but let the material grow organically.

Thanks again for the help.