Choosing how many languages you need for a social media campaign might sound simple, but it rarely is. I often find that brands over-estimate how many languages they really need. The most common mistake is to think: "I'm in 15 countries, I need 15 languages." But of course, language doesn't always observe neat country borders.
When you're planning a campaign, it helps if you think in terms of languages, rather than geography. If you're running a campaign in Ireland, you're probably ok to use English rather than Gaelic. But you might need Welsh in Wales. Look at how local people use local languages, and where you're targeting your campaign. If you're in Canada, and targeting Quebec, you'll need French as well as English. In Switzerland, you might need Italian as well as German and French.
But don't overdo it. Be conservative at first, and start with those languages that are essential to your campaign. You can always scale up your capacity in other languages once you have a better sense of which audiences your interest is coming from. Here's a few other things to think about.
Cultural fluency
It's not enough just to speak a language, you also need to understand its cultural nuances and context. The Spanish spoken in South America is very different to that spoken in Spain. Different cultural references, histories, traditions and influences feed each local variation of a language.
Even the nuances of swearing vary enormously between countries and cultures that share a language. For example, in France, swear words are based around sexual terms, much as they are in English. But in Canada, they're much more focused on religious words, so standard moderation blacklists may be of limited use.
You might find that a native language speaker who's lived outside of their country for many years doesn't have current cultural references, so they might struggle to connect with an audience from their country of birth. You can lose that cultural fluency if you're not exposed to it every day.
Resources
Do you have the ability to cover all the languages you need, and enough people in each language? In my experience, you need two to three people per language - enough to cover sickness, holidays, different shifts, and regular quality checks.
Time
How many hours of moderation or community management does the campaign need? How are you going to divide those hours across the day, and between those working on the campaign? If you only need a few hours per week in one language, how will you split those hours between two or three people, and make it work logistically?
Localisation, not translation
If you're too prescriptive, and don't allow any room for localisation, you could end up with social media posts that aren't relevant in each market. Humour, for example, often doesn't travel very well. Localisation means allowing enough room for interpretation so that you convey the sense of something, rather than its direct translation. Let your local team, who know and understand their local audiences, have a bit of creative freedom.