It’s no secret that video is one of the most popular forms of content on the internet these days. Naturally, with so many people watching videos online, it only makes sense to create your own videos for your business or organization. What you may not know, however, is that language can be a barrier for some viewers – particularly those who are from CALD (culturally and linguistically diverse) communities.
People speak different languages, and they are not all English speakers. In fact, for CALD (culturally and linguistically diverse) communities around the world, English is often a second or third language. In Australia alone, close to one million residents say that they cannot speak English well or at all.
While getting your message out using video is a great idea, it’s clear that there may be parts of your community or audience who will not understand English or receive your messages well. If part of your community falls into this category, it’s essential to create a video strategy that will help address this part of your community.
What Are The Benefits Of Creating Video Content For CALD Communities?
There are a lot of benefits to creating content for various cultures in multiple languages for your audience. Here are a few ways we’ve noticed these types of videos can help your organization or company:
- Reach More People With Your Content
If English isn’t the primary language of your audience, then it only makes sense to create videos in other languages too! For example, if they are watching an English Youtube Channel from Melbourne but can’t understand a word due to the language they’ll miss the point of your video.
Using automatic translators is not ideal in these situations as something can become lost in translation. In addition, they may miss the important information altogether because it’s not accessible in their primary language. This is especially important if you work in industries where your messages need to be understood clearly, such as healthcare.
- Provide a Better User Experience For Your Audience
If your video isn’t in your audience’s primary language, they’ll have to go through a lot of effort and time to understand the information you’re trying to portray. While your content can be translated, deciphered, and picked apart to understand unfamiliar formats, it’s creating a lot of irritation and work for your audience. They want to understand your message quickly, or they’re going to move on to something else.
When your audience can understand the videos you produce, they’re more likely to stay engaged and enjoy their experience. They’ll also appreciate that you care about them enough to provide content in a language they understand; it speaks volumes!
- Creates Persuasive Content and Increases Sales
When you create videos in other languages, your organization can reach people who would otherwise be unable to understand your message. In turn, this makes it easier for them to make a purchase from you or engage with your business without feeling like they’re missing out on vital information.
According to a study done by the Common Sense Advisory, 75% of people prefer to shop for services or products in their native languages, even if they understand the second language displayed to them.
Creating Your CALD Video Production Strategy
If you understand the importance of creating video content for various communities and want to get started, you’ll first need to develop a video strategy. There are a lot of factors that need to go into creating the perfect content for your customers. Here are a few things you need to consider before you start on your video production.
Understand What Languages Your Audience Speaks
The first step to creating your video strategy is to understand the most popular languages in your area and of those who already use your products and services. This can be done by looking at a consensus of your local area or polling your current customers to understand more information about them. Without this data, you won’t have a clear direction on how to best move forward. In Australia the ABS website is also a great place to look. Abs.gov.au
Once you understand your audience and what languages they speak, you’ll have a clear direction in what language you need to communicate. This may be more than two languages depending on how diverse your audience is.
Choose The Right Social Media Platform
The platform you choose to display your videos can significantly impact the audience it can reach. Do they prefer to hang out on Facebook and interact with their friends all day, or will you find them scrolling through Pinterest? Is Tiktok used to share information, or do they rely heavily on platforms like WeChat?
Reaching your audience where they like to hang out will ensure you have the most success with your content. However, if you don’t know what that is, you’ll need to research your audience to determine which platform will work best with your demographic and how they will best receive your message.
Consider How The Message Will Be Received
What type of language are you using in your videos? Will your message be understood in multiple cultures or languages? Will this resonate with your audience? Are you using the type of language they’re most comfortable speaking?
Using too plain or too sophisticated language can make your ideal audience turn away from the message or skip over it altogether. If you’re not communicating on the level of your audience, they’re not going to be interested in what you have to say. Instead, focus on what’s important to your customers. What do they care about? Who do they trust? Appealing to their needs will help ensure positive feedback on your content.
Determine Your video production creation strategy
There are generally three options for creating these types of videos: subtitles or closed captions, voiceovers, or complete multilingual video production.
- Closed Caption: A closed caption is a text overlay of what’s being said on top of the video. However, this does not change any part of your video. The advantage is that you can ensure your content is correctly translated. However, your audience may not want to have to read a video instead of listening to it.
- Voiceover recordings: Voiceover recordings offer an alternative to subtitling because it offers audio translation without having to read words placed over someone else speaking. While the advantage is hearing their native language, this tends to come off insincere since it’s evident that this was not the original language or audience the video was intended for.
- Full multi-language productions: Full multi-language productions are the best option for creating videos for CLAD communities. This includes creating content from scratch that matches the tone, personality, and language your audience prefers to hear. Using full multi-language production is also the best way to build trust.
Choose The Right Talent For Your Video Production needs.
The next step is to find the right talent for your video. You’ll want to ensure that you choose appropriate actors to represent your brand and that you’re casting in the correct language. Make sure that the talent are native speakers in the language you’re trying to portray in your video.
For your video production the talent should not only look like someone from their culture but sound like them too; otherwise, people might think it’s just foreigners mocking how others talk without understanding what was being said. You’ll want talent with both of these qualities, so there is no confusion on where this person identifies culturally, either verbally or visually.
Integrate Important Cultural Features
You can’t forget about cultural aspects when making videos intended for CALD communities! Dressing up appropriately to represent the cultures featured in your video will keep people from feeling like they’ve been disrespected or offended.
Most importantly, you should never make a video that makes fun of cultures or inappropriately portrays their wardrobe; this is the worst thing you can do when creating a CALD video.
A culture is made up of one’s customs, traditions, and shared history with each other. When these are mocked, everyone can feel the disrespect was directed at them personally. Making light of CALD communities means you don’t care enough about any individual person within that community to take them seriously. This is why it’s essential to work with partners in the community you’re trying to represent to ensure that your video is created tastefully.
So why would you choose The Jasper Picture Company for your CALD video production needs?
Since March last year, when the pandemic hit Melbourne and Australia, we have created a lot of content in languages other than English for various organisations to spread their message.
It began with a highly successful campaign for North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network where we used video production to tell the Covid safe message in 18 different languages, we even did one in Auslan. You can read a blog about the project here. The series of videos went on to receive over 600,000 views on facebook alone. We then went on to create content for the Federal department of Health filming doctors talking about the vaccines. We have also created video content for PANDA in Melbourne, sharing messages using video around mental health for new mums and dads. Our most recent campaign was once again for NWMPHN and focused on 15 languages and vaccine hesitancy. The campaign is due to be released late July or early August, SBS news featured the project on their news program – you can watch the story below.
Start Creating Your Videos Today to Reach CALD Communities
Your customers will never feel like you care about them or resonate with your message if they cannot understand your message because of a language barrier or cultural difference. At the Jasper Picture Company, we’ve had the privilege of creating a lot of videos in this space since the start of the pandemic in multiple languages to help spread health and COVID-related messages for various companies.
We know how successful an organization can be when they create video content for the communities they’re trying to reach. This will ensure that members of various communities understand what you want them to know about your services or products. If this sounds like something you need help with, contact Jasper Picture Company today and create the right videos for your company and community.