Podcast Transcription: Multi-purposing and Globalization

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In this day and age of the Covid-19 global pandemic, it is more important than ever to establish a more global presence online. Podcasting, like video marketing, is an increasingly popular means to build a large audience of followers. An often overlooked tactic in terms of podcasting, is the use of translation and transcription services in order to increase the reach and influence of the podcast. While translation services will help rank on the SERP, so too will transcription services, allowing for the content to be more fully indexed by the search engines. These marketing tactics, when used in conjunction with multi-purposing and localization strategies, can greatly increase the ability of the podcaster to gain influence and a larger market share. 

Podcasting is an increasingly popular medium for many online influencers, especially given that most people already have the equipment necessary to create a quality podcast. Whereas video marketing may require expensive cameras, lighting and editing, there are many paid and free software audio programs available that allow people to record themselves with what they have at hand. 

Podcast Audio and Transcription Options

One of the most popular free audio software programs for podcasting is Audacity, though there are certainly plenty of other options to choose from. Audacity has versions that will work with MAC, Linux and Windows. Audacity has both a very intuitive interface and allows for audio to be easily edited, including being cropped, cut and paste in order to remove any undesirable sections of the podcast. 

What do audio transcription services have to do with podcasting though? And how do they help to improve your podcast and performance? According to an August 2019 report in Variety Magazine, “All told, according to Google, its index now spans more than 2 million podcasts across the web.” While that may sound like a lot, the reality is that it is just part of the story. 

Until recently, Google only “searched” or “crawled” the RSS feed for the podcast page and the actual web page the podcast was posted on. Google does not crawl the audio file itself. While it would seem that this would be well within their range, anyone who has ever used voice recognition software will understand the difficulty in training the software to recognize the speech patterns of an individual. 

Think about localized accents alone in order to start understanding just why automated “speech to text” programs are generally ineffective. In some locations a person will “wash a tire” where in other locations, in the same language, people will “warsh their tars” and perhaps even check the “awl” or “oil”. There are people who may work as a “god” while their counterparts in other locations are more commonly known as “guards”.

Even on YouTube, automated closed captioning software is not considered to be up to par with the needs of most users. Some of their misinterpretations can be funny, some crude and some rather too “adult” to be printed in a family-friendly format. There are additional difficulties added to the already numerous problems in terms of native speakers of a foreign language, or in the US markets at least, people with a Low English Proficiency or LEP. 

In the case of audio to text and other machine translations or software programs, the conversion of speech to text has been shown to be less than accurate. During the current global coronavirus outbreak, this same issue has become a matter of concern even to the National Institute of Health in the United States. 

The NIH report noted that “Over the last several years, the quality of these systems has dramatically improved, due both to advances in deep learning and to the collection of large-scale datasets used to train the systems. There is concern, however, that these tools do not work equally well for all subgroups of the population.” 

This is again, largely due to the limitations of voice recognition software and the localization of language and specific patterns of speech. 

Conversely, the use of podcast transcription services allows for the actual transcript of the dialog to be posted on the very same page as the podcast, or even on a linked page. In this way, as the search engines crawl the website, all of the relevant keywords are now plainly available. 

The site should now rank better on the search engine results page or SERP for these keywords. The podcast or audio transcription also creates what are effectively articles that can be more easily translated through comparatively simple document translation services. 

Podcast Translation Services – How and Why?

Translation services for your podcast are an excellent means to assist you both with expanding your outreach and influence, while at the same time improving the visibility of your site. These efforts may also include voice-over artists who can provide audio interpretation services and create an extension of your podcast for more international markets. 

Just as the audio transcription services provided you with a means to rank for substantially more related keywords, so too will the translation services. The document translation for the  podcast will, just like the original transcription, provide viable content for the search engines to crawl, increasing the number of keywords for which the page will now rank, and increasing the flow of organic traffic to the website. 

A full and complete website translation may seem over the top at first glance, but in reality, this can be a very profitable and beneficial undertaking for the podcaster who wants to learn how to expand influence online. However, according to the World Atlas, there are six languages with over one hundred million users online, actively seeking out content in their own language. 

China leads the way online with around 750,000,000 internet users, though these will be both Putunghua (Traditional Mandarin Chinese) or Cantonese. India is next in line with approximately 450,000,000 users online. The United States of America is next in line with roughly 250,000,000 internet users. Brazil is next in line with 140,000,000 followed closely by Japan and Russia with 115,000,000 and 110,000,000 respectively. 

Given that the most popular podcasts in the world such as The Daily from the New York Times get “only” around one million downloads on a daily basis, putting your content out potentially in front of a hundred million or more new viewers may very well be a worthy, even relatively inexpensive marketing strategy. So how many people do you really want to get your content out in front of every day? 

These translation and interpretation services will also help you in terms of globalization using successful localization strategies. In order to maximize these efforts for globalization and a more international outreach, some consideration should be given to the inclusion of localization strategies when translating the podcasts, or even when using voice-over artists to create an audio interpretation of the podcast and put it out in multiple languages. 

Podcast Transcription, Translation and Localization

Website translation, podcast transcription and even podcasts translation. What a tedious and troubling chore? Right? Or is it in fact an incredible opportunity to create a more personal and emotional connection with your target audience, increasing your influence and your markets exponentially? If you are looking at these translation services as a chore, they will end up being one. If you look at them as opportunities to increase your market and your audience, you are getting warmer, and likely closer to success all at the same time. 

You have already seen how website translation or even translating the content created from your podcast can put you out potentially in front of millions of new followers, but how do you create a more personal connection with foreign markets? The answer is in learning how to plan and implement successful localization strategies, focusing on your target audience. 

At the core, globalization and localization strategies focus primarily on translation. The same issues that machine translation programs have converting audio content to text, will also exist in the realm of translation. This is what makes the localization of the translation important. This however, should be measured in scale at the same time. 

A podcast focusing on English markets may use a website in basic English, be it British or American English. Did you ever think though, that there are times and occasions when it is necessary to translate English into English? 

Languages may be singular in nature, but have multiple variations. This is true with the English spoken as a native language in the UK, the US, India, the Philippines and other nations. While the parent language may be the same, the more focused the marketing, the more focused the translation services should be, including localization services. 

Localization includes much more than just translation services at the same time. Localization services must focus on cultural standards and norms, sources of pride, cultural taboos and everything else necessary to establish a more intimate and emotional relationship with the target audience. 

Translations provided by a translation agency that specializes in localization services allows the podcaster to make a more direct and personal connection with the audience, without alienating a more international crowd. Let us suppose for a moment, that an American podcaster wishes to expand their website into the online markets of India using localization as part of their content translation strategy. 

The American podcaster may happily note the barbecue they had over the weekend, grilling up juicy steaks and burgers. With the American audience, this would likely elicit a popular and favorable response. When literally translating the website or podcast into Hindi for the Indian markets, this may cause outrage among a large portion of the expanded international audience online. 

Focusing on the website content translation or the audio interpretation as an opportunity, using localization techniques, this portion of the podcast may be changed. Rather than discussing barbecuing beef, reference could be made to chicken instead. References to American sports may mention cricket or football (as in soccer, not American football) in order to lend a more local flavor to the podcast content. 

The more focused and well defined the target audience is, the more focused and well defined the translation and localization services should be. Each instance of website translation, each podcast that is translated and localized, no matter the language, is an opportunity to establish a direct, personal and emotional connection with the target audience. 

This not only makes it easier to gain influence, but to encourage the target demographic to perform the desired response, whether it be clicking on an advertisement to check out the podcast, or getting someone to provide their email address for further direct marketing or even to click the all-important buy now button. The only thing left to do after all of this has been accomplished, is learning how to multi-purpose all of the content that has been created, translated and localized. 

Podcast Multi-purposing with Translation and Localization

One of the first methods of getting your podcast out in front of more people was using transcription services that effectively created website content matching your podcast. It was noted that this helps the website to rank better for an expanded number of keywords. This is also an example of content multi-purposing that can now be extended, not only to different types of content, but to a more international market using the same localization techniques. 

Not only can the podcast transcription be used to create a website article, but the same information, with a little bit of re-purposing and the inclusion of infographics or other illustrations, can also be converted to videos, slideshows or both. This new content can then be placed in front of even more people. 

Add in the translation services necessary to introduce your podcast to international markets, transcription and other strategies to multi-purpose your content, and the comprehensive localization of your content, and it should not take long to establish yourself not only as a major online influencer, but one with a very global, fully international presence. 

The digital age of the global netizen is no longer some distant dream relegated to the pages of science fiction. The digital age and the technological revolution are here and now. If you have taken the time and the effort to establish yourself as a podcaster, taking a little added time is not a comparatively major investment. Add in translation services, transcription services and globalization strategies using localization services and you should have everything necessary to put you on the road to success today. 

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