Ten Golden Rules of Global Content Strategy

Last week, I wrote about having a global content strategy, what it is, and why it matters. In case you don’t want to go back and read the old post, here is the definition of global content strategy in a nutshell:

A global content strategy is a structure for managing all of your content that is consumed by people in languages other than the source.

That’s a rather long sentence, so let’s break it down into its pieces:

A Structure

According to Google, structure is defined as follows:

• The arrangement of and relations between the parts or elements of something complex.
• The quality of being organized.

For Managing All of Your Content

Wikipedia uses the following definition for content management:

• Content management is the set of processes and technologies that support the collection, managing, and publishing of information in any form or medium. In recent times this information is typically referred to as content or, to be precise, digital content.

Consumed In Languages Other Than the Source

Mirriam Webster defines a source language as:

•  A language which is to be translated into another language.

In other words, the source language is the language that you used to create the content. For example, English is the source language of this blog post.

Why do you care about having a global content strategy? Well, there are really four reasons:

1. You care about the money you spend localizing and translating content.
2. You care about the quality of your content in all languages.
3. You care about the time it takes to localize and translate content.
4. Someone told you that you’d better figure this mess out (probably because of reasons 1-3, above).

Global content strategy is a very large topic. Think of it as taking the topics of unified content strategy and web content strategy, and putting them in a global blender. Puree on high, then add those cumbersome items such as tracking the number of languages, the number of translation vendors, the content created in other countries, and more. Garnish with a nice chunk of pineapple.

To make this task a bit simpler, I have created ten golden rules of global content strategy. I will list them for you here and then explain them, in detail, over the next few weeks. Are you ready? Here goes:

Ten Golden Rules of Global Content Strategy

1. It’s 10PM. Do You Know Where Your Content Is?
2. Everyone Speaks English, Right?
3. My Hand Gestures Don’t Offend You, Do They?
4. Transcreation is Great, Until It is Not
5. Don’t Forget to KISS Your Source Content
6. Get It Together…Your TMs, That Is
7. Reach Out and Ping Someone
8. Roll Out the Welcome Mat
9. Use the Right Number of Translation Partners
10. If I’ve Told You Once…

Some of these are rather cryptic, I know. But if I explained everything right here, then why would you read my posts for the next 10 weeks?

However, if you’d like to get a head start on your reading, here is a good article on how to get started with a multi-lingual content strategy from our good friends at Milengo.

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Val Swisher

Val Swisher is the Founder and CEO of Content Rules, Inc. Val enjoys helping companies solve complex content problems. She is a well-known expert in content strategy, structured authoring, global content, content development, and terminology management. Val believes content should be easy to read, cost-effective to create and translate, and efficient to manage. Her customers include industry giants such as Google, Cisco, Visa, Facebook, Roche, and IBM. Her fourth book, “The Personalization Paradox: Why Companies Fail (and How to Succeed) at Creating Personalized Experiences at Scale,” was published in 2021 by XML Press.

Val is on the Advisory Board for the Technical Communications Program at the University of North Texas. When not working with customers or students, Val can be found sitting behind her sewing machine working on her latest quilt. She also makes a mean hummus.

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