Sep
2
2009
Using social media bilingually isn’t easy.
This is one of the main reasons implementing social media in the Canadian federal and provincial governments and national progressive organizations is such a challenge. However, unlike progressive organisations, federal government departments have a legal obligation to do things bilingually. This benefits everyone as the government has no choice but to be pioneers if they want to use social media without breaking the law.
So it was with this in mind that I started taking a look at how some well known Canadian progressive organisations are using social media to reach English and French audiences – and what they could learn from the federal government about how to do it better.
My sights first fell on the David Suzuki Foundation.
The Foundation’s English site shows they clearly have embraced social media. It has links to the most popular social networking sites, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube, RSS feeds to subscribe to and even a blog that allows comments.
The Foundation’s French site, however, has none of these features.
- It offers no easy way for people to share the content – which is key to making media social.
- Clicking the “Français” link at the top opens a new window with the Foundation’s Quebec Web address which makes it look like you’ve moved to the Foundation’s Quebec chapter but this isn’t clear.
- there are things that look like blogs but aren’t called blogs even though they have a “Recent Posts” column (with “Recent Posts” in English which they should change). They don’t allow comments and the last post was four weeks ago.
The Foundation may have good reasons for this and I hope they respond to this post if they do. For now, I’ll give my thoughts on what they could do based on Government of Canada best practices.
1) Have RRS feeds to let people subscribe to the content.
2) Put the same links to the social networking sites that they have on the English side.
3) Translate the main blog and allow comments. Yes this takes work but, in today’s reputation economy, the Foundation could perhaps explore getting one of its translator supporters to do it and give them credit on the site which could lead to work for them. The bottom line is, if the Foundation’s French audience is important the organisation needs to find the resources to serve them.
4) Put a note up explaining why the French side has far less than the English side.
And one last note for both sides of the site. The Facebook site has links to lots of great videos – like one where David Suzuki and his daughter visit an incredible solar power farm. They should put links to those videos on the homepage for all to see instead of behind the closed doors of Facebook that only Facebook members can see (believe it or not, everybody is not on Facebook).
For a great example of a federal department doing bilingual social media, check out the Office of the Privacy Commissioner’s site. They recently got Facebook to change their privacy practices so you know they’re doing something right.
