Social Media Driven Translation Project

When producing biblical or bridged media for a Muslim audience, one of the major problems is a lack of extensive testing in all phases of a translation project, such as translation, audio recording, video production, distribution, and engagement. This problem is important because a lack of extensive testing results in producing ineffective media, which people are reluctant to use or to share with friends. We can overcome this problem by using social media, such as Facebook or YouTube. Such platforms provide marketing and content analytics tools, which are useful for testing content and maximizing content efficacy as they provide a vast array of audience-related data. Hence, we can produce biblical or bridged media in non-printed forms, such as video, and test them on social media using the platform’s marketing and analytics tools. By implementing Facebook and YouTube in my translation projects for the past four years, I was able to effectively test and distribute bridged products (the title of the project is Social Media Driven Translation Project). To give an example, Facebook delivered the Egoro Psalm 10 video 63 million times to 20 million people, garnered 9 million views, and 1.3 million engagements (shares, likes and comments) all at the cost of $279. Facebook and YouTube have proven to be a very helpful, socially acceptable, and cost-effective tool for maximally impacting language communities.