Content is the King ... but it has many servants!
The other day talking on WhatsApp with my sister, I told her that it was my 25th birthday as a "Localizer" and she told me "to be honest, I still do not understand very well what you do at work"
😅
Localization traditionally has been a difficult job to explain (unless you take the shortcut and you say, I help with translations)
Nowadays it is even more difficult.
In recent years, content management strategies of UX have emerged strongly, and these disciplines have in many cases been integrated into the processes of Globalization of a product.
And this as I see it is a logical symbiosis.
Content strategist, UX writers, and Localization professionals share the same objective “Move users into action”
That action might be having fun when playing a game, get educated when studying an e-learning product, or buy a product in the case of an e-commerce site just to name a few examples.
In this article I want to elaborate on the different roles and activities related to content management since I perceive that there is some confusion and everything gets into the same bag, so here is a new attempt to clear up all this mess!
Content strategist
A content strategist gives the content purpose, gives a vision, and gives a direction so that it’s useful and so it can be maintained over time.
A content strategist is responsible for building and/or managing a brand’s content which has a great impact on brand reputation. Content strategy is the science behind storytelling and content strategists use data, research and use their understanding of psychology to create content experiences tailored to the company’s target audience
Content Copywriter
It's definitely not the same role as the content strategist but they work side by side. As I see it, the copywriter is the executing arm of the content strategist.
A content strategist gives your content a purpose and vision that is directly linked to the marketing and communications strategy … and the copywriter finds a way to put words to that vision. The goal of copywriting is to persuade, and the goal of a content strategy is to create purpose. Copywriters focus on crafting compelling copy that tells a story. They combine wit, writing skills, and empathy to create a call to action
UX writer’s job is to guide the user through the digital experience in an intuitive manner, building a bridge between the user’s needs and the company’s goals.
UX Writer
A UX writer is a role that is often confused with the content copywriter and although there are indeed certain similarities it is no less true that there are also great differences!
As I see it the main difference between a content writer and UX writer is that the content writer creates stories, in a way to persuade a consumer to make a purchase. But the role of the UX writer is different ... the role of the UX writer is to guide a user to explain how to do something. For example, a tutorial from a mobile game that tells you "Collect wood from your factory to improve your house" is UX writing. UX writers use simple words to explain concepts… while a content copywriter might use more complex or persuasive words to attract potential customers
Content Copyeditor
A copyeditor is the guardian of the understanding, is responsible for reviewing the content and improve its readability
Copyeditors have a huge importance in the content process and they are key to guarantee satisfaction and engagement in international markets, why? Because they finetune copy for different target audiences. Some words have multiple meanings. Some words are completely different, but have the same meaning and little nuances in the English language can ruin translators’ lives and confuse them … and if a translator is confused that’s not a good indicator to deliver top-notch localization for global markets!
Content Globalizer
A content Globalizer is the glue of all the previous roles as they take all the content produced in the source language (usually English) and design and execute the strategy to get that content localized to go global
They manage the content localization projects from beginning to end, they work closely with content copywriters, content strategists, content-language specialists, localization engineers, terminologists, product management, and development teams. A content globalizers perform many tasks, but their main goal can be summarized as follow:
“They break the language barrier to connect content with global consumers, No matter where they are, no matter what language they speak”
In this blog post, I imagine three roles that could become as popular as the Social Media Manager did: AI Workflow Localization Manager, Localization Data Curator and AI Localization Quality Specialist
These roles blend human expertise with AI, pointing to a future where localization jobs look very different from today.