Video content has the power to reach audiences far and wide — but only if it resonates across language and cultural barriers. Vimeo enables brands and creators to translate video into dozens of languages in minutes. Let’s dive into how Vimeo’s AI translation tools can help your brand effortlessly connect with global viewers and employees all around the world.
The world is your stage, but is your content ready?
Video has a unique ability to resonate with viewers across cultures. This is why video localization — the process of adapting video content to suit the language and cultural preferences of specific regions — is essential for maximizing your video’s reach and impact. Translating your video content, including the audio track and subtitles, to the commonly spoken language in your target location is one of several ways to localize your videos.
While English is the most widely spoken language, with over 1.5 billion speakers worldwide, just 25% of these are native speakers. Overall, there are more than 7,000 languages spoken around the world, and language barriers remain prevalent. Translating your video content into other target languages based on your video marketing strategy can potentially unlock more views or revenue. For internal communications, videos can be translated to ensure all employees, regardless of language, feel included and understand important company updates.
Sure, you can have your video transcripts translated and read in various languages by a translation service or independent contractor, but it’s a costly (and time-consuming) endeavor to find the right translator, wait for the translation, and ensure its authenticity. Manual translation services are known for their accuracy, but they often come with a substantial price tag and long turnaround times.
The need for linguistic accuracy, consistency, and timeliness can place a heavy burden on marketing teams. As a result, many businesses hesitate to fully embrace multilingual marketing despite its potential benefits.
Today, more brands are tapping into the power of AI to automate tedious, expensive tasks like video translation. Let’s explore how Vimeo AI can help your business overcome language barriers and expand your reach to customers or employees living in the far corners of the world.
Discover our translation tools →
How to localize video in minutes with Vimeo’s AI translation tools
Here’s a quick step-by-step guide on how to use Vimeo’s translation tool to localize your videos with AI dubbing and translated captions. You’ll need a Vimeo Enterprise account to access these features. Follow these simple steps to upload your video, set up translation settings, and reach global audiences with ease.
1. Upload your video
To get started, upload your video to the Vimeo video platform. Alternatively, you can create your video within the Vimeo platform and perfect it with our easy video editing tools before translating your content.
2. Locate the ‘Vimeo AI’ button on your video settings page
After uploading your video, head to the video’s settings page. (You can select any video from your library to open its settings page.) Select the Vimeo AI sparkles button in the lower-right corner, then select Translate Video.
3. Select your target languages and number of speakers
From the Select Languages dropdown menu, select the checkboxes next to the language(s) you want your video translated into. Then, select the number of speakers in the video, or select Auto-select for AI to automatically detect the number of speakers in the video. For more step-by-step instructions, check out our Help Center.
Tips for effective video localization
Vimeo AI makes translating your video content simple, fast, and cost-effective so you can potentially unlock revenue with translated video content targeting global customers, or improve employee engagement and comprehension. If you’re looking for some additional video localization strategies, here are some practical tips for adapting your video content to meet local language, cultural, and contextual needs.
- Ensure your product is available in your target region. There’s no point in promoting a product to a region where the audience can’t access it, so always ensure that your product is available in the area you’re targeting before pursuing localization efforts.
- Research regional demand. Just because a product is available in a region doesn’t mean there’s local demand for it. Likewise, success in one region doesn’t guarantee success in another. Conduct market research to assess demand and understand the preferences of your target audience in each region.
- Activate all appropriate channels to share your localized videos. The best way to reach your audience is to meet them where they are. Identify and activate all the key channels in your target region for sharing your videos, such as local social media platforms, websites, or video streaming services.
- Use appropriate language and cultural nuances. Beyond translating your videos, adapting your video scripts and visuals to align with cultural norms and values in your target region can significantly impact your success. Consider changing graphics, symbols, or even scenes that may not have the same significance or may be misinterpreted in another culture. You should also be mindful of how humor, slang, and idioms might be interpreted differently and adjust your video content as needed.
- Optimize for local search engines. Conduct keyword research to identify keywords relevant to your target region. Use these keywords to localize your video titles, descriptions, and tags to improve search visibility and audience reach.
- Maintain your brand identity. While video localization requires tailoring your video content to different audiences, it’s crucial to maintain your brand identity throughout your adaptations. Ensure that your localized video content still reflects your core message and tone.
Elevate your global marketing strategy with Vimeo's video translation tools
AI-powered video translation is the key to eliminating language barriers, enabling global audiences and employees to engage with content in their native languages. With Vimeo’s user-friendly AI translation tools, you can translate audio tracks and captions into 29 different languages, including some of the most commonly spoken languages worldwide, such as Spanish, French, Chinese, Japanese, and more.
Whether you’re looking to unlock global markets, train international teams, or simply make your content more accessible, Vimeo’s powerful AI translation tool potentially saves you time and money. Our new AI-powered feature can also detect over 50 input languages and, through the power of voice cloning, dub the original speaker's voice for a natural and authentic translation.
Vimeo’s customizable video player supports multiple audio tracks, so you can give your audience the option of listening in their preferred language. Because Vimeo’s AI translation tool translates both your audio track and captions, it even eliminates the language barrier for viewers who watch on mute, as well as those who are hearing-impaired.
Vimeo’s easy-to-use interface allows you to manage and update your translations as your video content evolves. You can do it all right from within your Vimeo dashboard — no need to toggle between tools or tabs, engage additional third-party vendors, or manage complex translation workflows.
Ready to go global? Take the next step in amplifying your brand’s global reach! Vimeo AI video translation is not available to residents of certain jurisdictions. This feature is subject to usage limits. For more information, please visit our Help Center.
