To automate social media localisation, automate the first draft and the logistics, and keep a human reviewer on the last mile. A good pipeline translates the post in seconds, sends it to the right native speaker, and schedules each version in the right local time. The only manual step is the one that protects your brand.
TLDR: Write one source post that's easy to translate, translate it with AI and a glossary, review by market tier, adapt the details (dates, currency, links, images), then schedule per market in local time. Ad copy follows the same five steps.
The 5-step pipeline
- Write a source post that's easy to translate. Short sentences, no idioms, no jokes that depend on wordplay, and no text baked into images. Put the text in the caption, where you can edit it.
- Translate with a glossary. Machine or AI translation handles the first draft. Give it a short glossary: product names that stay in English, terms with an approved translation, and words you never use.
- Review by market tier. Don't give every language the same scrutiny (table below).
- Adapt the details. Dates, currency, units, links, hashtags and images with local meaning.
- Schedule per market, in local time. One send time is wrong for most of the world.
Decide the review level per market
| Tier | Which markets | Review level |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Your biggest revenue or audience markets | A native speaker checks every post before it goes out |
| 2 | Growing markets | A native speaker checks a sample each week, plus any post with a claim, offer or humour |
| 3 | Test markets | Machine draft only, with a watch list for comments that signal a problem |
Move a market up a tier when it earns more or when a mistranslation costs you something. Which markets to start with is covered in which social assets to localise.
Keep a glossary and run one quick quality check
The glossary is the cheapest quality control you have. Keep a shared sheet with four columns: the English term, the approved translation per language, a "do not translate" flag, and one example sentence. Update it every time a reviewer corrects the same word twice.
For a fast quality check on Tier 2 and 3 markets, translate the finished post back into English with a second tool and read it. If the meaning has changed, the original translation has a problem. It's not perfect, but it catches the worst mistakes in a minute.
What to adapt beyond the words
Translation alone doesn't localise a post. Check these every time:
- Dates and times: 03/04 means two different days.
- Currency and units: convert, and round the way locals do.
- Links: point to the right language version, not the English homepage.
- Hashtags: English hashtags rarely work in other markets. Find the local equivalents.
- Images: gestures, colours, food and holidays don't travel. Text inside images needs its own versions.
For video, it's often cheaper to localise captions than to re-record. We cover that in localise captions, not videos.
Schedule in each market's own clock
Timing is the easiest part to automate and the easiest to get wrong. In Mydrop's data, posts published between midnight and 6 am in the account's local time ran 17% below the median across platforms. A post that's 9 am in London is 3 am in Singapore, so use one scheduled slot per market, not one global slot.
What about ad copy?
The question we see most often is about localising ads, and the answer is the same pipeline with three extra checks:
- Character limits shrink in some languages and grow in others. Test the longest version.
- Claims and legal wording differ by country. A native reviewer is not optional here.
- Launch in your ad manager. Use the pipeline for the copy, then build the ads where you buy them.
One workspace per market keeps local time and approvals apart
Keep each market in its own workspace and calendar, so local time and local approvals stay separate. AI captions give you drafts fast, bulk creation handles many variants at once, and approvals route each version to the right reviewer before anything is scheduled.
Next step: pick your top two markets and run one week of posts through the five steps. Count how long the review takes. That number tells you how many markets you can add. To try the workflow, start free with Mydrop.
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