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I recently got a mass email from a translation agency I work for with an update on their recent activities, including their newly created social media accounts/pages. After a bit of information on company restructuring, it got really interesting: they boldly asked that we (the translators) should not try to connect with them on social networks and that they would reject any “applications” from their translators to join/follow/like the company. Nothing personal, they said, we just want to keep a distance between you and our end-clients and our social media presence is about them not you.
They went on to justify their reasoning for that policy: they cannot afford for their clients to search around their pages in social media sites, find the translators they want, contact them directly and thus breaking the chain by leaving them out in the cold (i.e. no money for the agency). I never replied to that email. This post is, however, an “open-letter” with my response:
1) What’s the point of having a presence in a social media network if you are not planning on being social?
Let’s say you are a translation company and have a page on Facebook. Why am I not allowed to like it if we work together? How good does a page on Facebook look if only a few people like it? What do you expect to gain via Facebook if you are not advertizing your services? And how you advertize those services if you are a translation agency that no translator likes? Same thing goes for Twitter as well, not to mention Linkedin. I just don’t get it, sorry.
2) What are the odds of huge companies/clients shopping around for translators via their provider’s social media site?
I’d say 0%. If they want to have their products translated, the big corporations are usually much more inclined to choose a translation agency for that rather than shopping around for 20-30 translators and managing them down the road. It’s not in their mentality to do so and it also affects their profits and resources, so no danger there for the translation agency.
3) Why don’t they secure the possibility of something like that never happening in the contract with the end-client?
If the translation agency is so afraid that the end-client will “steal” its translators, they can add a clause to the contract with the end-client. I am not sure if any translation agency has the guts to ask a big corporation for something like that because they know that what they are asking is a joke, to put it nicely.
4) What are the odds of freelance translators bypassing the agency and contacting the end-client directly in search of a job?
From my experience, I’d say about 5% tops (in Europe) and without any real chance of getting the job. In America, the percentage is bigger, but then again, the corporate mentality at the other side of the pond is different from the European one. Most of my European colleagues like the convenience good translation agencies offer (steady flow of work, timely payments etc.). It’s extremely difficult to go for the agency’s end-clients and, as I mentioned above, the success of such a move is very doubtful. Not to mention ethics and the contracts we sign that expressly state we’re not allowed to do that.
5) How can you expand your business without collaboration and transparency between your company and your translators?
This was my biggest concern when I first read the e-mail. How is it possible to build a long-lasting and fruitful relationship between your company and your translators when you don’t trust them? If I like the agency I work for, perhaps I want to show my feeling by “liking” their Facebook page. This is normal in our times and does not mean that I have an ulterior motive (i.e. to work directly for the end-client and bypass them). This also goes for the end-client who won’t go to all the trouble of hiring me (and a bunch of other translators for all the different languages they need) by looking at the agency’s page on any social media site. In a case like that, loyalty and transparency are the most important factors, not money. Two factors that this particular agency chose to ignore.
I’d like to read your views on this matter. Have you ever experienced anything like that? How would you react to a similar email? Was the agency right in sending out this communication?
About the author
Christos Floros is a co-owner of Lingua Greca Translations and co-writer of the Adventures in Technical Translation blog. He holds a Master’s on Strategic Studies and has been working as a technical translator since 2004, working mainly with Gambling and IT texts. In his free time, he likes reading Cold War spy stories, follows NHL and watches documentaries on History Channel. He also believes that Iron Maiden is the best band ever. All in all, a strange guy. Connect with him on Twitter @ChrisFloros.
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Wow! I think these guys managed to completely screw up their social media strategy from day one. Like you said, the main point of social media is being social. Yet, they’re just being paranoid.
Révélateur d’une mentalité antipathique et détestable… Je ne voudrais pas travailler pour une telle agence. Elle fait preuve d’une attitude méprisante envers ses principaux fournisseurs sans qui elle n’existerait pas…
Une traductrice québécoise
Unbelievable! A social media page is only as good as its likes or followers – unless you gather a community the outlet is useless for a company. Firstly, rule no. 1 of building a social media presence is normally – go after everyone you already know and ASK them to like you, not the opposite. Secondly, how many clients are likely to want to ‘like’ a Facebook page – as this is effectively an endorsement company to company? Clients want recommendations and as you point out – a translation agency that has no translator likes or followers doesn’t look good. Something tells me they’ll end up with a worthless social media presence which they’ll either give up on or reverse their decision and hunt out their translators to help!
I completely agree with you “what’s the point…?”
Plus, it’s amazing this agency seems to have no confidence at all in the added value it offers to its clients! The question is: does it provide any added value?
That type of “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” approach will not work nowadays. The agency may like to pretend that they are producing all this fine work by means of marketing juju, but it is real people who do the translating. As to the concerns about poaching clients, isn’t that what non-compete agreements are about?
Exactly! It’s very bad for their image to seem so insecure about their clients too…
Well, I would say this is a mayor screw-up by the social media department. It comes across as a very arrogant way to deal with business partners.
It does not have to be a reason to not work for that company. After all, you didn’t want to like them without a reason. They may work with their translators in a very professional way.
So the social media guys in the company have a bit of a tunnel-vision: They are only trying to reach customers, not translators. They should know their business is a two-way thing: They need both translators AND customers.
Let’s hope they will grow out of this. 🙂
On your point no. 3: About 15 years ago, I translated the end-client contract for what was then one of the biggest translation agencies in Norway, which contained just such a clause, whereby clients had to agree not to use other translation providers. I wonder, though, whether this (and some of the terms agencies try to impose on translators) would really stand up in court, or whether they would be thrown out as constituting restraint of trade…
Great article, Chris! I think that this paranoid strategy shows how insecure the agency is about their own business, and how much they distrust their own translators. There may be a few professionals out there who’d jump at this opportunity, but most of language specialists know the rules of the game, and not contacting direct clients is one of them.
Anyway, it’s always the best tactics to antagonise your suppliers instead of making them bring more benefits…
I never experienced something like this, but the language of the mail, and the whole approach, seems downright offensive. Also, a bit dumb, marketing-wise, and naive to boot. These issues are usually covered by non-compete clauses, but, more to the point, by commercial ethics. What’s the need then to (needlessly, pardon the alliteration) antagonize your entire translator-base? This is a sure way to lose their providers (translators) and their clients (corporations) – who would surely, as Chris has so well said, smell something rotten in the kingdom of Denmark (paraphrasing you know who). I wonder what made them feel so vulnerable/unsure that it triggered this monumental commercial blunder on their part.
Hi Catherine,
I’ve been in this situation on various occasions and it obviously speaks a lot about an agency. Good words spread fast, bad words even faster. It is okay if agencies don’t want to lose their translators (with a presumption they treat them well), but to me it often looks like they want to get all the praise for a job well done, so that clients come back to them instead of reaching out for individual translators.
I agree with everything you said. If they’re really afraid, they should put a clause in their contract and stop worrying. Everything else looks like a poor management.
Nicely put Milica 🙂