In many places, and for many small businesses, the audience is not monolingual. Somebody follows you in Ukrainian and their cousin in English; a customer reads Polish and writes in German. You can serve both, but the way you do it changes what each of them reads.
Four ways to do it
- 1One caption, two languages. The same post, one language after the other. Cheap, and everybody sees everything — but it is long, and each reader scrolls past half of it.
- 2Two posts. One per language, on different days or at different times. Each audience gets a clean post; you write twice, and the feed fills up faster.
- 3Words on the picture in one language, caption in the other. Works well for video and for graphics.
- 4Two accounts. A separate account per language. It keeps each feed clean and doubles the work. Worth it only when the audiences are really different.
How to choose
Ask who is reading, and how much they understand. If most people read both, one caption is fine. If they mostly read one, separate posts serve them better, because each reader sees only what is theirs. And if you have time for one extra thing a week, do not spend it on a third language — answer the comments.
Details that are easy to forget
- Put the main language first, whichever the majority reads. The first line is what everyone sees before “more”.
- Hashtags: use the ones people really search in each language, not a translation of the same set.
- Alt text belongs in the language of the post.
- Keep the tone the same. A joke that works in one language often needs rewriting, not translating.
A translation made by pasting your caption into a tool, and never read by somebody who speaks the language, is worse than none. Read it, or leave it out.