Target market is North America however I'd like to translate it to different languages. Is there a universal list of languages that would not hurt to include in your app?
It's generally not worth supporting additional languages at launch. Why add extra work when you don't even know if the network will take-off in English? Best to minimize the complexity for launch.
I think that preparing your app to support multiple languages is the important part. You can successfully do that by adding one extra language ( besides English ). For North America add Spanish.
Now your app is structured properly to use text from languages files ( and not hardcode in code ). This allows you to send the English file to a translation agency, get it translated in another language and add the the new language to he mix.
You should do that in subsequent versions of the app. As you see the need.
If you need more technical info on how to do that, feel free to schedule a call.
Good question, but my feeling is wrong time to ask it. It's hard enough to get users, period. Getting users in your home country is going to be much easier than a foreign country (I'm assuming you're a US based company/founders). Now, there is a time when I would absolutely look at language support for other countries, but there is so much to learn about your product, your users, your customer acquisition and all that jazz before you go and build out the code to handle different languages.
Now, if you are building a really basic app that is easy to translate, then maybe. But if the app is going to be a reasonably sophisticated social app, with at least a few bells and whistles, it may be more than you want to take on at first.
If your target market is North America, then there's negligible motivation for going beyond Spanish and French as secondary languages.
French would only apply to a relatively small part of Canada; but it might spill over across the Atlantic, thereby giving your app an entrance into other parts of the world through social sharing.
Spanish is much more important -- not only because Spanish is used worldwide by a staggering number of people but also because Spanish is fast becoming a crucial second language here in the USA. Witness these statistics:
35 million Americans speak Spanish at home (2009)
76% of hispanic Americans speak Spanish at home (2009)
50.5 million hispanic Americans in 2010
16.3% of Americans in 2010 are hispanic
132.8 million hispanic Americans by 2050
30% of Americans by 2050 will be hispanic
Although few people listen to me, I always advocate for more attention to be paid to the Latino / Hispanic U.S. market. That's reflected in some of my own initiatives behind the scenes as well.
I don't necessarily recommend focusing on multilingual marketing right away. As others have advised, stick to the English-speaking audience initially. You'll have challenges enough early on without complicating matters by injecting translations and extra marketing channels into the agenda. English is your proof of concept, your test case. From there, expand.
That said, you should pay special attention now to how your brand name may facilitate or limit expansion into other language markets. All future possibilities should be taken into consideration at the moment of naming. That includes potential overseas marketing, the addition of new service / product offerings, and the very real possibility that you'll pivot and redefine yourself as something else -- foreseeable or unforeseen.
As a professional namer / domain investor, I'm not a localization consultant per se. But language factors into my daily routine. Last week, for instance, I wrote emails in Arabic and Spanish and had to fumble through a smattering of French, Italian, and Portuguese in my inbox. So maybe I can offer a useful perspective on your branding and marketing.
If your application it's available only in North America App Store, you can get some stats by asking your users some details - like their native language (if you're using a registration process, that's easy to do).
If your application it's also available outside US, you can easily track the number of downloads for other countries like France or Germany.
Based on this stats you can make a decision, it's easier if you can actually see some numbers.
"that would not hurt"? All languages.
If you're wondering about from which ones to start, I'd suggest the ones from top countries such as spanish, chinese, japanese but it highly depends on target demographic.
These social networking apps can be used for personal needs or for professional communication. Such social apps allow users to share all kinds of media files. Such social media apps are used by customers to find and review businesses they have had experience with. The best social media apps in this category are Quora and Reddit, of course. Users of these apps can share their own content and discover the content of other users and save it. Such apps like Pinterest, Mix, and Flipboard belong to this type of social media. These social media platforms allow users to create their own blogs and publish their content there. This type of social networking unites people with common interests. Users can share their hobbies and related experiences on such platforms. This type of social networks is especially loved by teens because it lets them communicate anonymously with each other. As you can see, there are many types of social media apps. The next step to take is to review the latest social media trends.
These are not new social media trends as well. The most popular social media apps already have this feature. Users prefer watching live videos to reading posts on social media. Video content is more popular than written posts because users prefer watching to reading now. Stories increased the time people spend on these social apps daily. If you think about how to create a social media app now, make sure you analysed the need of the new influential group - Gen Z. More and more people want to share their content with as many users as possible. Good social media apps already offer publishing opportunities to their users. Once that you have decided upon your niche and learned trends to follow to make a social media app, it is time to get down to app features, design, and development.
Building a social network is no simple task. All in all, the quality of your social network design will greatly depend on a designer who will do the work for you. We can advise you on the best way to develop your social media app as well as provide you with an approximate project budget and timeline. App development companies usually provide a full range of services to have their clients’ needs fully covered. This eliminates the number of parties included in the process of app development and helps both clients and a development company to work more closely and efficiently. You might need business analysis if you do not know how to create a social media app and have only a rough project idea. In this case a business analyst will help you with all preparatory work that should be done before design and development itself. The quality of this work and its deliverables are crucial for all other activities. Development companies typically provide quality assurance services not because they are not sure in the quality of their work but because they know that no technology or app can be 100% bug-free. If you want to create a social media app of a good quality, it should be polished well. It is the technical basis for you to know if you want to understand how to create a social media app for Android.
You can learn more about languages if you click this link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cognitive-services/luis/what-is-luis
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath
When creating a social networking application for iOS with a target market in North America but with plans to translate it into different languages, it's essential to consider a diverse set of languages to ensure inclusivity and accessibility. While there's no universal list of languages, it's beneficial to include widely spoken languages such as English, Spanish, French, Mandarin, and Arabic, among others.
Additionally, I recommend considering the expertise of Cleveroad, a reputable social media app development company. Their experience and proficiency in developing social networking applications can greatly assist in creating a successful and engaging platform. You can learn more about their services here: https://www.cleveroad.com/industries/social/
