IMPORTANT UPDATE
Facebook have reintroduced the bilingual options to their publishing tools – see the updated video here
If you’re working in a bilingual or multilingual environment, then you may have been frustrated after the latest changes facebook have made to their post editor which prevents you from writing multilingual posts.
The ability to write posts in multiple languages has disappeared.
But, you can relax again as we’ve found where facebook have hidden the options!
If you, like us, work with clients who speak to a multilingual market (in our case, most of our local clients want to reach English and Spanish speakers) then you were probably using the multilingual posting options that facebook offered once you had activated the option to post in multiple languages in your page settings.
Whilst temperamental – often the editing options wouldn’t work and you were forced to use the sometimes hilarious automatic translations that facebook offered – it more or less did the job.
Then facebook changed their posting format – and the multilingual posts options disappeared.
This seemed like a massive step backwards.
We contacted facebook support and it will come as no surprise to most of you…. they were not very helpful.
Eventually, they told me that this feature had been discontinued and that every user would essentially see a translated version of the post in their feed.
Not only did that sound like a really (really) bad idea given the standard of facebook’s automatic translations, but it was also blatantly not true since we are able to switch language in facebook and see what happens. Nothing.
We spent an inordinate amount of time searching for a solution, all to no avail. There are plenty of people explaining how to use the multilingual posts function – including facebook’s own help guides – but they are all out of date after the platform change.
But then, whilst looking for possible solutions, we suddenly came across a gear icon. It’s not everywhere you’d expect it to be – but you can get to it – and this gives you the option to toggle the old editor…. and, lo and behold…. there is your multilingual editor in all its glory.
I’m not sure how long it’s likely to be there as an option – but for the time being at least, my posting problems are gone.
Watch the video below to see how we found the hidden solution!
