With the growing availability of tools that let English-speaking creators dub their videos into other languages, more and more YouTubers are embracing international audiences. They can choose to augment their existing videos with multi-language subtitles or multi-language dub tracks, where humans or AI voice over their original content in different languages.
But what about creators who want to do more than that?
They can give localization a shot.
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We’ve written about multi-language subtitles versus localization before–and now, with YouTube debuting things like AI-generated dub tracks for hundreds of thousands of channels in the Partner Program, it’s becoming increasingly important for creators to consider whether they want to flip the switch and just add auto-dubbing, or if they want to do full localization, which involves starting an entirely separate channel for each language and targeting those channels to reach international audiences.
That’s what Linguana does. Founded in 2023 by CEO Yuval Tal and CTO Oded Shafran, Linguana partners with creators and launches brand-new YouTube channels based on their biggest international audiences. An English-language creator who sees significant potential growth from Germany, Mexico, France, and Brazil, for example, might choose to launch four localized channels targeted at those regions.
Once they’ve made that choice, Linguana steps in.
“We have a unique value proposition for creators–we partner with you to build your localized channels–with zero effort required from your side,” Shuki Merlis, Linguana’s Head of Partnerships, tells Tubefilter. “The reason our model is so compelling is that creators don’t have any upfront costs, and they don’t have to do anything. We manage everything for them.”
Linguana sets up the new channel and mirrors all the content (including bio, outgoing links, and other metadata) from the creator’s original channel, then uses AI models, together with human supervision, to take the original channel’s library of videos and dub them into the new language.
All of the new voiceover is done by fusing multiple AI models, something Merlis says is for creators’ financial benefit and a “great” viewing experience for creators. “Only the top of the top are able to afford human dubbing for their content,” he says. “The economics model doesn’t work. Human dubbing is so expensive and we believe that our approach produces an extremely high quality with the authenticity of the creator’s voice.”
Shafran adds, “Linguana is redefining the game. Unlike conventional AI tools that struggle to capture a creator’s energy and style, our process ensures the nuance of the original content is preserved. Our technology produces a quality of dubbing that captures the spirit, energy and charisma of the creator, as well as handling the complexity of multiple voices and background noise.”
Linguana also uses AI to redo video thumbnails to be more targeted at the new channel’s specific international audience.
“Having a localized thumbnail is crucial,” Merlis says. It leads to improved clickthrough rates and view duration, he says. And “even tiny little gains on either of those metrics makes a massive impact on the amount of views you’re going to get. So when you have a truly localized channel with Spanish thumbnails and Spanish titles and Spanish tags, you’re going to get more clicks and views.”
Another potential issue to consider is audiovisual timing. With auto-generated dub tracks (like what YouTube’s newest tool offers, for example) the dubbing isn’t always properly timed to the original video. So, a creator might be explaining the next segment of their video, and that could take 15 seconds in English, but 25 seconds in Spanish. So, by the time the Spanish dub track has finished the explanation, the video has already moved on. This disjoint between audio and video could put viewers off.
Linguana makes sure its localized videos are “perfectly set to the new language,” Merlis says. Sometimes that involves lengthening the videos so they’re still paced accurately with the voiceover.
“So, for example, one video in English might be 12 minutes and 45 seconds long, and when we put it to Spanish, it might be 12 minutes and 54 seconds, or 13-something, because the speed of the language does not always fit perfectly with the actual video,” he says. “It’s better output quality.”
Merlis feels Linguana’s localization solution excels thanks to the attention the company pays to these sorts of details. He also thinks this level of localization makes it much easier for creators to develop relationships with international sponsors.
As for what happens once the channel is up and running, well: Linguana continues to manage it, and splits ad revenue with the creator. (It doesn’t disclose what the revenue split is.).
The Infographics Show, which has 15 million subscribers, recently worked with Linguana to create channels in seven additional languages. It says Linguana’s help “has been incredibly valuable in helping us to grow our audience outside of the English speaking world,” and has “allowed us to broaden our audience and grow our business even further, without losing sight of our core content strategy.”
Ultimately, this is an option for creators who want to grow their international audiences with localization and dubbing, without having to do everything solo or finance it up front. You can check out Linguana here.
Linguana is a Tubefilter partner.
