Bilingual social media management in Wales: a planning guide

What to take away

What the Welsh Language Standards require of public-facing campaigns

The Welsh Language Standards are the compliance regime that replaced the older Welsh Language Scheme system. They are made under the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 and issued by the Welsh Language Commissioner. Public bodies that receive a compliance notice must treat Welsh no less favourably than English.

For a social media team that means the duty applies to the channel itself, not just the website. A campaign post promoting a public service generally has to appear in Welsh, and the Welsh version cannot be a smaller, later, quieter version of the English one.

Cardiff is where much of this lands. The city holds the Senedd, Welsh Government offices and the headquarters of many publicly funded bodies, so a large share of briefs crossing an agency desk carries a standards obligation somewhere in the paperwork.

In practice the duty shapes the content calendar before a single asset is made. Teams decide which posts are bilingual, which are Welsh-first and which can sit in English only because the audience is internal or commercial rather than public-facing.

The standards also cover how you respond. Replies, direct messages and community management on a public body's account fall inside the same principle, so agencies staff Welsh-language cover rather than routing every query to an English queue.

None of this is optional decoration. A compliance notice sets out specific requirements, and the Commissioner can investigate complaints. That risk sits with the client, which is why the bilingual plan gets signed off early.

Planning Welsh and English content for Cardiff clients

Begin with the audience question rather than the language question. Cardiff agencies typically start by asking who the campaign must reach, where they live and which language they actually use online. That is the same discipline described in this guide to audience research for social media agencies, applied to a bilingual market.

ONS population estimates give the base size for Cardiff and for Wales as a whole, which is the first number a planner needs when budgeting reach. The Population estimates - Office for National Statistics release is the standard starting point for that sizing work.

Language ability is a separate cut. Census data on Welsh language skills is the usual source, and agencies combine it with cultural identity data where a campaign touches identity, heritage or national feeling. The ONS publishes that material under Religion - Office for National Statistics.

Once the segments exist, the planning splits. A Cardiff agency will usually build three tiers: Welsh-only posts for strongly Welsh-speaking audiences, bilingual pairs for mixed audiences, and English-only posts for audiences outside Wales or in sectors where Welsh adds nothing.

Segment building is where most briefs go wrong. Teams define "Welsh speaker" too loosely and end up with a segment that behaves like the general audience. The groundwork in this piece on how to build audience segments applies directly, with language added as a first-order variable rather than a tag.

Platform choice follows the audience. Welsh-language engagement is strong on Facebook and Instagram in north and west Wales, while public sector audiences in Cardiff respond across a wider spread. What a channel strategy means for a bilingual client is that the language plan and the platform plan are decided together, not in sequence.

Serving Welsh Government, media and tourism briefs bilingually

Welsh Government clients arrive with the standards already in force, plus their own internal Welsh language policy. The agency's job is usually to translate policy into a workable posting rhythm rather than to debate the policy itself.

That means agreeing a language matrix at kick-off: which content types are always bilingual, which are Welsh-first, and who signs off the Welsh copy. A named Welsh-language editor on the account shortens review cycles considerably.

Media clients work differently. Broadcasters, publishers and production companies in Cardiff commission bilingual social content to promote programmes, podcasts and events, and they often want the Welsh version to feel native rather than official.

For media briefs the tone is closer to audience writing than to public information. Agencies lean on Welsh-speaking creatives for captions and short video scripts, because a literal translation of an English caption reads flat on a Welsh timeline.

Tourism clients sit between the two. Visit Wales and its partners sell places to audiences inside Wales, across the UK and overseas, so the Welsh content serves both a local pride function and a domestic visitor function.

Tourism social media in Wales also has a seasonal rhythm that shapes the bilingual split. Welsh-language content peaks around cultural moments and the summer season, while English content carries the wider UK and international reach push.

A worked example shows the pattern. A Cardiff agency handling a heritage trail launch might post a Welsh-language reel for local audiences on a Thursday, a bilingual carousel for the wider Wales audience on Saturday, and an English-only paid push into English regions the following week.

Practical choices in bilingual social media management

Day-to-day bilingual work comes down to a small set of decisions that agencies make the same way each time, so the account stays consistent.

Paid media adds a layer. Meta and LinkedIn both allow language targeting, but the audiences are not clean, so Cardiff agencies usually run separate Welsh and English ad sets and let delivery data settle the split.

Accessibility matters more in a bilingual account. Captions, alt text and video subtitles all need both languages, which roughly doubles the asset checklist and should be priced into the retainer from the start.

Community management is the part clients underestimate. A bilingual account needs moderators who can answer in Welsh within a reasonable window, including outside standard office hours during a live campaign.

Measurement is where the two languages must stay apart. If Welsh and English results are pooled, the Welsh content looks weak and gets cut, even when it is doing exactly what it was commissioned to do. A clear view of what measurement means for buying and reporting in a bilingual account starts with separate reporting lines.

ONS data on internet access and social media use by UK adults helps set realistic benchmarks for reach and frequency before the campaign runs. The reference tables in Internet access - households and individuals - Office for National Statistics are the ones planners tend to pull into the media plan.

For demographic splits, the bulletin version is more useful because it breaks social media use down by age and other groups. That detail sits in Internet access, households and individuals, Great Britain - Office for National Statistics.

A pre-launch checklist keeps the account honest:

Reviewing and reporting bilingual campaign performance

Reporting should answer three questions: did the Welsh content reach the Welsh-speaking audience, did the English content carry the wider reach, and did the split match the plan.

Set targets per language before launch. A single blended target hides the thing the client is actually paying for, which is credible Welsh-language presence.

Watch for the small-sample problem. Welsh-language segments are smaller, so a fortnightly report can swing wildly. Monthly reporting with rolling averages gives a fairer read.

Compliance reporting is separate from performance reporting. Public bodies often need evidence that Welsh content was published and treated equally, and that evidence should be exportable without a manual trawl.

Finally, feed the findings back into the next brief. Which post types worked in Welsh, which fell flat, and where the English version outperformed for reasons that had nothing to do with language.

Common questions