As a social media trainer, you would expect that I’m enthusiastic about technology and the various social media tools…and one of the things I get excited about is the totally unexpected and unique uses of social media.
Here’s one case study using Google Translate and YouTube.
Google Translate is a very handy tool to translate words, documents or entire websites. Want to learn more about how it works? This video explains the basics:
To me, it’s already quite mind-blowing that you can translate between so many different languages – in seconds and for free. Sure, it’s not always perfect and sometimes quite amusing but in general, it can be extremely useful.
As explained in the next video, a few people took some famous literature, put it into Google Translate into one or more languages, and then back again into English. A little like the game Chinese Whispers, the more you tell a story – or in this case translate – the more it will tend to vary from the original…but the process in itself can give very interesting and amusing results!
Then, this young lady took that idea one step further, and recorded a video on You-Tube of her singing a currently very popular song that many know, translating it from English to other languages and back again, and then creating this:
I’m also really interested in being aware of how viral videos spread….here’s how I came about this video: it was via my husband telling me about the concept. “Did you know someone used Google Translate to redo a version of Let It Go”? (Very popular in our household with 2 little girls). Now, that sounded kind of interesting but he heard it on the radio and I couldn’t quite grasp what he meant – so I went to Google.com “Google Translate Let It Go” and came to the video above. I was then inspired to write this post and spread the video further. Is this post the first you’ve heard of it or have you seen it already? Where and how?
In this case study, the tools used fall within the Google Suite of products: Translate, YouTube (for the creation and sharing) and Search (for me to find it) but it’s then being shared right across other social media tools as well including Twitter and Pinterest.
Overall, beyond the basic intended uses, there are also so many unique uses of social media. I really love seeing how these creations come about by mixing and developing ideas along with social media tools.
What are your thoughts? A waste of time? Or totally entertaining? Have you seen any unexpected and unique uses of social media tools?
Renee
Zestee 