By Cristina Colella

We all noticed that the use of social media has become an important part of professional life and an essential tool for personal branding and effective promotion of business. And this applies to the translation market as well. For interpreters and translators, it has become very important to develop not only linguistic abilities but also entrepreneurial skills to achieve professional success in the translation industry. 

Social networks could be powerful tools for launching your professional career, therefore you need to implement a careful strategy to promote your brand, which means learning to use them in a serious way, as professional tools and not as spaces for chatting. Thus, they can be integrated in many fields of professional life such as project management, office management, sales management and teamwork.

The management team of Modlingua effectively uses social media platforms not just to communicate but also to manage a whole business. Social media platforms are very important for Modlingua, as they empower their team to manage hundreds of interns from all around the world in spite of distance and time difference, encouraging us to solve problems through collaboration and teamwork.

Effective cooperation among all the interns is the main goal of the internship program and to make us work as a team we have been provided with a wide range of useful tools:

• Whatsapp Broadcast group: this broadcast group has been specifically designed to directly address the management when problems arise and a solution is needed;
• Facebook Intern group: this is a closed Facebook group, created for the Modlingua interns in 2018 to encourage interaction as well as cooperation as a way to solve the problems;
• MODLINGUA website: this is not only meant as a tool to share business information but it is also an interesting platform for those who are very passionate about languages and translation. It is useful for learners as a research tool and as a resource for blog articles, videos, vacancies and platforms for job seekers and for interns to submit their work;
• Youtube Channel of Modlingua: another useful resource for learners, as it contains videos dealing with topics related to the internship as well as additional material related to business;
• Modlingua Translators and Interpreters Community on Facebook: this is a community with more than 14,000 members. It is a very important tool  empowering interaction with more experienced members so that interns can get useful advice on how to start a career in the world of language services;
• LinkedIn group: this group gives interns an access to a more formal professional community, in order to get deeper into the translation business; 
• Twitter: this blogging platform is used by Modlingua to create a buzz among followers;
• Telegram Channel: Modlingua uses this platform as a channel to share quick messages, containing news on languages and culture.

Modlingua internship introduces newbies and learners to personal branding and teamwork empowered by social media platforms. Although, you need to take into account that for an effective promotion of business a professional approach to the use of social network is necessary, therefore the help of more experienced professionals is necessary. And our Program Director Mr Ravi Kumar with more than 20 years' experience in the translation industry as a translator, interpreter, researcher, professor and entrepreneur has a lot of expertise in the use of social media as tools to constructively coordinate interns' activities.

To sum up, the internship at Modlingua gives us the opportunity to earn valuable experience and to develop those entrepreneurial skills that allow newbies to start and to promote their career in the language service industry.