In 2020, I published on this blog the results of a survey on the use of social media by professional translators. The aim was to collect data in order to illustrate a course on the development of one’s e-reputation as a future professional in the translation industry. This was directly related to the development of a specific competence in the European Master’s in Translation (EMT) competence framework, namely competence 24: “Use social media responsibly for professional purposes”, writes Pr Rudy Loock, Université de Lille (France), Traduction spécialisée multilingue (TSM) master’s programme.
Five years later, the social media landscape has changed significantly: Twitter has become X, prompting users to migrate to alternatives such as Threads, Bluesky or Mastodon; platforms like TikTok have seen their user base more than double in the last 5 years; and newer platforms like Discord, released publicly in 2015, have become more mainstream. I therefore thought that it was time for an update and ran a new survey in March-April 2025. The results are presented below; they are not part of an academic research project but aim to provide an overview of how social media platforms are used in the translation community, in order to illustrate courses in relation to the EMT competence 24 for instance.
The participants in the survey
The survey was circulated via social media and by e-mail through various mailing lists. No personal data was collected, and participants were not compensated for their time. It was written in English and delivered as a Google Form for them to complete. A total of 276 people responded.
The vast majority of respondents are based in Europe (94 %) and most are freelancers in the translation industry (86.2 %), while a further 9.1 % work for a private agency or company as employees, and 2.9 % work for the public sector. There is thus a strong geographical bias in our results, even more so than in 2020, when 85.4 % of the respondents were based in Europe. In terms of age distribution, only 4 % of our respondents are under 25 years old, 44.9 % are between 26 and 39, 37.7 % are between 40 and 54, and 13.4 % are more than 55 years old.
Only 3 % of respondents do not use social media. In addition to social media, 26.4 % have a professional website and 0.7 % a blog, while 9.1 % run both. The proportion of respondents with neither a website nor a blog is higher than in 2020 (60 % vs. 43 %).
For social media users, the time they spend on average on social media is less than one hour a week for 31.5 % of them, a couple of hours per week for 41.7 %, between 5 and 10 hours per week for 17.8 % and more than 10 hours a week for 6.2 %. These results, illustrated in Figure 1, show that the translation community is quite active on social media but does not spend that much time on the platforms, less than what we found in 2020, where the proportion of respondents spending less than one hour a week on social media was only 3.8 % (vs. 31.5 % in 2025).
As in 2020, most respondents (73.9 %) have not received training on the use of social media for professional purposes. Nevertheless, 79 % agree or strongly agree that such training is necessary, while only 2.5 % disagree. Figures 2a/b show these results.
When asked whether they feel they know enough on the legislation on the professional use of social media, 48.2 % agree or strongly agree, but 28.6 % have a neutral position and 23.2 % disagree or strongly disagree. This indicates that social media training remains both necessary and recommended.
Which social media platforms?
As mentioned above, the social media landscape has considerably changed over the past 5 years. It was therefore relevant to investigate which platforms professionals in the translation industry are currently using. We distinguished between owning an account and using it for professional purposes. We also asked respondents to indicate which platforms actually helped them achieve their professional objectives.
The results, summarized in Figure 3, highlight significant changes since the situation in 2020. First, the top 5 social media platforms where our respondents have an active social media account are: LinkedIn (97.5 %), Facebook (65.9 %), Instagram (54.3 %), Discord (37.3 %), and YouTube (33 %). In 2020, the top 5 were LinkedIn (91.9 %), Facebook (81.2 %), Twitter (68.8 %), WhatsApp (66.1 %)[i], and Instagram (49.5 %) (the 6th one was Pinterest). While LinkedIn and Facebook remain dominant, the shift in the remaining platforms reflects broader trends in the social media ecosystem. New in 2025 is the use of Discord, which was not even mentioned 5 years ago, and a notable decline of X (formerly Twitter), still used by 17 % of respondents though. The platforms often described as alternatives for X (Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon) are yet to become popular in the translation community, with only 4 %, 10.9 %, and 3.3 % of our respondents having active accounts on these platforms. Viadeo, once viewed as an alternative to LinkedIn in France, seems to have vanished from the translation community’s communication tool box. In the ‘other’ category, respondents mentioned ProZ, Skype, Twitch, and Xing.
When asked about their professional use, our respondents provide results that are quite different and what we have is more a top 3 than a top 5. The platforms used in relation with their professional activities are: LinkedIn (94.9 %), Discord (23.9 %), and Facebook (17.4 %). LinkedIn clearly dominates as the primary professional platform in the translation community, while Discord makes quite a notable entry. The other platforms are not really used with professional objectives: Instagram is used professionally by 7.2 %, and X by 5.1 % (in 2020 Twitter ranked second with 53.8 %), and other platforms seem to provide limited professional relevance. YouTube, although among the most popular platforms, is used professionally by just 3.6 % of our respondents.
Finally, the platforms that have actually helped our respondents achieve professional objectives are LinkedIn (82.6 %), Discord (16.3 %), and Facebook (9.8 %) – that is the same top 3. Discord, in particular, appears to be gaining ground as a key professional tool. The other platforms have only marginally helped our respondents achieve their professional objectives.
What professional objectives?
There are many professional reasons why our respondents use social media. The most common is to find out information on the translation industry (75.4 %), with 71 % stating that this goal is met, confirming social media’s role as key information sources on the translation sector. The second is to exchange with other translators (67.8 %), a goal that is achieved in 70.3 % of cases, an even higher proportion. The third is to find direct clients and information about them (64.1 %), but this goal is achieved in only 34.8 % of cases however. For half of respondents, their goals include discovering new translation tools, resources, techniques, ways of working… (52.9 %), networking with colleagues who might have extra work for them in the future (50 %), and finding translation agencies or LSPs to work with (50 %); these goals are met by 55.1 %, 37 %, and 41.3 % of our respondents respectively. Training opportunities are also regularly searched for and found (about 40 %), while the sharing of good practices and the revelation and condemnation of bad practices are also among our respondents’ professional objectives (29 % and 24.3 % respectively, these goals being achieved for 28.6 % and 21 % of them). Only rarely are social media used to find translators and assign them translation projects (only 10.5 % but note that 13.5 % of respondents claim to have reached this objective) and to find interns (1.4 %). This result can seem a bit surprising, as social media, LinkedIn in particular, are generally associated with job searches. Other possible objectives mentioned by respondents (5.6 %) include: increase my e-visibility, share work opportunities, or see how the profession develops. Notably, 6 % of our respondents say that they achieved none of their objectives – a significant finding that warrants further investigation. All results are shown in Figure 4.
Opinion
As illustrated in Figure 5, a majority of respondents view using social media positively, as either a good investment (32.6 %) or a nice opportunity promote themselves (29.3 %), with 19.6 % considering being on social media a necessity today. Only 1.8 % believe it is a waste of time, and 7.6 % for entertainment and distraction only.
Also, as shown in Figure 6, respondents consider the general atmosphere on social media in the translation community to be generally friendly (67.8 %) or very friendly (12.7 %), while only 3.6 % consider it rather unfriendly (3.6 %) and very unfriendly (0.4 %).
Conclusion
As in 2020, our survey confirms the translation community’s presence on social media, with clear professional objectives that are generally achieved successfully. The number of platforms seems to have decreased in number, however, with LinkedIn, Facebook, and Discord now dominant, while others remain quite marginal. At the same time, professionals seem to spend less time on social media platforms than they did 5 years ago. Primary objectives remain information gathering about the translation industry and professional networking. Overall, competence 24 in the EMT’s competence framework remains relevant.
[i] WhatsApp was actually removed from our list: in 2020, there was some debate about its status – social media or messaging platforms (see our 2020 post), but the question seems to have been solved now. In the ‘other’ category, only 1 respondent mentioned WhatsApp.