Bilingual social media scheduling checklist for Wales: standards, joint approval, one window

What to take away

Treat Welsh and English as two equal outputs of one content item, not a translation added at the end.
Plan for the official status of Welsh in Wales, where five types of standard may be specified.
Expect a compliance notice to require a body to meet named standards.
Approve both language variants together and publish them in one window.
Check with your own compliance team which standards apply to your organisation.

Why generic scheduling guides miss Welsh duties

Most scheduling guides assume one language. For a team in Cardiff or Bangor, that assumption fails on the first post. A calendar built around English drafts hides the real cost: translation arrives late, the Welsh version needs its own approval, and the publishing slot is already gone.

Buffer, Hootsuite or Later help with timing and queueing. They do not decide whether a Welsh version is required or who signs it off. Those decisions sit with your organisation. The calendar only records them, so build the rules first and let the tool enforce them.

What the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 sets out

Five types of standard may be specified: service delivery standards, policy making standards, operational standards, promotion standards and record keeping standards (specifying standards). Which standards bind a particular organisation depends on the regulations and notices that apply to it.

In Wales the Welsh language has official status and should be treated no less favourably than the English language. That principle is why a Welsh post should not be an afterthought.

The detailed standards sit in regulations. Social posts are not correspondence, so they fall under their own pair of social media standards rather than the correspondence standards. Which of them bind you still depends on your notice.

Social media standards 58 and 59

The social media standards sit in the Welsh Language Standards (No. 1) Regulations 2015, in Schedule 1, and the table turns them into scheduling checks.

Subject of the standard / Scheduling check

Use of social media: Publish Welsh no less favourably than English
Contact in Welsh through social media: Draft a Welsh reply whenever an answer is required

The Welsh Language Commissioner and compliance notices

Expect a compliance notice to set out one or more standards and require the body to comply with them. Treat it as the primary document. Read the notice your organisation holds. It, not a general guide, decides what your social team must do.

What each standard type means for scheduling

The table turns the five standard types into questions for a scheduling process. It is a planning prompt, not a statement of what any one body must do.

Standard type	Question for your scheduling process
Service delivery	Can people use Welsh when they comment on or message your posts?
Policy making	Does a policy on social content name Welsh as an equal output?
Operational	Do staff and tools support drafting and approving Welsh text?
Promotion	Do campaigns promote Welsh services and content?
Record keeping	Is each approval and translation recorded?

Build a bilingual workflow

Plan one content item, then create two language variants that share a publication date and a single approval record. Each variant gets its own asset, preview and length check. One owner signs both off. The planning template shows how to set owners, rights and stop rules.

Draft both variants from the same source brief, not one from the other. A translation of a finished English post can miss intent and local terms. Commission the Welsh text when the brief is agreed, and give the translator the final link and image.

Watch length and characters. Welsh text may run longer than the English source, so a post that fits on one platform may need trimming in the other language. Check accents and long words in every preview before the queue closes.

Set a house rule for timing

Set one rule: if the English post carries a public message, the Welsh version goes out in the same scheduling window. A same-window rule is easier to audit than a judgement made each time. If you break it, record the reason.

Where a campaign runs for weeks, translate the whole series in one batch. Batch translation keeps terminology consistent across platforms. The operations and delivery guide describes a repeatable workflow in which a language field appears at every stage.

An approval workflow that routes both variants to one approver avoids split sign-off. Record who approved the Welsh text, and which version of the translation was used.

A bilingual scheduling checklist

Run this gate once per content item, before either language variant enters the queue.

Classify the itemroutine, campaign or crisis. That sets the approval level.
Draft both language variants from one source brief.
Translate with a named translator and record the version.
Approve both variants together, using one sign-off route.
Schedule both with the same start time and a shared stop rule.
Close the item by archiving both variants and the approval record.

For a final check before release, use the quality checklist you apply to English content. It applies unchanged. Add a disclosure policy step if the post is paid or carries a claim, so both languages make the same claim.

Both variants come from one brief.
A named translator and version are recorded.
One approver has signed both variants.
Previews checked for accents and length.
Same start time and stop rule set.

Where Welsh law stops

Welsh duties do not automatically reach Northern Ireland, so teams there should not assume they apply and should take advice specific to their own body. Posts aimed at customers outside the UK raise tax and consumer questions that Welsh law does not answer. Pass those to finance or legal.

Common questions

Does every social post need a Welsh version?

No. Duties depend on the standards that apply to your organisation. If you are in scope and the post carries a public message, plan a Welsh version alongside the English one.

Can I schedule Welsh and English posts at different times?

You can, but record the reason. Same-window publishing is easier to defend and to audit.

What is the biggest scheduling mistake in bilingual teams?

Treating translation as a late task. Commission it when the brief is agreed, and both variants stay on the same schedule.