Turkish or English? Choosing a Language for Your Brand in Türkiye

If you run a business in Türkiye and Turkish isn’t your first language, you’ll face the question of marketing in Turkish or English very early. It comes up with the first Instagram caption, the sign above the door and your Google profile.

There is no single right answer, but there is a right way to decide. This post covers that decision and how to keep it consistent on every channel.

If you’re just getting started, I’ve also written about how to market your business in Türkiye when you don’t speak Turkish.

Should my brand speak Turkish or English?

Decide by who pays you, not by which language you’re comfortable in. Your lead language should be the language of the people whose money keeps the business open.

It sounds obvious, but comfort often wins. English feels safe to the owner, so the account, the menu and the ads end up in English, while the people walking in would rather read Turkish. The reverse happens too, when a local employee runs the account of a business whose clients are mostly foreigners.

How to find out who pays you

Your own business already holds the answer. When we start working with a business, this is the first thing I want to understand. You can work it out this week:

1. Go through last month’s sales, bookings or invoices and mark each customer as local or foreign.
2. Look at the messages you received on WhatsApp, Instagram and email, and note the language of each.
3. Note the language of your Google reviews.
4. Ask which group you want more of next year, not only which group you have now.
5. Write it in one sentence: “Our paying customers are mainly X, and we want to grow Y.”

That sentence decides your lead language. The rest of this post is about applying it.

Three language models that work

Most businesses fit one of three models. Pick one on purpose and write it down, because the choice is tested every time someone posts, replies or writes an ad.

Turkish-first, with English support

Fits when: most paying customers are locals, and foreigners are a welcome extra. Think of a neighborhood café, a salon or a shop.

Turkish carries the brand: captions, ads, the Google description and the main website pages. English appears where a foreign customer would otherwise get stuck: a short line in captions, an English price list, an English page on the website, and someone who can answer in English.

English-first for a foreign audience, with Turkish essentials

Fits when: your customers are mainly foreigners, such as expats in your city, tourists or international clients. Relocation offices and real estate offices that serve foreign buyers often work this way.

English carries the brand. Turkish still covers the essentials: your Google profile, the sign, address and opening hours, and replies to the locals who will find you anyway.

Fully bilingual

Fits when: both groups bring in a meaningful share of your income and you want to grow both, as with a restaurant in a tourist area.

Bilingual doesn’t mean “the same content twice.” Each language gets its own complete, well-written version on every channel you use, which adds real work to writing, checking and replying. Choose it only if you can keep it up. An account that quietly turns English-only after two months looks worse than a consistent single-language one.

How to apply the choice on each channel

Once you know your lead language, each channel needs its own small rule.

Instagram

Captions. Put the lead language first. The feed shows only the opening lines of a caption before the rest is hidden, so those lines have to speak to your main customer. Keep the second language shorter, after a line break.

Highlights. Keep separate highlights for key information, for example one price list in Turkish and one in English, each with a cover title in its own language.

Reels and bio. On-screen text and the bio can only lead in one language, so use your lead language there. If you speak English in your videos, Turkish subtitles open them to local viewers.

For the rest of the platform, see my guide to Instagram marketing in Türkiye for foreign business owners.

Instagram and Facebook ads

Run separate ads, or separate ad sets, for each language. Don’t put two languages in one ad.

The copy has to match the reader. You need to see which language brings results. And the next step, whether a form, a message or a landing page, should continue in the language of the ad.

Don’t rely only on audience settings to sort people by language. Targeting options change over time, and people don’t fit neat categories: a foreigner who has lived here for years may read Turkish comfortably. Let the copy do the sorting.

Splitting by language also splits your budget. If one language brings most of your customers, give it most of the budget. I cover setup in how to reach local customers with Instagram and Facebook ads.

Google Business Profile

Your profile has one business description, so pick which language leads. For mainly local customers, write it in Turkish. For mainly foreign customers, English can lead, with a short Turkish sentence so locals know what you do.

Keep the business name exactly as it appears on your sign. Don’t add keywords in either language to reach both groups; Google expects the real name.

Reply to each review in the language it was written in. Future customers read those exchanges too. The setup itself is covered in how to show up on Google Maps with Google Business Profile.

Your website

Give each language its own pages, and make the language switch lead to the matching page, not back to the homepage. Someone on your English price page who taps “TR” should land on the Turkish price page.

Our own site works this way: English pages sit under /en/, Turkish pages at the main address, and when a page exists in both languages, the switch leads to its counterpart. Behind the scenes, hreflang tags tell search engines which pages are language versions of each other.

Don’t redirect visitors automatically by location; a foreigner living in Bursa would be sent to pages they can’t read. Translate the parts people skip, too: menu labels, form fields, confirmation emails and the cookie notice. For which legal pages must exist in Turkish, check the current rules with a lawyer.

Whether you build the site with our web design service or someone else, settle the language structure before design starts. Adding a language later means reworking menus, forms and page structure.

Will locals be able to say and type your brand name?

Test it before you print anything. A name that works in English can be read differently, or be hard to type, in Turkish.

Turkish is read the way it’s written, and some letters sound different from English: c is said like the “j” in “jam”, ç like “ch” and ş like “sh”. A local reading your name the Turkish way may say something quite different from what you intended.

Watch the letter i as well. Turkish has a dotted i and a dotless ı, and the capital of i is İ. On a web page marked as Turkish, text displayed in capitals can turn your i into İ, so decide early whether that’s acceptable.

Turkish characters in names and handles

If your name includes ç, ş, ğ, ı, ö or ü, you need a plain-letter version too. Instagram handles can’t contain these letters, and web and email addresses are usually written without them.

• Keep the correct Turkish spelling on the sign, the logo and the Instagram profile name.
• Pick one plain-letter version (ş becomes s, ç becomes c) for the handle, web address and email, and use it everywhere.
• Some people type the Turkish letters and some don’t, so search your name both ways on Google and Instagram.
• Check that your brand font includes all six letters and their capitals, including İ.

Also expect your name to take endings after an apostrophe in Turkish sentences, the way Instagram becomes Instagram’da (“on Instagram”). That’s normal grammar, not misuse.

Siz or sen: choosing your tone in Turkish

Turkish has two ways to say “you”: the formal siz and the informal sen. English hides this choice, so if you don’t make it, whoever writes your Turkish copy will make it for you, possibly differently each time.

Sen feels close, casual and young, and suits many cafés, fashion and lifestyle brands. Siz feels respectful and professional, and is the safer default for clinics, real estate, education and anywhere trust and larger sums are involved.

Once you choose, keep it everywhere: captions, ads, the website and message replies. A post that says sen followed by a reply that says siz feels like two different businesses. Write the choice into a short tone note with example sentences, and give it to everyone who writes for you.

Why machine translation often reads wrong in marketing

Machine translation is useful for understanding what a customer wrote. It’s risky for writing what your brand says, because marketing copy depends on things that don’t survive word-for-word translation:

• Word order. Turkish usually puts the verb at the end, so a headline built on English rhythm often comes out stiff.
• Tone. The tool picks siz or sen for you, and not always the same one.
• Wordplay. A pun or a catchy English phrase usually turns into a flat or odd sentence.
• Borrowed words. Words like brunch or latte are part of everyday Turkish, and forcing a Turkish replacement can sound stranger than the original.

Have a fluent speaker write the Turkish version from a brief instead. Tell them what the piece should achieve, who it’s for and which tone you chose, and let them write it the way a local business would say it.

If you don’t read Turkish, ask the writer for a short English summary of each piece, so you know what is being said in your name.

Who will answer messages and calls in Turkish?

Decide this before you publish anything in Turkish. Every Turkish post and ad invites Turkish calls, WhatsApp messages, Instagram messages and reviews, and a customer who gets no answer may not try again.

1. Name the person who answers in Turkish, and who covers when they’re away.
2. Agree on the hours when messages are answered, and show them where customers can see them.
3. Prepare ready replies in both languages for frequent questions like prices, hours, location and booking. The WhatsApp Business app lets you save replies like these.
4. Decide who replies to comments on posts and ads, and to Google reviews.
5. If an agency or freelancer runs your accounts, agree in writing who answers messages and who only publishes.

Until someone can answer in Turkish, run ads in the language you can reply in. A Turkish ad followed by a reply the customer can’t read wastes the money you spent to get that message.

Common mistakes

These rarely show up on day one. Here’s how to spot each.

Choosing the language you’re comfortable in. Your content is in English, but most messages and reviews arrive in Turkish.

Having no rule at all. You can’t say why one post is in Turkish and the next in English.

Publishing machine-translated Turkish unchecked. A Turkish-speaking friend has to reread your caption to understand it.

Switching between siz and sen. Put ten recent captions and ten message replies side by side, and check which “you” each one uses.

A language switch that goes to the homepage. Open an inner page on your site, switch the language and see where you land.

A name nobody can type. Say your brand name once to a few locals and ask them to type it into their phone. If they struggle, the handle and web address need a simpler version.

How we can help

We’re based in Bursa, Türkiye, and we work in English with clients who don’t speak Turkish, by phone, WhatsApp and email. All meetings are online.

If you’re still deciding which model fits, our brand consulting service covers positioning, tone of voice, a messaging framework and a channel-by-channel roadmap. Decisions like your lead language and siz or sen belong in that written framework, so everyone who writes for you follows the same rules.

If the decision is made and you need it carried out, our social media management service produces and manages your content on Instagram. Posts are scheduled through Meta, so they also go to your Facebook page, and you see the content calendar before anything is published.

The first exchange is free and without obligation. Get in touch through our contact page and tell us who your customers are and which language they use.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need separate Instagram accounts for Turkish and English?

Usually not. Two accounts split your followers and double the work of posting and replying. One account with a clear language rule is easier to keep up. A second account makes sense only when the two groups buy genuinely different things from you.

Can I market only in English if most of my customers are local?

You can, but you are asking local customers to meet you in your language. If locals bring in most of your sales, Turkish should lead and English can support it. If you can’t produce Turkish content yet, start with the essentials: your Google profile, basic information and replies.

Should I change my brand name so it works in Turkish?

Not necessarily. Test it first by asking a few locals to read the name aloud and to type it after hearing it once. If they manage, keep it. If they struggle, a simpler spelling for the handle and web address is often enough, without renaming the business.

Can I switch from siz to sen later?

You can, but do it once and on every channel at the same time. Update captions, ad copy, the website and your saved message replies together, so customers don’t meet both forms side by side. Switching back and forth is what confuses people.

Do you work with business owners who don’t speak Turkish?

Yes. We work in English with clients who don’t speak Turkish, by phone, WhatsApp and email, and all meetings are online. We reply within one business day, on weekdays between 09:00 and 18:00 Türkiye time (GMT+3).