Is doing Twitter bi-lingual a bad idea?
Quick question for the twitter pros:
Should I stick to one language on twitter, or should I go bi-lingual?
I am German and have a German network (which can read/speak English just fine, but who tweet 95% in German), I have so far only tweeted in English.
Should I start tweeting in German as well? Or better stick to English and ignore the German-only tweeting folks?
Any other Europeans (or non-English-native speakers) here with the same problem? What's your recommendation?
I follow a couple of people who post both German and English content. I don’t mind since I speak German fluently. However, if someone tweeted too often in a language I don’t speak I‘d unfollow them.
My suggestion:
Tweet exclusively in English except for very specific things that are only relevant to Germans. Use German whenever you reply to a German tweet of someone else.
That's exactly what I am afraid of.
I'll listen to you guys and stick to English, and only use German if it is really necesary or makes sense.
Totally agree with you, Noah.
I dont think so . I have seen people to do it and their follower count is impressive. I think it creates a new follower group when younuse different languages. I just started twitter last week and I might try the same.
Twitter is tough !!!
But isn't annoying to see tweets in 2 languages? Does twitter filter out languages I can't read?
I am trying to build an audience around e.g. #startup, and if people follow me because I tweet about stuff in English and then also in German (which they can not read), isn't that a frustrating experience?
Do you have any bi-lingual twitter handles I should check out?
twitter should really have better universal translation. For pure-play in foreign language accounts it does a good job of auto-translating the tweets, but when ppl switch back and forth they don't
Twitter translation is not visible enough :-/
The latest person I unfollowed was someone that was speaking English and Spanish. As I am not fluent in Spanish, it was a bit annoying to see tweets you I understand..
Exactly my case. Good to know you are confirming my fears.
I think it depends on what your target audience is.
If you mainly want to target Germans, I would tweet in German. Otherwise, tweet in English.
This. My main target audience speaks English, a subset of those German. I think it's a good idea to compromise on focusing on the English speakers.
Depends what your goal is. You said in another comment that you want to build an audience around startups. If I were in your place and wanting that audience to be a global one, I'd pick English and stick with it. But take this advice with a grain of salt, because I'm sure it's possible to hit your goal either way.
Yes, audience size and actual target group are of course also topics I am considering. An English-speaking audience can be way, way bigger than a German or bi-lingual one, ... but it does not help if it is not my target audience.
I'll observe this. Might be an interesting topic to revisit in a few months, when I have more Twitter-experience under my belt. Maybe I can identify some nuances and actually niche down. We'll see.
Hi Jan. This is a great question.
I'm from India and we have tons of languages. That's why I only use English in social media like Twitter. And most of the Indie Hackers from India, only use English.
Because this is a global language. Still, you should also share content in your language sometimes. Hope this helps. :)
Yeah, I think this is also what we have in the EU. English as the lingua franca, with some local language thrown in where it is deemed useful. Thanks for pointing out the situation in India, good to know.
Yeah.
But, there is market for every language in India........bcz we are very huge country. If you can create quality content, you will grow.
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