Twitter is apparently the one of my social media platforms that I discovered twice. First time it was one of the „Hey-there-is-something-new-on-the-internet-you-have-to-be-part of-things“. So I signed in, found myself lost in space, especially with the restriction of 140 characters and simply forgot about it.
Then back in 2012 I was on withdrawal from BBC’s Sherlock and very eager to find more information about my beloved series. I honestly can’t remember why on earth I came back to my Twitter account and started searching for anything that could comfort my hunger for news on that specific topic. You may read my previous entry here (beware it’s German).
And then after a while, the magic happened. There were people out there actually reacting to my tweets, retweeting them, even answering my ridiculous stupid attempt to write in English (of course they will never know how frightened I was to hit the „Tweet“ button to send my first lines into Twitterverse) and don’t hit the 140-character-limit. In the weeks and months to come, I learned to appreciate Googles’s translater for both finding the right words and getting the meaning of the tweets in my timeline. Which was and is very important because slowly I got more followers, followers who didn’t stay silent but starting to include me in their conversations, even tagging me when something crossed their minds they thought I could be interested in or helpful in some way or another. Now, another three years later, things have improved and I’m not hyperventilating any more when writing in English, switching to German and back again.
What I still find quite useful is this:
•Changing the browser’s spellchecker to English (UK) and have no doubts that you know how to write proper German.
•Have Google’s translater open in another tab (and the app installed on your phone) – you can’t know what will pop up in your timeline.
•Let SwiftKey help you with your writing on you tab or phone. This alternative keyboard to the default one that is already installed is the best I stumbled upon so far. You can download dictionaries for your preferred languages, sync over various devices and watch how the app gets better the longer you use it.
•TwitLonger is quite nice when you are at you computer. On mobile you should give Seesmic a try. This app is as far as I know only available for Android and is no longer supported. But if you manage to install it, you find it very useful because Seesmic will post your stuff on Twitter and Facebook but it can be connected to TwitLonger and automatically link your tweets over there.
