What drives a Dutchman to suddenly start tweeting in English full-time? And how did his Dutch followers react to that? A lesson in self-reflection.
Switch to English
It seemed like a good idea. A logical step too. My book on guerrilla marketing was going to be published in English, so why not profile myself within the English-speaking Twittersphere? I switched to an English Twitter profile supported by tweets in full-time English.
My Dutch followers reacted with surprise, often in a laughing mood. Tweeting in English is fine, but why did I suddenly list to data start talking back to them in English? Couldn't I just do that in Dutch? Or was I taking an intensive course at the LOI? Judging by my spelling and grammar, I still had a lot to learn.
Interview request
Sufferd
My explanation: I tweeted full-time in English to be and remain interesting to my foreign followers. I wasn’t if I only occasionally tweeted out an English tweet. For the same reason, I didn’t look at tweeps from Russia, Scandinavia, Asia, Mediterranean regions, etc., who tweeted mainly in their native language with the occasional outburst in English. Because I do that with everyone I want to follow on Twitter. What are their latest tweets? Interesting? Readable? And Cyrillic, Serbo-Croatian and Mandarin are impossible for me to follow, even with a dictionary. “Oh come on, don’t be silly,” was the response I got. “Others don’t watch Timeline at all.” Moreover: all those English speakers couldn’t read my one-twos with my followers on their Timeline anyway. Because they didn’t follow them. Stupid.