Do You Tweet? We Localize It.
Social Media has not only changed the way we behave and interact, but it has created its own terminology for its users. Take Twitter as an example. Twitter is a social media service that limits each user’s post to 140 characters. Twitter also has been the main player behind the popularity of hashtags. Hashtags are a word or phrase preceded by a hash mark (#) and they are used to denote the topic of the post. From the hashtags, you can see what topics are “trending” (popular) in the Twitter community. Furthermore, because of the limited space per post, abbreviations are commonly used.
Check out below the list of the most popular Twitter terms:
Tweet: a post
RT: Retweet – To re-post someone else’s tweet.
#FF: Follow Friday – On Fridays, it is common for users to recommend other twitter accounts to follow.
@: at – To mention a user in a tweet or to direct a tweet to a user
DM: Direct Message – A private message between 2 users.
Follow: Each user can follow or be followed by different users. Unlike some social media, just because someone follows you, doesn’t mean you have to follow them back.
HT: A “hat tip” usually means acknowledging that another user gave you the idea for your post.
Tweeple: Twitter users.
Tweeps: Your followers who also are friends with you on multiple social networks.
At Trusted Translations, we offer localization services to make sure you are reaching the right target market with any translation. Since Twitter first started as an English platform and market, all the term origins above come from English. However, many of these terms have gone global. It would be especially interesting to know if there is any term in Twitter that is language or culture specific. Please share in the comments below!
