Meet Toeter, the Afrikaans Twitter for those who ‘praat die taal’

There is a new social network on the internet and “Toeter” is its name. What makes Toeter so special? Well, it recently launched in South Africa and is the first Afrikaans social media platform around. Besides being uniquely designed for the Afrikaans speaking community, Toeter is nothing spectacular compared to the big boys like Facebook and Twitter.

Seeing that I speak the language (“praat die taal”), I decided to play around with it a bit:

Toeter Timeline

The timeline works just like any other social media platform: it’s your homepage and where you get all your news. The Toeter platform is pretty straight forward. You will find the basic follower count, along with brands or people that Toeter recommends you follow. Along with posts shared by others you follow. The first person who I followed was @Kaapstadkind — clearly the most famous account on Toeter. However, if you join I recommend you follow the guru @toeterbek — they’re like the info hub of Toeter.

You will also find a series of popular hashtags to use like #snaaks #MusiekFabriek and #kyknet. In the top right-hand corner there is a search functionality and “write a post” button essentially making Toeter like every other social network out there.

Send that Toet

This is the same as writing a tweet on Twitter. You have 140 characters to “sê iets” (say something). If you want to post your status update/message, better known as a Toet, you click on “deel,” or if you want to discard the status you click on “nee wat”.

The platform is very easy to grasp, I think even my mom would manage to send a toet. You can also use the popular hashtags in your toet and mention other Toeter users.

My Profile

Like any other social media platform, you have the opportunity to create a profile. Add your avatar and cover image, but note there is a downside. Toeter doesn’t have fancy tools like Facebook to scale or crop your photo to fit perfectly. The photo needs to fit in the exact dimensions, or you run the risk of having your profile picture looking like mine, lame. The side bar shows your follower count and the amount of toette you have sent.

Below the cover image you will find three different tabs: “Ek hoor my naam”, “My toete”, “Kennisgewings”. These are different, and smaller, timelines on each individual’s profile that illuminate when someone has mentioned you in a toet, allows you to look at your own toette, and check out notifications. You will be notified when someone mentions you or if you have new followers.

Toeter focuses on being a user-friendly, clean and clear outline of the timeline and your profile. It feels really refreshing to look at your profile and not see a weird Facebook ad on the right-hand side. However, I wish there would’ve been a selected colour background option instead of just plain white.

Toeter summed up

I have signed up for another social media network, check! I speak Afrikaans, check! I need to gain more followers, err?!

I am sure it is not an easy task to launch another social media platform in today’s overcrowded digital world. Overall, I feel that a lot of the functionality is too similar to Twitter. If creating an Afrikaans version of Twitter is what they had in mind, then Mission accomplished. I would have liked to see something new or different. However, I’m sure there will be more development taking place to improve Toeter.

If you speak or understand Afrikaans, would you join? Let us know in the comments below.