This article examines how language is employed on Twitter by Belgian and Spanish politicians in the context of the 2014 European elections campaign. From a pragmatic perspective on language use, three interrelated aspects of political communication on Twitter are explored: (i) how political candidates adapt their language to Twitter's technological affordances; (ii) which linguistic strategies the politicians employ to express self-reference in function of various communicative aims and in relation to contextual factors like ideological profile or nationality; and (iii) how some of the image building and community building strategies can be interpreted as reflexive signs of metapragmatic awareness.