How to Avoid the Twitter Slap

Have you heard of the "Twitter Slap?" Recently hundreds of thousands of Twitter users had their accounts shut down. And the Twitter Slap is expected to be an on going process, as Twitter aggressively monitors it's users to weed out spammers and abusers. Twitter marketing is an outstanding method of increasing your business reach and influence, but if you abuse it, Twitter will shut you down.

Are you at risk of a Twitter slap? You could be if:

1. You follow too many people too quickly. Although Twitter doesn't advertise exactly how many people is too many in a given period of time, we know that they don't like bots and automated software aggressively adding followers to accounts. That doesn't mean you can't use automated systems to add followers, but they can't be too aggressive. The key is to add followers in a more natural way. For example, if you use software to add followers, and there isn't any criteria in place as to keywords or interests, the software can add 1,000 followers very quickly. This puts you at risk, and isn't an effective strategy anyway.

As a responsible social marketer, you should focus on adding followers who are actually interested in your offerings, using targeted keywords. This limits the amount of people that will be added at any one time.

2. You unfollow too many people too quickly. Again, we don't know the exact numbers, but it's common practice to systematically unfollow people that don't follow you. If this is a technique you use, don't wait too long before un-following. It's better to trim small numbers on a regular basis than to chop hundreds, or thousands, in a single sitting.

3. You don't add consistent "tweets." Twitter doesn't appreciate users who aggressively follow others, yet don't add anything to the community. Make sure you are active, and posting valuable content.

4. You try to add more than 1,000 people in one day. This one is firm. Twitter doesn't allow more than 1,000 a day, and if you are using Twitter responsibly you shouldn't even be close to that many in a single day. Focus on quality, not quantity.

Twitter can be a great business tool, and Twitters terms and conditions allow for business use, but if you cross the line and use it a a spam machine, instead of a valuable business communication tool, you are at a high risk of losing your account.