Summary advice:
- New Users: Only follow a handful of people in an hour, eg. 30 to 70
- Established Users: You can follow more if you have built up trust.
- Locked Users: Unlock your account and lower your activity level.
- Multiple Accounts: Reduce your following in each account.
Over recent months twitter has become more vigilant in policing the actions of its users. In the past they were very relaxed about what users could do. You could follow thousands of people without issue, but today it is a different story. Today, if you overstep certain thresholds your account may become temporarily locked and you will have to unlock it.
Twitter has taken steps to improve the quality of the platform, it's user base, and the connections that are made between users. We welcome these changes because we feel that they reinforce the approach that twiends has always had to building connections.
Being Locked
Having a locked account is not the end of the world, but it does mean that you need to verify yourself with twitter. This usually involves giving them your phone number so that they can send you a verification code. Being locked is temporary, and your account should return to normal once you have unlocked it. It is a protection mechanism that twitter is using to clear out the bad guys, such as spammers. If you are not a bad guy and twitter can see that your account is real, then you will be unlocked.
There are a number of things that can cause your account to become locked. For example, if your account is very new and you follow a lot of people very quickly then you may become locked. Twitter does not publish the reasons and thresholds for locking an account, but it is generally done when they feel there may be an issue with an account. The newer an account is the greater the risk for them.
New Accounts
Twitter wants to make sure that you are real when your account is new. They don't need to know your real identity, but they do want to make sure you are a real person and not a bot. The easiest way for them to do this is by getting your phone number. Once they know you are real then they will give you a lot more freedom on the platform.
When you first create your account on twitter make sure you do all of the following:
- Add your phone number and verify it.
- Add your email address and verify it.
- Add a real photo, bio, and location.
- Start building a good timeline of tweets.
- Only follow a handful of people in an hour.
- Basically, be real!
Established Accounts
If you have been around the block a few times then you'll have a bit more leeway. The reason for this is that twitter will see more signals that your account it real - bots don't tend to become long-term users. They will still want to be sure though, so make sure you have added your phone number and email and have verified them.
It is hard to put a number on how many people you can follow with an older account. It is dependent on many factors, such as the size of your follower base, the characteristics of your timeline, your account age, etc. Generally we recommend not following more than 50 - 100 people in an hour (although this is only based on what we observe at the moment). You may be able to repeat this a few times throughout the day if you have enough time to commit to the process. It is always better to spread your activity out over the whole day. Remember that you are trying to connect with others, so smaller numbers are probably more manageable in order to achieve that.
Use your own experience and judgement. If this is a part-time activity for you, then a handful of follows each day is a good scalable way to connect with others. If you are a full-timer then a handful every hour may work for you. Twitter's guidance is that you should be following people whose tweets you want to receive. At present they are still comfortable with a fairly high amount of daily following, but they may change their stance in the future.
Are you burnt?
If your account has been locked before (for any reason) then you may have to reduce your activity further. They do appear to lower their locking thresholds based on prior locks - although this is hard to verify. So if you've been locked before then reduce your activity to a much lower level when connecting with others. You can gradually increase your effort over time.
Multiple Accounts
If you manage multiple accounts then you may need to adjust what you do going forward. Twitter is naturally suspicious of accounts that may not be your primary account. Their number one goal is to stop people from creating fake serial accounts. Fake serial accounts are a headache for everyone - they generally add no value to the twitter eco-system, create a spam problem, and make it hard to distinguish real accounts.
Even if you manage multiple legitimate and real accounts, twitter may think that your accounts are serial fake accounts. The number one indicator of this is your IP address. IP addresses are tracked and any behaviour associated with an IP address can affect the thresholds they apply to other accounts using the same IP address. So, if you have a locked account and then try and follow someone with one of your other accounts, then it's allowed threshold may be substantially reduced. You may be able to follow a few hundred people with your primary account, but your secondary account may not even be able to follow 20 people. It's very dynamic and the thresholds tighten the more suspicious they become of your IP address.
Why Is Twitter Doing This?
Twitter is making an honest attempt to clean up their network. They do not want to alienate their users, but they also have a responsibility to keep their platform safe. There have been a number of high-profile incidents of 'trolling', hate-speech, etc. They are under pressure to clean up the network and limit what the bad guys can do with it.
Facebook has been doing this for many years and so it is not surprising that twitter has started to implement these measures too. Ultimately, these steps will reduce the number of fake and dormant accounts on the platform, and this should lead to a better experience for all.
Is Following Others Bad?
No, of course not. Twitter still allows an account to follow up to 1000 new people in a day, but in practice you will be locked long before you reach that number. They just want to make sure that all of your follows are legitimate. They want you to follow others, and they want you to do it in a way that improves your own experience on twitter. They want you to receive tweets you are interested in, and find opportunities for discussion.
Things That Are Bad
Don't churn or spam others. Churning is when you follow and unfollow others repeatedly in order to get attention. Spamming involves sending lots of tweets that nobody really wants to see.
Summary
We think this is a positive step by twitter. It will make the platform safer and more valuable to all. It is time consuming to have to follow their approval steps, but once done you can be sure that the people you are connecting with have done the same.
In truth, we have not seen much impact on twiends. We have seen an increase in accounts being locked initially, but our users are able to verify themselves fairly easily too. This now gives us an opportunity to distinguish between good and bad accounts a little easier too. We feel that the connections being made on twiends now are even more valuable than before.
So, our advice is to go slow and build a few connections whenever you visit. Log in each day (or every few hours) and connect with a handful of people. Do this consistently over time for maximum results.
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