Often when something goes wrong with Twitter, users immediately think their account was hacked. After a while, it becomes clear that it wasn’t. First of all, it is important to remember that things often go wrong with Twitter. Sometimes Tweets and Direct Messages won’t send, retweeting won’t work, and things just disappear. That is simply [...]

You are going to receive this Direct Message (DM) sooner or later. Perhaps you will also meet its cousin, “Hey this person is spreading horrible rumors around about you!” People immediately think the account sending this is spam or hacked. More likely, the sender just happened to authorize a bad application. Each time you use [...]

@uniteblue @trendingblue @140elect 140elect.com/2012-twitter-p… — What Spam Looks Like (@LooksLikeSpam) February 11, 2013 Twitter works hard to detect accounts promoting a product by @mentioning everyone. You’ve seen it. Somebody with only a few followers sends an endless series of nearly identical tweets, likely with a link lacking explanatory text. That’s why sending too many @mentions [...]

So you reached that hidden Twitter error after 2000 perfectly okay follows. Here’s the problem: You can’t follow more than 2000 users on Twitter until you have over 1800 followers. Afterwards, you can follow 10% more users than follow you. If you hit the 2,000 limit, unfollow some and then you can follow more. Just [...]

Most spammers on Twitter have to repeatedly create accounts after they get suspended. Since the accounts are always new they have relatively few followers. For this reason, Twitter’s algorithms that detect spam are more sensitive to accounts with fewer followers. {“dataSourceUrl”:”//docs.google.com/spreadsheet/tq?key=0AsaTchldKV-JdEpfWG0zSThJTmV2NmZxNTBFc2l5Y3c&transpose=0&headers=0&range=A1%3AT100&gid=0&pub=1″,”options”:{“vAxes”:[{"useFormatFromData":true,"title":"Total Followers","minValue":null,"viewWindow":{"min":null,"max":null},"maxValue":null},{"useFormatFromData":true,"minValue":null,"viewWindow":{"min":null,"max":null},"maxValue":null}],”titleTextStyle”:{“bold”:true,”color”:”#000″,”fontSize”:16},”booleanRole”:”certainty”,”title”:”Total Followers of Suspended Accounts”,”animation”:{“duration”:500},”legend”:”none”,”hAxis”:{“useFormatFromData”:true,”title”:”",”minValue”:null,”viewWindowMode”:null,”viewWindow”:null,”maxValue”:null},”isStacked”:false,”width”:670,”height”:320},”state”:{},”view”:{“columns”:[{"calc":"emptyString","type":"string","sourceColumn":0},0]},”chartType”:”ColumnChart”,”chartName”:”Chart 1″} All 24 Currently UniteBlue Accounts Suspended – 2/27/13 [...]

Want to Direct Message (DM) a few people, but not sure where to begin? SocialBro can help you find and DM your most influential followers. Remember, you can only DM followers, up to 250 per day. Here’s how in five steps: 1. Create an account at Social Bro: www.socialbro.com/trial/new Create your account –> go to [...]

Hey #TGDN, here’s a #TwitterGulag account. Spam-block: @carolebobarrel — Todd Kincannon (@ToddKincannon) January 13, 2013 Twitter makes it easy to report accounts for spam. When enough users report an account, it automatically gets suspended. Some users abuse this feature by organizing a group to report or “spam-block” a single account in order to get it [...]

Hash-tags trend on Twitter when something new suddenly explodes. Now that you have a new tag and set time, let’s lay the groundwork for an explosion. Direct Message (DM) the tag and time to everyone you trust. Include “pass on in DM” or “share through DM only” in the message so everyone will get the [...]

Our last post revealed Twitter Trends get excited when something new suddenly explodes. For a new tag to appear suddenly, a large number of people must agree to start tweeting together at a certain time, and not before. That is a “Twitterbomb.” The next few posts will teach you how to bring that group together. [...]

#DoItForGabby trending number 4 in the US uniteblue.com/doitforgabby/ — Breaking News Trends (@TrendingBlue) January 14, 2013 Want to make a hash-tag trend on Twitter? The next few posts will teach you how. Your first step is to create a new hash-tag you want to trend. Already have one? Has it been used on Twitter before? [...]

People like co-opting tags more than they enjoy using them as originally intended. It seems the headline “Republicans co-opted Democrats’ tag #…….” happens every week, or the opposite. This isn’t really news so much as a basic matter of affairs in Twitter politics. Your tag can and will be used against you. It costs a [...]

@ameer1534 Trust me asshole. I would see that you NEVER got near my wife. Watch your scumbag mouth punk. You fucking with the WRONG person. — Dave B. (@noway90) August 29, 2012 @ameer1534 @140elect Ridiculous is one thing, threatening a woman with rape is another.Not OK. — M.K. Hajdin (@mkhajdin) September 1, 2012 Welcome to [...]

I’m honored to join @mittromney on America’s Comeback Team. mi.tt/Romney-Ryan #RomneyRyan2012 — Paul Ryan (@PaulRyanVP) August 11, 2012 Mitt Romney’s campaign revealed a new Twitter account for Paul Ryan today, and it has already broken 60,000 followers. Romney gained 1,688 new followers the day he launched his presidential campaign, and never received this many (excluding [...]

I created the parody account @MittRmoney last January, and it seems Romney’s campaign is finally responding. I noticed the above tweet promoted in my mention stream yesterday when checking TweetDeck, and found the same results on Twitter Search and Twitter’s mobile app. This simply means they added “MittRmoney” to the list of keywords for their [...]

.@messina2012, check this out bro, we raised north of $100 million in June.I’m assuming u & Axe will need beers 2night bro — Rick Wiley (@rick_wiley) July 5, 2012 Twitter sprouted into life when @Jack Dorsey described for his colleagues a service that uses text messages to tell small groups what you are doing. While [...]

Thanks to all of my 60k+ followers on Twitter! I am honored by all of your support! #FF @ConTeach @JamesHWilliams — Herman Cain (@THEHermanCain) August 19, 2011 Every Friday on Twitter users suggest other people to follow. The funny thing is, about 90% of people don’t respond or use “Follow Friday” to add followers. It [...]

Analyzing over 32,000 tweets sent by presidential candidates since January 1, 2011 reveals the below trend. All times are based on Eastern Standard. To the dismay of bosses everywhere, people are most actively retweeting political events during (and shortly after) working hours. If a great idea comes to you late at night, save it and [...]

Any good marketer knows not to send material that will arrive on Monday or Friday. Everyone plays catch-up on Monday and new material gets easily lost. By Friday people just want to finish what’s on their plate, plan on dealing with anything new on Monday, which they then forget. Average Daily Retweets for Presidential Candidates [...]

Political campaigns are beginning to learn that Twitter has a memory, and anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of public opinion. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. While every day is new in politics, most fundamental messaging has persistent value. An attack that works one day may well [...]

Did u participate in my Twitter town hall? Check out my @Storify of the event to see if your tweet was included bit.ly/MlIhc3 — Senator Kay Hagan (@SenatorHagan) June 6, 2012 Twitter town halls are all the rage this election. An endless stream of presidential and congressional candidates have tried variations on a theme. Many [...]

Parody accounts are nothing new to Twitter, but they are making their way into offical campaigns. Mitt Romney launched parodies of Joe Biden and Debbie Wasserman Schultz last April, with the purpose of attacking President Obama using their quotes from 2008. Today, Romney’s campaign made a little stir by creating a parody for Bill Clinton, [...]

Video: tout.com/m/jie3sv #Solyndra(@ Solyndra) 4sq.com/JPLLct — Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) May 31, 2012 Mitt Romney sent the above gem after his surprise visit to Solyndra today. While the 102 retweets it garnered may sound good, that is merely 23% of his weekly average. In fact, this message got fewer retweets than anything @MittRomney has sent since [...]

#Amercia is one reason why the Romney campaign needs a new copy editor. Here’s another: twitter.com/hanseldee/stat… — Han Nguyen (@hanseldee) May 30, 2012 Mitt Romney finally secured the Republican nomination for president after six years of persistent campaigning, only to have the news cycle overshadowed by a silly typo in his new mobile app. To [...]

You probably missed it, but President Obama held a mini Twitter town hall yesterday. He managed to break many of the rules I’ve posted so far, squeezing too many ideas into single tweets or spreading single ideas across multiple tweets. I’ll forgive him this once for not reading my blog. This was the first time [...]

Mitt Romney left Massachusetts with a 39% approval rating and 47th out of 50 states in job creation #OneTermGovernor Tweet Mitt Romney’s records as Governor are gone. He ordered staff to destroy computer drives after buying them for $100,000. Tweet Mitt Romney supports this tweet, unless you don’t like it, then he knows nothing about [...]

.@MittRomney Here’s a trip down memory lane: bitly.com/sdk8RE So what’s your position on citizenship for illegals again? (I oppose it.) — Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) November 23, 2011 If you’ve noticed users putting periods at the beginning of their tweets, it’s probably not a typo. In order to clean up users’ timelines, Twitter changed the way [...]

The below graph is derived from over 25,000 tweets sent by Presidential candidates over an eleven-month period. It shows the average number of retweets per tweet for each length from 0 to 140 characters. You’ll notice a dramatic drop-off in retweet count under 85 and over 130 characters, with a real sweet spot around 120-130. [...]

I love Colorado’s Western Slope! Great turnout this morning. ow.ly/i/rBxS #COGop — Rick Santorum (@RickSantorum) February 4, 2012 Senator Rick Santorum’s campaign never quite figured out Twitter is not Facebook. While Facebook is great for status-updates, Twitter is a unique platform that enables far more virality and engagement. Twitter increasingly performs like a real-time newswire, [...]

Great debate. About to be on #Hannity. Please help me for final Ames Straw Poll push & give what you can here bit.ly/p0E4lk #iacaucus — Tim Pawlenty (@timpawlenty) August 12, 2011 Governor Tim Pawlenty’s campaign never quite had the time to figure out how to use Twitter, so they are a great resource for what [...]

To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy. — Jon Huntsman (@JonHuntsman) August 18, 2011 Governor Jon Huntsman still claims the most shared tweet ever sent by a Republican presidential candidate, racking in over 4,900 retweets. The result? A 55% increase in new followers and incredible mainstream [...]

Twitter epitomizes all that is right in America: transparency, dialogue, and an open forum for citizen debate. God bless social media. — Gov. Buddy Roemer (@BuddyRoemer) October 11, 2011 With Twitter spurring political upheavals across the globe, it’s become clear this new medium for mass social communication will fundamentally alter the political process in the [...]