The number one complaint I hear from people who are trying to grow their Twitter following is that they can’t do it fast enough! They get frustrated when they hit Twitters API limits and can’t follow more people. You may ask what does Twitter API limits mean and how does this impact your ability to grow your following?
Twitter has set limits in place that follow a set of ratios of your “following” (those who you follow) to “followers” (those who follow you).
The reason that Twitter has these limits in place is to keep spammers in check. For example, if Twitter sees that you followed 1000 people in one day but only 100 of them are following you back then this raises a SPAM ALERT. The reason for all social media is to build connections and, if you are smart, relationships. When you are following more people than you are connecting with in this type of ratio, this is a red flag.
Building your Twitter follow does require some basic knowledge so that you won’t get flagged by Twitter as a spammer and/or lose your account for the same. If you see an advertisement that says they can get you thousands of followers in ONE day – RUN! Your goal should be to build a quality list of followers who you are interested in and who will be interested in you and your business in return.
What are the limits?
- Direct Messages: 250 per day.
- API Requests: 150 per hour.
- Updates: 1,000 per day. FYI Retweets are counted as updates.
- Changes to Account Email: 4 per hour.
- Daily Following: This is a technical limit imposed by Twitter. The official number is 1,000 per day. Here is a link to Twitter’s Follow Limits and Best Practices Page.
- Other Following Rules: Once your account is following 2,000 other Tweeters,following rules are dictated by account specific ratios. Hit the Follow Limits and Best Practices Page again for more info on this.
Now you know what the limits are and if you are continuing to have problems adding new followers, I suggest doing a little housekeeping.
Some Twitter Housekeeping Is The Answer
- Take 15 minutes a day and go through your list of those you follow. Do a quick scan of their bio and this will help determine if you want to keep the connection. If you don’t, click the “unfollow” button. This will help keep your ratios in balance.
- Look for people who are inactive on twitter that you may be following. If they haven’t tweeted in year, chances are you are not connecting with them on Twitter! What to do? Unfollow ‘em!
- Sometimes when using automated software you discover that you are connected with people who post inappropriate content or content that you do not wish to see for sure. Unfollow ‘em!
Once you have cleaned Twitter house this will allow you to add more followers. If you are active on Twitter, sharing good content and chatting with other tweeters then more people will be attracted to you and they will start to follow you. Your twitter following will really start to expand virally at this point.
Anyone have any great tips to share for growing your following on Twitter without hitting their API limits? Leave your tips in the comments section below. Love to hear from you!
About Kim
Great post, you've got some great tips here. I didn't realize there was a daily following limit! Then again, I've been adding people pretty slowly.
I think it's also important to mention that even though social media is a powerful marketing tool, you need to be able to combine it with other marketing efforts as well as a good knowledge base from a professional source like eMarketSchool.
They've got a great course on using Social media and their personal training coaches are really helpful.
You can read about them on their site:
http://www.eMarketSchool.com
I really like your idea of twitter "housekeeping"
Thanks for this great info Kim!! I have been one of those often frustrated by limits and having to wait patiently so the ideas you have given everyone here will be absolutely valuable for them .
Thank you Kim
great info
Oge
x
Thanks Kim for the great tips about Twitter and the follow limits. I have been hitting my head on the wall over this exact thing. I receive emails saying a person is following me, but then my numbers never change and I can not follow them back. So, just last week I spent the better part of the day cleaning house. Got rid of over 300 inactive followers and now I am twollowing again:)
Kim, I use a tool called Just Unfollow at http://www.justunfollow.com that links to my Twitter account and pulls up all the people who I follow but do not follow me back. I can then make the decision, based on their follow/non-follow ratios … for example, gurus who simply don't follow back but whose tweets I do want to receive. That allows me to manage my list manually, certainly more effectively than having a bot do automatic unfollows. (But then, I still personally decide on each person I follow so my list is extremely relevant to my niche, so it's worth my time.)
Great info, Kim! It takes time to build a Twitter account of value. Following 900 when you have 100 followers looks “desperate”. Following 100 when you have 900 followers isn’t realistic unless your a celebrity.
Part of the value you bring to your followers is having a consistent message, following people within your brand, and engaging them.
Really excellent post. Thank you for this. I had wondered about Twitter limits and how they could affect me in the future and this clarified the situation perfectly. Fortunately, I am in the habit of house cleaning every day and so do not have an issue with inappropriate followers. Lets hope I can keep it up
Yes, works but still slow and labor intensive.
Learned the hard way. Account temporarily suspended.
Started off following about 100 people – over the course of about 2 days. Ended up with about 36 followers.
Then I heard something about getting your ratio too high so I decided to un-follow everyone who had not already followed me back. But I made the mistake of just un-following everyone first – and then refollowing those who had followed me. (It was easier and faster to do it this way.)
Bang. Got busted by the next day. And had to fill out the walk of shame pledge.
So, now I guess I just have to slow down, but it really was working to drive traffic to my website.
Twitter is a huge traffic driver for sure!
Great info as always Kim!! So appreciate you!
Hi Kim, really useful info. One problem is that I like to follow the 'news-makers' and industry leaders but as they generally do not follow back the follower/following ratio is distorted. So, what I've started doing is to put all these people into lists, and in that way I can still follow their tweets easily without having to follow them. I just have to bring the list up to see what's going on. I've found this useful to keep the number of 'following' down.
That is exactly what I do and what I teach in Twitter Muscle
. It’s a great way to keep track of those that you want to monitor even if they don’t follow you back.
There are several tools to help you with the process of who to follow and not to follow. There are small monthly fees, but some services are available that are free. I have used socialoomph in the past and am currently using sprout social. Utilizing sprout social's discover tool, it recommends people I should stop following and those I should start following. It is very convenient. There are also many other benefits, but I don't work for them. I just thought it would be good to share this additional info.
@Evan_Gordon
@TheBigDealChi
@ESG_Enterprises
This was great advice and I appreciate your engagement in social media marketing! I feel most like people that we need to market our products but follow up and engage in conversations with our followers!
thank you everyone!
Mikey