One of the biggest complaints we get from brands and individuals we are working with on twitter marketing strategies is their frustration with Twitter’s inherent Follow limits. Most are not even aware of Twitter API Limits and what this means to growing a Twitter Follower account.

Twitter has strict limitations on the number of Followers any account can add - this is to prevent spammers/unscrupulous types from rapidly growing accounts using  applications that facilitate Twitter marketing and/or manually abusing the system.

Twitter’s API Rate Limits reflect the following:

API Requests - only 150 per hour - “API” stands for Application Programmer Interface and in this instance refers to the number of requests sent by any application to Twitter’s Server.

Direct Messages: 250 per day rate limit.

Email Account Modifications: only four per hour.

Daily Following: This is a moving target but limited to just 1K Followers per day. Twitter is looking for aggressive Follower strategies that will in turn kick up a ref flag to them indicating you are being too aggressive.  Be aware, these limits have per hourly ratios assigned as well. These aren’t published by Twitter for obvious reasons; again, they are looking for patterns that are too aggressive and “abnormal.” “Churn” is the term you will most often hear from them.

Account Following: Once you hit a 2K Follower your account status is shifted by Twitter. This is different for each account and is partially based on the ratio of Followers to Following. If you hit this rate limit Twitter will notify you immediately - our recommendation for most clients is to add no more than 200 Followers per day. But, again, this is not a hard/fast Twitter Marketing Strategy - its driven by other factors as well: type of account, number and quality of Followers, account updates, etc.

Twitter Marketing Strategies:

1) Followers are critical to marketing success on Twitter - but, engagement and quality content trump any other Twitter marketing Strategy.

2) Clean out the Twitter deadwood - there are a ton of applications (web based) that let you see who is not Following you back or you can easily do this via Twitter’s platform. If they aren’t Following you back then delete the account, as this will help you maintain a good Follower to Following ratio. Also delete accounts that are following you but are not longer active on twitter.

3) Curate great content - meaning, share relevant news, blog posts, images, videos that will resonate with your Followers - this drives healthy account growth.

4) Think about off platform Twitter marketing; meaning, connect your Twitter account to other platforms and social networks including LinkedIn, Facebook, your web site/blog, Klout, PeerIndex, etc.

5) Practice Pay it Forward Marketing via Twitter and across the social web. Brands/people/groups on Twitter act like they have ADD and you will get frustrated at times with their lack of responsiveness - tenacity of purpose will win the day eventually.

That’s our quick take on Twitter Marketing Strategies - for deeper dive please dig into our web site and/or let us know via comments if you have any questions.