A couple of years ago I wrote some tips on staying out of Twitter jail and keeping your account from being hidden from Twitter search.
A quick reminder - Twitter allows you a total of 1,000 tweets a day. Any more than that, and your account is temporarily suspended, or as most of us refer to it, you go to Twitter jail, until enough time has passed for you to be into new "tweeting time" and have a fresh ration of tweets available to you. When I wrote the article above, your 1,000 tweets weren't necessarily spread over a whole 24 hour period - you could make up to 100 tweets in any given hour. That sounds like an awful lot, but if you are chatting to friends, entering competitions or taking part in a Twitter party those tweets can soon add up to a LOT!
The other day, I was awake early in the morning and decided to have a really concentrated comping session before the rest of my friends woke up and got annoyed by my stream of tweets. All of a sudden, a message flashed up on my screen; "You may not be allowed to perform this operation". I thought it was a mistake, so I tried again with a different tweet, and then another and another...... then I noticed there was a link to further information in the message, and followed it to this Twitter help page .... I was in jail!
I counted up my tweets - around 40 in the space of half an hour. Nowhere near the hundred mark which I always try to keep below. But when I checked the page, the mention of hourly limits had gone. Now it says the 1,000 tweets are broken down into semi-hourly intervals. That means that now, just 21 - yes, TWENTY ONE - tweets in half an hour, can land you in Twitter jail. And the cruel thing is, it can be several hours before your account is freed up and you can tweet again.
Tweeting more than 21 times in half an hour won't necessarily land you in jail, but if you are unlucky, it CAN, so do be careful. You don't want to find yourself having an important tweet to send and be prevented from sending it for several hours. And compers, you don't want to miss valuable comping time or the opportunity to reply to a winning tweet, do you?
Helpfu tipd Thank you x
ReplyDeleteVery helpful Jane as this has been happening to me recently! And only after 20 or so Tweets. Now I know why! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThank for letting us know! I have also notice that yo can stay in jail for longer too :(
ReplyDeleteJane, Thanks for this but I came out of Twitter a few weeks ago. I didn't really get the hang of it.
ReplyDeleteSylvia
Thanks for this hun, first time i have been in twitter jail, i feel so naughty :P
ReplyDeleteI felt terrible the first time it happened to me, as if I'd been caught doing something wicked. It's not nice, but it's no more of a "crime" really than being sent to jail in Monopoly.
Deletewow no wonder I keep getting in jail, I couldnt understand why it was happening after a few tweets and I always comp late, so it means that I cant do anything until the following day,
ReplyDelete