Automation Rules and Best Practices

We’re constantly amazed by the applications and services that grow up around the Twitter platform. External developers have created tools and applications enabling an incredible array of uses; we've seen Twitter accounts that help people stay updated on their city’s emergency services, connect to national health alerts, and catch up on the happenings of their local bridge.
Most users will not need to review this document; however, some people are keen on automation. Unfortunately, spammers have also taken advantage of automation, to the frustration of genuine users. This page has information on what account automations are allowed and which ones could get your account filtered from search or even suspended or terminated.

How Automation Works

In order for an outside party to post to your account or perform other account actions (like following), you have to grant them access by either establishing a Twitter Connection or by giving them your username and password. Please see our help page on Connecting to Third-Party Applications for information on the difference, and how to revoke access for each method.
Ultimately, you are responsible for the updates to your timeline and the actions of your account, which means you shouldn't give control of your account to a third-party unless you've thoroughly investigated the application. If you decide to automate any account actions, you will need to manage your automations carefully to avoid violating the Twitter Rules. Violating these rules may result in account suspension or termination, or your account being filtered from search, regardless of whether you performed the violation manually, or allowed an automation to do so!

Automating your Tweets

Automating Your Tweets Based on an Action You've Completed

Maybe you want to post to your Twitter timeline whenever you upload a video to YouTube, create a new photo album, or beat a high score in your favorite game? Sounds great! It’s generally fine to update your Twitter account when you complete a particular action. Just be careful—if you post similar updates too frequently, your followers might get a little bored!

Automating Your Tweets by Streaming External Information

If you want to automate your account with a feed from your personal blog or updates from your RSS feed, please consider the following:

• Feeds of your own blog: It’s generally fine to automate your account with updates of your own content; just be sure to review the Twitter Rules before setting up your automation.
• Feeds that go through redirects or ad pages: If you're posting automated links that redirect through landing or ad pages before the final content, your account may be suspended for posting misleading links, a violation of the Twitter Rules.
• Feeds for community benefit: We welcome feeds that are used for community benefit or provide non-commercial information to a niche group of users, such as local weather feeds or transit information.

Automatically Tweeting to Trending Topics

Trending topics are the most tweeted-about topics on Twitter. Posting to current trending topics in an automated fashion can degrade the experience for other users, and may result in your account being automatically filtered from search. If this happens, your followers will still see your tweets but you won't show in search results.
Automating your tweets to include references to unrelated trending topics will result in account suspension.

Mass-creating Automated Accounts

There are legitimate reasons why users may have multiple accounts. Creating serial or bulk accounts with overlapping use, however, is prohibited. Please file a support ticket if you have questions on appropriate use. Include the list of accounts and your planned use of each account; accounts with overlapping use cases are generally not approved.
We have allowed multiple, automated accounts for community benefit. For example, Twitter users can now find out when the Hubble passes overhead, whether they’re in San Francisco or Hong Kong. Such accounts are generally filtered from search results as they often post similar updates across multiple accounts. Users operating serial accounts must maintain them within the Twitter Rules, and violations may result in permanent suspension of all related accounts.

Automated Advertising Updates

We are continuing to consider the issue of advertising on the Twitter platform. We're committed to encouraging and supporting individuals and businesses who want to discuss and promote the products they care about. At the same time, we’ve also seen an increase in the number of fully-automated, spam accounts promoting affiliate offers. These accounts use automated following, automated @replying, and serial account creation to spam other users with mass-created advertising. These behaviors are all prohibited by the Twitter Rules.
The guidelines in this section are meant to both reduce automated spam on Twitter, and provide guidance for users interested in including advertising for others in their timeline.

Automated or mass-created affiliate advertising is not permitted on Twitter.

Updates that are posted automatically to your account through a tool or third-party application, for which you are compensated (whether on a "per-click," "per-sale," "per-tweet," or other basis), are prohibited.
We’re still thinking about the full spectrum of advertising on Twitter; in the meantime, other forms of advertising and promotion are allowed, but subject to the rules in this document. The following forms of advertising are not prohibited:

• Promoting your own business or website.
• Tweeting unpaid consumer recommendations.
• Tweeting sponsored or compensated links and updates that you have manually posted or approved.

Your tweets may be sponsored by a third-party if you manually post or approve each sponsored tweet before it is posted. These updates may not be automated or scheduled in advance. The following rules also apply:

1. All sponsored or paid updates must be manually approved. You should either manually post these to your account, or individually approve the tweets to be posted to your account.
2. You shouldn't repeatedly post the same ad updates.
3. If you're using a third-party tool or application to approve and post your tweets, it must be an application with Twitter OAuth approval. Please see the FAQ below for more information.
4. You should disclose when you post a compensated or sponsored update.

Users combining advertising with other automations should be particularly careful to review the Twitter Rules and Follow Rules and Best Practices.
Finally, please do not attempt to circumvent our guidelines on automated advertising by creating lots of bot accounts that promote similar or duplicate websites (or websites with scraped content); these accounts may be permanently suspended or terminated.

Automating other Account Actions

When you’re automating account behaviors like @replies, mentions, DMs, and retweets, we recommend you follow a general guideline: be nice to other Twitter users. In general, we take a skeptical view of disingenuous social action. If your actions are annoying a bunch of Twitter users, you probably will want to rethink or adjust your automation. Here are some more specific guidelines.

Automated @Replies and Mentions

The @reply and Mention functions are intended to make communication between users easier, and automating these processes to place unsolicited messages into lots of users’ reply tabs is considered an abuse of feature. If you are automatically sending @reply messages or Mentions to a bunch of users, the recipients must request or approve this action in advance. For example, sending automated @replies based on keyword searches is not permitted.
Users should also have an easy way to opt-out of your service (in addition to the requirement that all users must opt-in before receiving the messages). We review blocks and reports of spam, so you’ll need to provide a clear way for users to stop your messages.

Automated Retweeting of Other Users

Retweeting someone means you think your followers should see their tweet. When you’re retweeting in an automated fashion, and especially based on an automated search or keyword, this becomes less true.
We discourage the automatic retweeting of other users based on a particular keyword and may suspend or terminate accounts that engage in this behavior, particularly if they are being frequently blocked and reported as spam by the users they are retweeting. If you are retweeting users just so they will see your update in their replies folder and look at your account, this is akin to @reply spam and your account may be suspended or terminated.

Automated Following and Un-Following

Twitter users often review the profiles and recent tweets of their new followers. Being followed in a bulk, automated fashion can make this process bothersome and makes Twitter a less fun place to hang out.
The only auto-following behavior Twitter allows is auto-follow-back (following a user after they have followed you). Automated un-following is also not permitted. If you find yourself frequently needing to un-follow large numbers of users, you might consider reviewing your criteria for following them. Please review our Follow Rules and Best Practices for a detailed discussion of following recommendations.
Also note that in the general Twitter Rules that "get followers fast" applications and services are not allowed. Do not surrender your username and password to them.

Automating Your DMs (Direct Messages)

Including an automated “thanks for following” message to your new followers might be annoying to some users. We do not recommend, but generally do not regulate, this behavior; if you receive a DM you don’t like, you can un-follow that user and they will no longer be able to send you messages.

Automation that Causes Your Account to Violate the Twitter Rules

If your account automation is causing your account to violate the Twitter Rules (by retweeting spam updates, repeatedly posting duplicate links, etc.), your account may be suspended or terminated. You are responsible for the updates on your account, so please do not add automations unless you are confident you will be able to manage your account within the rules.

Other Questions (FAQ)

What is an application with Twitter OAuth approval?

As discussed above, you may post manually-approved, compensated tweets through a third-party application with Twitter OAuth approval. If an application has OAuth approval, the following will be true

1. You allow the application access by approving their connection, not by giving out your username and password.
2. Once approved, you’ll be able to see and revoke the connection from your Applications tab.

When Tweets come from a third-party application, the name of the source is included to the right of the time-stamp, like this:

Updates posted using the general API without Twitter OAuth will instead say "from API” as the source. We do not allow advertising posted through general API applications. If you find your account posting ads such as these, please change your password and revoke unwanted connections. You can find more information, and a technical walk-through for allowing and revoking API access, the help page on Connecting to Third-Party Applications.