Important Changes in Twitter’s Policy Regarding Automation and Posting Similar Content

As part of Twitter’s efforts to stop spam and make the platform a better place with meaningful conversations, they have announced some rule changes that are going to affect

all social media posting and automation tools.

Although this change may seem disruptive at first but in the long run, this will give Twitter the boost to see more authentic content, genuine conversations, and better user engagement.

This change will take effect on March 23rd, 2018. So any identical tweets published to the same or different Twitter accounts after this date will be disallowed. And any tool providing such feature will be banned.

Here’s what you need to know:

Taken from Twitter’s official update, there are mainly 3 core changes.

1. Do not (and do not allow your users to) simultaneously post identical or substantially similar content to multiple accounts. For example, your service should not permit a user to select several accounts they control from which to publish a given Tweet.

2. Do not (and do not allow your users to) simultaneously perform actions such as Likes, Retweets, or follows from multiple accounts. For example, your service should not permit a user to select several accounts they control to follow a specified account.

3. The use of any form of automation (including scheduling) to post identical or substantially similar content, or to perform actions such as Likes or Retweets, across many accounts that have authorized your app (whether or not you created or directly control those accounts) is not permitted. For example, applications that coordinate activity across multiple accounts to simultaneously post Tweets with a specific hashtag (e.g. in an attempt to cause that topic to trend) are prohibited.

Changes to ContentStudio:

In order to comply with the latest Twitter changes, we are releasing an update on March 22nd, 2018 at 5:00 PM PST. So, make sure to check your account after the update and take necessary actions to enjoy uninterrupted posting.

Here’s how it is going to affect Twitter posting…

1. Posting same content to multiple Twitter accounts is not allowed anymore. So, you will not be able to select multiple Twitter accounts in any of the components (including Discovery, Composer, and Automation) for scheduling or publishing.
2. Posting same content, multiple times, on the same (or different) Twitter account is not allowed anymore.

If you are thinking that post repeating, recycling or evergreen posting is no longer allowed on Twitter, I am afraid to say that you are correct.

However, this is not going to affect any other social network like Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest or Tumblr.

How we are going to handle this in ContentStudio

We are trying to make it as smooth as possible to enforce these changes with minimal work on your side but you’ll still have to adjust some of your campaigns and posts according to your needs.

• Groups can’t have multiple Twitter accounts so if you have multiple Twitter accounts in any group, only the first Twitter account will be selected as default and used for posting and all the other Twitter accounts will be ignored. So, if you want to change the Twitter account in the group, you should edit the group settings.
• Evergreen campaigns will keep running and content will be posted on all social media networks except Twitter. You don’t need to make any changes in your existing Evergreen campaigns because Twitter posts will be ignored. If your evergreen campaign contains only Twitter account(s) and no other social media network, it will be paused automatically. New evergreen campaigns will not allow Twitter accounts to be selected.Note: We are working on some exciting new features (100% TOS friendly) to make it possible to enjoy evergreen posting or content recycling on Twitter.
• In your existing Automation campaigns, if you have multiple Twitter accounts selected, only the first Twitter account will be used for posting and all the other Twitter accounts will be ignored. So, if you want to choose a different Twitter account for any campaign, please edit the campaign and select the Twitter account you want.
• If you have already scheduled any posts with multiple Twitter accounts selected, it will be posted only on the first Twitter account and rest of the Twitter accounts will be ignored. So, if you want to choose a different Twitter account, please edit the posts and select the Twitter account you want.
• Any existing posts that are set to repeat will not be published.

We recommend you to login to your ContentStudio account, go to the Planner area and review all the posts that are scheduled to go out after 23rd March, 2018.

Apart from these changes, we are working on bringing new features to help you get the most out of Twitter without violating their rules and TOS. Stay tuned for updates!

This change may seem a bit uncomfortable and it may disturb your current workflow. But, looking at the bigger picture, this will help prevent spam and Twitter will definitely become a better place for viewing authentic content and news.

What is your opinion on the recent Twitter changes? Let us know in the comments, along with any questions or feedback you might have!