Busted For Violating Twitter Rules!

That was absolutely NOT funny! I tried to update my Twitter stream last week and found out that my account was suspended for violating the Twitter Rules.

What? Me? Busted for breaking (any kind of) rules? No way!

Okay, so maybe my halo got a bit tarnished over the years. But most of the time, whenever I did something wrong it was totally unintentional.

All my life I’ve been trying to live by the rules, not break them. Gosh, my kids even tease me because I don’t even cut the tags off of pillows. (You know the ones that say …”Do Not Remove Under Penalty of Law!” …or something like that.)

But it was true. I indeed, although unknowingly, had done something I shouldn’t have.

Bummer! Seems like…

 Twitter doesn’t kid around if you break the Twitter Rules.

There was no warning and there is no “3 strikes and you’re out” either. You mess up ONCE and you’re outta there!

You will…“Go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.”

So what happened?

According to “TheCaptain,” who kindly responded to my plea to please release me from Twitter Jail (I don’t look good in stripes)  and let me have my account back …

>>>“It appears you might have signed up for some third-party services which are posting affiliate links through your account. The Automation Rules & Best Practices page has more information about our policies surrounding affiliate advertising.”<<<

Huh? Really? Wow!

Though yes, I was guilty as charged!

I admit, I had used third-party services (such as HootSuite and SocialOomph) to automate posting and I had thrown in an occasional affiliate link here and there. However, I had no idea that this would violate Twitter Rules.

In the meantime I have read the “Automation Rules and Best Practices” page three times and a lot of it is still a bit fuzzy or gets “lost in translation.”  As some of you may know, English is my second language and I continue to have trouble comprehending legalese.

So, if by chance, you are using third-party services to automate your posting on Twitter, you may want to go ahead and read this part of the Twitter Rules yourself. Just to make sure you are on the safe side and not at risk of getting your account suspended.

Trust me, I will definitely do my very best to keep out of trouble on Twitter from now on. Because the last thing I want to happen is to get my account suspended again. Or worse yet…terminated!

In the past I have always tried to live by the 80/20 rule and give 80% value compared to 20% of promotion. Maybe I should change that up a bit and go with the 90/10 rule instead. It can’t hurt to over-deliver on value. And…I will definitely be more careful with automation.

It probably wouldn’t hurt to read ALL of the Guidelines and Best Practices either to make darn sure I won’t be breaking any more Twitter Rules in the future.

What do you think?
To Your Success,

Ilka Flood
The Enlightened Networker

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