I recently decided to put more focus in my twitter account. In doing so, I researched some popular twitter apps to enhance the service. I came across twunfollow and use it almost daily. With it I can keep track of recent follows and unfollows. Love it!

Anyway, I’ve been noticing several of my followers were showing up not as “unfollowed you” but as “a user following you was deleted”. This really sparked my attention which actually isn’t hard to do since I’m a virgo:) Now I know you can delete your own twitter but I wanted to find out more about how you would be banned.

Since I hadn’t read the Twitter TOS since I signed up a couple years ago I thought I’d hop over there. I’m really glad I decided to take a second look because some of the rules I didn’t even know about!

The spam and abuse section really stood out to me. Here is how to get your twitter account banned for spam:

• If you have followed a large amount of users in a short amount of time;
• If you have followed and unfollowed people in a short time period, particularly by automated means (aggressive follower churn);
• If you repeatedly follow and unfollow people, whether to build followers or to garner more attention for your profile;
• If you have a small number of followers compared to the amount of people you are following;
• If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates;
• If you post misleading links;
• If a large number of people are blocking you;
• The number of spam complaints that have been filed against you;
• If you post duplicate content over multiple accounts or multiple duplicate updates on one account;
• If you post multiple unrelated updates to a topic using #;
• If you post multiple unrelated updates to a trending or popular topic;
• If you send large numbers of duplicate @replies;
• If you send large numbers of unsolicited @replies in an attempt to spam a service or link;
• If you add a large number of unrelated users to lists in an attempt to spam a service or link;
• If you repeatedly post other users’ Tweets as your own;
• If you have attempted to “sell” followers, particularly through tactics considered aggressive following or follower churn;
• Using or promoting third-party sites that claim to get you more followers (such as follower trains, sites promising “more followers fast,” or any other site that offers to automatically add followers to your account).

Of course there are many other rules you need to follow but I think more folks are spamming than they realize. Let me know if you have any suggestions on to make sure you follow twitter’s TOS.