Brands and Twitter: The limits of following

Twitter has one of the strangest ways of limiting people to follow others. Thanks to Wade for sharing this information.

Birmingham Blogging Academy

Photo: Michael Dolan (CC)

Twitter is a pain. Sometimes, I think this channel does everything it can to be as unpopular as possible.

For instance, Twitter has a spambot problem, as automated accounts clog chats, hijack hashtags and blanket timelines with sales pitches and viruses.

But the solution is as bad as the problem.

I had no idea Twitter was limiting how many people I could follow. In theory, this keeps spambots from following everyone and inflating numbers and luring followbacks. But it punishes legitimate accounts, too.

My tactic for @YallConnect was to follow as many real people in the Southeast as possible. After following 2,001 users, I saw the warning message (shown above) that stopped me cold.

The linked policy from Twitter outlines all the following limits:

Once you’ve followed 2,000 users, there are limits to the number of additional users you can follow. This number is different for…

View original post 253 more words