Twitter problems can be very frustrating.

There are far too many of them, far too often, and it’s unclear what you can do to get help. Many people start by asking their friends if they know what is going on, or what can be done.

But the craziest thing of all is that some things about Twitter support are exactly the opposite of what you’d expect!

I’m in my fifth year on Twitter now, and here are some of the crazy things I’ve discovered:

1. Don’t Send A Tweet If You Want Help.
2. The More Times You Ask For Help, The Less You Will Get.
3. Twitter Closes Support Requests Without Reading Them.
4. Twitter Breaks Things On Purpose!
5. Most Suspended Accounts Are Unsuspended If You Ask.
6. Twitter Will Remove Your Tweets From Search.

Ready to learn more?

Everyone knows that Twitter exists to let you send tweets, but what many people don’t know is that you shouldn’t send a tweet when you need help!

1. Don’t Tweet If You Want Help Buffer this

See If Twitter Is Already Fixing Things

Twitter doesn’t want you to tweet them when you have a problem!

What Twitter wants you to do is check to see if they’ve already written about your issue.

If your issue is serious (e.g. Twitter is down), start with the Twitter status page.

Otherwise, you’re most likely to find your issue on the “Something’s Not Working” page.

I personally also like to go to the Twitter Notifications list. And if  I’m feeling really geeky, I check user reports and API status.

Use The Support System

You can ask Twitter directly for help though. Just don’t do it with a tweet!

There’s a support system for that. However, many people have trouble finding the right page at Twitter’s help site.

To see all your options, go to http://bit.ly/twicket or to go directly to the main page to ask for help, go to http://bit.ly/TWICKET. (You should click those right now just so can see what Twitter puts there so you understand better what Twitter is trying to do.)

Also, if you follow @Support, you can send a DM to them (even though they don’t follow you back) and they may reply. No promises! But sometimes after a serious issue has been fixed for most users but is still affecting some users, @Support wants you to follow them and send them a DM about it.

2. The More Times You Ask For Help, The Less You Will Get Buffer this

So what happens if you use the support system (the http://bit.ly/twicket link) is that Twitter creates what it calls a “ticket” for you, and gives you a ticket number. And they send you an automated email. Find and save that email! Check your spam folder if you need to.

Tickets are handled in the order they are received, and can take days to get to (though often faster). But here’s the frustrating thing: If you create multiple tickets before Twitter gets to them, it responds only to the last one you created! So if you keep asking, you’ll keep going to the end of the line.

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Now of course, if your account has been suspended, and you’ve opened a ticket and haven’t heard back, it’s very tempting to open another one. Do NOT do this! It will only put you to the back of the line again.

What you need to do is respond to the automated email, because if you don’t…

3. Twitter Closes Support Requests Without Reading Them Buffer this

Someplace in the automated email Twitter sent you if you created a ticket, it says you must respond to that email or Twitter will close the ticket.

Twitter does this because it sends you a bunch of links for things to check out that might explain your problem in the email. They assume you will read those things, and if one of them explains your problem, they won’t need to follow up with you.

So you need to reply to that email if the information in those links doesn’t explain things for you!

Otherwise, Twitter will close your support request without ever reading it.

4. Twitter Breaks Things On Purpose! Buffer this

By far the craziest thing you will encounter is that Twitter breaks things on purpose.

Why?

Picture one of those old movies where the good guys are trying to take off in a rickety old plane, and the bad guys are hot on their tail. The problem is that the plane won’t take off, and they’re running out of runway. Somebody has to go in the back of the plane and start throwing things off so it won’t be so heavy and can take off.

This is what Twitter does when the service starts having problems. Instead of letting all of Twitter break down, they’ll start turning off small parts of it for some users. You might see the option to favorite or delete things disappear for a bit, for example. Or in more troublesome cases, they might turn off bigger parts of the service, such as they might not show you your replies, but still let you see all the tweets on your main timeline.

Twitter will also turn some things off when they’re troubleshooting, just as a test.

What things can Twitter turn off? Dozens and dozens of things.

In fact, many times it seems to me that some part of Twitter is turned off somewhere for somebody every day.

5. Most Suspended Accounts Are Unsuspended If You Ask Buffer this

First of all, if you get an email saying your account is suspended but you can still use it normally, it’s a SCAM! Don’t open any links in the email.

However, one day you might awaken to find your account doesn’t exist anymore. Then, if you have an email from Twitter saying your account was suspended, read it carefully!

Most likely you were using some kind of automated Twitter tool that got out of hand. Twitter will unsuspend your account if you promise not to make the same mistake again. Most commonly, it is a tool for following and unfollowing people. Stick to safe Twitter management tools like BufferApp! :)

If you can’t find an email (check your spam folder!) but your account has disappeared, you’ll need to open a support ticket. Depending on what you can access or not, there are different ways to do this.

Go to this article and scroll down to the “What to do: worst case scenarios” for all the different options for getting through to Twitter tech support after you can no longer login to your account

6. Twitter Will Remove Your Tweets From Search Buffer this

If Twitter feels your tweets aren’t high quality enough, it will remove them from search.

The first thing you need, according to Twitter, is “a complete name, username, and bio on your profile.” Without those, Twitter might decide not to show your tweets in search.

Next, you need to “to Tweet, retweet, and mention [other users]” regularly.

Finally, you have to NOT repeat things over and over to try and get them to trend. Twitter loves to remove those tweets from search, and won’t count lots of lame repeats of the same hashtag every few seconds anyway.

For things to trend, you need multiple users talking about them, not just some joker tweeting the same thing over and over.

Back To You

Are you having a Twitter problem that you haven’t been able to figure out you’d like help with? Did you know all these things? Have you ever had a problem getting help from Twitter? Leave a comment in the box below and let us know your story!

 

Dave