How can we support franchise companies who need to post the same content to multiple Twitter accounts

[hamgav]

Hi there,

I wanted to enquire about this clause from the Twitter rules (https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311) regarding what constitutes spam:
“if you post duplicate content over multiple accounts or multiple duplicate updates on one account;”

What if a large franchise business or restaurant chain wants to post the same content to multiple Twitter accounts so that followers of different Twitter accounts will see the updates?

For example:
Starbucks Head Office may want to post the same tweet to 10 Starbucks Twitter accounts that each represent an individual store with the state of Texas informing followers about the hurricane.

Would this type of behaviour be seen as spam?

Thanks,

Gavin

[yoyoel]

Thanks for the question!

In general, the preferred behavior for the scenario you describe would be to post the informational Tweet from a single account, and retweet it from all the other accounts that you’d like to share that information.

[jasonn]

@yoyoel With the new automation rules, is this still the preferred approach for this scenario? (“post the informational Tweet from a single account, and retweet it from all the other accounts”)

[yoyoel]

Yes, per our blog post on the subject, retweets are the preferred behavior:

As an alternative to posting identical content, you can Retweet content from one account from the other accounts you wish to share that post from. This should only be done from a small number of distinct accounts that you directly control. Please note that bulk, aggressive, or very high-volume automated Retweeting is not permitted under the Automation Rules, and may be subject to enforcement actions.

[davepierpont]

I think hamgav brings up an important point, especially with the recent announcements. There are many of us working on behalf of brands that are in the franchisee/dealer model. These brands are looking to get their message out locally and at scale when managing across their respective network.

Could Twitter think about extending verified accounts to act as a whitelisting protocol? Maybe tools that tap APIs could also go through approval processes. This would help stop the main problem of bots and spam accounts as those could be under more scrutiny, while allowing legitimate businesses to continue to extend their content to (local) followers at scale. That also in time sets Twitter up to do more with distributed and local advertising capabilities, similar to other social media platforms.

Look forward to the communities thoughts.

Regards,
Dave