5 Interesting Things I Learned about Twitter at SMX Advanced

Reflecting back on my Seattle trip early this week to attend SMX Advanced, the Twitter session and the amount of questions and discussions about Twitter overall stood out in my mind.

Even though I live and drink the social media Kool Aid daily, I learned a few things about Twitter that I thought I'd share in this post (in no particular order).

1. Twitter will ban your account for various reasons. One audience member claimed this could happen if you tweet a lot more links rather than real conversation messages. Or if you follow a lot of people in a short time period. Apparently, all of this makes Twitter think you're likely a Twitter spammer.
2. Several attendees had questions about how do you separate personal and business accounts if you have a very visible and successful Twitter company account managed by someone who could leave the company any day...and all that equity on Twitter goes out the door with him/her. For example, if Tony Hsieh left Zappos or if Frank left Comcast, what would happen to those accounts and their loyal followers? What should companies do to "protect" such a scenario? Interesting situation to think about...
   
3. Not all URL shorteners are created equal. Beware of those that don't do 301 redirects. Danny Sullivan wrote a great guide based on his in-depth evaluation of URL shorteners. His top suggestion? Bit.ly. Mine too.
   
4. On the subject of URL shorteners, I'm starting to think twice about clicking on a shortened URL from people I don't really know or trust since one has no idea where that link takes you. I might end up getting my computer hijacked!
   
5. Learned about Easytweets, a good tool for brands to manage multiple accounts at once, monitor mentions of your brand or other keywords continuously, and get alerts via SMS or email. I added them to my list of client recommendations for a good Twitter management tool.
   

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