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Let’s Connect on Twitter!

Obinna Anyaibe

My new Twitter account reminds me of a Spiderman action figure someone got me when I was a kid. I loved the toy so much that I went virtually everywhere with it. I loved it not just because it was a rare find at that time, but also because it was a replacement for another action figure that I had lost earlier on.

Unlike with the first action figure, I was very protective of this new one. I never allowed anyone to stare at it for too long, let alone touch it. I prized it just as much as Gollum prized the One Ring in the Lord of the Rings series. I suppose this is only natural.

After all, people tend to value something more when they lose it. And when they’re fortunate to find a replacement for that thing, they try as much as they can to hold on to it forever.

When Twitter permanently suspended two of my accounts, to say I was devastated would be the biggest understatement of the year. I was beyond furious. I swore never to open an account with them again nor to visit their site for any reason.

They had sent me an email saying I had violated one of their rules. And I had sent them several emails explaining to them that the only offense I was guilty of was not coming online for two months, and that that wasn’t even an offense to start with. In the end, they sent me this heartwarming email below.

And, yes, they were true to their word. I created five new accounts (with different emails) at different points in time after receiving this email, but each one of them got suspended few minutes after I created them.

November last year, however, out of sheer boredom and stubbornness, I decided to create another account. To my greatest surprise, the account lasted longer than twenty-four hours. Heck, it’s been nearly two months since its creation, and it’s still going strong. So I suppose it’s high time I stopped worrying the account will soon be suspended, and allow myself to believe that Twitter has finally forgiven me for their wrongdoing.

That said, please share your Twitter handle in the comments section if you have a Twitter account, as I’m looking forward to connecting with my readers and fellow bloggers on social media (starting with Twitter). You can find me at @obi_anyaibe.

Have you had a similarly sour experience with any social media platform? Feel free to share!

Published by Obinna Anyaibe

Obinna Anyaibe is the founder and editor-in-chief of Shards of Bards. His works revolve around dystopian and fantasy literature and the need to properly represent the African narrative in speculative fiction. Outside of work and studies, Obinna enjoys reading fiction, playing the guitar, and watching prank videos on YouTube.

37 thoughts on “Let’s Connect on Twitter!”

  1. 🙂 I am happy for you, Obinna.

    Unfortunately, I will not be connecting with you on Twitter because I deleted my Twitter account approximately one year ago.

    I do hope that you never get your Twitter account suspended again.

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    1. Oh, that’s all right, Renard. 😊
      I’m aware of your relationship with social media. I’m sorry you had to delete your account(s), but I feel like you’ve gotten past the stage of feeling remorse.

      Thank you! I hope this account last longer than its predecessors.

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      1. Hi Obinna

        Hope you’re keeping well. I’m not sure whether you remember me, I used to blog at WaywardScribbles. But recently I’ve launched my new website. It’ll mean a lot to me if you could pay a visit and share your thoughts on it.

        https://waywardscribbles.com/blog/

        Hoping to see you around. Thank you!

        Liked by 1 person

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        1. Hi, Nathi.

          I do remember you. And I apologise that it has taken me so long to reply you. I haven’t been myself lately, and so I took a break from WordPress.

          I’ll be more than happy to check out your new website. How has blogging been, by the way?

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            1. Thank you so much for understanding!

              Things are much better now, thank goodness. In fact, I should resume blogging this week, possibly even tomorrow. I fear that I’ve been away from the blogosphere for way too long.

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  2. @HughRoberts05

    I get loads of traffic to my blog from Twitter, so welcome back, Obinna. It’s a great place to connect with other writers and bloggers. I treat my Twitter account like I do my blog. There’s a great community on there but, like anywhere, beware of the trolls.

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    1. Thanks a bunch, Hugh. I aim to build honest relationships with other writers and bloggers there, and to enjoy all the benefits that come with the platform. And as for those trolls, I’m so ready for them.

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  3. I think we already follow each other, so it’s all good.
    I’m still nowhere near liking Twitter. It’s way too fast for me. People post a million times a day, retweet everything they see, etc.
    However, I was able to connect with some writers who are supportive and motivating. I am working on a plan and I think I will start posting more often soon. I will also have to make it a mission to build reciprocity in connections.

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    1. This sounds just like me. When I joined Twitter, I found everything a little ‘fast-paced,’ and I thought this made it exciting. I like exciting. But after a while I couldn’t keep up with all the activities, so I found it difficult to stay online for long.

      I’m also working on a strategy, and part of the process involves studying other people’s strategies/routines. So if you complete your plan soon and it eventually works, it might play a key role in helping me devise my own plan.

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      1. Right now I am leaning towards dedicating one day to Twitter. Pre-post Tweets for the week, reply to comments and messages and interact on other people’s Tweets. I think that would hurt my brain less than having to actually be on there every day.

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  4. @SaumyaBlogs

    I’m not much active on Twitter. I think I haven’t been able to figure out how can I find supportive bloggers. All I’ve been able to discover is stupid blog follow trains.

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    1. I can totally understand. It’s hard to differentiate between those bloggers who are only concerned about increasing their number of followers and those others who want to build genuine relationships with fellow bloggers. It’s one of the reasons why I’m very wary when it comes to following people. Like you, I so much detest follow trains. They seem so ‘dishonest,’ for lack of a better term.

      Lol, I love your Twitter bio.

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      1. Most of the people participating in them are the ones who are promoting brands. Influencers basically. I really don’t understand the follow for follow thing. I’ve given them a try with tags but never found anyone who’s got the worth to engage in a conversation.

        Thanks!

        Have you been able to find a community on Twitter?

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        1. Unfortunately, the answer is no. I haven’t found a community yet. Or at least I haven’t one that’s supportive. I’m tempted to start one, but I don’t think I have enough influence or the necessary knowledge to do that, so I suppose I’ll just have to keep looking.

          But, hey, if you manage to find a community of supportive bloggers before I do, please don’t hesitate to share with me!

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  5. I created five new accounts (with different emails) at different points in time after receiving this email, but each one of them got suspended few minutes after I created them.

    Colour me intrigued: Since you used different email addresses, I wonder how on Earth they connected them with you? Your IP address, maybe? Have you moved, or changed ISP, recently? If you have, that might explain how it is that your current Twitter account appears to remain untarnished.

    My twitter handle is @pendantry. But I haven’t spent much time on twitter at all in the last couple of years. Tweets seem to me to be mostly inane banter. But maybe I’ve just been hanging with the wrong crowd?

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    1. That’s EXACTLY how I thought they always got to know it was me opening a new account: my IP address. At some point, I considered downloading VPN because I’d heard that that was another way to go around Twitter’s watchful eye. But, in the end, that wasn’t necessary.

      I can’t really say that I moved, but I opened my current Twitter account in a different state from where I live — still within the country, though. I’m not really tech savvy, so I don’t know if one’s IP address changes when one travels to another state in the country. I used to think it doesn’t change.

      I’ve been away from Twitter for sometime now, but I can totally relate to what you said about tweets being mostly inane banter. I try to follow only hashtags and trends that I’m genuinely interested in, like the #WritingCommunity, for example.

      Thanks to you, I now have a good reason to open my Twitter app tonight. I look forward to a lasting, productive relationship with you here on WordPress and over there on Twitter.

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  6. I have just followed you on twitter.
    I absolutely love twitter and might possibly be addicted to it ha!
    I think I follow tonnes of people my timeline feed does not make any sense every time you blink there’s a million and one tweets

    But I have a come up with a fairly decent system, I created multiple lists so I can streamline what I see, I have lists for bloggers, authors, news or about specific people whose updates u would not want lost in the ocean of tweets.

    I am curious what you did to get banned in the first place? One of the bans I noticed twitter has, is if you post identical content on different Twiiter accounts you may end up marked as spam especially if you post via automated third party Autoschedulers.

    ~B
    You mentioned in one of the comments above about starting a community of Bloggers, well I am part of one you may have run into it or not but do check out @Afrobloggers

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    1. Hi, Beaton! I’ve just followed you on Twitter as well.

      Twitter used to be my favourite social media platform, but that changed after I lost both my accounts. I still don’t know why I was banned. I mean, I was offline for a long while, and when I came back online, GBAM! — ‘Your account has been suspended yada yada yada’.

      Although, now that I think about it, what you suggested may well be the reason I was banned. The tweets I posted on my personal account and on my blog’s account were usually similar (blog promotional tweets). And I OFTEN used third-party preschedulers, particularly Crowdfire. I haven’t done that with my new account, though, so maybe that’s why I can still boast of having a Twitter account.

      About your list of bloggers, maybe sometime you can recommend some good bloggers to me? I’d really appreciate it. In the meantime, I’ll check out that Twitter handle you recommended. Thank you so much for stopping by!

      Liked by 1 person

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      1. Twitter has a zero tolerance policy for what it deems as automated spam behaviour, and at some point they suspended Crowdfire from having access to post to twitter I am not sure if the suspension is currently lifted but a number of third party apps also lost the ability to post automated/scheduled tweets.
        So in the future think of twitter as having like an anti-plagiarism detector in it whereby if you share duplicate content on one or more accounts you may be flagged, so either Retweet old tweets instead of copying and pasting again or delete the earlier one first before reposting if you must use the exact tweet.

        I am sure yo can find some bloggers via the Afrobloggers twitter.
        Glad to have been of help.
        ~B

        Liked by 1 person

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        1. Oh, my! I wasn’t aware they’ve banned the use of Crowdfire and similar apps to schedule tweets. Thanks for the heads-up. I think I’ll just retweet old tweets as you suggested.

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  7. Hi Obinna

    Hope you’re keeping well. I’m not sure whether you remember me, I used to blog at WaywardScribbles. But recently I’ve launched my new website. It’ll mean a lot to me if you could pay a visit and share your thoughts on it.

    https://waywardscribbles.com/blog/

    Hoping to see you around. Thank you!

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    Reply

  8. Lol that’s crazy cos I also got more than 2 Twitter accounts and same goes for all the other platforms like Facebook and instagram but mine is so because I practically forgot the passwords for the first accounts and I can’t remember why I simply just opened another one instead of resetting their passwords

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    1. I’m sorry to hear about your accounts that you lost. I think I finally know why Twitter suspended my account: It wasn’t because I had multiple accounts. I was because I was always duplicating my tweets, which made it seem like I was a spammer.

      Anyway, for what it’s worth, I’ve learnt my lesson.

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  10. Hi Obinna, nice anology of the toy and twitter. Can’t share my twitter account as I hardly use it.
    Thanks and much appreciated for sharing

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Hi! Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post. Much appreciated.

      Just out of curiosity, is there a reason you don’t use your Twitter account very often?

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        2. Ugh! Tell me about it!

          I admit that Twitter’s ‘280 characters’ limit somehow makes me a better editor. But to be honest, the restriction is too . . . restricting.

          I also prefer writing blog posts. It gives me to express my thoughts and ideas in as many words as I want.

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