How Twitter API changes affect sweepstakes and monitoring

Since the end of April, Twitter has begun implementing changes to its API terms of use. The API is the one that allows external applications, such as Cool Tabs, to integrate with Twitter and access certain data from the profiles and content published on the social network.

These modifications affect the sweepstakes and monitoring that Cool Tabs can perform.

Here are the details of these changes.

1. Twitter Sweepstakes App.

With the Cool Tabs Twitter Sweepstakes app, you will be able to carry out the following sweepstakes on Twitter:

• Retweets: among all those who retweet one or more of your tweets.

Changes and limitations

• You can no longer run sweepstakes among followers.
• When choosing the winner, it is no longer possible to filter because the user is a follower of the account.
• The Twitter Sweepstakes app performs a random selection of all retweets to perform the sweepstakes.
• The retweets will have to be up to 7 days old. If the users' retweets exceed 7 days, they will not be included in the selection. 

Other specifications

• The Twitter Sweepstakes app is included in all paid plans of the platform. It is not available for the free trial.
• The use of the Twitter Sweepstakes app is limited to 4 monthly sweepstakes per Cool Tabs account.

2. Social Listening & Analytics tool.

2.1. Sweepstakes.

In addition, with the Social Listening & Analytics tool, you will be able to run the following sweepstakes on Twitter:

• Hashtags: among users who post a tweet with a specific hashtag.
• Retweets: if your tweet has a hashtag, you will be able to carry out the sweepstakes among users who retweet that publication.
• Replies: if your tweet has a hashtag, you will be able to do the sweepstakes among users who reply or comment on that publication.
• Mentions: among users who have posted a tweet, mentioning an account.

Unlike the Twitter Sweepstakes app, which selects winners by taking a random sample of participations, with the monitoring tool, you will be able to collect all the participation data (limited to 10,000 tweets/month).

2.2. Monitoring.

With the Social Listening & Analytics tool, you can continue monitoring hashtags, keywords, mentions, and Twitter profiles.

Changes and limitations

• Twitter monitoring is available on demand. If you want to include them in your plan, please contact us at help@cool-tabs.com.
• The limit of monitored content is 10,000 tweets per month.
• In a sweepstakes based on a hashtag, when choosing the winner it is not possible to filter because the user is a follower of the account.

Other specifications

• The Social Listening & Analytics tool has an additional cost.