Every day, around 500 million tweets are published – not all of them are from human users. In fact, if you’ve ever retweeted a post on Twitter, chances are the message was generated by a bot rather than a real user. According to research, two-thirds of all Twitter links are shared by bots. As bots become increasingly prevalent on this popular social media network, it’s critical to grasp what a Twitter bot is. You may even be required to know how to create one. Because a bot can automate some or all of your Twitter activity, it can help you speed up your Twitter marketing strategy while saving you time. Let’s take a deeper look at what a Twitter bot is and what advantages it provides down below.

What is a Twitter bot?

A Twitter bot is an account that has been programmed to execute behaviors such as sending tweets at a certain time or following accounts. The Twitter API is used to construct and manage these bots. Twitter bots can help you develop an active presence on one of the most popular social media sites in less time by automating key operations. You can use a bot to schedule tweets to go out when you’re not online. Responses to new followers can be automated. You can retweet information that has a certain term or hashtag. You can follow or unfollow accounts, among other things.

How to make a Twitter bot?

1. Create a Twitter developer account

To begin, go to developer.twitter.com and sign in with an existing account or create one. (Whether you’re using an existing or new account, make it obvious in the bio that it’s a bot and who designed it.) You will not be able to develop an app right away. Instead, you must first apply for a developer account with Essential access. The application procedure is simple. Just supply some basic account information and describe how you want to use the Twitter API.

2. Develop a Twitter project and application

You’ll be led to your developer portal after you’ve verified your email. In your dashboard, click the +Create Project button.

You must give the following information: project name, use case, brief description, and app name.

You will then be provided an API key, an API secret key, and a Bearer token. Keep these in a secure place since you’ll need them later.

3. Adjust the Twitter app’s settings

Now, in the bottom right corner, click the App Settings option. Scroll down to the “User authentication settings” section. Click on Set Up. Toggle on OAuth 2.0 and 1.0a, then go down to the App Permissions section and pick the Read and write and Direct Message options. Finally, at the bottom of the page, provide a callback URI and website URL and click Save.

4. Create your access token as well as your secret access token

You’ll be routed to your project dashboard after saving the app permissions. Change to the Keys and Tokens tab from Settings. Click Generate next to Access Token and Secret. These will be required in the next steps.

5. Program your Twitter bot

You are now ready to program your bot! To begin, use the Twitter Bots app and sign in with your Google account, which is linked to your Twitter account. Fill in the input fields using the keys and tokens you obtained in previous steps. Then enter your search criteria. Your app will discover any fresh tweets that include the search keyword.  Finally, using the drop-down menu, choose the action you want your bot to do. Sending a public reply or private message, retweeting the tweet, following the account who tweeted it, and more options are available. If you select an option that requires predefined text, you can enter it in the “text” area to the right of the drop-down menu. After you save, your bot will be created and will operate in the background. 

What can the Twitter bots do?

A Twitter bot can perform a surprising number of functions. When configuring your bot, you can pick what you want it to perform from a list of actions in the drop-down menu. Here are some examples of potential functions:

Send a Public Response

If you choose this action, your bot will automatically react to each tweet that contains the terms you specify. You can configure the bot’s auto-response in the text area above.

Send a private message

This allows you to privately direct message (DM) individuals who have tweeted about something specific with a certain hashtag, have followed you, or meet some other criteria that you’ve put up.

Retweet Tweet 

This instructs your Twitter bot to automatically retweet any public tweets that contain the word, phrase, hashtag, or other parameter you’ve specified.

Quote Tweet

This action allows you to retweet a quote. As a reaction, your Twitter bot will retweet a public tweet that meets your specifications and add extra text above it.

Follow, Add to List

You can instruct your Twitter bot to follow a certain user or a specific profile. You may also configure it to look for specific persons and profiles that fit your criteria. Consider making a list of users who tweet about your company or favourite sports club, for example. The same may be said for public profiles. Consider compiling a list of employees who have your company’s name somewhere in their profile.

Conclusion

Twitter automation has grown in popularity among businesses and individuals for a variety of reasons. It saves you valuable time, assists you in building a relevant community, improves your Twitter engagement, and allows you to focus on more creative areas of your social media presence. You can program your Twitter bot to perform useful tasks such as welcoming a new follower with a direct message, following an account with relevant hashtags, and more. It will assist you in reducing the cost of your marketing initiatives while producing excellent results! Whatever method you use to program your Twitter bot, make sure to carefully follow the procedures outlined above and experiment with different actions.