Twitter gets a bad rap at times due to the negative experience many people seem to endure on the social media platform. However, there are ways to make Twitter better by cleaning up your account, your feed, and your followers.
This can be achieved by checking your settings to make sure you're utilizing all of the tools Twitter offers, unfollowing or muting the people you follow, and blocking the people who follow you. And in this article we'll show you how to do all of these things.
Why Your Twitter Needs a Spring Clean
You may not think your Twitter needs a spring clean, but you'd be wrong. There will be settings worth adjusting, accounts worth unfollowing, and people worth blocking. But you won't know until you start exploring your options rather than just blindly scrolling down your feed every few hours.
When it comes to your fellow Twitter users, you have the option to block, mute, or unfollow them, depending on whether you're following them or they're following you. You can also adjust your settings to make sure you're getting the Twitter experience you want. Here's how...
How to Clean Up Your Twitter Account
In order to clean up your Twitter account, you need to head into the Settings and Privacy menu.
This contains a lot of different options, such as downloading an archive of your data and deactivating your account. However, for the purposes of cleaning up your Twitter, you can set your account information such as your phone number and email address, change your password, manage your account's security, and change your notifications settings.
You should also use this opportunity to make sure your Twitter profile is exactly as you want it.
To do so, click Profile then Edit Profile. From here you can change your Name, Bio, and Location, and (optionally) add a website and/or your birth date. You can also add (or change) your profile picture and/or your banner image. The aim is to make sure your profile represents you in the way you want to be represented.
Once your settings and profile are as you want them, you should move onto cleaning up your Twitter feed.
How to Clean Up Your Twitter Feed
Cleaning up your Twitter feed means taking a long, hard look at the accounts you're following. The aim being to prune the number of accounts you follow to ensure your feed is relevant to your interests. This is necessary every now and again, as you may have followed accounts on a whim, and then lost interest in their tweets over time.
To see who you're following, click on your profile or profile picture (depending on what platform you're using to access Twitter). You should see two numbers; one next to Following and the other next to Followers. For this part of the spring clean, click Following. You'll now see a list of the accounts you follow presented in chronological order, with the most recent follows at the top.
Just scroll down the list making sure you actively want to follow everyone you're following. If you find someone you no longer want to follow, simply click the Following button on the right to Unfollow that account. You can also click on the profile in question to see more options related to that specific account. Just find the three-dots icon and click it to open a contextual menu.
This is where you'll find the option to Mute an account, which means you'll no longer see their tweets but will still be following them. This is a good option if you don't like someone's output, but don't want to offend them by unfollowing them completely. In terms of cleaning up your feed, the other useful option is to Turn Off Retweets, which means you'll only see this account's original tweets.
This is a good time to also cast an eye over the Who to Follow list containing accounts Twitter believes you'll be interested in following.
Once you are happy with your feed thanks to reducing the number of accounts you follow, you can move onto cleaning up your followers.
How to Clean Up Your Twitter Followers
The final step in spring cleaning your Twitter account is taking a look at who follows you. While most people are happy to have all and sundry following them (and crave a bigger follower count), you should still cast an eye over your list of followers at regular intervals. The more followers you have, the more difficult this will be.
The nuclear option is to Protect Your Tweets, which means only people who follow you will be able to see your tweets and other account information. You will also get to approve all new followers from the moment you lock down your account, so you can stop people from following you. This is a useful option if you find yourself at the heart of a Twitter storm and want to avoid non-followers piling in.
To make your account private, click Settings and Privacy > Privacy and Safety and then find the option to Protect Your Tweets. Where this option is depends on the platform you're using. Move the slider across and your account will be protected from prying eyes.
The other, less extreme option is to block individual accounts you don't want following you. To do this, click on your profile or profile picture (depending on what platform you're using to access Twitter), then click Followers.
You'll now see a list of the people following you presented in chronological order, with your most recent followers at the top. Scroll down until you find someone you don't want following you, then click on their profile. Click the three-dots icon and you'll see the option to Block @[username]. Once selected, that account will no longer be able to see your tweets.
NB: They could still see your tweets by logging into an alt account and searching for you by name, or finding your account on the web when logged out of Twitter completely.
Making Twitter a Nicer Place to Play
Like all social media platforms, Twitter is always going to have its problems. Mainly due to the users populating it. Twitter has been called a cesspool at times, especially by users who have experienced the darker side of social media.
However, by changing some of your account settings, and unfollowing, muting, or blocking other people using the platform, you can improve your personal Twitter experience beyond all recognition.