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I'm locked out of Twitter. Now what?
Welcome to Twitter jail


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Last Saturday, I tried logging into Twitter and was prompted to change my password.
OK, no problem.
So I entered my username (TMitrosilis) and got this error message:

“Hmm, that’s strange,” I thought.
So I tried entering my email associated with my account.
“Sorry, we could not find your account,” Twitter told me.
Maybe I misspelled my username or email?
So I tried both again, double-checking the spelling.
I got both error messages again, and then was told — due to too many login attempts — I would “need to wait” and try again later.
So here we are on Tuesday, January 17, as I write this, and I’m still locked out of Twitter.
I've filed five reports with Twitter Support.
I’ve provided screenshots and all requested information.
I’ve tried different devices and browsers.
Nothing has worked, and Twitter Support has given me no timetable for this to be resolved.
Effectively, I’m in Twitter jail and have no idea when I’ll get out.
This, my friends, is called platform risk.
What is platform risk?
It’s the potential for any platform to essentially shut off your audience and business at anytime.
We don’t own our audiences on social media platforms. We rent them.
Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube … whatever platform you’re building on, that platform can restrict access to your audience and you lose everything you’ve built.
This is why it’s critical to move your audience off of social media platforms.
I’m building two newsletters — The Daily Creator and The Process — partly for that reason.
I want a direct way for you to read my work, and for me to communicate with you, in the event either of us loses access to our social media platforms.
So, what are your options to move your audience off of rented platforms and onto an “owned” audience?
There are three primary online options:
Email lists
SMS lists
Website
You can collect peoples’ emails or phone numbers, or you can drive organic traffic to your website.
Each of these gives you a direct channel of communication that you control.
Personally, I’d encourage you to start building an email list.
Texts can feel more intrusive, and it’s a lot harder to get organic traffic to your website.
There’s a few ways you can go about building your newsletter:
1. Publish original content
This is what The Daily Creator does.
Each weekday, I share original content that (I hope) is valuable to you.
In exchange, you subscribe and we have a direct way to communicate with each other.
You can publish your newsletter at any cadence you want — daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, whatever.
This is the best way to build your newsletter, because the original content gives your audience a reason to subscribe and read.
2. Publish a summary of your best content
However, let’s say you’re creating a lot of content online right now and don’t feel like you have the time or ability to create more original content for a newsletter.
You could build a newsletter that links to and summarizes your best content online.
For example, send a newsletter once per month that links to all of your Twitter and LinkedIn content.
You’re providing your reader a service by saving them the time of searching for your content, and you’re making it easy to see content they may have missed online.
3. Collect emails in case you need them later
A third option is to be transparent with your audience and say something like:
“I don’t intend to email you regularly. However, I’m collecting emails so in the event I lose access to my social media accounts, I can still send you my content.”
You probably won’t build as big of an email list with this approach, but your core audience and biggest fans will likely subscribe because they want to read your stuff.
Action Item
Start planning how you will build your newsletter.
Pick an approach that feels best for you, and get started.
You never know when you’ll need a distribution channel that you own.
P.S. If you follow me on Twitter:
Thank you
Hopefully I’m writing for you again there soon
In the meantime, I’m still writing daily on LinkedIn
P.P.S. In the small chance anyone from Twitter reads this newsletter, please help me out :)
Work with Teddy
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Previous Issues
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