Twitter is an important marketing tool and you want to make sure to protect your followers from blocking you or not trusting you by watching your tweets. Having your Twitter account be hacked can create havoc with your ability to have an authoritative voice in your arena.
You will not always know your account has been hacked but here are some tips to help you keep tabs.
1. Use a Twitter application like HootSuite or TweetDeck and make one of the columns set to show all your own published tweets. You know what you’ve written, so if you start to see tweets that are not yours take immediate action. If you use a tweet ghost writer, make sure that you yourself periodically go to Twitter.com and check your tweet list and direct messages. Sometimes you will see problems or tweets with links that do not belong.
2. Guard your Twitter password and be very careful with the third party applications that you give access to your Twitter account and Twitter password to. If you suspect a problem, just immediately change your Twitter password to lock out potential problem applications.
3. If your blog is hacked and you are using any Twitter plug-ins, most likely your Twitter account has been hacked as well. Now’s the time to change your password on your blog AND on Twitter.
4. Watch your direct messages in Twitter. In many cases followers will let you know that you sent them something weird and out of the ordinary. Don’t blow that off, start digging as most likely you have been hacked. In many cases the tweets from a hacked account will go out in the middle of the night so you may not see them first thing in the morning unless you have a column set up as in number one.
I recommend vigilance. Just watch what is happening on your Twitter account. You don’t want to lose the loyal following you’ve created with a hacked account that posts garbage alienating your followers.