Twitter reveals that 8.5% of accounts may be botsImage Credit: mkhmarketingUpdated August 12 1:37PM PST with Twitter comments In a report just filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Twitter has finally put some numbers on the problem of bots posing as human account holders. Advertisers bank on the accuracy of real Twitter accounts to estimate the reach and value of their sponsored tweet spends. Twitter reports that as much as 8.5 percent of its monthly active users are bots — small pieces of software that automatically pull in data and involve no human interaction with the service. For example, a bot might grab a certain type of update and post it via a third-party mobile app. Update: Twitter says that what it really meant is that up to 8.5 percent of monthly active users are accessing Twitter through third-party apps (like Tweetdeck), which have the ability to auto-pull content from Twitter. However, Twitter says there is a possibility that some of these bots can publish content to Twitter autonomously as well. In real numbers, this means that as many as 23 million of the 271 million monthly active Twitter users read and engage with other users or with ads. Update: Twitter says it estimates that about five percent of its user base are spam bots, or bots that publish content automatically to Twitter. That number is not counted in the 271 million Twitter monthly active users, Twitter says. What the filing doesnt call out is how many of those 23 million accounts might be spam bots, which dont pull from but rather post to the service. Twitter has previously estimated that this number is less than five percent of monthly active users. The idea that bots are counted among Twitters account totals is nothing new to advertisers and investors, but the number of bots may be a surprise. From the filing “Our metrics are also affected by third-party applications that automatically contact our servers for regular updates with no user action involved, and this activity can cause our system to count the users associated with such applications as active users on the day or days such contact occurs,” the filing reads. “Up to approximately 8.5 percent of all active users used third party applications that may have automatically contacted our servers for regular updates without any discernable additional user-initiated action, the filing reads. “The calculations of MAUs presented in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q may be affected as a result of automated activity.” It should be noted that Twitter introduced the “bot” measurement itself. It debuted this quarter. Previously Twitter had lumped all accounts with any automation (with human involvement or not) in together, and the company could have presumably continued doing so. Counting errors Twitter has had other troubles estimating real user engagement levels in the past, the filing shows. In the third quarter of 2013, Twitter estimates that it incorrectly logged “a small percentage of timeline views” as a result of a product update. “We believe this estimate to be reasonable, but the actual numbers could differ from our estimate.” Twitter was unable to track timeline views on mobile devices until June 2012, the filing states. Were studying digital marketing compensation: how much companies pay CMOs, CDOs, VPs of marketing, and more, with ChiefDigitalOfficer. Help us out by filling out the survey, and well share the results with you.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 21:05:31 +0000
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