What is API and What you can do about it?

What is API?

I’m not going to tell you what API stands for because you really don’t need to know.  What you do need to know is that you only get 150 an hour and if you use them all up, you end up in #twitterjail and you won’t be able to tweet until the hour is up.

This is not a problem if you are using the web (twitter.com) as it does not have limits.  But if you’re using 3^rd party clients like Tweetdeck you may find that you run out of API.   Every time Tweetdeck contacts Twitter to send or receive your tweets it uses up your API.

What can you do about it?

Firstly go into settings in Tweetdeck.  It’s the spanner in the top right corner.

1.)    In the general tab make sure you tick ‘Open Profiles in a Web Page’ (saves on API calls)

2.)    Change your Twitter API settings, by clicking and drag the slide rule.  I tend to run mine at about 50%.  I dramatically reduce how often I get DMs (10 mins) cause I don’t tend to DM very often.

3.) You may also want to check your settings on Twitter.com to see if anything is connected to your account as it will drain API as well.

I hope this helped a bit.  As you all know I tweet like a trooper and have only ever been in #twitterjail once!

If you are feeling a bit more adventurous here are more advance ideas for tweaking your settings.

How To Configure TweetDeck To Save API Drain And Engage With Your Followers – Twittercism

Good luck

Author: mediocremum

A slightly older mum of one, who drinks far too much red wine and has an unhealthy obsession with her slow cooker. During the day she's an ICT Trainer, Social Media/Online Marketing consultant and does a bit of public speaking. Full Profile on Google+ View all posts by mediocremum