This morning, I read an article detailing the author’s hypothesis that Twitter has been increasing its aggressiveness in fighting spam. The author said he spoke with Twitter’s Trust & Safety leader to see if he was correct, but didn’t get a solid ‘yes’ answer. However, he assumed from the response that Twitter was cracking down on spam.

To help confirm his hunch, he did some independent research in forums across the web and found that Twitter was thwarting efforts in creating spam accounts like never before. In fact, 30-40% of the created spam accounts were suspended within 24 hours.

So, what does this mean for you if Twitter is upping its aggressiveness at discouraging spam? Most of all this is great news and will not affect the average user. But, there are some things you will notice and other actions you should be wary of performing.

Less followers

As I described earlier, the first sign that pointed to spam elimination was a decrease in followers. The decrease is the suspended spam accounts. Some may see this as a negative outcome, but in my opinion it is for the better. I’ve always kept my Tweets unprotected and this just helps lessen the likelihood that a creepy, random person is stalking me. It’s also beneficial that Twitter is purging accounts so most will be real, genuine profiles: not just feeds and bots.

Less spammy posts

Obviously, with less spam profiles you will see less people trying to spread the same links, people telling you to “listen to my new music” or “check out my new site,” and direct messages from people with questionable intentions. Additionally, hashtags like #TeamFollowBack, #FollowMe, #500aDay, and #InstantFollowBack will become less frequent. It sounds strange, but people use these hashtags to gain followers on an account and then sell the account.

Be careful how you use Twitter

While the apparent update is supposed to penalize spammers, the article reports that some genuine accounts have been removed due to behavior that infringes on Spam and Abuse activities. In order to not get your account deleted, you should refrain from behavior associated with spamming. For example, the mainly involves not sending a large amount of @replies and @mentions, adding tons of followers in short periods of time, and Tweeting too many and misleading links.

Ultimately, I think this spam crackdown is long overdue as content on Twitter has become exceedingly difficult to manage. This campaign will limit Twitter quality and sincere actions. The aggressiveness will definitely benefit those who are using Twitter for what it was designed for: communication, discovery, and access to information.

Advertising has always been a worry for Twitter. The company had to decide between traditional ad-formats like banner ads — or come up with an out-of-box solution for its advertising woes. Twitter chose the latter and it appears it is reaping the benefits of making that sensible decision. Latest report from eMarketer reveals, not only have Twitter users liked the ads appearing in Promoted tweets, in fact, many have benefited from them.

The study finds only 10.9% of US Twitter users said Promoted Tweets are “annoying and take away from the Twitter experience.” The relevancy of ads in Promoted tweets is remarkably good with 24.8% reporting that they have seen Promoted Tweets from brands that are relevant to them. More than one-fifth of users said they have gotten a discount (21.6%) or have found out about a new brand through a Promoted Tweet (21.2%). Additionally, 14% of respondents said they have retweeted a Promoted Tweet.

Ironically, only 11.1% of US Twitter users said that following brands was the leading reason why they use the site. The top reasons include following friends (17.4%), to get a good laugh (15.6%), to get the news (15.1%) and to share the news (13.9%).

So, what does this mean for Twitter? The news should infuse a dose of confidence in the investors and the stake holders who were pinning hopes on Promoted tweets to do the trick. And this should also send out a loud message to advertisers who shy away from advertising on Twitter because of the assumption that it won’t show results.