Updated May 28, 2018
In May of 2013, Twitter released an update to their mobile app that finally brought easy support for multiple Twitter accounts. For many Twitter users, this is likely not a big deal. If you’re like me though, you may have a personal Twitter account and a business Twitter account, and managing both from your iPhone was a bit challenging.
This brilliant Twitter update allows you to switch back and forth, and even displays your profile logo when composing tweets so that you have a visual reminder of which account you’re using. However, in order to connect that second account, you actually have to go into your iPhone’s settings. For Android devices, the additional accounts are added within the Twitter app.
iOS has supported multiple Twitter accounts since Twitter was integrated into the OS in 2010, but again, if you’re like me, you’ve never taken advantage of that fact. I will walk you through adding that second account and then how to use the new Twitter to tweet from multiple accounts whenever you wish. If you’re on Android and are curious, you can add additional Twitter accounts directly to the Twitter app and instructions are below. I also have a recommendation at the end on an app that you may find even easier to use, particularly if you have several Twitter accounts to manage.
Quick Navigation:
- Creating Multiple Twitter Accounts
- iOS Twitter Setup
- Twitter App Setup
- Twitter for Android App Setup
- HootSuite for Twitter & Facebook – An Alternative App
- AgoraPulse for Twitter, Facebook & Instagram – An Alternative App
- How Many Twitter Accounts Can You Have?
Creating Multiple Twitter Accounts
Before you can add more Twitter accounts to your device, those accounts must exist on Twitter. The instructions below only apply to adding existing Twitter profiles to your phone or tablet.
For each Twitter profile that you want to be able to use, you will need a unique email address, as well as a unique telephone number for verification. Unfortunately, spam accounts have forced Twitter to implement this restriction, making it more challenging for everyone to set up more than one account.
Go to http://twitter.com and if you’re already logged into an account, sign out. You’ll then be able to start a brand new profile (assuming you’ve got that unique email and phone number handy).
Be sure to note your username (Twitter handle) and password for each new account, as you will need them in a moment.
Once you’ve created all of the additional Twitter accounts that you want, head to the next step, depending on your device and OS.
Note that if you or your business needs more than a few Twitter profiles, it’s probably best to obtain the help of a social media agency to manage them.
iOS Twitter Setup
First, open your Settings on your iPhone and scroll down to Twitter. Tap on Add Account. Enter the username and password for the new account and tap sign in. If entered correctly, you should see the new account listed. Here’s what mine looks like:
Twitter App Setup
Now, open your Twitter app. Tap on the gear icon to enter Settings and confirm that all of your Twitter accounts are available. You can also customize notifications per account here.
You can now tap on the Tweet icon (the box with the feather) to open a new tweet compose window and tap on your profile icon to switch between accounts. If you’ve already started writing your tweet, don’t worry, that text will remain as you switch accounts.
And that’s it! You can now tweet from multiple accounts whenever you wish. If you wish to retweet someone using an account other than your primary account, you will need to use the Quote Tweet option so that you can modify the tweet and choose a different account.
If you want to switch the entire app over to another account, tap the button next to the gear icon and you will see your accounts listed, allowing you to choose a different account to then view that account’s tweets, mentions and more.
UPDATE 8/12/14 – With a recent update to the Twitter for iOS App, adding additional accounts and accessing additional profiles has changed somewhat.
First, instead of using the gear icon to switch accounts, use the profile picker icon to the right of the gear. Tapping that icon will bring up a screen where you can choose from existing configured accounts or add additional accounts. Additional Twitter accounts do not have to be previously set up within iOS.
You can also tap and hold the Me icon to call up the same profile picker screen.
Once you’re on the profile picker screen, you can easily switch to a different account.
Hat Tip to reader Roselynn Burke for noticing this change.
Twitter for Android App Setup
If you’re on an Android device, and have the Twitter for Android app installed, tap on Me in the upper right corner, and then Settings.
Tap on Add Account. Enter your username and password for your additional account and the app will now be able to access that account’s information.
Now, whenever you wish, go back to Me and tap on Accounts to see all Twitter accounts that you’ve connected. Tap any of the accounts to switch the app to use that account.
HootSuite for Twitter & Facebook – An Alternative App
For those of you looking for an even easier way to manage multiple Twitter accounts on your iOS or Android device, I would recommend taking a close look at HootSuite. The new app is gorgeous, and setting up multiple Twitter accounts is not only easy, it’s automatically synced with your normal HootSuite account.
More importantly, using all those Twitter accounts becomes a piece of cake, as you never have to switch back and forth. Within the HootSuite app, you can tweet from any account at any time, and swipe around to get to streams you have set up for the different accounts.
HootSuite for iOS has completely replaced my native Twitter app. You can see some screenshots and learn more about HootSuite for Twitter & Facebook here.
RELATED: The Unofficial Book on Hootsuite – your complete manual on how to leverage every aspect of Hootsuite for social media management.
AgoraPulse for Twitter, Facebook & Instagram – An Alternative App
Another fantastic alternative to using the native Twitter app is AgoraPulse. With AgoraPulse, not only can you monitor and manage multiple Twitter accounts, you can also keep an eye on Facebook Pages and Instagram accounts!
The beauty of AgoraPulse is that it is designed to streamline all of your notifications for a particular network into one workflow. All of your mentions, retweets and direct messages are poured into the same stream so that you can quickly run through everything you need to respond to.
As you respond to items, they’re marked as reviewed automatically. Others you can mark as reviewed with a swipe, reducing your remaining items. There’s a desktop version, of course, and here you can set up moderation rules which can automatically mark and flag incoming tweets – this is great for those of you who get a lot of direct messages to one or more Twitter accounts! All of those TrueTwit and Crowdfire automated DMs can be flagged and reviewed so that all you see are the genuine messages.
To add another Twitter account to your AgoraPulse service, simply tap the orange + button in the left menu, tap Twitter, and then authorize the app. Note that you do not need to have set up the Twitter account on your device first, so you can save yourself that step.
If you want to check out AgoraPulse to manage your Twitter profiles, you can use this free trial to get your Social Media inbox to zero. (Here’s my full Agorapulse Review.)
How Many Twitter Accounts Can You Have?
Is it really possible to even have multiple Twitter accounts? Absolutely. You can have as many a you need, as long as each Twitter account has it’s own unique email address. You can sign up for an additional account here. (Do note though that in order to verify your account, Twitter will require phone verification and an individual telephone number can only be used to very one Twitter account. So if you want to use multiple Twitter profiles, you’ll need access to multiple working telephone numbers with which to verify each account.)
As I mentioned, I have one Twitter account for myself, and another for my brand. While much of the content and tweets I push out are similar, I do get a little more personal on the @Mike_Allton account, and definitely tweet more often.
For larger businesses, adding additional Twitter accounts for specific products, divisions or departments is a great idea. Customer Service is a great example of a department that really should have it’s own Twitter profile. It all depends on the size of your business, your audience, how diverse your needs are, and of course the resources that you have available to monitor and utilize these additional accounts.
Have questions about how to add or integrate more than one Twitter profile? Ask me in the comments below!