Twitter Bot Basics with Python

Many of us use Twitter on a daily basis, but mostly as users or consumers who communicate via our personal (or organisation) accounts in quasi “official capacity”, using our own voice… when we’re not busy keeping up with the news, friends, the industry – and the occasional Twitter bot delivering content into our timelines.

Programming Twitter bots can actually be quite fun and is not all that complicated once you know some Twitter API basics and botiquette, and which Python libraries you can use to talk to Twitter. Coming up with a neat, unique idea for a bot might actually turn out to be the greater challenge than understanding how to make it work!

With the help of my poster and using a bot I programmed myself as an example, I will show you how you, too, can build your first simple Twitter bot.

I will: walk you through the process of setting up a Twitter app, tell you what you need to know about the platform’s APIs (plural, yes!), let you know what to avoid if you do not want your bot to get banned, give tips on how to release your bot into the wild, and demonstrate how to use Python to actually get your bot to do stuff! Additionally, I will provide ideas for potential bots (as well as suggestions for how they can be realised with Python) and point out existing Twitter bots for inspiration.