While social media itself is a treasure trove of marketing campaigns and sales copy, social media data is an invaluable resource in and of itself. Marketing and analytics teams are increasingly often using Twitter scrapers to gather public data from the Twitter platform. Although scrapers offer a great way to download files in a structured format that can easily be read and dissected, navigating the world of Twitter scrapers can be difficult.
Unlike many other social media tools, Twitter scrapers have different legal and ethical considerations that have to be kept in mind to protect yourself and the tool you are using. I have put together the best ways to scrape Tweets, the best tools currently on the market, and the different types of data you are legally able to collect. Whether you are interested in analyzing Twitter trends, tracking brand mentions, gathering data, or conducting social research, understanding the ins and outs of Twitter scraping and how to do so properly is essential.
First, let’s take a close look at what exactly Twitter scraping is.
Twitter scraping is the process of poring over user profiles and Tweets in order to glean information about different users, audiences, hashtags, engagement metrics, and user habits. Scraping can help determine the most likely answers to search queries, can identify different standard follower counts, and can even go over different conversation threads to help identify a particular sentiment about a brand or topic.
Individuals and organizations, both, can benefit from using scraping tools, as gaining the types of insights Twitter scrapers can deliver can give users a competitive edge over those who are not using these types of tools to learn more about Twitter users’ habits and preferences.
Sentiment analysis is one of the most common reasons to utilize scraping tools; although metrics regarding active users and even user details can be useful, going through user Tweets to determine sentiment can help companies and individuals determine if an intervention is needed to support positive rapport with users, and can help identify whether a search term is viewed poorly or favorably.
Brand and trend monitoring are also common reasons for using scraping tools. These tools can go through a list of users and determine how those users are talking about and interacting with a brand or trend, to determine whether that topic should be broached, and to determine how a brand is being received. If it is your own brand, you can act accordingly, and if it is a competitor, you can adjust your strategy to more effectively compete.
Ultimately, scraping tools are research tools. They go beyond regular search queries and search the content of Tweet sentiments and ideas to find deeper insights and track discussions to positively impact a wide range of practices and campaigns from brands and influencers.
SourceNow that I have gone over what exactly a Twitter scraper is, let’s talk legality and the potential for legal action when using these types of tools. There are some legal limitations on scraping, so make sure you fully understand the terms of service for your Twitter API, and how to use your tools without incurring any kind of legal fallout. A Twitter API can give you legal guidelines to adhere to in order to prevent penalties or outright bans from the platform.
The Twitter API terms of service do discuss scraping, and do specifically identify scraping without prior consent as a violation of Twitter’s terms of service. That being said, you can perform scraping using the Twitter API, and there are legal workarounds should you wish to scrape Twitter without delving into any information that is not publicly available (i.e. only available upon sign in or with back-end access to the site).
Provided that your scraping tool is approved by X, or you are using the Twitter API (or X API) to gather data, you should be in the clear from a legal perspective. Any additional concerns can be run by a legal team.
Understanding how Twitter scrapers work is, hands down, their greatest flaw. Truly, only a developer can understand exactly how scrapers work, including the Twitter API, which can put non-techies like me at a bit of an imposition. For that reason alone, I suggest using a scraper that is easy to navigate and simple to use; while you may want to dive deep into follower counts and Tweet content, and track sentiment daily, knowing how to scrape data can be difficult, and you are better off using a program that does the heavy lifting for you.
Bearing in mind the value found in an official API with ease of use in mind during development, I recommend Phantombuster. This is my go-to data scraping tool, and I recommend using it for a variety of data scraping needs.
The ways I use Phantombuster on Twitter most often through the platform’s various “phantoms,” or tools, include gathering followers, searching hashtags, combing through profiles, looking through media, and evaluating searches and likes. I will go into greater detail on each below, but if you are interested in Phantombuster, you can find all of the available “Phantoms” here.
I am only including the strategic scraping phantoms that I recommend here. I am also including screenshots to give you a feel for the data that it will populate in a Google Sheet for each entry after you launch a phantom.
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The Twitter Follower Collector allows users to comb through followers to identify interest in a specific topic. By using this particular scraping tool, you can “scrape” through accounts on Twitter to identify followers following along on a specific topic or source of interest. A frequent user is going to be one who is most likely to offer useful data, and scraping through these followers can help you identify particular topics of interest.
Further Reading: 12 Ways How to Get More Followers on Twitter
While the follower collector sorts through followers, the following collector sifts through accounts being followed. This is a useful tool for marketers looking to develop a list of users who can effectively be targeted through specific ad campaigns. The follower list can be downloaded into a spreadsheet to increase ease of use.
This tool allows you to search and export the top Tweets on a given topic or within a specific niche. The value of this tool for marketers is in its ability to generate topics, keep you informed of trends, and provide a direction in which to take your own social content. One of many specialized Twitter scrapers used to deliver content ideas, the Search Export function is a great option for marketers looking for fresh, compelling ideas.
Further Reading: Twitter Hashtag Search: The Definitive Guide
The Twitter profile scraper is just that: a specialized Twitter scraper that gathers all publicly available information from a series of Twitter profiles. This scraper is ideal for marketers looking to learn more about a particular audience or set of demographics.
The Twitter media extractor is designed to pull information about videos and images. The purpose of using this tool may vary, but the most common suggested use is for mining information about images and videos posted by accounts with consistently compelling or interesting content. From there, a marketer can find similar videos or images to source from, or identify some of the media strategy of scraped accounts.
The Twitter Profile URL Finder takes a list of names or company names, and combs the internet for the corresponding Twitter profile. This is a great option for a marketer who is interested in following or getting on the radar of a certain group of people or a certain audience. An Excel or Google sheet with names or a list of companies is a great place to start.
Further Reading: The 25 Best Twitter Tools for Marketing in 2024
A Twitter Search Export tool delivers information about Twitter searches, which can then be exported into a data sheet like Google Sheets or Excel. From there, marketers can pore over the information, including what types of Tweets come up in a search query, which profiles show in a query, and more. Parsing through Twitter search results can help analyze larger collections of data, build a targeted audience, and more.
Your Tweet Extractor is great for learning more about a specific person, or a specific set of people whose Twitter usernames or names you already know. Using the extractor, you can gather a spreadsheet of a user’s Tweets, in order to learn more about posting habits, posting topics, and more. This can be used to learn more about a creator in your niche, about your audience habits, and more.
Further Reading: What are Promoted Tweets and 7 Tips to Leverage Them for Twitter Marketing
A more personalized tool, the Tweet Likers Export allows you to export a list of the people or accounts who have liked or reTweeted your content. This tool is excellent for building your audience, and gathering more information about which of your Tweets are resonating with different demographics.
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Conclusion
Twitter scraping provides vast amounts of useful data and inspiration for marketers and content creators. From research to marketing, scrapers can hold multitudes to help you develop a winning social strategy from content to management. Choosing the best scraping tools can be just as important as developing a useful content strategy, however, so it is vital to make sure you follow best practices and efficiently and ethically go about scraping Tweets and Twitter data.
By staying within Twitter’s guidelines and the legal framework put together by Twitter’s team, you can enjoy a plethora of data to work with, without fear of reprisals or legal issues. Whether you are looking for a scraping tool as a developer, a marketer, or a researcher, understanding the best practices and most recent recommendations regarding scraping Twitter data can help unlock countless insights and opportunities.
Do you use Twitter scraper tools? Let me know in the comments below!
Further Reading: 7 Insanely Effective Ways How to Write Tweets that Drive Traffic
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