With TweetDeck Teams, Twitter Gives Groups Secure Access To Accounts

Finally, Twitter is a team player again. After years of neglect, Twitter today is rolling out a way for teams to contribute to Twitter accounts without sharing passwords.

The company is giving team access to accounts via TweetDeck Teams, announced in a blog post today. Years ago, Twitter offered team access to select business accounts, but since that ability was quietly killed, social media managers looking for team features have had to use third-party services such as HootSuite, Buffer or SocialFlow.

Now with TweetDeck Teams, brands and businesses will be able to delegate account access to multiple people without sharing the password. Here’s how to activate the feature, which is rolling out today on TweetDeck for web, Chrome and Windows:

• Log into TweetDeck using the account’s Twitter credentials.
• Select Accounts from the navigation bar.
• Select Team (@yourbrandhandle).
• Type the name of the account or accounts you want to have access to @yourbrandhandle.
• Select Authorize and an email will be sent to the account holder. When he or she accepts the invitation the team account holder will receive an email that that account has been added to the team.

Team members have the ability to send and schedule tweets, build lists, and follow and unfollow accounts. Users given admin access can also add or remove team members and view the team, features that aren’t given to team members assigned “contributor” access.

Team access to the account is only available through TweetDeck, so team members who need to use the account with other apps or on twitter.com will still need the know the password. But the feature should cut down on the number of people needing the password, and therefore make team accounts more secure.

Twitter noted that teams currently sharing passwords can now change the password and revoke app access to make sure only those permitted access have it from this point on. Twitter also made a pitch for enabling login verification on team accounts, something that was not practical previously since it requires SMS, iOS or Android notifications to a mobile device.

Remember, once you’ve transitioned over to TweetDeck Teams, you should continue to use login verification on your accounts, and encourage your team members to as well. Instead of relying on just a password, login verification introduces a second check to make sure that you and only you can access your Twitter account.

Twitter shared a demo video of the feature:

http://youtu.be/SykSn95WBhk