This is a bit embarassing, but Twitter suspended our account (emarketinggeeks) for a few days in August. Of course this happened while everyone was on vacation. So we were dealing with it over the slowest WiFi connection in existence (reminded me of an old dial up connection).
Dealing with a suspended account can be daunting, especially if you rely on it for your business. We only discovered out account was suspended when we tried to login. Usually, you'll receive an e-mail indicating your account has been suspended and why.
Step One - Don't Panic
At first we paniced. What did we do wrong? Was there somehow an inappropriate or spammy post. Quick, somebody check our timeline.
Don't panic (yet). Try to figure out what might have caused the suspension. A good place to start is Twitter's suspension page and best practices page. Of course we did not receive an e-mail, so we were left flowndering trying to figure out what went wrong.
Step Two - Fix the Problem
Our Twitter account is used for legitimate business purposes. We don't post spam. However, we do use a number of automated tools. Some of these automatically post from interesting RSS feeds. We use other tools to help manage subscribers.
Just before leaving for vacation we did a clean out of our Twitter account. Basically, we used an automated tool to unfollow many accounts and add new one's. Could these tools have caused the problem? A review of the best practices page on Twitter reveals that aggressive following or follower churn may cause a suspension. We did not think our use of follower automation tools was excessive, but maybe Twitter did.
Step Three - Appeal
Yes, you can actually appeal your case to a real human. If you received an e-mail notification indicating why the account was suspended be sure you have fixed the problem (see phase two). Next, enter a support ticket. Explain the problem - your account was suspended due to [fill in the cause here]. Indicate that you have resolved the issue and ask the account be restored.
Be prepared to wait. You cannot expediate the process, but Twitter does prioritize suspension appeals.
Conclusion
Our appeal received a response within 24 hours. Here it is:
"Hello,
Twitter has automated systems that find and remove multiple automated spam accounts in bulk. Unfortunately, it looks like your account got caught up in one of these spam groups by mistake.
I've restored your account; sorry for the inconvenience."
As you can see, this was not even our fault. Kudos to Twitter for resolving the issue so quickly.
Needless to say that once you gain back your account you should not resume the behavior that cause the suspension.