Twitter has added the ability to report an account for spam right from the sidebar on that account’s page. When you report an account, it can no longer follow you or reply to you and a notice is also sent to Twitter’s Trust and Safety team, who can then take appropriate measures. The process is not automated, so that a group of angry users cannot get an unpopular but legitimate account banned.
This process is much more efficient and streamlined than the old one, which required you to follow @spam and then send a direct message with the name of the spammer.
Thanks a lot for taking the time to line all of this out for people like us. This post has been very helpful in my opinion.