Twitter Favourites New Timeline Algorithm

Performance Communications | August 21, 2014

Have you noticed something a bit different about your Twitter timeline recently? Good news, you’re not the only one.

The developers at Twitter have been busy creating an algorithm (fancy code that tries to predict your behaviour to you and I) that pushes popular posts into your timeline.

The algorithm (currently in experimentation/Beta stage) looks for popular posts based on various social signals that Twitter gathers, including favourited and retweeted tweets to be displayed on users’ timelines – treating them as retweets.

Released worldwide on the 19th of August, the algorithm is now available to all 271 million Twitter desktop and mobile users.

What effect will this have on our tweeting?

Not a big one if you are doing it right in the first place!

Producing great content that tells stories that interest your audience and therefore maximises engagement and reach is what any brand and agency strives to achieve with their content. This new algorithm is only going to increase these figures if done correctly by pushing your best content to new followers.

By continuing to post awesome content that makes followers leap for the favourite and RT button, brands can help their posts reach a larger number of Twitter users that wouldn’t ordinarily have seen it. By demonstrating the popularity of your content, Twitter is more likely to use the information it knows about its users and match the content with the most appropriate users.

Should I be worried?

Whether you like it or not you’ll be seeing more content from people you don’t follow. This is both a blessing and a burden – as a consumer I’m always on the look-out for cool new profiles and stories to follow and engage with, especially within automotive. However, today I’ve seen a variety of stories and posts that don’t interest me in the slightest.

Twitter isn’t telling exactly how its algorithm works and which ‘social signals’ it is looking for, which is a concern for some, especially if that algorithm starts dominating the news feed, but now we know the power of the favourite button is much stronger than just a yellow star.

Hannah Burgess – [social type=”twitter” opacity=”dark”]https://twitter.com/hannahburgess_[/social]

@hannahburgess_ (in case you want to favourite me!)

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