Everyone Panic Twitter’s Algorithm Is Here!

Anyone following more than a handful of Twitter accounts will know that your timeline quickly becomes dominated by the most prolific Tweeters. Most social media experts and Twitter power users will tell you that efficient use of Twitter lists vastly improves your Twitter experience.

Take a second and think about that, the heaviest users of Twitter don't use the timeline. That's crazy and points to the timeline needing a revamp, and I suspect that is exactly the line of thinking that has led Twitter to introduce an algorithm. That and it doesn't take a genius to see how Facebook's focus on an algorithmic approach to its newsfeed has helped it improve user experience and squashed the claims of Facebook's demise.

As it stands, Twitter's algorithm is nowhere near the scale of Facebook's, yet. If you decide to opt-in your Twitter timeline won't undergo a huge change, you will start to see the Tweets most relevant and of interest to you appearing out of chronological order, that's it.

The setting is called "Show me the best Tweets first", which should tell you something. The algorithm is about improving your experience of Twitter, ensuring the content you see first is the content you are most likely to want to see.

Anyone who uses Twitter will be well aware that there is a spam problem and frankly a lot of content people put out is absolute drivel.

With an algorithm in place, those lazy Tweets that do nothing more than add to the noise will get pushed out of the way to make room for content that you care about.

Can you argue with Twitter trying to make sure you see more of the content you love and less you hate?

Twitter is in a situation where it is losing users, the only way that is going to stop and reverse is by improving the user experience. An algorithmic timeline is a step in the right direction. However, it won't solve all Twitter's problems so you'd best get prepared for more changes in the future.

From a business perspective, this means those of you sharing quality content are likely to see improved engagement and better results for your efforts. The companies who produce rubbish content need to wake up and realise no one wants to read their drivel. It's this simple: audience likes your content = better return on ROI.

All round, this algorithm will improve the user experience, reward those businesses that share relevant, quality content their audience wants to see and it will penalise the spammers. A win-win situation then, unless you're a spammer in which case good riddance to you.

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