The 4 Step Lowdown On The New Twitter Algorithm
This week the world celebrated the Chinese New Year which marked the start of the year of the Monkey, but over in the social media sphere, 2016 is very much looking to be the year of transformation and renovation.
While Instagram is making serious grounds with its flirtation with video media, the powers that be over at Twitter (albeit somewhat late to the party) have decided to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Facebook by adopting the algorithmic timeline into their makeup.
If you are a Twitter user, no doubt you will have noticed that this was met with an immediate and ever-so-slightly dramatic backlash in the form of the trending hash-tag #RIPTwitter, as the more hardcore Twitter users had a good old sulk at these changes. If you weren’t aware of this and do not use Twitter then read on because this technical alteration was made especially with you in mind.
Here are the four things you need to know about the recent revamp of Twitter.
1) There is method to the madness
While we can agree that the hashtag #RIPTwitter was a little over the top, I’m sure we can also agree that it is slightly presumptuous to assume that the algorithmic tweets pushed to the top of the pile will be of the most interest to the user. Surely our intricate human intelligence deserves a little more credit than that? And in this respect, this changeover is a gamble as the reverse-chronological ordering of Twitter is one of the few components of its identity that really makes it stand out. The method to this madness is that the algorithmic approach will hopefully save Twitter from its depleting user group as it will be an easier and supposedly more worthwhile platform to navigate and thus attract more users.
2) It isn’t compulsory
The shift from the reverse-chronological to the algorithmic presentation of tweets will not be an automatic process. At present, users wanting to switch will have to select the Algorithmic option from their Twitter settings. Although it is very likely that soon the default way to browse Twitter will be algorithmically, it still will not be compulsory to do so. The user can opt-out at any time.
3) It’s an extension of While You Were Away
Or so said Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, very, very succinctly when he described the new approach as ‘Tweets you missed from people you follow. Pull to refresh to go back to real-time’, maintaining that ‘Twitter is live. Twitter is real-time.’ It’s as simple as that!
4) It’s still a battleground for businesses
It is thought that big businesses will now need to try that bit harder to get a ‘like’ or a ‘retweet’ to put them back on the map as their presence might be less noticeable under an algorithmic Twitter. However, for smaller, local businesses this could have quite the opposite effect as their name is likely to get more organic space in the Twitter sphere as users who aren’t necessarily followers will be introduced to the smaller business.
By Aisling Lewis