Twitter Introduces Algorithm-Powered Timeline

What Happened
Despite CEO Jack Dorsey’s denouncement of a new Twitter timeline earlier this week, Twitter has officially added the “top tweets” at the top of users’ feeds, using an algorithm based on user interest and popularity of tweets (based on retweets and favorites) to curate the tweets that users will see before the traditional reverse-chronological feed. Launching on the heels of Twitter’s debut of “First View” video ad product yesterday, the new feature is a natural extension of the “While You Were Away” feature that Twitter launched last year, which also surfaces some of the best tweets that users may have missed.

What Brands Need To Do
Although the new timeline doesn’t entails any immediate, major changes for marketers, it could help extend the organic reach of brands’ tweets. Given that brands with established Twitter presence tend to have large followings and receive a lot of retweets and like for their posts, their unpaid tweets could be more likely to appear in the top tweets feed. As the algorithm only ranks tweets based on organic engagement, any retweets or likes that a promoted tweet receives will not factor into that ranking. This means brands will have to up their game in creating engaging content in order to reach a bigger audience.

 


Source: AdAge