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August 20, 2014

Your Twitter Feed Just Got A Little More Interesting

Twitter officially announced that your timeline will include more than just tweets from people you follow. It seems that what was once a one-time experiment is here to stay. Twitter, the social channel with the 140-character limit, is adjusting users’ timelines to make them more interesting by showing more content they believe the user will like.

Just yesterday, Twitter updated its definition of a Twitter Timeline:

Additionally, when we identify a Tweet, an account to follow, or other content that’s popular or relevant, we may add it to your timeline. This means you will sometimes see Tweets from accounts you don’t follow. We select each Tweet using a variety of signals, including how popular it is and how people in your network are interacting with it. Our goal is to make your home timeline even more relevant and interesting.

What it means for the user

It seems as though Twitter is starting to push more content from its “Discovery” tab straight into users’ feeds in the hopes of sparking interest and engagement. It also looks like users are seeing tweets favorited by users they follow, which is seen as slightly blasphemous, as favorited tweets have historically been pseudo-private.

It’s clear that these changes are meant to engage and cater to the casual Twitter user as the platform hopes to entice them to spend more time with the service. Twitter’s stock price and advertising service depends on this growth.

However, this change has not been well received by the self-identified power users. Those who spend hours a day with the service claim the changes are nothing less than a “fundamental rewiring of Twitter’s architecture,” while The Verge calls it “downright blasphemous,” and the Wall Street Journal warned it my be a desecration of “a sacred place.”

What it means for brands and marketers

At this moment, Twitter has only addressed how this change will affect its users, but there’s no doubt that brands will surely be able to benefit from increased exposure. In Twitter’s battle of survival of the fittest/funniest/and quick-witted, it may be those brands that get rewarded by this latest tweak. So brands, it’s time to get funny, interesting, timely, and most importantly, relevant!