TL;DR: It is more important than ever before to create quality Twitter content. By optimizing around your best content and top-performing topics, your tweets will stand the test of time (and engagement) thanks to the new Twitter algorithm.
Twitter’s new “catch up” feed takes a page out of Facebook’s news feed. The algorithmic timeline breaks from the network’s reverse-chronological feed, presenting users with the most engaging tweets in their feed instead. Perhaps Twitter’s former product manager explains it best:
Big scary "algorithms" just bring more of the good stuff to the top. (If the freshest stuff is best, guess what's going to be at the top!)
— Paul Rosania (@ptr) February 6, 2016
In the wake of the announcement, many Twitter power-users vocally opposed the algorithm — so much so that Twitter CEO Jack Doresy took to the platform to defend the change — but marketers should not be so concerned. In fact, there is plenty of brand value backing the Twitter “catch-up” feed.
Here are four reasons marketers should be celebrating the new Twitter algorithm.
1. Tweets have a longer lifespan.
In the pre-algorithm era, tweets had a notoriously short half-life (just 2.8 hours!). To promote a single piece of content, marketers needed to send out many tweets touting the asset at optimal times to ensure it was seen. In short, you had to tweet at the right time to be relevant.
The burden of real-time relevancy was especially pressing for brands with global audiences, for whom being “always on” meant tweeting around the clock. But with the algorithmic change, quality content has a longer lifespan. Twitter’s algorithm surfaces relevant — not just recent — updates in news feeds, allowing marketers to stop furiously tweeting and focus on the quality of their content. This is especially beneficial for small teams with less bandwidth!
2. Tweets on trending topics get exposure to new eyes.
Twitter’s new algorithm surfaces content related to popular tweets. As a result, it is vital for marketers to target trending topics.
On this front, the TrackMaven platform can help. Just use the keyword search function in your content feed. Plug in a keyword that is relevant to your industry and sort by “engagement (absolute).” Take a closer look at the top 10 to 15 posts to understand how top brands are leading the conversation on the subject. Now you’re armed with data to help you find the best angle on the topic for your brand.
Want to export the data? Just click export button (highlighted below) to get all of the data from the TrackMaven platform in a CSV file.
3. Ranking by engagement evens the marketing playing field.
Because ranking is based on organic engagement, sponsored tweets don’t have an inflated advantage with the new Twitter algorithm. An added bonus: high-frequency tweeters will no longer be able to flood users’ feeds (unless each and every one of their tweets goes “viral”).
This means that Twitter is more of a meritocracy; a low volume of high-quality content trumps a high volume of low-quality content. Once again, this is a huge differentiator for small companies with less budget for paid content.
“This is a change that essentially makes all content on Twitter created equal. So this is a not pay-to-play platform, unlike our competitors’. The best content, whether it’s from a celebrity, another user or a brand, is always going to be what rises to the top.”
— Ameet Ranadive, Twitter’s VP-Revenue Product in an interview with AdAge
And while many marketers view audience size as a vanity metric, this may be where the Twitter algorithm change offers another competitive advantage to marketers. Brands with the largest audiences simply have more people available to engage with their content!
Sidebar: If you’re looking to jumpstart an effective growth strategy, this another sweet spot for users of the TrackMaven platform. Simply pinpoint the companies that are growing at the fastest rate by creating a “change in followers” report.
In the example below, because EMC grew at a faster rate than brands with similarly sized audiences, then it is worth diving deeper into the topical and tactical strategies EMC is implementing to achieve that growth. Pair this with a month-over-month report of your own follower growth to nail down an appropriate goal for your team.
4. The Twitter algorithm rewards data-driven decision-making.
With the recent changes on Twitter, if your audience is viewing your content, it is because the subject matter is genuinely appealing and relevant to them. This insight is incredibly powerful for marketers, because it demonstrates that your brand is a reputable source for the exact content your target audience is looking for.
With the criteria for successful content always in flux, it becomes increasingly important to move away from a gut-driven approach and use data to analyze the most effective marketing approach to Twitter. As a first step, setting up an alert in TrackMaven is the most efficient way to ensure you know which tweets are working best. Create both a competitor viral (real-time) alert with high thresholds and a weekly Twitter digest (once per week) with lower thresholds.
These alerts can tell you what the most engaging tweets looked like, so when you receive them, ask yourself a couple of questions. Does our content look like this? If not, what is the gap and what can we do to bridge this?
The big takeaway: It is more important than ever to create quality Twitter content. By optimizing around your best content and top performing topics, your tweets will stand the test of time (and engagement) thanks to the new Twitter algorithm.
Ready for better Twitter analytics? Hundreds of the world’s best brands use TrackMaven to improve their marketing on Twitter (and 14 other digital channels). Request your free custom demo to learn more.