Twitter is one of the most popular media which has more than 300 million active users monthly. To stay updated, Twitter would change its algorithm consistently. So, to get Twitter followers and maintain the growth, it is essential to understand how this algorithm has changed, or what would be the future of the Twitter algorithm. In this article, you read about the newest twitter algorithm and assumptions about its future.

How does twitter work?

There are a few rules that you should know about popular social media, including Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. They are almost similar in terms of keeping users active and show the relevant content to them. Twitter is one of the best platforms for all users to make money. For example, they can build an online store and share it on their Twitter bio. The more you perform better on Twitter, the more you can get followers and make money.

There are a few crucial factors on every social media. Twitter works based on:

1. Interests

What information you enter in your bio or any actions matter on twitter. For example, if you one person with a specific profile, twitter gets the signal that you might be interested in the same profiles. So, it would suggest similar profiles. If you would follow them, this will continue, and you would have a circle of following with almost similar interests, work, or professional profiles.

2. Relevance

The above explanation is correct for the topic you follow. If you are following the news related accounts, who follows you almost have the same interests as you. So, if you want to have a clear and favorite account, you should be very careful about what actions you do on twitter.

3. Consistency

Consistency is essential for other social media, including Facebook and Instagram. But what exactly is this consistency? There is indeed no exact number of times to post on twitter, but how you call a person active on twitter? If they publish daily? Hourly? Twice a day or three times a day?

Personally, if a person posts three tweets per day, I call them active. It seems that other articles also have the same opinion, and post daily is a must to be active on this platform.  And the more important it is to keep this sequence. If you are publishing every day, keep it and try to post every day. You can also use the Twitter scheduler to post in advance. This would help keep your presence on twitter.  

Twitter timeline algorithm

If you are one of the active Twitter users, so you need to know how does twitter works and to know the twitter timeline algorithm. It would help to use the app better and also if you want people to see you most often. Here I will bring a brief story of the previous twitter algorithm because it helps you to understand the current one better.

In 2006, the Twitter timeline was a simple application founded by Jack Dorsey founded, and with some character limits and twits publishing in chronological order. Each user could see the twits from followers on the most recent one. In 2014, Twitter added recommendations, topics, and twitter accounts bar to its timeline. A year later, the phobia of missing content caused the creating the ICYMI (in case you missed it), which could help users to read published twits in case there were not online and could not see that, under the “while you were away” on top of users’ timeline. A few years later, Twitter changed its algorithm again, and the best twits came to the front to show the most favorable tweets from people. Also, in that period it was easier to get followers so users did not need to plan to buy real Twitter followers to keep growing their profile.

And now, in 2019, the twitter timeline algorithm is about both types of posts. Now users can switch between both recent posts and the most favorable one. However, this option is available on the mobile app, and if you tap the star icon on the top right corner. You see the” see latest twits instead,” and other options are “go back home.”

And there is another option just beside the posts that users can tap on that to see those posts less often.

As Twitter has announced, they are now collaborating with researchers at the University of Berkely to have some changes shortly. Jack Dorsey in his comments about twits tells that Twitter is a real-time media. It seems that they have focused on live trends all around the globe, instead of making Twitter a passive application. That is why most twitted posts should come first, and if you don’t like it, you have to change the setting as you want.

There are some debates about the content which twitter show to the people. For example, seeing retweets from people you follow, but the main content is from a person who is not in your follower’s list. Another discussion is about paid content, in which you may don’t like to see. These are all about twitter algorithm and their preference about what they want to people mind. In the most recent changes, Twitter has begun demonstrating tweets from who your friends are following. Twitter is putting these posts into the feed of users without permission from clients.

As Twitter said, its goal is to expose users with more relevant content, which they might be interested in that content. However, it can be useful in some cases, such as being involved in football and seeing twits from people whose users are not following. But what about the unwanted content?  For example, a harsh political sentence, or whatsoever. There some crucially important content, and shouldn’t people distributed them without considering its credibility. It means that not all the material has the same value to be published wherever they are related. Take medicine courses as an example: what if an untrue content about the vaccine or any other treatment handed over by users? Should twitter algorithm change to omit harmful content that might have a detrimental effect on society?

Spreading unwanted content is a matter of debate for all other social media too. For example, Instagram is preventing the sharing of pictures that might be sensitive to people. There is an alarm icon on the image that shows it is sensitive content. You can choose to watch or skip watching that. It might be easier to prevent unwanted pictures from distributing, but how about content?

The future of Twitter timeline algorithm

As a Twitter spokesperson said in a CNN interview, their team is working on publishing the wanted and relevant content. There would be a choice for people to see the content from people they follow only. Following the health of conversation is the main focus of the company in the coming year.

Jack Dorsey’s conversation with CNN shows that they are questioning everything, and they need some more considerations about twitter. Politics twitter is something that is broken about twitter because there is a lot of empowering conversation. He is considering to address this issue to remove the harmful content from Twitter. He is saying that 12 years ago, when they started the company, issues were small.

Conclusion

The newest twitter algorithm gives the users two choices about top twits or seeing the latest one. However, there are other issues about the type of content you want to read. False information, harassment, and all the problems are getting out of Twitter. Twitter is a place for open conversation, but As Jack Dorsey discussed, the future of Twitter algorithm would be about the health of discussions instead of false ones, fraud, and so on. What matters most is going to be twitter’s next step.

Every social media has its own rules and regulations, and Twitter is no exception. You need to adhere to these rules if social media is a part of your business strategy. Otherwise, you may be driving followers away, and all that’s left is the wondering.

There are some unwritten Twitter rules that come into existence as a result of the way its users share contents or interact with each other in it. Below overview will shed light on some of these rules to help you share and connect more confidently on Twitter.

• Keep your followers-followings list realistic

When users come into your profile, they notice the number of your followers and followings. Note that it’s not natural if you have a followers count the same as your followings. People might think that you are either a robot or obsessive about keeping them the same. If you ever decide to buy followers then make sure to buy real Twitter followers.

What is more, it’s not OK if the number of your twitter followings is more than fifth as many as your followers, especially if you are a business. Users may suppose you are desperate to get others to follow you, and you won’t look professional to them.

• Don’t be overfamiliar

Although on Twitter, you are free Tweeting at celebrities, friends of friends, or any verified persona, it doesn’t mean they should respond to you every single time. Sometimes they don’t even bother reading or seeing your Tweet let alone replying.

Do not fool yourself into having a close friendship that doesn’t exist. Be cautious when you want to send a message to someone and think more about the contents and the tone of your texts.

• Be respectful

You can never rule out social care and reciprocity. Be approachable when users want to reach out to you. Respond to their DMs, especially queries if you are a brand. Moreover, it’s not moral to respond publicly if they sent you a private message.

Another thing that shows a lack of respect is when you unfollow someone right after they followed you back. It’s just a mean and unfair way for gaining followers and will not work for you in the long run.

The last point in terms of showing respect is about your real-life friends or colleagues. Do not give them the cold shoulder and follow them back instantly.

• Avoid snitch-tagging

Snitch-tagging may not seem a well-known word to you. I can explain it to you in simple terms, but first, you should know the meaning of subtweeting. It is making a Tweet that talks about an individual without directly mentioning them. Subtweeting can be fun, can be mean, can be annoying, can be risky. Seems ironic. Doesn’t it?

Snitch-tagging is tagging the person who is being addressed explicitly in a subtweet to notify and alert them that someone is talking behind their back. Be aware that when you blow the whistle on the subtweeter, problems might arise under certain conditions both for them and the target. And I’m sure you don’t want to be the trouble maker.

• Don’t misuse hashtags

Hashtags help categorize your contents and be easily discoverable. While they are undoubtedly useful and can be included anywhere in a Tweet, it’s not wise to stuff your Tweets with them. Since character count matters, it’s considered good practice not to use more than two hashtags in a single Tweet.

Below you can find some tips about using hashtags:

• Use capital letters at the beginning of each word to make your hashtags more readable. For instance, #SocialMediaMarketing or #TwitterRules.
• Use hashtags relevant to your Tweet as well as branded or trending ones.
• Save more valuable character space in your Tweet by avoiding to use words that are already mentioned in the text of your Tweet.
• In addition to a web link and details about yourself, you can include one or two hashtags in your Twitter bio to attract more followers or showcase your field of activity or your niche.
• Don’t steal others’ well-established hashtags.

• Don’t Tweet all the time

It surely bugs people if you’re tweeting unceasingly or oversharing. Give others the chance to reflect on your Tweet and have their say. It’s also to your own advantage for you have more time to read others’ replies or messages or surf Twitter. Do not sacrifice quality for quantity.

• Never retweet your own Tweet

Some people mistakenly think that they can encourage others to retweet their Tweets if they do it for themselves too. Do not behave like a desperate attention seeker by retweeting your own Tweet.

• Don’t self-promote too much

Bombarding people with Tweets about your brand sounds like an awkward idea to spark your audience’s interest. Change your mindset, act more like a human, and add more non-promotional interesting Tweets to your page to attract new fans, and retain your current followers. And besides, people will engage with you more eagerly. Can you think of other unofficial rules on how to use Twitter? Feel free to share them with us.

Twitter has set different limits on user activities to decrease the load on their services, as well as reduce the possibility of spammy behavior.

These limits are based on a combination of factors like how old your account is, the speed at which you follow/unfollow, the third-party applications you use for your Twitter account and also if you are using the native Twitter app less frequently.

Some notable updates:

• January 6, 2012: Added lists and unfollow limits.
• January 6, 2013: Added biography character limit & Picture sizes.
• May 31, 2013: Twitter updates the number of Twitter lists you can have and the number of users you can follow in each list.
• August 12, 2015: Twitter now lets you send direct messages with up to 10,000 characters. The threshold used to be 140 (similar to standard tweets).
• October 28, 2015: Twitter has raised their follow limit from 2,000 to 5,000.
• October 2016: links, Media attachments, and screen names in replies no longer count in the 140character limit.
• May 2017: Updated number of daily direct messages from 250 to 1,000
• November 2017: The number of characters in a Tweet has been raised from 140 to 280.

The Follow limit on Twitter

You may be new to Twitter, or you may have been using the platform for a long time and hit the “2000” limit, which Twitter increased to 5,000. Most social media platforms have limits in place for the number of users you can “follow” or “friend.” For instance, Google+ currently has a limit of 5,000 users you can have in your circles, and you have a limit of 5,000 “friends” on Facebook. This is to stop individuals, brands or automated applications from abusing the system.

On Twitter, it was possible to bulk follow thousands and thousands of users in the hope that they would follow you back. This caused many accounts to abuse this and follow a lot of people while not generating engaging content and not having many users to follow them back.

Not good!

Twitter launched back in March 2006. But it wasn’t until August 2008 that it began imposing limits on the number of users you could follow. Twitter was facing big problems with spam (as Twitter co-founder blogged at the time). There was a lot of backlash at the time, and a lot of confusion. It’s generally assumed that Twitter introduced a 2,000 following limit, which means you could only follow up to 2,000 users. But, this isn’t strictly true.

The Following Ratio

According to researches, the magic number is 1,819! This means if you have 1,819 followers you may break through the 2,000 limits. Below 1,819 you are capped at following 2,000 users.

I haven’t examined this, but I’m not sure that the same policy will be used for this new limit. To break through the limit, you’ll have to get more than 4545 users following you before you can go through the 5,000 limits. Let me know what you think!

Unfollow limits on Twitter

So, how many users can you unfollow? This is a difficult question since Twitter doesn’t say.

It’s possible to bulk unfollow using automation tools, but you have to click on each user manually, and then click unfollow.

Yes, various javascript hacks are using Google Chrome, but to be honest, you should stay away from this because it’s likely to get you banned.

So, use your common sense. I’ve unfollowed over 600 people in one day, but that was a one-off- I wanted to unclutter my feed, but if I unfollowed 600 people each day I’d get banned.

So, there you go. Remember, Twitter is a social network platform- these limits are for our protection. Do you think these limits are suitable, or do you think they should be changed? Let me know in the comments below.