How to use the Twitter algorithm for Brand Boosting?
As you learn about digital and social media marketing, you will be amazed to see how leveraging the Twitter algorithm can make you boost your brand and build a trustworthy reputation. If you want to make big moves, you need to respect the Twitter algorithm.
Twitter is a social media platform that lets you stand out from the rest and know about everything happening worldwide. If you want to make big moves like enhanced engagement, drive traffic to your website, build brand awareness, etc., you need to respect the Twitter algorithm. Unlike other apps, Twitter allows users to choose the type of content they want to see by themselves by toggling between algorithmically driven default timeline (Top tweets) or viewing them in chronological order (Latest tweets).
With more than 500 million tweets shared daily, which aligns with an average of 237.8 million Twitter users, there is plenty of scope for connecting with a wider audience and boosting your brand’s awareness.
As you learn about the advantages of digital marketing and social media marketing, you will be amazed to see how leveraging the Twitter algorithm can make you boost your brand and build a trustworthy reputation.
What is the Twitter algorithm?
The Twitter algorithm is a set of rules that rank content on the platform based on multiple factors like virality, geographical location, recency, relevance, and personal interests. In simple terms, this algorithm is the brain that controls what we see on Twitter and how we see it.
Before Elon Musk took over Twitter, he ran a poll on the platform asking whether Twitter’s algorithm should be open source or not. Of 1.1 million votes, 82.7% voted with an overwhelming ‘yes.’ Therefore, he opened Twitter’s source code at a TED conference in Vancouver to “unlock” Twitter’s “extraordinary potential” and let users know why their tweets are promoted. After this poll, Twitter’s algorithms shifted from ‘black box’ to ‘open-source.’ Thus, improving the platform’s transparency and marketing potential.
Although the new algorithm boasts of transparency, some people found it vague and lacking context. Apart from such polarization over transparency, below are some known aspects of its algorithm,
- Data aggregation – It involves the collection of key data based on your tweets, followers, likes, comments, bookmarks, and shares. Data aggregation allows algorithms to curate insights based on your followers. Such detailed consideration of likes and bookmarks is likely to result in a 30x Twitter content boost and a 20x boost for insights collected on the basis of visual media.
- Formation of features – Once all the data is collected, it is transformed into ‘feature buckets,’ including segments of tweets and users, people’s interaction with your content, and the platform’s safety and violation tq. This approach ensures to analyze content for creating positive interactions. Twitter algorithm’s SimClusters feature bucket groups tweets and users on the basis of the topic using AI capabilities.
Mixing – It is the last phase of the algorithm where everything comes on the feed. Based on ‘HeavyRanker,’ Twitter aims to rank every tweet on the basis of a higher probability of getting
positive actions. This framework is likely to deliver the best reactions. If the algorithm believes that the user you targeted will engage positively in your tweet, you may earn a 75x content boost.
How does Twitter recommendation algorithm work?
Twitter’s recommendation algorithm is a mix of multiple interconnected jobs and services to help serve the feeds of tweets and other content across all Twitter product surfaces. Tweets on the Twitter platform are recommended in Search, Explore, and Ads areas. This algorithm aims to answer all important questions by extracting information from tweets, engagement data, and users.
Home Mixer is the mechanism that leads to constricting the ‘For You’ timeline. It acts as the software backbone to connect the three features of the recommendation algorithm – Candidate sourcing, ranking, and heuristics and filters.
- Candidate sources – Twitter extracts the best 1500 tweets from people you follow (In-Network sources) and people you don’t follow (Out-of-Network sources). The ‘RealGraph’ model, ranked by In-Network sources, predicts the “likelihood of engagement between two users.” If the model predicts that you will likely engage with a Twitter user or vice-versa, you will see more of that particular user’s tweets on your timeline.
Out-of-Network sources are a bit trickier as it allows the algorithms to guess whether you would interact with a particular user’s tweets, even if you don’t follow them.
- Ranking – People are often concerned about how to increase views on Twitter! The best way to do so is through the platform’s ranking feature. Once the 1500 potential tweets have been collected, the ranking mechanism starts its work. It is achieved through a 48M parameter neutral network that optimizes the positive engagements (likes, comments, and retweets) on every tweet. Irrespective of the Twitter topics, the ranking mechanism labels every tweet with a score based on the probability of its engagement and other multiple factors. The Twitter algorithm then ranks these tweets based on the given scores.
- Heuristics, filters, and product features – This feature is essential for effective Twitter marketing. After the ranking stage, Heuristics and filters are applied to product features to create a balanced feed. Blocked or muted content and Out-of-Network content that has not been engaged much by people you follow are filtered out.
The final mixing and serving process is initiated when the above three processes are completed. The Home Mixer is ready with the filtered tweets to be displayed on the timeline. As the last step in the entire process, the Twitter recommendation algorithm blends the selected content with other non-tweet content, like the Twitter advertising mechanism, onboarding prompts, and follow recommendations to create the final timeline.
How do you hit the algorithm on Twitter?
Twitter is a platform allowing users to see what they want on their timeline. Using the same, marketing experts at SkyTrust have aptly answered the popular question – What affects the Twitter algorithm? Below is a list of factors that let you optimize your Twitter content.
- Active Twitter presence – It’s recommended to tweet at least 1-2 times a day or a maximum of 3-5 times per day, especially with multiple tweets in a single thread.
- Twitter Blue – Get verified by purchasing the Twitter Blue subscription service. It will prioritize your tweets and rocket to the top of mentions, replies, and searches.
- Time is the key – Tweeting strategically at the right time has a higher chance of your tweets gaining better traction.
- Use right hashtags – Keep an eye on the trending hashtags and use them organically with your posts. Overdo of tags might spam your tweet. Hence, use them strategically to gain traction.
- Use the right media type – Adding photos, videos, or GIFs to your tweets increases their chances of getting engagement. You can add up to four pieces of media per tweet.
- Encourage engagement – Ask your followers some questions or tweet something trending to encourage engagement.
- Twitter poll – Polls are an easy way to ask for people’s input or opinions on some topic.
- Join the trends – Identify the Twitter trends and topics your brand can contribute to and make your presence.
- Repurpose the top content – There are higher chances that if content performed well previously, it will again rank high if posted in different words or with a different approach.
- Apply insights – Use Twitter analytics to track the performance of your content.
Staying within the trends is easy now that you know about the Twitter algorithm and how it works! If you are still confused about what is Twitter trending algorithm, it is the algorithm that identifies the topics that have been trending for a while or daily.
