As much as everyone loves Twitter, you have to hold your hands up and admit that your heart sank a little when they announced they’ve created a new algorithm, didn’t it?   Well, hold up there- it’s not as scary as you might think.

How will it work?

Currently, as you scroll down your timeline, you see every tweet in a reverse chronological order. What we all like about Twitter is the fact that everything appears in real time.

They are not changing this; they’re just altering what you see when you first cast your eyes on it.

It will essentially be similar to the ‘while you were away’ feature; particular tweets that you might be interested in, but you missed in your absence. This change will only be positioned at the top of your timeline. The top layer of your timeline, if you will. Twitter will show you the tweets they think you will want to see when you return from your time away. Pretty considerate bunch, really. A quick scroll down and you’re back to your usual chronological order – the best of both worlds.

We know, Facebook has probably scared the living daylights out of you with the whole ‘forcing’ you to accept the (sometimes questionable) changes they put in place. However, there is nothing to fear with Twitter, as all these changes are optional! Cue that sigh of relief. This is a light touch if you want it, rather than a heavy shove whether you like it or not.

Twitter has even published exactly how to turn this setting on and off in a diagram. If that’s not putting the ball in your court, we don’t know what is. Simply go to your settings on your account, click the ‘Timeline’ option, and check that box to accept the changes, or leave it unchecked if you do not want to. Simple.

If you want to read their official announcement, just take a look here.

‘Wait, will this affect my brand?’

In a word, yes, it will. If you’ve been creating top quality content all along, you may find that this little change is exactly what your brand has been waiting for.

If your tweets and brand are what your audience like hearing, your numbers may very well go up. As ever, if people like what they see, they are likely to click ‘retweet’, which is exactly what Twitter is hoping to boost with this new algorithm. However, if you tweet for the sake of it and fill your feed with repetitive, spammy content then less people will see it. Frankly, we think this is a good thing.

In Summary…

Best tweets for you = top of the timeline.

It’s optional.

The rest of Twitter will carry on as normal.

You may like it, you may not, either way you won’t know unless you shake it up a bit. Go on, give it a try.

By Katie Smith, Shake Social intern and NTU student