Will Twitter Blue Change the Twitter Algorithm?

Have you been noticing a drop in activity over Twitter the past several months and more so the past few weeks? I have. And the tweets I see in the stream if I’m not on my Twitter lists are very different than before.

In the past, I’d see my friend's tweets and others that I followed. Today I may see those who I’ve engaged with recently and many ads.

The remainder of the feed are tweets I don’t really care about. I’m getting much fewer interactions than ever before. (Maybe some of my friends have left the Twitter network but not all have.)

However, I noticed the sign-up on my mobile device for Twitter Blue. It’s the new subscription service now available to all in the United States.

With the $2.99 cost, you can undo a tweet and share longer videos (up to 10 minutes) on your Twitter stream.

There are some features only available to those with Apple devices and fewer features for those with Android. You may get customizable size apps for Twitter with your subscription.

So What Happens Now to Those That Are Not Twitter Blue?

If you do not subscribe to Twitter Blue will your tweets not be seen as much? I began to wonder and then I read Samra’s recent Medium article about the “lack of Twitter and Facebook producing results” and it really made me wonder more.

Is this the end of free social media as we have known it? Organic traffic has been dropping from these big tech companies for a few years now but it seems to be happening at a quicker pace.

Recently Hootsuite wrote about that decline. One of their tips to help the organic reach was: getting employees to share and engage on the networks — which is not applicable to a very small business or a solopreneur.

Another blogger friend of mine Tom also wrote about the decline of the Twitter algorithm a while back.

He claimed “ With no serious contender for second place, Twitter’s decline is still reversible, either by growing up generally or creating a connected but separate Twitter for business network. This has been implemented recently but we’ve yet to see any changes to the algorithm.

Another option is to use alternative social media networks which are not as big and you can appear as a big fish in a small pond.

Can Bloggers or Businesses Engage with Others Online?

Here on Medium, I’ve found it a great place to engage with others and network. Substack is another place where creators are heading to write. Quora is another place to network as well.

By spending less time on social networks and more time on writing we can increase the views of our blogs with fresher content and more focused content. Content marketing can bring in a lot of leads for a business today.

You won’t have to worry about share counts or like counts anymore. It may bring us back to the earlier days of blogging. It may end being a really good thing for us.

Your Turn

What do you think about the Twitter Blue feature? Would you spend $2.99/month on it?

Or do you think the big social media companies are only for the big fish now?