ALGORITHMS

I was interested in how the Twitter algorithm works to suggest followers. After some research on Twitter’s website, they say that the account suggestions are based on a few different things, such has contacts that are uploaded to the app, locations like the city or county the user lives in, or account activity (who the user is interacting with and what they are tweeting about, etc). So, I wanted to pose this question: How do account suggestions from Twitter look different for profiles from two different people?

First, I made a new account and used my mother’s information when Twitter asked for name and interests. As she is older than me, a different gender, and has different interests, I wanted to see what her account suggestions would look like if she made a profile. Then, I compared some of the accounts that were suggested on my personal account that I tweet frequently from and the new account under my mother’s name.

Most of the accounts suggested to my personal profile were of people I’ve met before who likely follow people I know and follow. Additionally, a lot of the accounts suggested were writers and literary magazines, which is because I follow a lot of writers I admire and literary magazines to stay up to date about publication opportunities. Most of the accounts suggested to the new account were public political figures like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Local news stations and other organizations like 9news, the Denver Zoo, and the Denver Nuggets also popped up.

It seems that the Twitter algorithm is more concerned about who a user follows and what they tweet about, especially for a user that tweets often. For a new user, the location seemed to be the most prominent aspect that informed the algorithm (note how the public figures suggested were left-leaning, likely due to Colorado’s majority Democratic party). I would wager that if I were to tweet or start following other people, the suggestions would shift away from just location and more to personal interests.

I think that keywords are important to the algorithms used online, so I can make sure that I choose diction to return to frequently within the portfolio to tag the work (words like poems, literary, English, language, etc can be used continually throughout the portfolio to ensure that the website pops up for people searching for literary blogs/portfolios). I could also use social media sites and their algorithms to promote my portfolio on my pages, which will circulate with the followers that I interact with.