Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Twitter Tells Users Who to Follow

If you are a Twitter user, you have probably noticed the new "Who to Follow" feature on the sidebar. According to Twitter, the purpose of the feature is to suggest people that you don't currently follow and may find interesting. The suggestions are based on several factors, including the people you follow and the people they follow.

This feature is similar to Facebook's "People You May Know" and "Recommended Pages" features, which recommend people and pages based on mutual friends and interests. Some find these features useful in connecting with people and interests through social media, while others find these features annoying.

From the PR perspective, the "Who to Follow" feature may be helpful to people or companies looking to gain followers from a particular demographic. In theory, once they begin following users with similar interests, Twitter will suggest more users for them to follow and also suggest their page to users who may find them interesting. This could be particularly useful to those who are new to Twitter and unsure about who to follow and how to gain relevant followers.

What do you think about Twitter's new feature? Do you find it useful or annoying?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I find Twitter's new feature to be very helpful. When I first started college I had only recently begun using Facebook so I didn't have many high school friends. But then I began using the "People You May Know" sidebar, and it has helped me reconnect with old high school friends.

When I first created a Twitter account I had few followers. I would manually search for people I knew, via the search bar or by looking at my friends followers.

But now Twitter does all the heavy lifting for me so I don't have to, and as a result, I'm gaining more followers.

This new sidebar is really helpful and I don't think that it is too intrusive. But then again, I'm just starting out so I need more followers!

Michelle Voli said...

Thanks for your feedback!

I also find the new Twitter feature helpful. I have already followed several new people because I didn't know they were on Twitter until I saw them pop up on the sidebar.