How Twitter uses Signals to help you discover more content, creators, and accounts

Twitter recommendations are designed to help you “enrich your Twitter experience” by showing Tweets from people you may not follow, based on actions you take on Twitter such as liking, following, or retweeting.

How Twitter uses Signals. Twitter uses Signals to recommend new content. Signals include topics you follow, posts you’ve liked, accounts you follow, and Tweets that people in your network like.

Where recommendations appear. You’ll see recommendations in your Home timeline, as well as in the Explore tab. Recommendations show just below a small notification that says “You might like.”

Controlling your recommendations. If you don’t want to see a certain recommendation, you can select “Not interested in this Tweet/Topic” from the Tweet menu. If you like or Retweet a recommendation, it sends the signal that you find it interesting.

You can use the “sparkle” icon at the top right corner of your Home timeline. This icon lets you toggle between seeing top “For You” Tweets, which include recommendations from accounts and Topics you don’t follow, and “Latest” Tweets from only the accounts you do follow. 

How Twitter improves recommendations. A new “X” design on Tweets makes it much easier to remove a Tweet from your Home timeline if you don’t want to see it.

Dig deeper. If you want to read the full blog post from Twitter, you can do so here.

Why we care. Browsing social media should be a seamless, hassle-free experience. You follow people you know, like, and trust because you want to see what they’re posting and because you’re interested in what they have to say. Seeing posts from accounts you don’t follow can be a nuisance if they’re not closely aligned with your beliefs and interests.

If you’re seeing too many posts you’re not interested in, try using the “Latest” feature to only see posts from accounts you already know. Or do like I do and “X” them all out.

About The Author

Nicole Farley is an editor for Search Engine Land covering all things PPC. In addition to being a Marine Corps veteran, she has an extensive background in digital marketing, an MBA and a penchant for true crime, podcasts, travel, and snacks.