(This article is Part 2 of a series. For the first installment, click here.)
Hello, sports fans, and welcome to Week Two of the Great Blue Check Experiment! I’m your host, @gnerphk on Twitter and J. Millard Simpson on any site that publishes my fiction. We’re speaking to you today from the bottom of a well. It’s dry, so I won’t drown, but the walls are stone and there appears to be no way out, which makes things awkward.
No, silly; it’s not a literal well. It’s a metaphor. What’s happened is, since the last algorithm dropped, I’ve been classified as “Potentially Abusive Content”.
Those of you who have experienced my ire can confirm that, as a general rule, I become more and more icily polite the angrier I get, and my insults tend to be convoluted and barbed. I rarely resort to calling names on the rare occasions I become upset. Doubtless there’s a fancy psychological explanation, but for our purposes the point is that the algorithm could never untangle my words well enough to be sure a given comment is actually abusive.
No, it’s about Blocks and Mutes and Reports.
When someone converses with another person, they go up a certain number of points, usually one per comment, Like, Profile Click, or other positive engagement. When they get Blocked, they drop, I’m told, some twenty points. And modern Twitter is filled with people who auto-Block as soon as they see that Blue Check. Presumably I’m considered some sort of sellout or something.
Important Twitter Lesson #1: Buy the Blue Check, then instantly hide it.
The plus side is, over time, they go away and stop bothering me, while my positive interactions will continue to increase forever. I converse regularly with dozens of people, all different; I can sweat off the burden of a couple hundred blocks a day if I really work at it. The minus side is, that’s thousands of people who will never click my links or read my stories, so it’s sub-optimal. For an organization that rarely posts or interacts, it’s a death sentence.
Important Twitter Lesson #2: Post and interact, or die.
It’s vital to not limit your content to one-line replies. You’ve got to post something that draws the eye, a brilliantly colored picture, perhaps. Anything that offers a striking contrast with other TwiX is what you’re after. GIFs are the easiest; they stand out wonderfully and, since they’re integrated with the app, they’re dead easy.
Expert Tip: A female AI avatar posting sexy selfies draws in far more traffic than any real content.
Replies generate more traffic than posts, but unless you post there’s nothing for people to look at. My suggestion is to place at least one a day that is at least adjacent to your primary content. If you write books, post book memes. If it’s fall, post seasonal pictures of bright leaves and Jack-o’-Lanterns. If you’re Wendy’s, start a flame war with Burger King.
Important Twitter Lesson #3: Colorful pictures and funny memes will never go out of style.
One final note before I move on to the data: X-Twitter isn’t a fulltime job, but it can be if you let it. The more you post, the better you do. From a productivity standpoint, however, this is suboptimal; if you let it, the app can absorb valuable creating time. It’s very entertaining, and immersive if you engage deeply. My advice here is: Set a physical timer to go off fifteen minutes after you log in. Otherwise, you risk wasting hours.
The Data
We left off on Day 9; it’s now halfway through Day 16. Here’s my updated performance chart:
As you can see, Day 10 absolutely buried everything that came before it. That’s 141493 Impressions right there, mostly from a single random comment and the immediate replies. There was a news story about a flood and I made a cogent, yet snarky, remark with regard to climate change. Later I posted a satellite photo that clarified matters. In short, I contributed positively to understanding, yet began with a barbed hook that drew attention.
That traffic continued on Day 11, but the cost started showing up. Now people who believe all weather is climate change are blocking me. (Mental note: Don’t ever post on any divisive issues if you want to go pro.) This is my first experience of being throttled by the algorithm, though I don’t know it. 101920.
Day 12 was a Friday, and, in stark contrast to the preceding two days I’m being pretty broadly ignored. I put in a fair amount of effort to see if that helps, but it doesn’t. 46171, which before Day 10 would have been a record, but now it’s almost a let-down.
On Day 13, I posted a blog article that scored 6 whole link clicks — unheard-of interaction before Twitter Blue. Lots of engagement, but almost no response, and the first unFollows started. Lot of work to keep up with those. 36809. Plus side? I’ve more than doubled my Follower count, and they keep coming in.
Day 14: Sunday nights are apparently dead here. Had a fairly active Monday and scored 47242.
Day 15: Wrote an article on AI and posted the link; nobody clicked it. I’m told the algorithm downgrades articles in an attempt to force people to use the Top Articles tab, which is decidedly odd if true. My Impressions come mainly from a fan-gush comment on a Neil Gaiman post. Very active; 67512.
It’s now Day 16, closing on 6AM – so ten hours in. I learned some of the info about the algorithm by reading Elon Musk’s comments on some Content Brah’s post. I also learned through experimentation that AI-assist artists are also getting a lot of mass blocks. Finally, I discovered that a valuable internet principle still holds true: Do Not Feed The Trolls. 15747 during a fairly inactive overnight; got some writing done and a bit of editing during the dead hours. Before I sign off I’ll post a colorful fall picture.
PS: 3 total Twitter clicks on my AI article. I spent hours working on the art for it, too.
In two days, the first in a string of SciFi Shorts flash pieces will get published, and I can post the link. The local writer’s groups are very supportive, so I’m hoping for a fair amount of traffic. However, the algorithm is arbitrary and capricious, so there’s a very good chance I’ll be disappointed.
PS: Still no donations whatsoever. Twitter people are CHEAP!
I’ll let you know how it turns out next time. Stay tuned!
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