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With an endless barrage of attention, how ever do celebs separate signal from noise on Twitter?
Consider last year’s example when one celeb sparked a tweetstorm after being left off a Yahoo list of the top 18 celebrities of 2013. Poor Heidi Klum, who was name-checked multiple times on the thread, probably had no idea this was going on.
@joshgroban @YahooOmg @robdelaney @zachbraff @heidiklum @oliviawilde @TheRock not sure why I’m in this thread; don’t know who any of you are
— Anna Kendrick (@AnnaKendrick47) December 16, 2013
Twitter is here to fix that! The company on Wednesday announced a couple new tools for verified users — many of whom are public figures or celebrities — that make it easier for them to connect with one another on the platform. Verified users, those with a blue check mark by their username, can now receive an alert when other verified users follow them. These users can also filter their followers list to see only those other verified users who follow them.
The idea, as Twitter explained in a blog post, is to encourage verified users to connect with one another. These types of interactions are almost always positive for Twitter, especially when those verified users are also celebrities. When one famous person tweets at another, it’s typically retweeted and passed along in other ways, like in this story.
It’s better for Twitter’s brand awareness if its high-profile users are all connected and tweeting at one another. It might just encourage non-users to see what all the fuss is about. (And it’s no secret Twitter’s on the prowl for new users.)
Twitter already offers a number of perks for its verified users, including the ability to filter their notifications (e.g. “I only want to see interactions from other verified users”) and free tweet analytics that show which of their tweets are most popular.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
