Two new features rolled out on Wednesday will increase the visibility of verified users in each other's feeds — effectively encouraging high-profile users to trade more compliments, insults or expressions of undying love.
Most high-profile Twitter users have verified accounts, with a blue badge posted next to their name, distinguishing a real account from a parody.
See also: Facebook Is Wooing Celebs to Out-Twitter Twitter
Verified users can already toggle their notifications feed to show just verified accounts. As of Thursday, they can also receive mobile alerts on iOS and Android whenever another verified user follows them.
Those account holders will also have the option to view just their verified followers in their stream, at least on iOS.
"We hope these two features will help verified users easily connect with each other so we can continue to deliver those only-on-Twitter conversations to users," Product Manager Jinen Kamdar wrote in the announcement.
The new features mean that if Justin Timberlake were to start following Ellen DeGeneres, say, Ellen will be notified that another verified user followed her, creating the chance for Ellen or her social media team to begin a potentially newsworthy conversation immediately.
Celebrity Twitter interactions tend to garner news coverage, not to mention thousands of retweets. Twitter offered this recent example of two verified users connecting: Luis Suarez and the Italian defender he bit during the World Cup, Giorgio Chiellini.
The conversation was widely reported at the time; Chiellini's reply was retweeted 99,010 times and favorited 56,423 times. But not all Twitter conversations between verified users are as cordial. Take this one between verified users Amanda Bynes and Perez Hilton (read from the bottom up):
The mention of "only-on-Twitter" conversations hints at an ongoing competition between Twitter and Facebook to become the primary celebrity social media platform.
In July, Facebook launched Mentions, an exclusive app just for celebrities to track what Facebook users are saying about them — but the app got a roasting at the hands of one William Shatner.
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