What Does It Mean to Trend on Twitter?

Data scientists who have studied what the Twitter algorithm deems trending reveal that to trend on Twitter means that a topic or a tweet with a specific hashtag has had a tremendous spike in traffic. The tweets or topics with the most amount of traffic in the shortest amount of time are what go trending. Steady, gradual traffic tweets are what is normal in the world of Twitter and are not picked up by the algorithm as trending.

Trending topics are thrust to the forefront by being in the Top Tweets for everyone to see, giving these topics a venue to even trend some more. But what does all this mean? What should it matter that something trends on Twitter? How do you even trend in the first place? What does it truly mean to go trending on Twitter? We try to answer all these and more in this short read.

How does Twitter trending work?

If your topic, brand, or campaign is trending, then this means 2 things. That thousands of people care enough to tweet about your topic, brand, or campaign, and thousands, potentially millions of people will get to read and be aware of your topic, brand, or campaign. Now, what that means to you personally will vary, but will vary only in degrees of positive results.

A company’s products will surely have more sales after they trend on Twitter. A musician will find that their career will be reaching new heights in terms of exposure, fans, record deals, record sales, and all the good stuff an artist dreams about when they go trending. US Politicians now take their Twitter account as a serious cog in the machine of their election campaigns that Twitter trending US efforts would directly result in more votes and possibly winning. Environmental causes can get more people to join the fight in keeping our planet alive when a campaign goes trending. In short, If you want to get results, Twitter trending topics get you there and get you there faster.  

What is great is whatever campaign is trending on Twitter US can be replicated for successful campaigns in other parts of the world where people also use Twitter.

The Numbers of Being Trending

Two things govern what becomes trending on Twitter; the number of tweets and users, and the time of day these were tweeted.

• To be trending from 12 AM – 6 AM, a topic must have around 1200 tweets.
• To be trending from 12 PM – 6 PM, a topic must have around 1500 tweets.
• To be trending from 6 PM– 12 PM, a topic must have around 1900 tweets.

If you don’t have several thousands of followers yet, then these numbers may seem daunting to achieve considering the short 6-hour window you are given to go trending. If going trending on Twitter is a goal for you or what you represent, then you will have no choice but to grow your following first. But if you already have the backing of the several thousands of followers needed to go trending, then the stage is set. All you have to do is to motivate your following with inspiring calls to action to start trending on Twitter.

Grow and Motivate Your Twitter Following

You already have other social media presence on the internet and these other platforms will be your most important assets in growing your Twitter following. Make your other social media accounts work like a filter that directs target potential followers to your Twitter account.

Here are some tips on how to use social media presence, other engagements, and the power of the hashtag to work towards growing or motivating your Twitter following:

1.  Direct traffic from other social media – your Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and other social media posts should always contain a link to your Twitter handle and a call to action to follow you on Twitter for a certain goal you and your followers mutually want to achieve. This way, you make your potential followers feel like they will be following you on Twitter for themselves and not just being told to follow you just for the sake of following.

2.  A Hashtag unique to you – Use a unique hashtag for your topic that is not used for something else. This unique hashtag should be a call to action in itself to make it motivating enough for anyone to tweet about.

3.  Master your timing – Strategically time when you want to trend. Keep tabs of what is going on in the Twitter universe and only launch a campaign to go viral when there is nothing too big you can’t out-trend. It is probably best to wait out for a couple of days after a new president is inaugurated as your trending efforts will surely take a backseat to this special event. 

4.  Specify your directions – Make all directions on all your social media accounts more specific by saying what hashtags to use, what time to post them, and maybe plan some ideas of how they should compose their tweets. Putting in a sample tweet could give your followers the needed push to tweet about your thing to go trending.  

The Power of the Hashtag

Your unique hashtag claims every tweet that contains your unique hashtag is yours. This greatly helps in telling Twitter that all the thousands of tweets should be counted towards your topic going trending. A tweet may contain anything and may say anything but as long as it contains your unique hashtag, Twitter counts this as a tweet that tweets about your topic, and this just snowballs to your favor.  

Here are a couple of tips on how you can better use hashtags to go trending on Twitter:

1.  Specify to “Use the hashtag…” – Posts on all social media platforms appealing to start a campaign like ‘let’s go trending’ or start a ‘Twitterstorm’ must contain the instruction to include your unique hashtag to make each follower’s tweet count towards going trending. Explicitly tell them to “use the hashtag #insertyouruniquehashtaghere.”

2.  Unique hashtags are better – Unique hashtags will make the spike of traffic more obvious for your current campaign. Never mind that an old campaign’s hashtag went trending in the past. Using that old hashtag will just water down your chances of being trending because tweets for your current campaign will be counted for your old campaign.

Good Habits to Keep to Make Going Trending on Twitter Easier

Maintaining a set of habits that will make going trending when you need to is a good thing to maintain.

1.  Tweet and Retweet Regularly – An active account keeps you relevant in the minds of your followers and the whole of Twitter. You don’t want to be out of sight for this will keep you out of mind, too. Retweet Your followers’ tweets that you find pertinent, too. This helps build your community and makes your following easy to call upon whenever you need to go trending.

2.  Hashtags to Get More Followers – Hashtags are not just to go trending, but trending hashtags also attract other users to follow you once they encounter your trending campaigns on Twitter.3.  Use a Hashtag for Your Events – Allocate a hashtag for every event. This streamlines the traffic of people online towards knowing the details of when and where your event will take place, and what your event is about.