Trending is a term used to describe popular topics or keywords on social media that have a high volume of engagement at a particular time. This can be caused by a variety of factors, including current events, news stories, viral content, holidays, pop culture, and online campaigns or challenges. Trending is typically determined by a site’s algorithms that analyze activity and search data. Trends are then displayed prominently on a platform’s homepage or in a dedicated “Trending” section. Many social platforms also personalize the trends displayed based on the users’ location and other factors.
If you’re a business, brand, or influencer, being part of a trend can give you instant visibility and exposure to a wide audience. It can also be a powerful tool to increase engagement and awareness for your content or cause. However, it’s important to be strategic when using trends so that you don’t lose your voice and end up creating low-quality or unauthentic content just to jump on the bandwagon.
Generally speaking, trends are more likely to be relevant if they’re tied into timely events or news stories. Topics with a lot of momentum due to virality or controversy are also more likely to become trends, as people debate and discuss them. Influencers who have a large following can also cause a topic to start trending by sharing posts or tweets about it.
While there is no one-size-fits-all strategy to leveraging trends, it’s generally recommended that businesses and brands start by exploring the trending topics that are most relevant to them. By doing so, they can gain a better understanding of the issues or events that are currently driving discussion amongst their audiences and how to best approach them.
Once you’ve identified some trends that you want to explore, it’s a good idea to test them out for yourself to see how they work and how you can use them in your content. For example, if you’re interested in seeing how a specific hashtag has been performing on Twitter (now known as X), you can tap the magnifying glass icon next to the search bar and type the hashtag. This will display a graph showing how well the hashtag has been performing over time. You can adjust the trending graph by adjusting the date range.
You can also view trends on a mobile device by tapping the “Trending” tab in the top left corner of the home timeline or in the “For You” and “Trending” sections of the Explore tab when you’re signed in to Twitter on desktop. The trending topics you see will be different from what other people are seeing, as Twitter’s algorithm takes into account your own unique interests and locations when displaying trends. You can customize which topics you see by toggling the toggle switch to “Show trends for you,” available in the settings menu on a mobile device. You can also access the same customization options in the “Trending” section of your X dashboard on desktop.