A trend is a topic or hashtag that becomes popular on social media, such as Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram. Trending topics reflect a social media community’s discussions, interests, and collective attention at a given moment. They can originate from current news and events, cultural and other events, viral content, holidays, and online campaigns and challenges. Trends can be localized to a specific community, location, or context or they can have a global impact.
Getting into the trending section of the Explore or Trends pages on social media platforms, like Twitter and TikTok, can be an effective way for brands, influencers, and individuals to gain visibility and exposure for their content and messaging. The challenge is understanding how trends are selected and what types of content have the best chance of being featured in a particular trending list.
Trends can be broad, as in popular gossip or current events, or they can be tailored to the individual based on their location, who they follow, and what content they engage with on a regular basis. When it comes to selecting a trend for display, the algorithm used by each platform may consider different factors that are unique to their brand or product.
YouTube, for example, is known for promoting videos from its top creators on the Trending page in an effort to showcase their work and drive engagement. However, controversy recently swirled around the platform when one of its most popular trends — which was displayed for millions of viewers — appeared to suggest that a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was a crisis actor during the recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida. The video was later taken down, but not before the issue was widely discussed and scrutinized.
The process of determining what should be featured on the Explore or Trends pages on each of these social media platforms is constantly evolving, and the rules can change at any time. As the popularity of a topic or hashtag changes, so too does the algorithm that determines how it is displayed on these pages.
For instance, when choosing a trend to use in your advocacy campaign, it’s important to think strategically about the call to action you want your audience to take and how your hashtag might be used by others on Twitter. Using a unique hashtag may make it easier for your campaign to get started trending, and you can also use Google Trends to compare the popularity of your search term or hashtag with other topics and terms.
If you’re interested in learning more about how trends are created and the factors that go into deciding what’s displayed on the Discover pages of these platforms, we recommend you check out the resources listed below. And as always, we encourage you to reach out if you have any questions!