Trending is a feature on social media that highlights topics or hashtags that are popular at any given time. The trends are determined by algorithms that analyze the activity on social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. They look at the likes, comments, shares and searches to determine which content is gaining popularity amongst users. Once a certain threshold of activity is reached, the hashtag or topic will be highlighted in the ‘trending’ section.
The trending feature is important for businesses to be aware of, and take advantage of, as it can help to raise brand awareness and reach a new audience. It is also a great way to connect with your existing audience and show that you are in tune with what is going on around them. Trending can be used to promote new products, services or even new promotions that you may be running.
A trend can be anything from a news story to the latest celebrity gossip. The trends are displayed on the left-hand side of the Twitter homepage, based on their current activity, and can change all the time. They are determined by algorithms that examine the popularity of certain terms and favour spikes over a gradual sustained growth. Twitter’s algorithm also looks at how long it takes for a term to gain popularity and considers the volume of searches that are being made on the term. This means that if you have a very common hashtag, such as #lunch, that gets tweeted every day, it will not be able to become a trend because it has already gained popularity over a period of 30 days.
If you are looking to get a hashtag or term to trend, you will need to create a specific call to action with the relevant hashtag. Try to make it unique and memorable and encourage people to use it. If you are targeting a particular event or time period, this is even more important as the trend will only appear for that short period of time. It is best to use a different hashtag, rather than an existing one, so that you can generate a new spike in interest.
Google Trends is a free tool that allows you to see what people are searching for, in (nearly) real-time. The results are a mixture of trending keywords, search terms and events, allowing you to see what is currently hot in the world.
Hovering over a particular keyword on the trending list will show you a graph of its popularity over time and can be viewed on a global or regional scale. You can also choose the date range of the graph by tapping on one of the options at the top of the page.
Using this information, you can target your marketing campaigns to a more specific audience, ensuring that your message is being seen by the right people. It can also be helpful to monitor your competitors’ websites and social channels to see what they are doing in order to keep up with their audiences.