On Twitter, "trending topics" or TT for short, are the hot topics of the moment and are mostly hashtags or phrases that have been retweeted many times. Obviously, getting your tweets or hashtags to be part of the TTs would be a great way to give your business a lot of exposure.
A cutting-edge tool
According to Twitter, these trends are generated by an algorithm capable of identifying topics that have suddenly become popular during a given period of time. These TTs can be customized depending on where you are, which is to your advantage if you want to set up a viral marketing campaign and target people near you. Indeed, if they have determined their geographical location, they will be able to have access to popular topics for the chosen area and, by extension, to your topics. All you have to do is establish your strategy to be among the TTs.
Anticipate trending topics
Although some researchers at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) have succeeded in developing algorithms capable of anticipating "trending topics" with an accuracy of about 95%, the fact remains that the public can’t predict which topics will be popular. However, there are a few ways to put the odds on your side to get there.
How to get there?
The Twitter algorithm considers topics and hashtags that have been tweeted many times, in different ways, and by different authors. It is not enough to ask for mass retweets, but to create a buzz that will make users talk to increase the popularity and visibility of a subject, to finally propel it into the "trending topics".
Since trends can be broken down into specific geographic areas, it's fair to say that time zones and geographic peak times are variables that can affect the number of tweets required for a topic to end up in the TT. Indeed, it “costs” you a lot fewer tweets to be part of trends during off-peak hours than during peak hours.
In addition, the algorithm tends to ignore topics that have already been part of the "trending topics" in the previous days. You will therefore have better luck using a new hashtag than reusing a topic that is a few days old. Make sure that your topic's popularity is growing rapidly so that the algorithm picks up on this unusual surge.
