With over 500 million Tweets made daily, many people use the microblogging site to get daily updates and discuss common interests. It is, therefore, a great place to stay in touch with trending events, share opinions, build a personal brand on Twitter, and express passions. It is also a great place to help businesses get discovered.  

However, for successful Twitter marketing, you need to know how to leverage trends to carve out your niche and grow your business on Twitter. In this article, we will guide you through this process.

What is a Twitter Trending Topic?

A Twitter Trending topic is a topic that has grown fast in popularity in the last 24 hours, setting itself apart from other common themes discussed by users on the platform. To identify these topics, Twitter monitors for common phrases and hashtags.

If it notices that a certain topic has grown significantly on the platform, Twitter promotes it on the user's feed. These trends are usually curated for individual users depending on their interests and the accounts they follow. While personalization remains limited and trends are similar for most users, trends are key in a Twitter marketing strategy to increase retweets.

Twitter uses trending topics to add structure to the feed and avoid overwhelming users with information. That makes it easier for users to simply log on and see what the world is discussing. The trends could be from recurring topics like #TacoTuesday, while others may be based on breaking news stories that have gone viral. That offers a unique opportunity for businesses to join the conversation. By using the right Tweets and hashtags, businesses can easily get in front of a large audience.

How Twitter Trending Topics Works

The Twitter algorithm determines the trending topics. It tailors them according to users' interests, regions, and interactions with people. That means, depending on your chosen interest, you will be shown a broader trending topic or the trending topics in your interest area. 

For instance, if you follow many footballers, you can be shown personalized trends in the football niche. Another factor that affects Twitter trends is the latest content, as fresh content is prioritized. That means Twitter will show you the latest topics people are talking about rather than old trends. 

The Twitter Mobile app will show you trending topics divided into two sections under the Explore tab: For You and Trending. On the other hand, users of desktops can view trending topics in different places, such as "What's Happening.” You can further expand this section to see different subtopics and tabs.

How to Find Twitter Trending Topics For Your Business

If you want to use Twitter trends for businesses, you must ensure that you only use trends related to your business. The good news is that there are different ways in which you can inform Twitter about your topics of interest. Here are ways to do that.

Trend Page Personalization

The good thing about Twitter is that it allows you to personalize the topics you see based on different factors. For instance, by setting geographical preferences, you can see the trends based on your location. The setting allows you to choose a particular region where you want to see the trends.

To change the personalizations, go to the Trends Page and click on Show More. You can see this setting on the right-hand side if you are using the Twitter desktop. If you are using the Twitter mobile app, go to the Explore page and tap the setting (gear) icon at the top, near the search bar. You can then tailor your preferences to match the trends you would like to appear on your Feed.

For a more accurate Feed, Twitter will also look into your account. It will consider the accounts you follow, posts you interact with, interest or industry, and how active you are on the platform.

Searching for Industry Keywords and Hashtags

While the Trends page shows the popular Twitter topics and hashtags and those that interest you, it might not always accurately determine what you would like to see. For instance, the Trends page might not show you some less discussed topics, even if they are highly relevant to your business. To see a topic that isn't highly discussed, you need to determine the keywords and hashtags driving those conversations.

The good news is that you can use the Twitter native search bar to find trending topics or certain hashtags. For instance, if you want to know what people say about your brand, you can use this feature to search for the brand name. The feature can also show you campaign hashtags or general chats.

Social listening on Twitter trending topics can help you get the most important conversations, news, and influential accounts anytime. This will enable you to remain on top of emerging trends and gain a competitive advantage.

Twitter Topics Subscriptions

Twitter allows you to follow certain topics like you follow people. By doing that, you will not only stay updated on your topic, but you will expand your follower base and find great influencers in the topic areas. To see the topics to follow, visit your Twitter feed and tap More>Topics. You will be shown a list of topics that Twitter recommends you follow. 

By tapping More Topics, you can search for topics based on interest or industry. The topics you follow will start appearing on your Twitter feed. You can expand the topic in some tweets by tapping “see more about the topic.” You will be shown a list of tweets under the topic by clicking on this option.

How to Use Twitter Trending Topics for Business

Understanding Twitter trends requires more than knowing what is trending. It also involves knowing how to use this information to improve your campaigns, connect with your target audience, and take your brand to the next level. Here are the steps to use Twitter trends for business.

Understand Your Audience Segments

With Twitter Trends, you can understand the sentiments around a particular topic and people’s responses to it. Twitter trends work because they allow you to see what people are talking about and their sentiments in real time. This can be very useful after launching a new product, where you want to know the customers' sentiments on the products.

If the customers' responses are positive, you can use them to inspire future campaigns or even create user-generated content. On the other hand, if the reactions are negative, you can use them to uncover the issues you want to address.

Join Relevant Conversations Using Hashtags

A common mistake some brands make is jumping into every trending hashtag to gain exposure. However, Twitter no longer favors company tweets in unrelated niches. That means brands should understand what they stand for and only use hashtags related to them. However, it's important to note that brands can also participate in broader and more popular hashtags as long as they make sense and don't try too hard to fit into the conversations.

Use a Content Calendar to Plan Upcoming Tweets

As noted earlier, Twitter prioritizes fresh content, which makes it a great platform for forecasting trends and creating a content calendar. That's because it's possible to discover recurring hashtags, such as #motivation Monday or #ThrowbackThursday, which keeps trending every week. Therefore, you can easily incorporate such hashtags into your content calendar.

You can also use predictable events such as seasonal events, holidays, and hashtag holidays to create a content plan well in advance. You will already understand what people will discuss that day. Hashtag Holidays are also great to incorporate in your content plan if you identify the effective and relevant ones for your brands.

Using Twitter Promoted Trends

Twitter offers businesses an opportunity to appear on the Trending page of the Explore tab or homepage using Promoted Trends. This promotion method can complement your Promoted Tweets appearing on user timelines. It can be a good choice for brands launching new products or those wanting to promote products to a particular audience.

The good thing with the Twitter Promoted Tweets is that the platform offers exclusivity, meaning that only one client can run the Promoted Trends daily. Therefore, unlike other advertising channels, you don't have to compete with other advertisers in your area for the next 24 hours.

Join the Conversation

If you use Twitter to broadcast, you will not see the desired results as the platform encourages interactions. Therefore, when your post attracts people’s attention, respond to them, ask them questions, and provide value for your audience. 

Additionally, businesses can share trending tweets instead of just posting new content on a trending topic. Another good idea is to check Twitter Moments to see the content Twitter is using in the longer posts. You can easily get featured by posting such content when the trend arises. 

Use Business-relevant Topics

You can create a humorous Tweet that goes viral. However, it will not be worth it if it doesn't help your business. That means you only need to include relevant topics in your Twitter campaigns. On the other hand, avoid being overly promotional, as this can also cause you to lose users immediately.

Identify and Avoid Topics on a Downward Trend

In the same way, Twitter allows you to see trending topics; it also shows you topics that are losing popularity, and therefore, you should avoid using them. Since Twitter prioritizes hot content, you need to ask yourself whether the topic will still be hot when you publish or run an ad. 

Consider if the Tweet is growing in frequency, passion, and emotion. Is the conversation also growing or waning? Are there fewer users tweeting about the topic with time? How often does the topic appear on Twitter as a trending topic? If you want to avoid running out of data, avoid declining posts when creating a content calendar. You can use Google Trends to see if a topic is gaining or losing popularity.

Find Local Trends In Your Locality

While understanding world trends is important, you must ask yourself if it will add value to your brand, targeting a local audience. If you have a locally driven or based brand, a good idea would be to understand how people feel in that area. You can see the local trending topics interacting with the activities in your areas. 

You should also ensure that Twitter can see your location on a desktop or app so that the platform shares trending topics in your area. To be even more specific, type your hashtags and topics under the search functions. Then, you can use the advanced search settings to find Tweets from each geographical area.

Use Twitter Trends for Content Ideas

Twitter trending topics can be a good place to help you overcome writer’s block. You can use it to get tips on what people are talking about. However, you should remember that you don't have to write about the specific topic in the trending tweets; instead, you should use it to inspire you. This is also a good idea for finding article topics to promote blog posts on Twitter later. Therefore, use Twitter's trending topic to find some general concepts about what your target audience is discussing.

Final Thoughts

By understanding Twitter trending topics, brands can capitalize on their industry trends and determine the content their audience wants to see. They can use trends to reach their target audience and increase brand exposure. By identifying trends, brands can also actively join a trend in real-time. 

With the continued growth of the Twitter platform, there is no better way to engage with your audience than through trends and relevant topics. Using our guide, businesses can use Twitter trends to take their brands to the next level. We recommend you read our guide on using Twitter Analytics for Business.