A trend is the term used to describe a topic, hashtag, or piece of content that’s getting more attention than usual on a social media platform. Trends show up on platforms like Twitter and TikTok as a result of a higher number of people searching for the subject, discussing it on the platform, or interacting with it via comments or retweets. Trends can be influenced by many factors, including current news and events, culture and other trends, holiday themes, viral content, and online campaigns or challenges.

The popularity of a specific topic or keyword can fluctuate, which is why it’s important to check trends regularly to stay up to date on what’s popular. This is especially true for businesses, as a sudden increase in interest in their product or service can have a significant impact on sales. Trends can also be a helpful way to understand what kinds of content your audience responds best to, allowing you to create more relevant posts in the future.

You can find a list of trending topics on all major social networks, though they may be different in nature and presentation depending on the platform. For example, Facebook has a section of its Trending page dedicated to the top searches from users in a given geographic area; Twitter’s trends are more general and appear across all of its sections. Twitter also offers the option to personalize its trending page, allowing you to see trends that are most relevant to your own account and interests.

Twitter Trends are based on the topics that are most searched for by its users, so they can change throughout the day. Often, the same topics tend to recur, which makes it easy for businesses to plan out their content calendars in advance knowing what topics are likely to get the most engagement that day or week. This is especially useful when it comes to recurring hashtags, like #motivationmonday or #transformationtuesday, or predictable events, like holidays and seasonal events.

While it is possible to abuse trends by adding unrelated keywords or hashtags to your post in order to appear more visible, this can be a good way for businesses to keep track of what’s popular with their audience. However, it’s important to keep in mind that abusing trends can lead to account suspension.

You can use tools like Ahrefs’ sitechecker to search for trending topics and analyze the performance of different types of posts in terms of instant engagement, average click-through rates, and more. Having a solid understanding of how to read trends and what kind of content your audience responds to will help you optimize your social media strategies. Ultimately, the most effective ways for businesses to use trends are to create timely content that aligns with ongoing discussions and to leverage platform features and functions to boost visibility and engagement. For instance, using a hashtag campaign during a holiday or seasonal event can help increase the likelihood of your content becoming a trend, whereas collaborating with influencers who are already popular in your industry can give you access to an audience that’s already interested in your content.