Whether it’s the latest meme, catchphrase or design aesthetic, trends are everywhere. But how do these styles or activities capture our attention and become a lasting part of the cultural zeitgeist? And how can brands leverage these trends to their advantage?

Trending is a term that describes a group of words, phrases or topics that are discussed on social media at a higher rate than others. These subjects can be related to current events, pop culture, viral content, holidays or online campaigns and challenges. Trends can also be localized to a particular community, location or context.

As a digital marketing tool, trending can be used to help you understand your audience’s interests and identify potential opportunities to engage with them. It can also give you a sense of the overall sentiment around a topic, which is useful when planning content for your business. In addition, using trends to your advantage can lead to a more targeted approach to social media advertising.

The process of becoming a trend is fairly simple. Essentially, a keyword or phrase needs to be mentioned in a large number of tweets within a short period of time for it to appear on Twitter’s “Trending” section. This can be done either spontaneously or through a concerted effort by users to promote the topic. Trending topics are then ranked according to their popularity and can be seen on the home timeline, in notifications or search results.

In order to get a hashtag or phrase trending, you’ll need to have a strong following and a good amount of engagement on your account. It’s also helpful to know what type of content is likely to trend so that you can create or participate in a campaign that will have a high chance of success.

For example, a trend that revolves around an event, a hashtag or popular music is more likely to gain traction than a fashion or beauty trend. It’s also important to note that the trending algorithm favors sharp spikes in volume over sustained growth, so it may take a little bit of trial and error to find what will get you noticed.

YouTube’s Trending tab is another great way to gain visibility for your videos, but the rules are a bit more strict here. In an attempt to keep advertisers happy, YouTube has shifted the threshold for what must be shared for a video to appear on Trending. As a result, some of the most popular channels are now only appearing on Trending when they have a significant number of views.

It’s also worth mentioning that a trend can be manipulated in many ways by bots, hackers or people with malicious intent. For this reason, it’s important to monitor your own trends regularly, as well as those of your competitors and industry influencers. This will allow you to stay aware of any potentially harmful or disruptive trends that could affect your business in the long run.