Everyone wants to generate a Twitter trending topic, at least among the social media-inclined. Whether it’s a new meme like #followfriday or a particularly interesting event, it’s an achievement that has been cordoned off for most of us, given Twitter’s method of assigning Trending Topic status to only those trends that generate a large number of tweets.
That method has lately changed, instilling hope in those of us who can’t easily generate millions of tweets at once, though we can certainly inspire a spike of heated tweeting.
As this article from dear ol’ Mashable explains, Twitter has adjusted the algorithm it uses to detect Trending Topics so that it rewards concentrated tweeting activity around a particular topic instead of overall volume.
The new algorithm identifies topics that are immediately popular, rather than topics that have been popular for a while or on a daily basis, to help people discover the “most breaking” breaking news from across the world.
I interpret that to mean that you don’t need a massive amount of tweets to generate an authentic Trending Topic, just a period of intense and ardent tweeting that is significant enough to get Twitter’s attention.
Does this mean that my next Iron Chef-themed party (#efchef) will likely result in a bona fide Trending Topic? Unlikely. But for marketers, it does mean that the odds of acquiring that hallowed “Trending” distinction for your event or meme has increased dramatically.

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