When logging onto a social media app, what section do you check first? The trending section is probably the bread and butter of social media, as it is the one place, unlike other sections, that provides users with real-time conversations about the most exciting, breaking, or viral news.
Trends are what these social networking sites thrive on. They indicate to users what’s popular, and they provide the catalyst for engaging discourse among users and sharing their own opinions. Remove trending topics, and the site often feels outdated. If you keep them, the site feels animated and alive, and everyone feels like they’re somehow part of the conversation.
Trends integrated into your social networking site will not only enhance engagement; they will also engender a sense of immediacy and relevance to your site. Trends will make your site feel more than just a social networking space, but the social networking space for what is happening right now.
Exploring Trending Topics on Social Networks
Topics, hashtags, or conversations rapidly gaining some degree of popularity in an immediate time frame. These could be anything in recent times-from a global news event to a sports highlight, from a funny meme to a newly dropped song. Being termed as “trending” depends mainly on how fast and how many users have engaged in it lately.
The trending component on large platforms like Twitter/X is driven by hashtags and keywords. On Instagram, trending subjects are revealed through the Explore page, which includes posts, you are interested in based on user data. Facebook promotes viral conversations between communities, and Reddit highlights the hottest threads on related subreddits.
The psychology behind it is simple. People don’t want to miss out on what everyone else is talking about. The fear of missing out (FOMO) is what compels users to click on, engage with, and participate in whatever it is. Incorporating a trending section to your own social networking site allows you to use the same aspects of anticipation and excitement—your social networking site will feel timely, collaborative, community-focused, and participatory.
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Advantages of Incorporating Trending Topics on Your Website
Adding trending topics to your social networking site influences the way users engage with the site. Here are some specific examples of how it is beneficial:
- Increases Engagement: Trending topics encourage discussion and consumption of the content by using more likes, shares, and comments.
- Keeps Users Time on Site: Suppose the user can follow conversations and updates in real time, which will keep users longer on the social networking site.
- Builds Community Engagement: Trending topics create this kind of shared experience that makes users curious to join in.
- Keep Content Relevant: Gives the user experience this idea of being “current” or “of the moment,” which automatically creates less dullness.
- Increased Content Creation: Allows admins/admin buddies, influencers, and businesses to create content based on trending topics and trending concepts.
- Helps Retain Competitiveness: Adding trending topics to your site allows your site to feel fresher, modern, and appear more like a traditional social platform as compared to other social websites.
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Best Ways to Implement Trends
It’s not enough to put a “trending” section on your site. You will need to manage it so that it remains a useful, relevant, and safe mechanism for users. The following are some best practices to engage with:
- Stay on-topic: Make sure trends are related to the interests of your users, especially if you are a niche platform (ex: tech, travel, fitness, etc.), your trends should reflect topics in that niche, and not simply global chatter.
- Update regularly: Either update a trending topic frequently in real time or at short intervals so the list stays fresh and timely.
- Filters & Categories: Provide users with options to filter the trends using a variety of options, regions, categories, or even time (and good to specify “today’s trending” vs. “week’s trending”).
- Help control spam or abuse: Have controls for moderation, AI filters, or both to help ensure spammy hashtags (and abuse) do not take over the trending list.
- Encourage user contribution: Give users the ability to contribute by creating hashtags, upvoting discussions, or suggesting trending hashtags.
- Mobile-friendly: Make it very easy to find trends on desktop and mobile apps, either on the home page directly or as a sidebar option, and make it quickly accessible to users.
Tools and Plugins for Popular Topics
Putting popular topics on your social networking website doesn’t have to be difficult. Below are a few ideas to show trending topics with the right tools and plugins for trending topics:
SocialEngine Plugins
- With the Blogs Plugin, you can display the most-read or most-commented posts as trending stories.
- The Groups Plugin will show active discussions so users can see which groups are trending.
- The Video Sharing Plugin can display the top-viewed or most-shared videos in the trending section.
- The Music Sharing Plugin can showcase songs or playlists in the trending section that your community is gravitating toward quickly.
External Data Integration
- APIs from Twitter/X, Google Trends, or Reddit to pull in global trending topics for your community, and can supplement what is trending locally.
- News feeds and RSS can be integrated to provide real-time information in categories like sports, politics, and entertainment.
Internal Algorithm
Your platform will capture the likes, shares, and comments of posts so that your system can automatically identify trending topics among users.
Your system can also use a straightforward upvote system to track topics that are trending based on users rather than platform updates, using something similar to the Reddit model.
Explore how creators choose the right foundation in “How to Choose the Best Social Networking Script for Your Website.”
Conclusion
Trending topics are the life of every social networking site. They spark conversations, bring freshness to the platform, and help users feel connected to what’s happening in the world right now. By introducing a dedicated trending area, your site transforms from a simple community into a living, dynamic reflection of real-time events.
Whether you implement trends through automation, user-driven input, or plugins like Blogs, Groups, or Video Sharing, the goal remains the same: keep users engaged and coming back for more.
Add a few smart best practices around trends, and even find ways to monetize them along the way, and your social networking site can compete with the giants in the space.
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