Today is Thursday 28th July and as usual the hashtag #ThursdayThoughts is trending on Twitter. There are some great, thought provoking, tweets mentioning #ThursdayThoughts, there are some funny ones and others that are completely inappropriate.
So firstly for those who are unsure of of what I mean by something trending on Twitter let me explain.
What is a trending topic on Twitter?
A trending topic is the most talked about conversation that is happening, right now, on a particular platform – and today I’m looking at Twitter. You can find the trending topics here on the left hand side of your Twitter newsfeed.
You can see from today’s trend in the UK, the main conversation being talked about, at the moment, right now is #ThursdayThoughts followed by tweets about #IAmAFeminist followed by tweets about #BeatrixPotter (who would be 150 years old today!).
You can change the settings on your trends to have them exactly how you want them. You may like to look at what the whole of the UK are talking about, you may prefer to change it to Newcastle trends, or you could try tailored trends which Twitter will base upon your location and the people you follow.
Why get involved in Trending Topics?
Taking part in the trending topic of conversation, is a great way of raising your profile and improving your reach.
Just by using a hashtag, your potential reach increases. Think about it.
When you tweet your potential reach will be the people who happen to be online, at that time, and who follow you. Thereafter, if those people interact with you, Re-tweet your tweet, that will increase your reach further to the people who follow them, who are online when that tweet is re-tweeted.
By adding a hashtag to that tweet, you are also increasing your reach to, not only those mentioned above, but also to anyone who happens to be following that subject.
Make sure your tweet is appropriate
If you decide to take part in the trending conversation, please make sure your tweet is appropriate, that it really is to do with the subject that is being talked about, appropriate to the hashtag being used.
This is an example of a good #ThursdayThoughts tweet. It’s a “thought of the day” type quote and quite appropriate (with an image too which will help to attract people’s attention.
Here’s one with a bit more humour…
Now, as you can imagine, I don’t want to post an example of a bad one, as I don’t want to upset anyone, but I’ll give you some pointers of what I mean. I’ve just seen one tweet which says something along the lines of “Just so many days to go until our event, book your tickets now – #ThursdayThoughts” and another one reads “Check out our special offers today #ThursdayThoughts” – Neither of these have got anything to do with #ThursdayThoughts and people will start to build negative feelings towards them as this is, in essence, looked upon as a form of spamming.
If people put a little thought in to their #ThursdayThoughts they could come up with some excellent ideas – love how this Pizza company have used it.
Have a think about it and see how you can best fit #ThursdayThoughts in to a tweet.
Use of hashtags on Twitter
So to summarise, do, absolutely use hashtags on Twitter, but do make sure they are appropriate. Get involved in the trending topics, but only if your tweet is truly appropriate.
Oh and one final thing to mention …… the networking hours on Twitter. You are only meant to use the hashtags used for networking hours on Twitter, for example #Gatesheadhour and #NorthEastHour when the networking hour is actually taking place – not in every single tweet you send out. As a North East Business you may want to use the hashtag #NEFollowers, which can be used at any time, and is used to connect North East businesses and people.