The hottest topics on Twitter at any given moment are the Twitter trending topics. A topic can become a trend when it is tweeted by a large number of Twitter users in a short space of time. Twitter uses this feature to help keep its users up to date on breaking news, celebrity gossip, or any other recent events. Users can search for trending topics and view the different tweets relating to that trend. It is important to be familiar with the rules regarding posting topics, as there are strict rules in place to discourage spamming.
A special algorithm is used to evaluate user tweets, and this is how Twitter determines its trending topics. A topic is considered a trend when there is a sudden increase in the number of tweets on that topic. This is what distinguishes twitter trending topics from popular topics. A popular topic might be tweeted about for days or weeks, while a trending topic could appear and disappear in a matter of hours.
Twitter trending topics were implemented to help keep twitter users informed about the latest breaking news or any other important events. When someone logs into his or her Twitter account, the trending topics are displayed on the sidebar on the right hand side of the screen. Once a user logs out, an even bigger list of twitter trending topics are displayed, and a user can specify if he or she wants to view hourly, daily, or weekly results. Twitter users also have the option to localize the trends they view, so that the topics they see are topics that are related to their local area.
A Twitter user could search for trending topics using the site's search function. When searching for a topic, it is a good idea to use a hash symbol in front of the topic itself. The hash symbol is used to tag topics so that they will be easily distinguishable from normal tweets. When someone searches for a specific topic, he or she can view the related tweets from various accounts.
Twitter has very strict rules regarding the use of trending topics, and users can have their tweets filtered or their accounts suspended if these rules are broken. Users are not allowed to use hash tags in unrelated tweets in an effort to gain extra attention, and if a topic is used, then the tweet itself should be related to the topic. Some users use trending topics to drive traffic to their profiles, but this could get a user's tweets filtered.