Friday, March 12, 2010

How Does Trending On Twitter Work...Really

What began yesterday as a simple and innocent enough tweet: "It's my secret dream to one day see my name trending on Twitter, as long as it's not for doing something really stupid...or followed by RIP." generated a flurry of twittering from lots of fun online friends using the hashtag #wcdixonRIP...and my resulting fake demise trending #1 in Canada by late afternoon.



That's right...number 1 in Canada.

It seemed too easy, or certainly spoke to it being a very VERY slow news day in our country. But I did find it a fascinating experiment in trying to determine the power potential of social media. Because once on the trending list, it opened the door for complete strangers to check out wcdixon and why is he RIPing. And then they tweeted their followers, who tweeted their followers, and so on and so forth.

Now most of the comments or messages I received were of the "Who the ef is wcdixon?" or "wcdixonRIP? WTF?" nature, but still, the word was spreading. And it did show me if it was promotion for a new film or TV project, one could potentially reach a lot of tweeps. But it has to happen organically - ask or tell people to do it and it probably would've died a quick death, no pun intended. Oh and I did feel bad for a few friends who arrived on Twitter mid afternoon and saw the hashtag and were initially surprised: wcdixonRIP...seriously? The irony is that when I do eventually kick the bucket I doubt very much any trending will occur. But still, t'was fun to see what it might be like...like Friday Fun (even though it was a Thursday).

Because it made me smile.

5 comments:

jimhenshaw said...

Maybe a lot of people just want you dead....

gdott said...

Wow, I hadn't thought of that but maybe Jim nailed it! Was fun while it lasted yesterday. And you're right, interesting experiment.

WP said...

The fake Twitter demise of Will Dixon beat the real life demise of Corey Haim.

What the hell does that mean? That there's no Dixon/Henshaw hockey playoff pool this year?

Unknown said...

I have realized that there are more myths around tweeter than Generic Viagra . Anyway, it is a must to be careful while using social net and such, due to they can become a headache.

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