Why Isn’t Your Cause Trending? No, It’s Not a Conspiracy.
As I write this, it’s about two hours since the AP reported the death of Apple founder Steve Jobs. Jobs is receiving an overwhelming amount of attention on Twitter — according to the Trendistic site, the words “Steve Jobs” appeared in 15.85% of all tweets posted in the last hour. Yes, you read that right. Nearly one in every six tweets on the entire Twitter site included the words “Steve Jobs.” That’s more than used the words “of” or “you” or “and.”
And yet “Steve Jobs” isn’t trending on Twitter.
“#ThankYouSteve” is, with far less traffic. “iSad” is, with one percent of the traffic. Hell, “Apple II” is, with 0.02% of all tweets. But “Steve Jobs” isn’t.
Why? Because Twitter’s trending algorithm, for better or worse, values novelty over volume, and people tweet