How To Start a Twitter Trend: #FineTakeYourBanana

At approximately 8:12 pm EST on August 5th @goRoadDogs decided to start a Twitter Trend. Within 2 hours, #FineTakeYourBanana had taken over the Twitter Trends, rising to #2 trend at its peak a little after 10. This is how it works:



1) Initial Network
GoRoadDogs already had several thousand followers when he and 12 followers agreed to Trend #Finetakeyourbanana. This large network allowed the trend to spread extremely quickly, rocketting it into the trends with enough initial momentum to grab a temporary spot in the trends.

2) Establish Ownership of the Trend
#FineTakeYourBanana was able to make it simply because thousands of Twitterers wanted it to. Unlike other trends, it was not a breaking news story, nor an amusing game; #FineTakeYourBanana was an inside joke for Jonas Borthers Fans. As such, the trend quickly took off among those who were on the "inside." In the "pre-trend" period the vast majority of the tweets with the hashtag contained no other purpose than to "try and make it trend" -

julkerlover: I have a feeling that #FineTakeYourBanana is going to be a trending
topic, so I definetely wanna be a part of this :)

on Aug. 5 at 09:27 pm
EST

3) Gaining Momentum
Once it started Trending #finetakeyourbanana really started taking off, reaching thousands of tweets per minute at around 11:00pm EST. Now far beyond the reach of the initial network, hashtags came streaming in from confused regulars, excited Jonas Fans who couldn't believe it was trending, and of course thousands of spammers.


4) Tail off
However, with no inherent value and the goal of getting #finetakeyourbanana high in the trending charts, excitement quickly waned and the tag dropped off the trending chart 4 hours after first trending.


5) Results
The temporary success of the trend had a few lasting benefits including:
And additional 5000 views and 50 comments on the youtube video referenced on whatthetrend.com, and a reaffirmation of the community that drove the whole thing.


Do you think Twitter should allow these "synthetic" trends or should they be treated as spam?

Congradualtions to the original team and good luck to all those who attempt to follow in their foot steps.

Twitter A-Buzz with Reactions to Clinton Visit

As covered previously, the realtime firehose of data flowing through twitter every millisecond can be extremely useful for business to see what "real people" think about their product. In the same vein, Twitter's reaction to the breaking news of Clinton's visit to North Korea is especially interesting.

9:30 am EST @BreakingNews reports Clinton delivers written message from Obama
9:57 am EST AFP reports "White house denies Obama Message"

Half of Twitterer's react with support for Clinton and his mission, while the other's retweet the following amusing tweet:

@tntsandy: Do you think
North Korea would be willing to keep Bill Clinton in exchange for the 2
journalists?

TVXQ Supporters Offer Hope on Twitter

Following on the theme of music fans showing their support through Twitter, TVXQ has taken a spot in the top Twitter Trends. AS reported by Channelnewsasia, 3 of the 5 members have filed for termination of their contract with the parent company SM. Complaints include restrictive contracts and inablitiy to pursue their own visions for the band. SM representatives responded with hopes to resolve the dispute as quickly as possible. Looks to be a giant game of corporate chicken.The Twitterverse responded with support and hope for the well being of the band overall. @Argyle_SocksO_o voiced typical opinions in his tweet:

TVXQ, forever and always! Keep the faith!

Other than that, the trend has been bouyed by the expected hundreds of spam
messages and results of "which TVXQ member are you quizes," (I got Yunho
apparently). Let's pray for spam filtering soon.

People Business

Business is about people. Real people buy things from other real people who work at real stores selling things that were made by a real person on the other side of the world. It is easy to forget that this is what business is, not the piles of numbers and graphs that dominate the modern corporate culture. Numbers serve a purpose, and that is to allow one to view trends of thousands of people simultaneously: Business. However, the further numbers become removed from the thoughts and actions of actual people, the less relevant they become, and the less value they hold.
Take the smart phone market for example. From when Palm announced the Pre smart phone in January, to its release a little bit ago, Palm stock had huge gains, rising from about Penny Stock level, to a respectable $16 per share. Upon its release Wall Street was abuzz with rumors of huge shortages; analysts slapped on huge target sales numbers; articles hailed the next "iPhone killer." But in the end it took a single analyst calling up a few stores and talking to the real people that were actually selling this real product to discover that there were actually none of the vast shortages that appeared on spreadsheets all over Wall Street. It turned out that none of my friends have even heard of the Pre.

Several days ago, Sprint released quarterly earnings well below analyst estimates, pulled down by less than expected Palm Pre sales.

What does this mean? It means we need to look past pie charts and power points. We need to focus on people and engage them as a real person. It means that Twitter is not just for bloggers and PR departments. Twitter is for everyone who cares about what people think. Twitter can allow decision makers to glance past the layers of filtering and pretty charts and discover what real customers think. Twitter can allow your company to refocus on what is most important in any business: real people.

Twitterverse Reacts to #Funny People

#Funny People opened July 31st and within hours became a trending topic. The film stars Seth Rogen and Adam Sandler as standup comedians who befriend each other.

Reactions to Funny People varied widely with about 75% of twitterers enjoying it while the other 25% found it "disappoining" or "not worth $10." The length of the movie as another cheif complaint, even from those who enjoyed it.

In comparison with other movies in theatres this weekend, Funny People should fare well if twitter traffic is any indication. At 12am on Saturday Funny People passed Harry Potter in overall volume with .19% of total tweets (vs. 0.18% for HP)

-Data from Twist

Fans Push Archuleta's #Crush to the top of Twitter

At around 8pm Eastern, the twitterverse collectively realized it was the one year anniversary of David Archuleta's Crush album. The trend started with @Markallanbambao's birthday tweet:

♪ hehehe... It's my Birthday today & you know what? It's also a 1st anniversary odf David Archuleta's "Crush"..

And took off from there, rising rapidly over the next several hours as amazed fans pushed it higher up the trends list.

When first released, the single "Crush" made it to the #2 spot on the US Billboard Hot 100 and #7 on the Canadian Hot 100.

More information can be found on the wikipedia page

And the music video on youtube