Okay so last month I got totally obsessed with trying to predict the Twitter Top 100. Everyone wants to know who’s gonna blow up next, right? Couldn’t get anything right myself. My guesses were always way off. Figured I must be missing something big, so I went on a mission. Dug around, talked to folks who seem to know their stuff, and actually tried things out. Here’s how that messy ride went.
Started Simple (And Mostly Wrong)
First thought? Check engagement. Easy stuff. See who’s getting the most likes, retweets, replies. Sounded sensible. Grabbed some trending tweets every few hours for a week, tracked those numbers like a hawk.
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What I did:
- Wrote down usernames and those engagement numbers manually in a spreadsheet (tedious!).
- Tried to guess who’d trend based purely on who had biggest numbers the day before.
Result? That tanked. Hard. Completely missed a bunch of random videos or comments that blew up overnight. Numbers were kinda helpful, but totally useless by themselves for predicting the actual hot 100 list. Felt pretty dumb.
Hit A Wall & Asked Around
Stuck. Figured I needed smarter people. Found a few experts whose predictions often seemed decent. Bugged them (nicely!). Got some real talk.
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The big takeaways they hammered in:
- Track Velocity: Not just big numbers, but how fast something is blowing up RIGHT NOW. A tweet gaining 50k likes in 2 hours screams hotter than one gaining 100k slowly over a whole day.
- Listen to the Chatter: Are people genuinely excited? Angry? Amused? Or just mindlessly sharing? The feel matters for sticking power on the list.
- Find the Sparks: Was it kicked off by someone huge? Was it super niche but exploding in its little corner? Gotta see where the fire started.
- Don’t Ignore the Weird: Memes, inside jokes, bizarre trends – this stuff jumps onto the list constantly outta nowhere. Can’t just look for “serious” news.
Building My Own Franken-System
Fine. Needed tools. But keep it simple, usable. Didn’t wanna drown in code.
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My patchwork setup:
- Trends Tracker: Just kept a much closer eye on the “Happening Now” trends section, noting time popped up and where it came from.
- Engagement Speed Check: Instead of raw likes, I tracked hourly gains for stuff bubbling under. Started using Twitter’s “Top” and “Latest” tabs side-by-side for top trends to feel the pulse.
- Mood Board (Sorta): Seriously, just started skimming the replies and quote tweets under potential hot topics. Were people laughing? Mad debate? Confused? This was super manual but honestly the most revealing part.
- Source Hunting: For anything starting to bubble, tried to dig backwards. Who posted it first? Did some celeb react? Was it a big community account?
Trial Run & Surprise Wins
Ran this half-manual, half-staring-at-feeds method for a week. Felt messy.
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How it went:
- Still missed some purely viral meme nonsense (that stuff moves at light speed!).
- But! Started spotting things bubbling up before they hit the main top 100 list. Like a niche gaming tweet exploding in that community, or a local news story gaining national traction fast.
- Got maybe 6-7 out of 10 predictions for emerging hot topics kinda right that week. Not perfect, but wayyy better than my zero before!
Where I’m At Now
So yeah, turns out predicting the Twitter Top 100 isn’t magic, but it ain’t simple either. Best advice from the pros? Mix it up. Use tools if you have ’em, but train your gut too.
My current checklist before calling something “hot list potential”:
- Is engagement skyrocketing RIGHT NOW?
- What’s the actual buzz feeling like? Real excitement or just noise?
- Where’s it coming from? Big spark or grassroots fire?
- Does it have that weird, sticky, “only on Twitter” vibe?
Still a work in progress. Misses happen. But understanding why things catch fire helps way more than just counting likes ever did. Learned to watch the heat, not just the flame.