By now, you know exactly how Twitter’s algorithm works, how trends are created, and why it’s important to use them. 

Now it’s time to learn how to create Newsjacking posts.

 Step 1: Find trending topics

In the previous section, I shared my exact process on how to spot trends, so there is not much more to say. Let’s move into Step number two.

Step 2: Add Your Unique Angle 

Let’s use a real-life example to make it more interesting.

I am in the personal branding – online business niche.

Should I cover a trend about Trump adding tariffs to Europe, and if so, how do I do it?

This is what is known as an angle in the advertising world, meaning how you approach a certain topic.

1. Directly commenting on the topic

If these tariffs affect my audience of solo founders and creators, then I can directly cover this topic by adding my opinion about it and explaining in depth how it will affect them. 

The most common mistake people make when covering a topic directly is trying to please everyone and not expressing a bold opinion.

This is completely wrong cuz

a) It’s bad for your brand: A strong brand should have strong views on things, and

b) It’s bad for reach: If you express a very bold opinion, people in the comments section will have a battle (some will be with you and some against), which will trigger engagement signals to the algorithm, boosting your post even more.

1. Getting Creative

The truth is that 90% of the time, the trending topics won’t be a great fit for direct commenting as they won’t be the main concern of your target audience. 

And these are the times when you need to start getting creative.

So let’s get back to our tariffs example.

Now, the truth is that the majority of my audience (and probably yours) won’t care much about this as they are not exporters or ecommerce owners, so how do I cover this? 

It’s time to put your creative hat on and explore some possible angles.

One angle here is to cover it by talking about Trump himself. 

I do a lot of business threads (and my audience is used to it), so if I decide to do a thread about Trump (which is an entity very close to this topic), I get the best of both worlds.

I keep the algorithm happy because I talk about an entity very close to this trending topic, and my audience too, as business threads are something they like and expect from me. 

So I can definitely do a thread about something business-wise that Trump did.

To keep it even more topic-related, I can use a hook like: 

“Everyone is talking about Trump’s tariffs, but what they don’t know is that in 1500, he did this X amazing thing. Here’s how he made 10.0000.0000 billions”

A second way to approach this topic is to start thinking about the broader implications of these tariffs. 

Something like: 

“People are getting hysterical about Trump’s tariffs, but this is the greatest chance for solo founders getting into stocks, as the stock market crashes. Here are the top 10 cheap stocks to get into right now that will moon in 2 years.”

Or I could use a more general angle that’s interesting to everyone, attracting not only my audience but also other groups.

Something like:

“Trump just started a tariff war. But it is nothing compared to what happened in the previous century. Here are the 10 biggest trading Wars in world history. No. 8 will blow your socks off.”

Finally, I could use another angle to create a business thread like:

“Europe is preparing counter tariffs as a response to Trump. Here’s what will change for the economy and business.”

As you can see, you can really get creative when deciding how to cover a trending topic. 

Step 3: Publish FAST (Within the First 6–12 Hours)

As we mentioned many times throughout this post, you should work along with the algorithm and not against it. 

In the first sections, I explained how trending topics are created and ranked, but I didn’t talk at all about how trends end. 

When a topic surges, the algorithm continuously checks for signs of losing momentum, and when that happens, it gets deprioritized and other more trending topics take its place. 

This usually happens after 16 to 24 hours (of course, not all trending topics last the same time). 

What this means for you is that the best time to jump in on a trend is the first 6 to 12 hours. 

This is the timeframe during which a topic is getting boosted by Twitter’s algorithm. 

You don’t want to spend time doing research and creating a long thread, and then post it when the algorithm deprioritizes the topic you covered.

Step 4: Optimize Your Post

If you are a loyal follower of buildsolo.io, you already know that there are certain metas on Twitter, meaning certain types of content that the algorithm favors.

At the time of writing this article, the current meta is long threads with lots of graphics, videos, etc. 

This makes complete sense as the algorithm’s job is to keep users on the platform, and long threads with media do exactly that. 

But doing a long thread with media alone won’t make it.

When covering a trending topic, you are battling for attention with all the users that are covering this topic (which are way more than your usual competitors when doing an evergreen post).

So you need to nail everything: the hook, the writing rhythm, the cliffhangers, and the graphics. 

If you are really serious about mastering Twitter growth, check our X growth Playbook and join the top 1% of solo creators and personal brand builders.

Bonus: Section to Hashtag or Not to Hashtag

One of the most common questions I get is whether they should use hashtags when Newsjacking or not. 

The short answer is no, you shouldn’t.

Hashtags used to work in the early days of Twitter to help the algorithm understand what your content is about.

But as already mentioned, nowadays Twitter’s algorithm uses advanced technologies like natural language processing and entity recognition to understand what your post is about, so using hashtags is not necessary and tbh looks a bit cringe, too.