Find out how #songsincode became a Twitter trending topic

The #songsincode craze has been taking over Twitter for the last 24-48 hours, as people worldwide are translating their favourite songs into 140 character code bytes.

For instance:

And interestingly, Andy Smith (@asmitter), a developer at Frogtrade in Halifax, UK, has written the history of how #songsincode started, and how it became a trend.

It all started with a tweet about having a bad morning as a developer:

Which then triggered a song-based reply, and the group of three developers at the company started a back-and-forth dialogue, at which point the hashtag #songsincode appeared.

Then someone retweeted an old message by Yahoo Evangelist Chris Heilman, who had a larger number of followers. And it was that rising fame, plus a day of continued effort by the original 7, which got the topic into the trending list by 5pm the same day, at which point blogs also picked it up. And it peaked at #2, behind the famous #FollowFriday.

What’s great is that Andy has identified some of the key factors in creating the trend:

‘Trendmaking 101: What you need
– An accessible, sustainable idea that encourages creativity and/or competition (which we had by accident).
– Friends, to begin the initial propagation.
– A champion (Chris Heilman) who will spread it to the wider world.

– Lots of time to keep the early ball rolling, and for all the time you spend checking back on it!’

Go and read the full story behind the creation of #songsincode, and keep in mind Andy’s warning that you’ll lose followers due to the need to keep pumping out odd messages to get the hashtag started.

My take:

I think there is one element of this which is universal – an accessible, sustainable idea. And I think it’s also vital to have something incredibly simple.

The fact that it encourages creativity and/or competition is also a key factor, but as my involved in UK politician David Cameron’s ‘Twatgate’ outburst showed, it could be something simple and quotable which prompts anger and indignation (See also the recent defense of the NHS).

The bespoke, more creative trends also need more efforts to seed, as opposed to something which latches onto existing celebrity/anger.

But the key factor is that whatever you do takes some time and effort to maximise the effect.