Do Twitter Trending Topics Build Blog Stats?

"For the uninitiated, here’s how Twitter works – I have no f***ing idea. I have no idea how it works – or why it is." 

-Jon Stewart, comedian and host of The Daily Show

If you've visited this blog before, you might notice that Power is a State of Mind is picking up speed. I'm uploading more frequently and getting more stats. I've managed to drive traffic here by using key words that people are already searching for (sometimes I've done this accidentally, sometimes purposefully). At the risk of getting overtly tech-y, I'd like to look into this a little more- with the hope that it will boost my blog stats- and possibly yours too, if you blog.

A giant extra chunk of traffic can be driven to your blog through social networking site Twitter.  If you have a blog, you need to tweet.

Tweeters can find your posts if you use trending “hashtags”, a word or phase beginning with the # symbol. These tags are clickable links, and allow you to see all public tweets that people have uploaded with the same tag. These tweets should all relate to the same subject.

Leading tech blog Mashable explains how hashtags work, and how some hashtags become more popular than others.

There's an opportunity for bloggers like myself to get traffic using hashtags. Trending topics appear on the right-hand side of your Twitter home page. You can check trends that are popular worldwide, or in your country, or even your city (if it's listed). If, like me, you've covered a range of subjects in your blog, you'll find that certain hash tags match up to the content of some of your blog posts. Take, for instance, a recent trend- #youcantdateme .

Some months ago, I wrote this article featuring dating advice for women.

It seemed suited to the trending topic, based on what others were tweeting with this hashtag. So I linked the page to my tweet and included the hash tag.

It's a little early to tell if this will improve my stats (especially when they don't show up properly on Blogger's Dashboard- grr), but I'll dabble around with hash tags for a month and post again with some results.

Give it a shot yourself and let me know what happens in the comments!