This weekend hundreds will walk and rally to shine light on the occupation at Oak Flat. Apache Stronghold continues to lead the way as thousands pledge their support.

People around the country, and even the world, denounce Resolution Copper’s selfish attempt to destroy sacred Oak Flat. The understanding and sincerity of Oak Flat supporters is heartening and encouraging.

But we have to be careful that we continue to be mindful of the need to spread the word about Oak Flat to larger audiences. The majority of Americans still have never heard of Oak Flat; it is not yet a commonly understood issue in most households across the country.

Together, we can change that.

This weekend is an opportunity to bring what is happening at Oak Flat to a new group of supporters. There will be lots of new photos to share, new opportunities to tell the story of Oak Flat and Apache Stronghold.

Please help spread the word. Let’s see if together we can get #SaveOakFlat to trend on Twitter.

It seems that what makes a topic trend is, in simple terms, we need

1. a large group of people who
2. tweet the same hashtag
3. frequently and at a steady pace
4. at the same general time

How do we do that? Digital marketing agency Jungle published a blog post about this, which you can read here. The article’s author, Kaye Naylon wrote:

There are two elements to what makes a ‘Trend’ on Twitter: the number of people tweeting at any one time about the same topic and the time of day.

 

• Between 12 (midnight) to 6am: approximately 1200 tweets and about 500 users to be considered a Trend
• Between 6am to 12pm: 1700 tweets and about 733 users
• Between 12pm to 6 pm: 1500 tweets and about 812 users
• Between 6pm to 12am: 1900 tweets and about 922 users

Daily Blogger also offers some intriguing insights here.

In short, a lot of us need to be connecting on the same subject during the same time window to get it to trend. Therefore, I can help the San Carlos walkers just by tweeting about it if they post a new photo, and I make sure the tweet includes the text, #SaveOakFlat.

I can also retweet their tweets to give them more longevity and help the message grow.

The other tip for getting these tweets to fire up is to point them at groups that have their own big audience of like-minded people. For example, if I add @SierraClub to my tweet, the Sierra Club has 184,000 followers on Twitter, and they may then decide to share my message with their whole big group. (The Sierra Club is on our side, and they use social media well.)

Who else might you point tweets toward? Think of any political group, environmental group, church, or social justice group whose members might find this interesting.

Let’s see if we can start a big trend this weekend! If you can read this message, you have the technology! Send a tweet or two this Saturday. It’s a free and easy way to help #SaveOakFlat.