Trending Topics turns on automatically when Chatter is enabled, so the configuration work is less about wiring up the feature and more about creating the conditions for it to be useful. The work splits into three threads: making sure the right people can post and read across the org, publishing a canonical hashtag list, and setting up a small topic moderation routine to keep variants in check. None of these are technical changes in the strict sense; they are operational decisions that determine whether the trending board fills with signal or with noise. Skip any one of them and the feature still loads but stops being interesting after the first week. Treat the setup work as a quarterly operating cadence rather than a one-time enable.
- Confirm Chatter and Topics are enabled
Open Setup, search Chatter Settings, and confirm Chatter is enabled at the org level. Then search Topics in Setup and confirm Topics for Objects is enabled at least on the Feed Item object so that hashtags inside posts get attached to Topic records. Without Topics enabled, hashtags display as plain text and Trending Topics has nothing to rank. Most orgs that turned on Chatter at launch already have this in place. Orgs on newer signups may need to flip Topics on explicitly before the trending card starts populating.
- Publish a canonical hashtag list
Pick a small set of hashtags that the org cares about, write them down in a place every employee can find (the internal wiki, the company handbook, the new-hire onboarding deck), and explain when to use each one. Common categories are launches, incidents, quarterly results, and policy changes. The published list is the only thing that keeps the trending board from filling up with one-off variants. Refresh the list every quarter, retire hashtags that no longer get used, and add new ones for upcoming initiatives.
- Assign topic moderators and write a merge SLA
Designate a small team (Comms, HR, or Internal Operations) as topic moderators with the Modify Topics permission. Their job is to merge spelling variants of the same hashtag into a single canonical Topic, retire stale topics, and hide off-topic or low-quality topics from the trending board. Write a one-line SLA for the team, for example merge variants within one business day so the trending board does not double-count active conversations. Track the moderation queue in a Chatter group so the work is visible and handovers are clean.
- Add a Trending Topics card to high-traffic Lightning pages
The trending card is already on the Chatter overview page, but most employees do not start their day there. Use the Lightning App Builder to add the Chatter Trending Topics standard component to the home page, the relevant app overview pages, and any communication app pages your org has built. This puts the card in front of users without forcing them to go to Chatter directly. Set the component to a compact display so it does not push primary work content below the fold.
- Trending Topics is per-user and respects feed visibility. Two users in the same org can see different lists depending on group membership and record-level access.
- Spelling variants of the same hashtag count as different topics until a moderator merges them. Without active moderation, the trending board fills with near-duplicates.
- The trending decay window is around a few days. A topic that was hot last week disappears from the list, even if total post counts are still high.
- Chatter Classic is end-of-life, but Trending Topics still works there. If your org runs Classic for any reason, the card is in a different location and may look out of date.
- If your communication strategy uses Slack as the primary surface, the Salesforce trending board misses everything that happens in Slack channels. Treat it as one signal, not the only one.