How to run a weekly trivia thread on X

A weekly trivia thread on X is easy to start and hard to keep going. The ones that last have the same three things: a fixed time, a fixed format, and a host who reveals answers when they said they would. Everything else is detail.

This guide is written for an ordinary account with a few hundred followers, not a brand. It also isn't about X's algorithm, which changes and which nobody outside the company fully understands. It covers what you control.

Pick a slot and keep it

Choose one day and one hour and post at that time every week. "Trivia Thursday, 8 p.m. Eastern" is something people can remember. If your followers are spread across time zones, pick a time that is evening for most of them and say the time zone in the first post.

Consistency matters more than the perfect hour. A thread that appears every Thursday at the same time builds a habit, while one that shows up whenever the host is free doesn't.

The format that works

Start with an opening post that says what it is and how to play. For example:

Trivia Thursday #14. Five questions in the replies below. Answer by replying or voting. Answers at 9 p.m. ET. No searching, honor system.

Then post each question as a reply to the one before it, so the whole quiz forms a single thread. Five to eight questions is plenty. Ten starts to feel like homework on a phone screen.

Number every question. People reply with "Q3: Canberra," and without numbers you lose track of who answered what.

Polls or open answers

X polls are good for trivia. A poll can have up to four options and run for anything from five minutes to seven days, which maps neatly onto a four-answer multiple-choice question. Votes are private, so nobody can copy the leader, and people who don't want to type can still play.

The trade-off is that polls don't tell you who got it right, so you can't keep a leaderboard. Polls also can't include images, so a picture question has to be a normal post with the image and the options written out.

A mix works well: polls for most questions, and one or two open questions where people reply with their answer. The open questions get people talking in the replies, and the polls bring in the people who only want to tap.

If you run polls, set them all to the same length, ending at your answer time. Then the reveal lines up with the poll results.

Writing questions for a feed

People read your questions while scrolling, often without stopping, so keep each one short enough to understand at a glance. If a question needs two sentences of setup, it's better suited to a quiz night at home.

Avoid questions with answers you can find by pasting the question into a search box. Pure lookup facts ("What year was X founded?") reward whoever searches fastest. Questions that need a little reasoning or a memory jog are fairer: "Which of these capitals is farthest north?" is harder to look up in five seconds than a date.

The same rule we use for the Twivial question bank applies: stay away from anything that changes over time, and write your accepted answers down before you post.

Revealing answers

Post the answers as replies in the same thread at the time you announced, one reply per question, with a short note on why. "Q2: Canberra. It was built as a compromise between Sydney and Melbourne." The note is what people reply to and share.

If you keep a leaderboard from open answers, post the top five with their handles at the end. Only include people who answered in the thread, and don't tag anyone who didn't play.

Never move the reveal earlier because one person begged. The honor system only works if the schedule does.

Growing a regular crowd

Reply to players. A thread where the host answers back gets more replies the next week. Thank people who got a hard one right, and admit it quickly if you made a mistake.

Pin the latest thread to your profile during the week so new followers find it. Some hosts also post a reminder an hour before the start.

You can also give players something to do between threads. Sharing a daily Twivial result grid works for this, since the grid shows a score without spoiling the questions.

Rules to stay within

Keep giveaways out of it unless you've read X's current rules on contests and promotions, since those have specific requirements. A plain trivia thread with no prizes is just posting, which is the simplest way to run one. Credit any images you use, and don't post questions copied from someone else's quiz.

Twivial isn't affiliated with X Corp. Features like polls can change, so check X's help pages if something looks different from what's described here.

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