My Proposal
(The numbers and scoring can be changed, this is for sample purposes only)
When a blog post is made, it needs 25 votes to be eligible for trending. As soon as it hits 25 votes the post would be given a boost trending score. This boost trending score would start at 96 and reduce by 2 every hour for 2 days.
Every comment made on a post will be worth 3 points
Every resteem will be worth 2 point
Every vote will also be worth 1 point
Although this is rather simple, by removing $$$$ from the trending algorithm, minnows, dolphins and whales will all have the same chance of getting to the trending page. Posts that create engagement and activity will be rewarded.
The problem with these systems is that people would just make tons of fake accounts that will upvote, comment, and resteem their posts to get them on trending which would probably only make things worse.