The world of business is as dynamic as it can get. It can sometimes feel like it’s moving at the speed of light! Today you’re doing a campaign on something contemporary however tomorrow that could change.
But that doesn’t mean you stop doing what you’re doing currently and focus on tomorrow. For brands and businesses, it’s really important to keep up with the world and its trends.
For a marketer, it’s crucial to know what the world is talking about or what the demand of the people is. Sometimes it’s not only enough to keep up with the change, sometimes you have to stay ahead of it.
What is the Trend?
A trend is generally defined as a general direction in which something is developing or changing. In our case, it’s the market and the demand of the people. So how do we find these trends? There are many tools available on the internet that can help us find what we are looking for. We have created a comprehensive list of all the best tools available to find trends –
1. Google Trends
Google Trends is the official trend finder tool of Google that gives you accurate stats and predictions of the demands of a certain product. They use graphs and charts to show the rise and fall of demands of something you wish to know.
For example, you have a clothing company and you wish to know the demand for jackets during each season of the year. Google Trend will show you which the peak month for your jacket sale is. Let’s say it’s November, which means you need to start applying your marketing strategies at least 2/3 months beforehand.
Google trends forecast these stats and give you a clear idea of what to do. Google trend also allows you to search by keywords and categories. You can also narrow down one product in a different category and see how popular it is in that category.
For example, instead of looking at shoes in the footwear category, you can see how popular it is in the western fashion category. Furthermore, you can also restrict your searches to a specific country and period as well.
2. Yahoo Search Clues
Yahoo Search Clues works very similar to Google Trends. However, what sets apart Yahoo Search Clues from its competitors is how it can compare products side by side and show you the demands of both and how you can benefit from which one the most.
It has distinguishable capabilities. Moreover, it has an advanced audience segmentation function as well. So, it becomes easier to target which group of benefits. You can set these targets by demographic or gender.
3. Alltop.com
This tool works as a news collector which compiles news from popular websites around the web. Their motto is defined as “information filter”. They will fill you with all kinds of relevant and important information that will help you make decisions when making a business choice. For example, when you are trying to identify a trend. To make it the ultimate trend finder, they have integrated a trend filter with their search bar. This helps to find relevant trendy topics with specific keywords.
4. YouTube Trends Dashboard
This is an amazing tool that can be used to track the popularity of videos that has been posted on YouTube. You can narrow down the search results by demographics. For example, you can track down the most popular videos that have been posted by teens aged 12-15 or 16-18, etc. This helps to identify the interest and preferences of those teens.
You can narrow it down to any demographic you want. You can also restrict your tracking by country, city, etc. This helps to determine the likings and interests of people of different ages from a particular location. In return, you can target those audiences with whatever product or service you offer.
5. BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed contains all kinds of trendy and viral content you can find on any social media. People come to find to Buzzfeed to check trendy contents or content that are buzzing lately.
They have a subscription service that you can subscribe to. You can subscribe according to the niche you are working with. For example, the subscription list can be divided by Viral, Sports, and Movies, etc.
You can also sign up for their main daily RSS feed which pretty much contains all at once. They will send you newsletters on current trendy topics or whatever topic that starts to create a buzz. This is what you can use to predict or plan your business promotion. Getting new ideas will keep you ahead of your competitors.
6. Mashable
Mashable is an alternative to Buzzfeed where you can get your daily dose of viral and trendy content from social media networks. They are a great news sharing platform where they focus on trendy topics. You can follow their site to keep tabs on current events. This will help you to create content on current affairs without any delay for information.
7. Predictions
USA Today in January 2012 anticipated an incredible year for fate and agony in the travel industry. The Titanic commemoration expanded premium and the travel industry advertising in Central America with the 2012 Mayan forecast going to work out.
Both of these expectations have worked out as expected. Belfast has done incredibly well from the Titanic this year, and as indicated by this article in October, Maya Mundo appointments have ascended by 8%.
Despite the horrible picture that Mexico has with a gigantic increment in drug-associated passing since 2006. Back in June 2012, Hamley’s anticipated the current year’s most loved toys and they decided that retro toys would do quite well. That is positively something to endure as a main priority in case you’re a retail site or somebody who writes about toys or relevant topics
8. Trendwatching
Trendwatching sends newsletters and information on current events and shows you which contents or topics are viral at the moment. Their offer includes monthly and weekly trend reports for free. Their premium subscription sends detailed analysis as well as trendy and viral content.
9. Springwise and Entrepeneur.com
Websites like Entrepeneur.com and Springwise.com gives out fresh business ideas that you can take inspiration from. They show a realistic business model on how you can implement an idea. Practically visualizing an idea helps to take initiative on how you can implement your ideas. That being said, these two sites give out ideas that are fresh new which is trendy at the moment.
10. Topsy analytics
Topsy is a Twitter analytics tool that can be integrated with the search engine which you can use to compare tweets and links at least worth a month. Topsy can accumulate top tweet mentions. It means it can mark the mentions that have been re-tweeted or include a link and ultimately give you a list of the best tweets/re-tweets. The best thing about this tool is that it can filter out spam tweets from genuine popular tweets.
11. Twitter Trends
It is another tweeter tool that will appear on the left side of your Twitter account. What sets it apart from its competitors is its track trending by location feature. You can pick locations from almost 150+ places. They compile the best trends from that particular area based on those followers.
12. WeFollow and FollowerWonk
Discover what the influencers in your specific industry are discussing by discovering who those influencers are. WeFollow includes a tag and it will recommend who are the top influencers in that specialty. Brain, its client produced. They accumulate their measurements from individuals who have presented their Twitter names to them.
13. Pinterest
Pinterest is the largest image sharing platform on the website. Check on Pinterest from time to time see which type of images are being shared and discover which genre of images are the most popular shares (repins). Look through the images based on your type of business or the type you want to invest in. For example, if you have a clothing business then there’s no point in looking through the food section. The Pinterest search bar can detect keywords and shows results based on the searched keywords.
14. Huffington
Huffington is one of those sites that you would want to scroll the first thing in the morning. They share amazing ideas that you can work on soon. They tell you what’s trendy on the internet now and which trend your audience is following.
There are currently versions accessible in Canada, US, UK, Spain, France, and Italy and it’s anything but difficult to switch between areas by tapping on ‘Release’ in the top lefthand corner of the landing page. The patterns tag is specifically noteworthy for those needing to track down the most discussed subjects existing apart from everything else.
15. Reddit
Reddit is considered to be the face of the internet. The majority of the unique and viral content originates from here. Reddit is a social media platform like Facebook or Twitter. However, it functions differently and the contents that end up on the front page of Reddit are usually contents that have received the most upvotes.
This means that these contents are highly appreciated by the internet users. Reddit can be your next viral content idea generation platform! So, always keep on checking on what’s being voted up and which contents are on the FrontPage. Don’t forget to visit the sub-reedits as well, most of the trends start from there.
16. Don’t forget your offline resources
Magazines, newspapers, and journals are great sources of information on discovering trends. In a recent interview in a seminar, journalist Jay Rayners told a story of how he used to purchase heaps of master magazines for article thought motivation.
One thing he saw during the 1980s showed up in a greyhound hustling magazine where an arena had its wagering permit pulled back, yet it was all the while holding greyhound race meets. He asked why they would even now be dashing the canines when no wagers could be put and called to discover.
They were doing it to give the men who hustled the canines something to do. Joblessness was so high in the town that the arena was giving vital help to individuals absent much by way of going for them. He transformed this into an article about how joblessness was influencing the 80s Britain.
17. “Think with Google”
It’s been a while since Google introduced their own newsletter subscription service called “Think with Google”. It is a great source of information since Google is the platform for every kind of data available to find. They send out newsletters on all current major events and trends happening all around the world. This helps to pinpoint the exact location your marketing strategies should target.
18. eMarketer
eMarketer is a very expensive subscription service that only some of the top companies and businesses use. It is not a feasible service for small businesses or new startups. However, their reports are worth the money. They give out quality reports that are worth value in return for their subscription charge.
19. TopTenz
TopTenz is a popular trend tracker that keeps track of all the new buzz on trendy topics. The homepage of TopTenz is a goldmine for hot topics that are trending worldwide. The platform also shows what people are writing about these days. It collects all the ideas into one whole platform. That’s why many marketers rely on TopTenz to identify their trends.
20. Google Instant
Google Instant is Google’s very own trend identifier tool that many people use without even knowing what it is. The feature is integrated with the search bar so whenever we type something, Google predicts our keyword and shows suggestions of the completed sentence in the search bar. You can use that information to develop your marketing strategies because most of the suggestive completion of sentences is actually what most people are searching for on the web.
Conclusion
With so many platforms and tools to find resources for your next content, it is not that difficult to find a new trend now. The concept of identifying a trend is much related to what the customers are talking about these days or the contemporary events in the world. It’s about diving into the minds of the customer and figuring out their thought process and then using them to develop your next marketing campaign!
