Trending refers to the topics, hashtags or content that are most popular on social media at a particular moment. This is determined by the algorithms that social platforms use to analyze users’ actions like liking, sharing and commenting on posts and videos. The most popular trends are then displayed in ‘trending’ sections on the homepage and/or sidebar of social platforms.
Trends are not permanent and can change rapidly based on various factors including relevance, timeliness, virality, and overall interest. They can be specific to a region, topic or social issue or global in nature. Trends can originate from a variety of sources including current news, events and holidays, viral content, pop culture, and online campaigns and challenges.
In terms of marketing, a trend is an opportunity to create engaging and relevant content for your target audience. Trending topics and content receive a large amount of visibility, engagement and reach, so participating in them can help increase the awareness of your brand and products. The challenge, however, is to be able to spot trends quickly and capitalize on them before they fizzle out.
To identify a trend, you can use several online tools such as Google Trends, Facebook Insights, and Twitter Trends. Google Trends is a free tool that allows you to search for topics, keywords or images and see their popularity over time. This can be helpful when choosing content to publish as it gives you an idea of what is gaining or losing popularity and what your competitors are doing.
Facebook Insights is another free tool that can be used to monitor and track the popularity of your posts, hashtags, and other content on Facebook. It will provide you with a breakdown of the number of likes, comments and shares your post has received over a certain period of time as well as how many people are searching for the topic you’ve posted about. This can be useful in understanding what types of content are resonating with your followers and how you can improve your future posts.
TikTok is also a great tool to use for finding out what is currently trending. You can use the trending tab on the home page to view the latest trends or visit the ‘explore’ section of your profile to get personalized suggestions based on your interests.
You can also find trending content ideas on YouTube by clicking on the ‘trending’ tab on the top bar of your screen. You will then be able to see the most popular videos on different categories that you can use as inspiration for creating your own marketing video content.
To avoid getting caught up in the hype of a trend, it is important to only focus on trends that are relevant to your business and your audience. It’s also crucial to add a personal touch and your unique brand voice in order to differentiate yourself from the rest of the noise. If you do your research and find a few trends that you can work with, then make sure your content is creative, fun, or even controversial in order to stand out from the crowd.