Trends are a part of our everyday life. Whether you’re browsing social media, streaming a TV show, or having a discussion with friends, trending topics are integrated into the fabric of our social and digital conversations. As you are creating content, using trends is integral to reaching new audiences, showing your industry expertise, and developing a deeper understanding of your target audience.
What are Trends?
Trends are anything that is relevant and buzzing. This can range from fashion, social media, pop culture, business, and technology. Trends are not limited to any specific age range, social or cultural group of people…think of them as a conversation that you can or can’t choose to participate in based on your own interest. Trends can even exist within communities like WordPress, this year WordPress experienced trends in eCommerce, animation, improvements to Gutenberg, and drag/drop themes.
How Trends are Defined in 2020
A trend is defined by people and the amount of traffic it can gain, particularly on the internet and social media. A few examples of trends are listed below:
Pop Culture
- Film
- TV
- Celebrities
- Award shows
- Music
Fashion
- Runway
- Designs
- Fast Fashion
Technology
- AI
- Cyber Security
- Virtual Reality
- Biometrics
Anything Viral
- TikTok challenges
- Politics
- Memes
- Videos
Why Trends Matter
- Trending topics get more traction because they are relatively more valuable to the reader.
- Trends can inspire you to create content.
- Using trends can set you apart from the competition.
- Trends can reveal what interests your target audience.
How To Identify Trends
Trends don’t exist in one arena, as trending content continues to evolve, there are several resources you can use to find and identify trends. Online resources and tools can help you stay ahead of trending content in the news, pop culture, current events, and more!
Most social media accounts can be customized to help generate news/alerts that you find interesting and engaging. Are you following any social media news site pages? Are you following industry leaders?
You can customize your social media newsfeed so you can easily scan relevant and trending topics.
Social Media
- TikTok
- Snapchat
Industry Influencers
- Thought leaders
- Content creators
- Micro-influencers
- Celebrities
- Industry experts
Social News Sites
- Buzzfeed
- Hacker News
- Gizmodo
- Wired
- Business Insider
There are endless options for identifying trends, but choosing what resources are best for you depends on your audience and what type of trends you are seeking out.
Building Trends Into Your Schedule
Where do you receive your information for trends? There are several different resources and online tools that allow you to easily build trends into your schedule.
These are a few online tools that are designed to help you discover trends.
Google Trends– This is a great tool used to show the popularity of a search term in Google and whether a trend is rising or declining. It also allows you to find niche topics by region, perform keyword research, and monitor competitor’s positions with Google Trends Compare.
BuzzSumo– If you have ever wondered, where do I find a trend? BuzzSumo helps you discover popular and trending content, influencers, and backlinks to use in your content. Trending stories are also organized into categories with a trending score to see how quickly they are being shared.
Trendwatching.com– Trendwatching is an online trend intelligence platform that sends trend-driven topics to your inbox which includes access to events, workshops, and trend analysts.
YouTube Trends– YouTube is the second largest search engine behind Google and an excellent source for identifying trending topics. You can browse the trending content video feed for trending topics with the option to search subtopics like fashion, gaming, music, and more.
Moz– A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tool that allows you to enter keywords in your industry and identify emerging patterns in people’s behavior.
The Benefits of Trends
As you are building your web presence, you develop a deeper understanding of your target audience by monitoring what trends are interesting to them. One of the biggest challenges content creators have is coming up with fresh ideas that will engage their target audience, this is where trending topics can help you out. Trends force you to think outside the box and position your brand or business as a relevant and knowledgeable leader in your field.
How Trends Help Your Content
The fantastic aspect of trends is that they cover a multitude of fields across different genres and topics so you can find trending topics that are relevant to your content. When you use a trending topic and share it on your social media, you can leverage the power of social media by using #’s and keywords that will show up in search results. Creating content around trending topics is low risk with potentially high rewards like boosting your traffic, increasing the SEO on your website, and making a conversion-friendly piece that can be picked up by a wide range of platforms and shared frequently.
Content + Trends
- You can find trending topics that are relevant to your content.
- Making entertaining or clever content about a trending topic lets you take advantage of your social media network.
- More conversions, more traffic, more links=SEO boost.
- Being timely and paying attention to which phrases and subjects are on the up-and-up can bring more traffic to your website.
Link-Worthy Content
Every content creator wants to create content that is shareable, clickable, and informative to their readers. “Link-worthy content” is defined as useful content that engages a reader, regardless of the topic. You want your content to be link-worthy because it can position you as an expert or leader within your industry.
Types of Link-Worthy Content:
Informational– This is typically the latest news that informs the audience of topics like politics, sports coverage, or international and domestic affairs.
Educational– This type of content teaches people something that’s new to them.
Inspirational– Inspirational content motivates people to take action like self-improvement or supporting a cause.
Entertaining– Entertaining content can be any topic that the reader finds amusing and engages their emotions.
Our society is one that thrives on using trends in content, advertising, marketing, and social media. Trends have the ability to showcase that you’re knowledgeable and at the forefront of what is going on in your industry. When you are using trends within your content, always make sure to be authentic to your brand and only use trends that can help enhance your content.
