Keeping your eye on trends is an important part of a content marketer's job. You want to know what your customers are seeing, hearing, and thinking about in the wider culture. Sometimes trends come in with a huge flourish. Other times, they sneak up on you. Keeping yourself in touch with popular culture helps you know what your customers might want next or what they will reject.
Here are a few sources to help you plug in to what's happening around you:
Google Trends
Google Trends">This is a free tool that lets you know what’s popular on Google, which is a sure way to know what people are interested in. Here’s a look at the term Content Marketing. As you can see the trend spikes upward starting in 2011.
Trendspottr
Trendspottr">This tool allows you to create alerts for the topics you care about. It’s a real-time tool that keeps you on top of trends by monitoring web content, including that of Facebook and Twitter.
Trend Hunter
Trend Hunter">Trend Hunter is a community of people who report on the latest trends. The site has lots of interesting information on what’s trending and why.
BuzzSumo Trends
BuzzSumo Trends">BuzzSumo has added a trends section to its search capabilities. It shows you content that is trending for major topics or the specific topics you set up. To create your own trend search, go to BuzzSumo and set up the topic of your choice. You can see what’s trending in 2, 4, 8, 12, or 24 hours.
