One of the most important thing a marketer can do is to spot a high-running trend and use it to their advantage. When a trend pops in the web and goes viral people tend to pay more attention to other publications resembling that trend. A trend could be anything… From the running gag about John Travolta walking aimlessly somewhere to changing your profile picture to go with a certain belief or support a cause.
How To Spot A Trend?
In order to spot a trend, here’s what you can do:
Follow Buzz Websites. Buzz websites are everywhere! From BuzzFeed to BoredPanda, 9Gag to LazyPeacock, you can’t avoid their advertisements and shares on social networks. Following these websites will give you a sense of how to display things, how to write your title, what people finds interesting these days.
The content might often be boring, obvious or a bit low on the brains, however, you need to remember that people are sharing it like crazy and generating massive revenue to these sites.
Ask Your Social Channels What’s Trending. (And we don’t mean send Mark Zuckerberg a question on Linkedin…) You can spot trends often with social networks actually telling you- what’s trending. If you log in to your Twitter account you’ll be able to see, in the home page view, a small trend box on the bottom left side of your screen. The trend box will display what’s trending today amongst users from your country/area. One click on the “change” link and you’ll be able to see what are the latest trends anywhere in the world.
This tool is highly effective- though it will only spot current trends- so you better hurry up and act on it, before the trend goes away.
Look For Things That Make People Laugh. Laughter is one of our highest senses, and people do love a good laugh. Try going to Reddit and checking the most popular entries in the FUNNY or LOL sub-reddits. There’s a trend to be spotted there.
Notice When Things Repeat Themselves. If you’ve seen something shared by 2 or 3 of the people you know- it’s a rising trend. Someone is going to spot it and say something about it- it might as well be you.
The only way you’ll be able to notice these things without looking for them leads us to our next and BEST tip-
Be There. There is no better way to know what’s trending on Facebook than LIVING inside this social network.
Marketers of all kinds need to LIVE inside their niche in order to understand it.
If what you do is market Jewellery- you should be the jewellery specialist. You should know what jewellery items the stars are wearing, what are the names of the biggest jewellery brands, what kind of metal is currently the lead of the market. This is true for any industry. You always have to know what is going on.
Marketers who are crossing-niches, dealing with multipole clients- must stay online all the time. You have to be able to process a lot of data quickly and not get stuck on things.
Go With Your Guts. Cause your guts are usually right. If you want to know which image would be better for a post of some sort- look at 200 images that could fit. The one that catches your eye in a way you can’t explain- will be a hit. Search Pinterest for the latest pins and see what catches your eye, go to news feeds, popular Facebook pages- LIVE online, and the trend will find you.