A trend reflects what’s popular in a given moment. It can reflect fashion, pop culture and entertainment or it could be a political movement or even a global phenomenon such as a flu pandemic. Trends can be short-lived (a new dress comes in, goes out of style) or longer-term (the rise of a healthy snack or the decline of an ice cream franchise).
A ‘trend’ is the term that social media platforms use to indicate which topics are receiving a lot of interest at a particular time. Trending topics can be a good source of inspiration for content, and can provide insights into what your audience is thinking about or searching for.
All major social media platforms feature a way to see the trending topics in their respective markets. These can be found via a link or menu option on the platform’s home page or within their search tools (e.g., X or Instagram’s Explore or Trending areas). Trending topics can also be identified in search results using Google trends and the ‘Explore’ tab on YouTube searches.
Keeping up with trending topics can help you create relevant content that will generate more engagement on your posts, tweets and TikTok videos. However, it’s important to evaluate the relevance of a topic for your audience before using it in your marketing. You don’t want to post or share something that will be considered inauthentic or contrived. To avoid this, be sure to utilize your available marketing tools such as keyword research or SEO so that you can find trends that relate to the information and solutions your audience is seeking.
To help you get started, we’ve rounded up our favorite resources for finding and understanding social media trends. We’ve broken down the best ways to get your hands on the latest trend data as well as how to interpret it so you can use it for your own marketing purposes.
You can use the Google Trends website to get a general look at what people are interested in across the globe or dig deeper and customize your search with the menus in the upper left corner. You can select a country, time range and categories. There are also graphs and charts that show the trending topics in various sectors such as sports, business, politics and more.
The ‘beige flag’ is a TikTok trend that showcases gamer cultures and the strange things that bind them together. From’starvemaxxing’ to ‘edgemaxxing’, it’s a reminder that gaming isn’t just about the games themselves but also the communities and subcultures that surround them.
While Google Analytics is a powerful set of tools that provides insight into your own web traffic, the trends tool offers a more broader view of what people are interested in and searching for. Whether you’re an experienced marketer or just getting started, you can use the trending data as a starting point for your next project. The most important thing is to have a plan for how you’ll use the trends data so you can make an impact and achieve your marketing goals.