5 Steps to Discover Trending Topics
When planning your content, or looking for opportunities to leverage a press release, it can help to know what people are talking about online. While it does involve a bit of legwork, the process of discovering trending topics is straightforward.
- Identify the Trends and Industries You Want to Follow
With any trend tool like Twitter Trends or AllTop, you’ll find a list of the day’s top searches. They’re not divided by keywords or categories. It’s a general list. However, most tools and resources also offer you with the opportunity to focus your research on categories and keywords. For example, someone in the financial planning industry may want to search for trending topics on “retirement” and “college savings.” Before you can begin the discovery process, you’ll want to know where to start. Make a list of the topics, keywords, and categories that fit your needs.
- Make a List of Your Resources.
The first step is to identify your resources. What blogs, magazines, and industry influencers are relevant to your business and stay current on trending topics? What research tools, like BuzzSumo, can you use to help you track the trends? Conduct thorough research and identify the tools that will best serve you and your organization. Make a list of the tools.
- Set up Google Trends
In addition to social media tools, blogs, and search friendly tools like AllTop, you can leverage the power of Google to stay on top of trending topics by using Google Trends, https://www.google.com/trends/. At a glance, you can see the top trending searches at any given time. You can also enter a search term or category and explore the past and present trends along with interest by region and related topics. Log in and click on “Subscriptions” in the left menu bar and you can then set it up so Google emails you with current trends for the designated search term and region.
- Subscribe
Going back to that list of resources you created, start setting up subscriptions with the blogs and search tools that fit your needs. Consider sending them all to a single email address or create a filter in your email so you can review them when you’re ready. It’ll help ensure you don’t accidentally delete your trending topic updates.
- Create Your Systems
If you want to stay on top of trending topics on a regular basis, then create a system that supports you to do this. That means setting up your subscriptions to email you at least weekly. It also then means that you’re reviewing this information on a weekly basis as part of your content research and planning session. Keep in mind that this is a task that is readily outsourced to an administrative assistant or marketing assistant. They can be internal or a virtual assistant. If you don’t need regular updates of trending topics, then simply review the most recent data when you need it. Creating an email filter will help you gain easy access to the information.
Writing about trending topics means paying attention to what people care about right now. It’s a smart way to stay connected to your audience. It’s also an effective strategy to strengthen your press release marketing efforts. Who can resist a press release that focuses on the most pertinent concerns of your audience?
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