
In this content creation, it is a must to stay a step ahead to capture and keep your audience’s attention. An excellent strategy for that is to create content based on trending topics. With whatever might be the current talk, you have the potential for making your content go really viral with lots of views, engagement, and overall impact. Hence this methodology not only preserves the relevance of your content but also establishes your stance as an industry thought leader. For more assistance in making an online presence bigger, firms can seek help from social media marketing agencies to tap with experts on how to spot and leverage these trends. This article walks you through several methods and tools to find out current trending topics so that your content is always relevant, interesting, and optimized for maximum visibility. It encompasses topics from social media to search engine tools, hence giving you possible strategies to flood your content pipeline with ideas tailored for your audience.
Why Trending Topics Matter in Content Creation
Incorporating trending topics into your content strategy offers multiple benefits:
- Increased Visibility:
Content pertaining to the trending topic is easily found by larger audiences. Social media algorithms and search engines favor timely content, so the chances of it appearing in users’ feeds or search results are higher.
- Higher Engagement:
People are naturally interested in trending topics. By creating content around them, you enter into ongoing conversations, stimulating discussions, shares, and comments.
- Better SEO:
The keywords related to trending topics normally see a major spike in search volume. Therefore, optimizing your content with these keywords will better your ranking and in turn, bring more organic traffic to the site.
- Proves Your Relevance:
Using trending topics assures your audience that you are both informed and in tune with what is happening in your industry and the world; therefore, it enhances your credibility and builds trust with your audience.
- A Competitive Edge:
Being clued-up on trends enables you to distinguish your content from that of competitors. By introducing unique angles or insights on hot topics, you will attract attention and be identified as a thought leader.
Social Media Platforms
Social media platforms are a mine of trending topics. These platforms provide insights into what users are talking about, sharing, or engaging about in real time. Following are several trends to identify trending topics on various social media outlets.
Twitter is reputed as an immediate source by virtue of its real-time mode, thus serving to identify immediate trends best.
Twitter Trends:
In the Trends section of Twitter, topics talked about most either in a particular geographic location or across the globe appear. You might adjust the location based on the trends relevant to your target audience.
Hashtag Tracking:
Be on the lookout for trending hashtags. Hashtags manifest the categories in which conversations belong, tracking famous hashtags can sometimes lead to what is trending or topics that are emerging.
Advanced Search:
You can use the advanced search that Twitter provides and filter your Twitter searches by dates, location, and keywords in order to ascertain exact trends within your niche.
Lists:
Create Twitter lists of influencers, industry experts, and news agencies. By monitoring their tweets, you can gain early insight into new trending topics and ongoing discussions.
Real-time Monitoring Tools:
These can include tools like TweetDeck and Hootsuite, which allow you to monitor multiple Twitter feeds, hashtags, and keywords at once, ensuring you do not miss any emerging trends.
While not as real-time as Twitter, Facebook can still yield relevant insights, especially for topics of interest that involve news, entertainment, and lifestyle.
Facebook Trending:
The “Trending” section of Facebook displays popular news stories and hot topics that users are talking about. It provides a wider sense of what is on people’s minds.
Facebook Groups:
Join relevant Facebook groups, which pertain to your industry or niche. Monitoring discussions or popular posts within these groups allows you to reveal trending topics and common pain points.
Facebook Insights:
Are you running the page? Utilize Facebook Insights to study how your posts perform. This data can show you which topics resonate most with your audience and help you spot trends to adapt your content.
BuzzSumo:
BuzzSumo allows you to track the most shared content on Facebook; it can expose viral articles and videos and argue for insights into trending topics and content formats.
Instagram is a visual-based platform; therefore, it is well suited to identifying trends connected with aesthetics, lifestyle, and visual culture.
Hashtags Trends:
As in Twitter, hashtags are extremely important on Instagram. Tracking trending hashtags about your industry or niche is a great way to find emerging topics and themes.
Explore Page:
The Instagram “Explore” page features content that the algorithm determines you would be interested in. This is another insight into trending topics, as well as what types of content format are popular.
Influencer Insight:
Track influencers in the industry for what they are posting about. The influencers set trends and their respective posts might serve as a bell before the dawn of a certain topic.
Instagram Stories:
Follow what’s trending regarding popular Instagram Stories. Stories often chase behind-the-scenes pattens and real-time updates. In that respect, they can represent current trends as well as events.
Tik Tok
TikTok mainly becomes a phenomenon amid trends created by younger audience members.
- For You page
When you select TikTok’s For You page, you are given content specially curated for you by the algorithm, which is basically interesting to you. That is where you explore trendy challenges, sounds, and themes.
- Discover page:
In place of joining popular TikTok hashtags, challenges, and topics, here helps to point towards everything that is popular on the platform.
- Tracking Trends:
Use sites like TikTok Analytics to monitor the performance of your videos and see which topics are resonating most with your audience.
- Influencing Influencers:
Create content about emerging trends in conjunction with TikTok influencers on your side. They can help you reach a broader audience and jump onto an existing trend.
LinkedIn is a professional networking forum that offers an ideal space to detect business, technology, and career trends.
- LinkedIn News Section:
The LinkedIn News section identifies articles trending in the business world. The section provides insight into trending discussions and emerging trends.
- LinkedIn Groups:
Join relevant LinkedIn groups about your industry. Look out for ongoing discussions within these groups and popular posts as they signify trending topics or common issues.
- Linkedln Pulse:
Check out LinkedIn Pulse for top articles authored by leading experts and thought leaders in various industries. Generally, these articles touch upon present trends and provide valuable insights.
- Hashtag Monitoring:
Watch LinkedIn hashtags to find out trending topics and conversations inside your industry.
Utilizing Search Engine Tools
Search engine tools are other sources of trend identification. Such tools give information pertaining to volume of search, keyword popularity, indexing a particular search, and other developing trends.
- Google Trends
Google Trends is among heavy hitters when it comes to find out what people’s queries are.
- Explore Trends Based on Content:
In this section, you will enter a keyword or topic and find out how the volume of search over time changes. Among other things, it will show you some of the upcoming trends and seasonal patterns.
- Trending Searches:
Trending Searches show you the most popular searches under a particular geographical location. It means now you can actually peeps into what people are really talking about.
- Related Queries:
Google Trends also shows “Related Queries”, these are searches that tend to be made along with your key search term. With this one, you will be able to know about some more related topics and sub-trends.
- Comparison Tool:
The comparison tool is useful in comparing how various keywords or topics have different search volume levels. The trend component that your audience finds most popular and relevant would be determined.
Google Alerts
Google Alerts helps you set alerts on particular words or phrases for prospective emails.
- Keyword Monitoring:
You are making alerts for pr keywords in your field or niche. And whenever a new article or blog is out, mentioning those words, Google will be sending a notification about it to you.
- Trend Tracking:
Set up alerts for very broad ideas and observe what unfolds in emerging trends or conversations so that you can use that for content generation.
Keyword Research Tool
Use of keyword research engines such as SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Moz allows the detection of trending subjects.
- Keyword Analysis:
Utilize these tools to check search volume against competition for a wide variety of keywords. Target keywords which show a rapid rise on search volume because they may indicate a trending topic.
- Topic Research:
The search engines (or some sort of) are present in order to conduct topic research and help nail down content ideas and trend topics for your industry.
- Competitor Analysis:
Competitors’ content analysis shows which topics they cover and which keywords they target. This could help inform what is trending and what might be a topic gap.
Content Ideation Techniques
Once you know the potential trending topics, think about brainstorming the content ideas surrounding those topics. Here are some techniques for brainstorming new and interesting content ideas:
- Review Other Trending Topics:
Get started by reviewing trending topics you have identified thoroughly. Grasp the context, core themes, and associated discussions.
- Brainstorm Content Types:
For each topic, think about all the different types of content that could be created. This could include blog articles, videos, infographics, podcasts, social media posts, and the like.
- Consider Different Angles and Perspectives:
Consider the different angles you could take on each topic. Provide insights that no one else has, challenge the standard dogma, or give practical tips and advice.
- Audience:
Consider how each topic could resonate with your target audience. Prioritize topics that are highly relevant, have potential for engagement, and align well with your brand.
- Topic Prioritization:
Prioritize topics based on their relevance, engagement potential, and suitability to your brand. Make sure the list covers several kinds of topics so that your content always stays fresh and interesting to your audience.
- Repurposing Content:
Search for opportunities to recycle some of your old content for new trends. These could be updating older blog posts; then maybe making some new videos to go along with some of the popular articles, or sharing content on social media.
Effective Practices for Creating Content
To create content on trending topics, spotting trends is not enough. Some other best practices you should consider while keeping your content engaging, informative, and SEO-friendly include:
- Originality:
You should never forget trending topics; however, your content should include a fresh slant or provide value to the ongoing discussion. It should definitely avoid repeating what is already well known.
- Accuracy:
Before publishing, double-check the information for correctness. Any misinformation would discredit you and defy trust from your audience.
- Relevant:
The trending topic should be relevant to your target audience and your brand. Never capitalize on trends just for the sake of it, as this might come off as insincere.
- SEO Optimization:
Within the text, sprinkle relevant keywords. Add meta descriptions and title tags to create search-friendly content. This means it will show up in the search results and get organic traffic.
- Visual Appeal:
Mention how to display the content beautifully, including some pretty good images, videos, and graphics. Visual appeal does draw attention and motivates viewers to engage.
- Engagement:
Perhaps some questions, comments, or discussion would be a good way to engage the audience. Building a community around content is a great way to keep people engaged.
- Promotion:
Using social media, emails, and other channels is a must for promotion. This way, you can request a wider audience for the content. Using hashtags where relevant and tagging any influencers would also aid in gaining visibility.
Examples of Trending Topics and Content Ideas
To illustrate how to leverage trending topics for content creation, here are some examples:
Example 1: Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Trending Topic:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a rapidly growing field with numerous applications across industries3.
- Content Ideas:
Blog post: “How AI is Transforming the Future of Marketing”
Video: “5 Ways AI Can Improve Your Business Operations”
Infographic: “The Impact of AI on Various Industries”
Podcast: “An Interview with an AI Expert”
Example 2: Mental Health
- Trending Topic:
Mental health is a growing concern, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Content Ideas:
Blog post: “Tips for Maintaining Good Mental Health While Working From Home”
Video: “How to Recognize and Manage Stress and Anxiety”
Infographic: “The Benefits of Mindfulness and Meditation”
Social Media Campaign: “Share Your Mental Health Story”
Example 3: Remote Work
- Trending Topic:
Remote work has become increasingly popular, with many companies adopting flexible work arrangements.
- Content Ideas:
Blog post: “The Ultimate Guide to Remote Work Productivity”
Video: “How to Set Up a Home Office for Maximum Efficiency”
Infographic: “The Pros and Cons of Remote Work”
Webinar: “Best Practices for Managing a Remote Team”
Tools for Finding Trending Topics
Here is a more comprehensive list of tools that will help you to find trending content topics for your content creation:
Google Trends: A free service by Google to display the time-based popularity of search terms.
BuzzSumo: Identifies the most popular content on social media platforms.
SEMrush: An integrated SEO tool which aids in competitor analysis and keyword research.
Ahrefs: Another SEO tool that offers an insight into the performance of keywords and trending content.
Moz: Offers tools for keyword research and SEO analysis.
Twitter Trends: Displays the most talked-about topics on Twitter.
Facebook Trending: Highlights popular news stories and topics on Facebook.
Instagram Explore Page: Showcases content the algorithm believes will interest you.
TikTok Discover Page: Highlights trending hashtags, challenges, and topics on TikTok.
LinkedIn News: Highlights trending articles and topics in the business world.
Google Alerts: Sends email notifications for specific keywords or topics.
Talkwalker Alerts: Social listening feature that gives you real-time alerts on keyword and topic mentions.
Reddit Trends: Tracks trending discussions and topics on Reddit.
Quora: Picks out popular questions and topics trending on Quora.
Feedly: Collects news and blog posts from sources.
Pocket: Lets you save and organize articles and videos from around the web.
Case Studies: Effective Application of Trending Topics
A number of brands and creators have been able to utilize trending topics to increase their digital visibility. Some examples include:
- Dove:
Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign capitalized on the trending topic of body positivity and self-acceptance. The campaign used diverse women and rejected traditional beauty standards, appealing to a broad audience and gaining extensive media coverage.
- Old Spice:
Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign rode the wave of popular culture around the time, using humor as a popular topic. The ad used a charming spokesperson and humorous commercials, becoming viral and rejuvenating the brand.
- Wendy’s:
Wendy’s has a clever and entertaining Twitter presence, frequently reacting to trending topics and taking part in social media challenges. This has assisted the brand in reaching younger consumers and growing its social media following.
- Bored Panda:
This content site aggregates articles on trending topics and viral stories, including a list of funny reviews of UK attractions, which generates high social media engagement.
The Function of a Social Media Marketing Agency
It can be difficult to navigate the constantly evolving trend landscape, particularly for companies with scarce resources or know-how. Having a social media marketing agency provide assistance and counsel can give the leverage and advice necessary to harness trends to the fullest in content creation. Such agencies have various services to offer, such as:
- Trend Identification:
Agencies possess the tools and know-how to recognize trending trends and determine how relevant they are to your brand.
- Content Strategy:
Agencies are able to create a content strategy that is congruent with your business objectives and includes trending themes to achieve the greatest reach and engagement.
- Content Creation:
Agencies are able to produce high-quality content that is search engine- and social media-optimized.
- Social Media Management:
Your social media presence can be managed by agencies so that your content is given proper promotion and is seen by the right audience.
- Analytics and Reporting:
Your content performance can be monitored by agencies and precise reports on all important metrics.
The Future of Trending Topics
As technology advances and social media continues to evolve, how we become aware of and interact with trending topics will also shift. Below are trends to expect:
- AI-Powered Trend Analysis:
Artificial intelligence will continue to play a greater role in spotting and analyzing trends. AI algorithms can scan massive amounts of data to identify emerging subjects and forecast future trends.
- Personalized Trend Recommendations:
Social networking sites and search engines will most probably provide users with more targeted trend suggestions depending on their interests, activities, and demographics.
- Augmented Reality (AR) Experiences:
Augmented reality will be utilized to develop interactive experiences surrounding trending issues so that users can engage with content in fresh and innovative ways.
- Virtual Reality (VR) Events:
Virtual reality will allow users to attend virtual events and engage with trending conversations anywhere globally.
Conclusion:
Integrating popular topics into your content creation plan is an effective means of remaining current, connecting with your audience, and increasing your online visibility. By using social media sites, search engine resources, and content generation methods, you can regularly produce new and interesting content that appeals to your target market. Whether you’re an experienced marketer or a beginner, being aware of what’s currently popular is crucial to achieving success in today’s ever-changing digital environment.
As you continue to develop your content strategy, keep in mind that the skill of a social media marketing agency can prove priceless. At xploreIntellects, we are experts at assisting companies like yours in tapping into the potential of digital marketing. If you’re looking to take your online presence to the next level, check out our services and discover more about collaborating with a top digital marketing firm to reach your objectives.