Imagine you could see the future of your business and know exactly what to do to make it thrive! How about tapping into the pulse of your customers and anticipating their needs and desires? Or, maybe spotting the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead and acting on them before anyone else! The answer lies in leveraging trend tracking tools!
Trend tracking is the process of identifying, analyzing, and applying the trends that shape your industry and your audience. Trends are the drivers of strategic decision-making and catalysts for innovation, customer loyalty, and market domination. So, it’s undeniable that you need the best tools to track trends and grow your business exponentially.
But how do you find the trends that matter to your business? How do you tell the difference between a lasting trend and a passing fad? And how do you use the trends to create value for your customers? In this blog post, we will introduce you to some of the most effective tools to track trending topics and skyrocket your business growth!
What are the Best Trend Tracking Tools?
Here are some of the top trend tracking tools that you can utilize to track and analyze trends, each with its own unique advantages.
1. Discovery Platform – Stay Updated & Anticipate Future Industry Trends
Main use cases
- Identify and analyze emerging and future industry trends
- Scout relevant startups working on trending technologies
Highlighting features
- Repository of over 29,500 trends and technologies
- Tailor-made Trend Intelligence Reports
- Database of 3.7M+ global startups and scaleups
Who is the tool for?
- Company Founders
- Chief Innovation Officers
- Chief Technology Officers
- Innovation Managers
- Product Development Teams
- Research & Development
StartUs Insights’ Discovery Platform enables you to stay ahead of the curve by providing insights into emerging technologies, disruptive trends, and innovative business models in your industry through its Trend Intelligence feature. It combines AI and machine learning to give you access to over 29,500 trends and technologies. Moreover, it provides valuable information and actionable insights on specific technologies and potential partners, enabling you to move from observation to implementation.
An example of what Trend Intelligence can do – Preview: New Technology to Invest In (2024)
How to use the tool?
Once you are logged in, select the Trends tool. You will then see a simple and intuitive interface where you can enter your search query. You can use any keywords, topics, or technologies that are relevant to your innovation needs.
For example, if you are looking for trends in robotics, you can type “robotics” in the Keywords box. To further refine your search, you can apply various filters like annual growth, magnitude, maturity, number of organizations involved, funding, press mentions, and much more.
2. Google Trends – Gain Data-driven Insights on Anything Trendy
Main use cases
- Historical Google search volume of any topic
- Data-driven comparison of multiple topics / keywords
- Explore related trending topics
Highlighting features
- Google search volume graph
- Insights on interest over time
- Related topics and queries
- Filters: location, time period, categories, etc.
Who is the tool for?
- Market Researchers
- Marketing Departments
- Media Companies
A powerful search analysis tool that reveals the level of public interest in various search terms. With Google Trends, you get a graph of search volume for the trend keyword. With features such as Interest Over Time and Related Topics and Queries, you uncover key insights and opportunities that inform your strategic decisions for your target market. Moreover, you can use it to identify seasonal patterns and align your marketing efforts accordingly.
How to use the tool?
To use Google Trends, you need to login to your Google account and go to trends.google.com to explore the results. It also allows you to compare multiple terms or topics, and filter by categories, regions, time periods, and types of searches. Further, you can identify related topics and queries to discover new angles and ideas for your business’s content.
3. Semrush – Level Up Your Online Marketing with Actionable Trend Data
Main use cases
- Content & Social Media Marketing
- Competitor Research
- Market Analysis
Highlighting features
- Market Explorer – Market Traffic Analytics
- EyeOn – Competitor Intelligence
- One2Target – Audience Analytics
Who is the Tool for?
- Content Creators
- Social Media Managers
- Digital Marketers
Semrush is a comprehensive digital marketing toolkit that provides insights into the online presence of your company and your competitors. It offers a suite of features including SEO (Search Engine Optimization) auditing, keyword research, competitor analysis, and social media tracking.
Semrush .Trends is a suite of tools that helps you analyze your competitors, discover new markets, and monitor your online performance. WIth these tools, you are able to spot new market dynamics and emerging trends to grow your business. Semrush .Trends include the following tools:
- Traffic Analytics — see how much traffic your competitors get, where they get it from, and how they engage their visitors. You can compare up to 5 domains, and see their traffic sources, audience overlap, user behavior, and more. You can also access historical data and industry benchmarks.
- Market Explorer — identify new opportunities and niches in your industry. You can see the market size, growth, seasonality, and trends. You can also analyze the top players, their traffic share, audience characteristics, and marketing strategies.
- EyeOn — monitor your online reputation & sentiment and track mentions of your brand, products, competitors, or any keywords across the web and social media. You can also see the sentiment, reach, and engagement of each mention, and respond to them directly from the tool.
- One2Target — audience research tool to let you optimize your website for better conversions and user experience. You can see how your website performs on various metrics, such as speed, usability, SEO, and security.
Further, its social media tracking enables you to monitor social media performance and schedule posts. You can use Semrush to optimize your online presence, track industry trends, understand your competition and develop effective digital marketing strategies.
How to use the tool?
Log in to Semrush and look for the Trends section in the main dashboard or the left-hand navigation menu. Select the tool you want to use. For example, To get started with Market Explorer, first, decide how you want to define your market. You have three options — Create a List, Find Competitors, or Analyze a Category.
Once you select how you want to define your market, choose a location and enter competitors or industry. Say you have selected the Create List option to analyze the US bicycle market based on Trekbikes.com — click on the Create and Analyze button to enter the Market Explorer tool.
The Market Summary section provides a variety of metrics that help you understand the market broadly. This includes Market Consolidation, Key Players, Market Domains, Market Traffic & Traffic Growth, Market Traffic Cost & Cost Growth, and Market Size.
4. BrandMentions – Track What’s Trendy on Social Media in Real Time
Main use cases
- Social Media Monitoring
- Brand Awareness Analysis
- Enhance Customer Engagement
Highlighting features
- Social media trend tracking
- Top keyword tracking and analysis
- Public sentiment analysis
- Competitor spying
Who is the tool for?
- Social Media Managers
- Digital Marketers
- Brand Managers
BrandMentions is a real-time search and analysis tool that monitors and analyzes social media content. It works like a search engine, searching the internet for user-generated content such as blogs, comments, bookmarks, events, news, videos, and microblogging services.
The tool provides sentiment analysis, a feature that shows whether the mentions are positive, negative, or neutral. It also measures the influence of these mentions, indicating the probability of your brand being discussed on social media.
Moreover, its Social Mention tool supports keyword tracking and top keyword analysis, enabling you to discover trending topics. It even gives an indication of passion, a measure of the likelihood that individuals talking about your brand will do so repeatedly. Thus, enabling you to gauge your consumers’ brand loyalty.
How to use the tool?
You just need to sign up for the platform and enter any keyword or hashtag. The platform will provide actionable insights that will enable you to track trends, assess public sentiment toward your brand, and identify influential advocates or critics. Using this, your teams can inform marketing strategies as well as improve customer engagement, and crisis management efforts.
5. Google News – Stay On Top of Everything Happening Around You
Main use cases
- Monitor news about your company as well as your competitors
- Stay up to date with valuable insights on the industry landscape and market developments
Highlighting features
- Categorization of news: technology, business, science, etc.
- Real-time updates on trendy news
Who is the tool for?
- Market Researchers
- Innovation Managers
- Content Creators
- Media Companies
Google News is a news aggregator that utilizes advanced algorithms to compile news from various sources worldwide and present them in an easy-to-navigate format. With personalized news updates, real-time updates from reliable sources, and full coverage features, Google News offers different perspectives on the same story.
How to use the tool?
To use Google News, you can search for specific topics or regions and use it to stay updated on industry trends, and monitor news about your company or competitors. Moreover, you gain insights into market developments.
6. Feedly – Cut the Noise and Find Relevant Insights & Trends
Main use cases
- Discover new trends
- Track competitors
- Identify emerging security threats
Highlighting features
- Market Intelligence
- Threat Intelligence
Who is the tool for?
- Innovation Managers
- Market Researchers
- Media Companies
Feedly is a web-based news aggregator and RSS feed reader that collects, analyzes, and shares actionable insights from various sources in real-time. It enables you to stay on top of the market by monitoring competitors, spotting new trends, and researching emerging security threats.
It has various features such as the ability to sort and filter content from different sources, create custom collections, and save articles for later reading. By integrating Feedly with your communication tools, you are able to easily share insights with your team and collaborate on strategies.
How to use the tool?
To get started with Feedly, you add content by searching for specific topics, websites, or RSS feeds. You can then group these sources into collections for easy access. It also lets you customize your reading experience with different views and settings. Moreover, the AI-powered features allow you to find key insights and trends from a huge amount of information, supporting your decision-making and strategy development.
7. SparkToro – Know Your Target Consumer Trends
Main use cases
- Track industry trends
- Gather data about your target consumers
- Market research
- Pitch business partnerships/collaboration
Highlighting features
- Data-driven audience insights
- Competitor analysis
Who is the tool for?
- Market Departments
- Brand Managers
- Social Media Managers
SparkToro is an audience research tool that lets you find the online sources that your audience trusts and engages with. The platform offers various features such as audience insights, competitive analysis, and trend tracking. It allows you to enter information such as job titles, websites, or hashtags related to your audience. Then, it delivers comprehensive data about them, including where to find them.
How to use the tool?
To use SparkToro, enter specific information about your target audience, such as job titles, websites, or hashtags. This will then give you detailed data about your audience. By knowing where your audience hangs out online, you can customize your marketing strategies, reach your target audience more efficiently, and stay on top of industry trends.
Conclusion
With these trend tracking tools, you quickly identify and monitor the changes and developments in your industry, market, or niche. However, having a list of these tools is not enough. You also need to know how to use them effectively and efficiently.
A good trend tracking tool offers more than just data collection — it delivers real-time insights, in-depth trend analysis, and comprehensive monitoring of various market segments. It also enables you to transform raw data into actionable strategies, turn insights into innovations, and anticipate changes in the market landscape. That is why our trend intelligence is a one-stop solution for all your trend discovery and analysis needs. Get in touch to identify emerging trends and stay ahead of your competition.
