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Quickly and easily find new trends on social media before they go mainstream with these 8 simple tips.
It can be hard to keep up with all of the latest trends in social media. Between new platforms, changes in algorithms, and ever-evolving marketing strategies, it can feel like you're playing catch-up just to stay afloat.
With that being said, there are a few tools and tips you can use to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to emerging trends. By following the 8 tips I’m about to outline in this article, you'll be able to quickly and easily find new trends on social media before they go mainstream.
1. Use TikTok Creative Center
TikTok is still a relatively new social media platform that has exploded in popularity over the past few years. Thanks to its viral content, easy-to-use app, and creative filters, TikTok has become one of the most popular social media platforms for content creators and influencers.
But it’s not just an app to browse the latest dance videos. TikTok also provides a wealth of information regarding trend discovery and analytics.
TikTok’s Creative Center allows you to filter through songs, hashtags, creators, and TikTok videos. You can select various timeframes as well as the Country you want to analyze or even the industry.
Probably the most useful part of TikTok’s Creative Center is their Hashtags section where you can dive deeper into what’s trending as recently as one day ago.
Once you see a trend that interests you, you can click on it for even more details. For example, I clicked on #strangerthings and here we can see everything from the interest graph over time, a link to videos related to that hashtag, a chart that shows the age range, related interest queries, and more.
All this information can be extremely useful for finding new and emerging trends. In 2022, new trends are typically hitting TikTok first and then trickling over to other platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, etc. So if you want to stay ahead of the curve, TikTok’s Creative Center is a great way to do that.
2. Follow Influencers in Your Industry
Another great way to stay up to date on emerging trends is to simply follow influencers in your industry. Not all trends will apply to all niches so it’s important to stay on top of what’s relevant to your niche.
Whichever platform you spend the most time on, make an effort to seek out other public figures in your niche and follow what they post. You can even turn on post notifications on platforms like Twitter or YouTube to be alerted as soon as their post or video is live.
The faster you’re able to react, make some relevant content of your own, and ride a particular trend, the better chance you’ll have of growing your social media presence.
And if you want to take it a step further, try reaching out to these influencers via DM or a link in their bio (if they have Linktree or a similar service) to see if there are any collaboration opportunities you could work on together.
3. Check Out What’s Trending on Twitter
Many people prefer to use Twitter to stay updated on what’s trending. This platform is known for being a hotbed of activity, with new ideas and perspectives constantly emerging.
You can use Twitter’s Trending feature but this doesn’t always give the full picture of what’s trending as it’s Country-specific.
Therefore, if you want to search for trends in other countries than your own, you’ll need to either use a VPN or a Twitter trends tool. This one for instance allows you to see that the latest trending hashtags are by Country, or even by state.
This allows you to get a wider overview of what’s trending either on a worldwide basis or on a more granular level. Based on what you find, you can then create content around it and publish it to the platform of your choice to have a higher chance of being seen by people who are interested in that topic.
4. Check out Google Trends
Google is the world's largest search engine, so it's no surprise that its trends data is also very insightful. Google Trends lets you see how popular specific topics are in the US and globally. You can even compare multiple topics side-by-side to get a better sense of which ones are on the rise.
You can use the “Recently trending” section to get new ideas for what you could post about on social media or use Google trends to confirm an existing trend.
For example, taking the “stranger things” keyword that we used in the first tip, you can see that this search term is projected to have a popularity value of 100 when compared to the past 12 months.
Therefore, this confirms it would make for a relevant topic on social media to post reaction videos, teasers, etc.
5. Use Exploding Topics
Exploding Topics is a freemium tool that lets you see topics in a variety of niches that are starting to pick up in popularity. Simply select a timeframe and the niche that you’re in and the tool will provide you with a list of up-and-coming search terms.
This gives you an edge over your competition as you’ll find emerging search terms before they’re even picked up on social media.
Combine your social media post with a trending song (which can be found on TikTok’s Creative Center) and you might just stumble upon something that goes viral.
6. Join Social Media Groups on Facebook
Facebook isn’t really considered as being the “hub” anymore for the world’s latest trends. But, you can still use Facebook to connect with others and share ideas.
That’s where Facebook groups come in. To get ideas from others about what the next social trends are, try joining some Facebook groups like this one or this one.
There are a ton of them out there, all you have to do is a quick Facebook search. Try joining a few to see if it’s something that fits your niche. Who knows, someone in that group might just stumble upon and share the next big trend - before it goes viral.
7. See What’s Trending on YouTube
YouTube is the world's largest video-sharing site, so it's no surprise that it's also a great place to find out about new trends. The site's "Explore" section highlights popular videos, giving you a good idea of what's currently popular on the platform.
They also recently introduced “Shorts” which are basically TikTok or Instagram reel style content. You can browse through both of these sections on a daily basis to see if there’s anything in particular that sticks out to you.
You can also check the hashtags of either the full-length videos or shorts and cross reference them with TikTok’s Creative Center or Google trends. This will help give you more insight into if that hashtag is actually relevant and emerging.
8. See What’s Popular on Instagram
There are a few ways to stay on top of trends on Instagram. If you’re a frequent user of Instagram you’ll likely receive new and emerging content through your Explore page.
Browsing through this section of the app for at least a few minutes every day will probably keep you fairly up to date.
However, another tip to stay on top of trends when using Instagram is to follow large meme accounts. Most of the posts that these meme accounts make content about are related to current trends or breaking news.
Therefore, every time you check the Instagram app you’ll see the latest posts from these accounts which could then spark your inspiration to create something of your own.
In Summary
So how do you stay ahead of the curve when it comes to social media trends? Well as I’ve outlined in this post you need to use a combination of tools, patience, and networking. TikTok’s Creative Center is a great place to start and discover emerging topics that are ripe to create relevant content around.
However, that’s only one piece of the puzzle. To truly grow your social media following you’ll need to do this consistently, collaborate with others in your niche, and maybe even get a little creative with your content.
Author bio: Cody is the founder of CodyArsenault.com, a blog that focuses on providing the tools and techniques to help others learn how to make money online. He's operated several e-commerce and niche blogs and has generated multiple 7 figures in online sales.
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