In this incredibly fast-paced digital landscape, keeping up with trends is essential to a company’s success. To do this, you need to constantly monitor trending topics in your industry to anticipate changes and inform your strategy. With that in mind, we’ve outlined why it’s essential to have brand tracking capabilities to monitor trending topics.
Why is monitoring trending topics so important?
Tracking trends is critical to determining whether your marketing team can prove your value to senior leadership through earned media measurement. Being able to identify and respond to trending topics significantly increases your traffic, engagements and SEO. An increasingly common way to do this is participating in social listening through your organization’s social media channels–or a media monitoring service–to see what topics your audience finds most valuable.
Industry and competitor analysis are also benefits of following trends. Knowing what trends are going on in your industry allows you to keep up with the latest in marketing strategies and technology. Competitor analysis helps you fine-tune or even completely revamp your messaging based on the data you collect and may also help with product development.
Last but certainly not least, crisis communications is another benefit of following trends. By monitoring trending topics in your industry, you can manage your brand’s reputation. Not only can you prepare for a crisis by keeping on top of what your customers are saying on various platforms, but you can also mitigate the crisis by responding to negative press and your customers in real-time.
How do you identify what’s trending?
Two great ways to know what’s trending is through Google and social media trends. Each platform has its own trending section:
- Google Trends
- Facebook trending
- Twitter trends
- LinkedIn Content Suggestions
How do you create an action plan for trending topics?
Once you identify a trend that is going viral, you want to ensure you consider the following before you create your marketing strategy:
1) Why is the topic going viral?
2) Where is the topic going viral?
3) Can your brand add value to the conversation?
4) Do you have existing content that can address this topic?
5) Can you link your content to be a part of the conversation?
Once you answer these questions, you are ready to participate in the trend!
How does real-time media monitoring help?
Real-time media monitoring is a surefire way to keep on top of trends in your industry. All-in-one platforms like Critical Mention allow you to get instant updates for the trending topics that matter to your industry on TV, radio, online news, print, licensed content and social media. Rather than having a dedicated analyst sift through millions of news sources, media monitoring platforms simplify this process with easy-to-use interfaces and alerts directly to your email with dedicated account managers available 24/7/365.
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Until next time!
Critical Mention
Jolie Shapiro
Passionate about all things communications, Jolie found her dream job as a copywriter with Critical Mention, where she’s continuing her passion for writing and editing. With a background working for high-profile clients in the financial, hospitality and technology industries, she’s excited to bring her experience to Critical Mention. When she’s not writing, you can find her at music festivals, hiking or snowboarding.
