When it comes to ecommerce, trends are a valuable tool for businesses looking to identify what topics are capturing the attention of their audience. Trends can be influenced by a variety of factors, including current events, viral content, holidays and popular culture. Trending content often receives more reach, engagement and mentions than other content on social media platforms. It is important for brands to create content that aligns with their audience’s interests and principles, and to use tools like Trending to help identify those interests.

While there is no definitive definition of a “trend”, the term typically refers to topics that experience a spike in popularity on social media sites for a short amount of time. This surge in interest is caused by a variety of factors, such as current events, celebrity announcements, TV premiers, social concerns and breaking news. Trending topics can also be fueled by memes or viral content. Despite their limited shelf-life, these trends offer an opportunity for ecommerce businesses to capitalize on the spike in interest by creating relevant and timely content that is relatable to their audience.

To keep an eye on the latest trends, marketers can use various trending tools such as Google Trends, Glimpse and Buzzsumo. Each of these tools offers unique features that allow users to identify and track different types of trends. Google Trends is a free online tool that provides search trend data from across the globe. Users can select a specific location, time period and category to view the most popular search terms on Twitter and Facebook.

Glimpse is an alternative to Google Trends that allows users to explore a broad range of topics. The platform utilizes human analysts to curate and add trends to its categories, so you can expect a more thorough list of trends on this site. Its data is also more reliable since it doesn’t rely on special characters, multiple searches from the same user or infrequent search terms to determine popularity.

Another popular tool for finding new trends is Buzzsumo, which is a content ideation and SEO tool. While Buzzsumo’s “Trending Topics” feature is useful for identifying content that is being shared within a certain industry, it does not provide specific trends or a list of the most popular content on a particular topic.

Awario, another social listening tool, has a “Trending Topics” feature that is similar to Buzzsumo’s. This tool includes lists of popular content on each topic, ordered by recency and includes total reach and trend score data. You can even save a trend as a Project to monitor its impact over time in your main dashboard. This allows you to see how the trend evolves and compare the performance of your content to other similar projects. This way, you can see what’s working and improve your next project. In addition, you can share projects with team members to collaborate on ideas. If you are not seeing the results you’re hoping for, try adjusting your criteria and trying again.