Trending is a term used to describe topics or keywords that are popular on social media or other websites. They can be news events, cultural or other trends, viral content, holiday or special event topics, or online campaigns or challenges. Trends can be localized to a specific community or location or global in scope, depending on the platform.

Trends are created by algorithms that identify what topics are popular at a given moment and then present them to users on the site where they’re viewed. Most sites tailor what trends are shown to the individual user, taking into account their location, previous likes or searches and who they follow. This helps them to deliver content that is most relevant to the user.

The trending topics are then analyzed by humans to ensure they’re relevant and show sustainable growth patterns before they’re added to the list. This allows us to curate a highly useful and valuable list of trends that can be utilized by marketers and businesses.

In addition to being a great way to find new content to share, following and participating in trends can help you build brand awareness, increase engagement, and ultimately drive more traffic. In fact, according to a recent study from Socialbakers, businesses that are active in and participate in trends are almost twice as likely to have a positive impact on their business.

Using the Trends tab on YouTube is one of the best ways to get your videos seen by a wide audience. However, the algorithm that determines what’s trending can be unpredictable and often doesn’t have much relevance to the business world.

With a little research, you can find a few tools to help you identify the best trends and understand what drives them. This will give you the confidence to create and implement successful social media campaigns that stand out from the crowd.

SparkToro Trending is an example of an industry-specific tool that provides a list of trending topics to help marketers discover and target opportunities. While it’s a good resource to use, the downside is that it only covers a small number of Twitter users and doesn’t provide a method for sorting or filtering the results.

Another option for finding new trends is Glimpse, a website that offers a searchable database of 13,000 manually vetted trends. You can browse trends by category (e.g. beauty, finance, food) and then filter by trend growth status (Exploding, Peaked, or Regular), which is determined by Google Search volume data. You can also save a trend as a Project so that you can track its progress over time.