Checklist: How to Spot Growing Trends in Traditional Media and Social Networks
Traditional and social media both are a valuable source of information for executives, marketers, and PR professionals. Typically, social media can provide a clearer view of the public opinion but it can lack the authoritative context of traditional media. Traditional media, on the other hand, serves curated, expert-driven perspectives but it can be slow to catch up with ever-shifting public sentiment. The real power for businesses lies in monitoring both: combining these two information flows, companies can create an all-encompassing, comprehensive view of the current situation and emerging trends.
Why trend detection matters
- First move advantage
If you are able to detect a trend before your competition does, you can be the first to come to the market with a new product, service, or campaign. For example, a company that notices a rise in mentions of sustainability-related keywords can rapidly adjust their messaging to highlight the sustainable practices they employ to position themselves in a more favorable light. Or, such a company could even develop and market an eco-friendly product, meeting the customer demand and taking a large portion of the market share before the competition moves in.
- Audience connection
Trends reflect people’s interests and concerns. If you understand your audience, you can create content and tailor your communications to be relevant to what the public cares about, thus establishing a genuine connection with your audience. Active participation in conversations that matter to your customers builds trust and strengthens your community.
- Proactive crisis management
Handling crises is an important part of managing brand reputation. The difficulty is that in the digital age, negative sentiment can spread faster than a wildfire, and now it is more important than ever to catch crises as early as possible. This is where trend detection comes in: it helps spot negative sentiment as it starts to build up instead of when it is at its peak, allowing companies to respond promptly and diffuse tensions effectively.
- Informed product development
Rising trends can often point to unmet customer needs. If “at-home fitness” is on the rise, this could signal that more people wish to transition from going to the gym to exercising at home. Companies can act on this information by developing products such as fitness apps offering exercise routines or more compact, easy-to-maintain fitness equipment. No matter what the specific situation is, companies can invest in developing features for their products that the consumers will genuinely value.
How to identify emerging trends
It is important to understand the nature of trends in traditional and social media to correctly interpret the signals from these two sources. None of them are necessarily a better source of information to spot trends, they simply serve different purposes. Traditional media typically has a heavier, more scrupulous editorial process: journalists and editors conduct topic research, fact-check and vet information, and interview experts to ensure their coverage is as authoritative as possible. Social media, on the other hand, can provide an unfiltered, real-time look into public sentiment as people are free to go online and share their thoughts, whatever they may be.
This is why social media is best at detecting viral trends and immediate shifts in public sentiment, as speed is one of its greatest strengths. A meme or challenge can go from zero to viral in a matter of hours, and company posts can see an influx of reactions, both positive and negative. Unless they sustain their popularity for a long period of time or are big enough, traditional media typically does not cover such events. However, traditional media is an excellent source of information on established, long-term trends and major shifts. They cover economic developments, policy changes, and public interests that have significant country or industry-wide implications.
Another thing to keep in mind is that early trend detection signals are not foolproof, especially if they come from social media. Social media can create false positives in monitoring data that are sometimes caused by techniques people use online: bot farms, engagement farming, rage bait, and others. Sometimes it can be simply something that catches people’s eye but is not interesting enough to hold their attention for long. These situations create spikes in engagement metrics that look like something is about to start, but they are quick to die out because there is no actual substance behind these reactions. So, it is crucial to validate information internally before acting on it. If you see a spike in engagement metrics that looks like it might be a start of a trend, take the time to investigate. Review posts that contributed to this spike and see if it is genuinely something interesting and catchy that engages people, or if it is simply some sort of bait or botting. Posts need to be fact-checked and vetted even if it is clear that the engagement is genuine. Misinformation can easily spark viral interest, but acting on this can bring serious ramifications for the company once it is established that it was not true, including ethical, reputational, and even legal. The bottom line is that the desire to act quickly and be the first to move must be tempered by risk assessment and due diligence.
Numbers to insights: spotting traditional media trends
- Frequency and volume analysis
The most basic signal of an emerging trend is an increase in the number of articles that mention a topic over a period of time. The best way to collect and analyze this information is to record the number of mentions over the same time frame: it can be daily or weekly depending on the resolution you wish to get, and plotting these data points for convenient visual interpretation. Then, sudden spikes in attention a topic is getting will become apparent, and your company will be ready to act on them.
- Qualitative tone analysis
The type of attention a topic is getting is very important: negative and positive coverage signal different things and require different action. That is why it is crucial to ground the number of mentions in the sentiment of these mentions. For example, artificial intelligence may have been covered mostly with the tone of fear and scepticism for a while, but gradually that shifted to a tone of excitement and convenience. Understanding the attitude articles carry will allow you to understand the situation correctly and react properly.
- Identifying expert commentary
It is important to pay close attention to who writes the articles and who is quoted in them. When coverage moves from general information to commentary from respected academics or industry leaders, it can be a strong signal that this trend has substance and is not a fleeting interest spike, which in turn allows your company to act with greeted certainty on this trend.
Numbers to insights: how to stay updated with social media trends
- Tracking hashtags
We start with the most basic metric again: hashtag use counts are similar to keyword mentions in traditional media. And the idea here is very similar, too: a hashtag going from a few hundred uses to tens of thousands in a day is a clear sign of a topic going viral. Remember, however, that trends often are not limited to a single platform but instead start in one place and then spread everywhere. So, a comprehensive strategy should include monitoring multiple social media platforms.
- Influencer and community behavior
Famous influencers with large communities or follower bases are easy to spot and monitor, but trends often emerge in smaller, more specialized communities. Such communities are often more knowledgeable and passionate about their topic than the wide public, making them more likely to come up or find a piece of virally interesting information. Monitoring discussions in such communities can be a great way to detect emerging trends before they go mainstream.
- Engagement metrics
Pay attention to how strongly people engage with a post. The number of views might show interest, but the number of comments and reposts can show that this topic resonates with the audience on a much deeper level. This, in turn, means that more people will learn and talk about this, be that through word of mouth, a friend repost, or social media recommendation algorithms, which are mostly guided by engagement metrics. Spotting high engagement on a post early can signal this piece of content may go viral, and become a wide-spread trend in the future.
Choosing the right tool for trend monitoring
Tracking all these signals manually would require a dedicated team working around the clock, which can put a lot of strain on business. Most companies instead opt for media monitoring tools that can automate the process of collecting and compiling data.
ReadPartner is a strong example of a comprehensive monitoring platform: it includes both news monitoring and social media listening, eliminating the need to juggle multiple tools to cover all the necessary channels for trend identification. It comes with a dedicated Trend Analysis feature which automatically visualizes data on keyword popularity over a custom period of time, and lets you get to identifying business opportunities right away. Coupled with real-time alerts, ReadPartner makes sure your company stays agile and informed at all times.
Checklist: moving from observation to action
- Define objectives
First, you need to answer questions “What do you wish to track?” and “What are you trying to achieve?”. The answers here are many and only you know what your business needs, but, for example, a smart home electronics company might wish to track trends related to data privacy to identify potential concerns that may appear among their existing and potential customers.
- Select outlets and keywords to monitor
Next up is compiling a list of information sources that cover the topics of your interest. In our example, the home electronics company might wish to monitor major news outlets that report on topics such as electronics and cybersecurity, and create a list of keywords covering their products and risk-related keywords such as , “privacy concerns”, “personal information”, “vulnerability” and others. For social media, this company might want to monitor channels and creators that cover home electronics or do product reviews in related fields.
It is generally advisable to cast a wider net with outlets and keywords in the beginning, and then to refine this list by eliminating channels that are noisy or do not provide relevant information as data starts coming in. Make sure the channels that you chose to monitor cover your geo and language areas.
- Set up automated alerts and updates
Create automatic alerts that notify you when there is a significant change in mentions of monitored keywords. This will help make sure important developments do not go unnoticed and you learn of them as soon as possible. ReadPartner offers the Email Alerts functionality, which delivers concise digests on a regular basis to team members you select, making sure all specialists and executives involved stay informed at all times.
- Analyze and Interpret the data
There are two things to look out for: recurring patterns which will allow you to make an estimation of what is going to happen next, and outliers which indicate that something irregular and maybe important happened.
For instance, if our example company notices an outlier such as a sudden spike in “PrivacyFirst” and “SmartHomeSecurity” hashtags on social media, it indicates a possible reappearance of widespread data privacy concerns. Afterwards, this company notices that the pattern of traditional media coverage featuring data privacy topics and expert commentary from cybersecurity specialists or privacy policy makers grows steadily. That indicates that these privacy concerns are not a passing social media panic, but are issues that legitimately worry people and are here to stay.
- Report and Act on your findings
Export data of interest and organize it into presentations to share with your team and management, or use ReadPartner’s PDF export feature, which creates executive-ready PDF presentations of your news collections. Discuss what response the situation you identified warrants, and act!
In our example, when the initial spark of concern shows up on social media, the company can respond by reassuring their users that there is no cause to worry and provide a bit more transparency into what security measures are in place to protect their personal data. Once it is clear that this is a serious issue, the company can then implement more robust and strict data privacy measures, and align their marketing and PR efforts to highlight their data security practices.
Conclusion
Spotting trends is essential for staying relevant and competitive. The advantages early knowledge provides are significant, letting you move before your competitors do and build strong connections with your audience instead of talking about topics the public thinks are outdated. In the trend-spotting process, social media offers speed and unfiltered sentiment, while traditional media provides authority and depth. The combination of both is what will allow your business to have an all-encompassing image of the current situation, the direction the market is moving, and public attention.
A word of caution: it is crucial to look at the data points you identify as important from different angles. Reviewing trend data over a short period of time, you may spot something that looks like a spike in attention. But checking over a long time frame, you may discover that this spike repeats every week on the weekends, showing that this is simply regular activity fluctuation. By collecting as much information as you can, you can make sure that what you see does in fact warrant a response.
FAQ
How often should a company review its trend monitoring setup?
At least once every quarter is a healthy period to review trend monitoring to make sure it aligns with business goals. However, fast-paced industries such as consumer tech companies might wish to opt for shorter review periods, evaluating their monitoring monthly. Ultimately, the review period depends on how fast the market conditions and customer behavior changes in your industry.
How can smaller businesses with limited resources approach trend monitoring?
Focus on the most relevant channels and employ monitoring tools that provide plans for small teams. It is advisable to identify what has the most impact on your business, and not to shy away from monitoring tools: automating data collection is going to cost less than doing it manually, but make sure that the tool of your choice has plans that suit you, such as ReadPartner’s Team plan.
Are there risks in reacting too quickly to a perceived trend?
Yes, there are. Reacting too quickly before validating trends or having high certainty will stretch your company’s resources thin and may not pay off. The key is to react in accordance with your certainty level. If you have just spotted a spike in mentions on social media, it might be an early signal of an emerging trend, but the certainty level is very low at this point, so appropriate response could be something as simple as a social media post.
What is the meaning of trend spotting?
Trend spotting refers to the business practice of monitoring news outlets and social media and analyzing the data such as frequency of mentions in an effort to identify topics that are gaining attention. This information is then used to understand what products and services are in demand so this demand could be met.
References
- “How Twitter Trends Impact Social and Personal Agendas” by Maggie Mengqing Zhang, Yee Man Margaret Ng
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20324 - “Engagement, user satisfaction, and the amplification of divisive content on social media” by Smitha Milli, Micah Carroll, Yike Wang, Sashrika Pandey, Sebastian Zhao, Anca D Dragan
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/4/3/pgaf062/8052060
