Capitalize on Conversations that are Happening NOW!
By keeping a close eye on social media trends, we’re able to fully capitalize on conversations that are happening on social media and use them to our advantage. Hopping on trends in their early stages can help boost your reach gain more interactions while being slow to react to emerging trends can result in the opposite effects. Either way, taking advantage of trends starts with listening and monitoring. Here are my favourite ways to discover trends while they are still in the early stages of popularity.
Best Tools for the Job.
The first tool isn’t really a tool at all. It’s simply organically listening and monitoring – some would call it “scrolling”. Spending a half an hour a day watching the top Reels in Canada today or searching relevant hashtags can help enormously in spotting trends before they fully gain traction. If you’re scrolling through music on Instagram and you see the arrow indicating that a song is trending, don’t wait to see how it performs in a week or two, use the audio now!
The second tool that I find to be the most effective at spotting trends is word of mouth. On top of listening to conversations on social media, trends are often discussed among friends, colleagues, and family. Ask the question to your partner or to your roommate: Have you seen any new trends on social media lately? Perhaps you have a friend who teaches high school or university students. Ask them if they’ve heard their students talking about new trends. If you’re serious about social media, you can’t just setup an RSS feed and sit back, you need to put in the effort to find out what is currently in style and what is passé.
The Best News Sources for the Job.
The two sources of news and updates that I consult on a weekly basis at Defence Team News for all the updates on my organization, and Trending Topics on Twitter for all the “hot tea”. Defence Team News is a weekly newsletter that is sent by email to all members of the Department of National Defence, and it includes updates and news on equipment, pay, policy, special events, etc. Twitter topics is a good way to discover topics that are being talked about in real time. As soon as something major happens in the world, you can bet your bottom dollar that someone is tweeting about it. Many of the tweets I read on Twitter are for my general awareness of things happening around the world such as the recent earthquakes in Turkey.
James Roberge – 8 Mar 2023
Algonquin College Social Media Certificate Program 
Hi James,
I liked how you said that we can’t all rely on our RSS feeds and that we need to also focus on ‘organic’ listening. This is something I do as well. Trends are usually ‘seen’ on social media as you ‘scroll’ through your feed. If it’s getting ‘attention’ you know people are talking about it.
When it comes to trends in your organization, you can subscribe to different alerts, newsletters, etc. to keep up with trends happening in the industry. As you mentioned, you subscribe to the ‘Department of National Defence’ which keeps you in the know. It really depends on what industry your in that would determine which subscription you’d choose. I find that this is a great way to keep me in the loop as to what’s ‘new’ as it happens. Love the Twitter thing too. I need to use it more often! Any suggestions on how to keep up with my industry using Twitter?
Thanks for sharing, loved reading your blog post!
Patty