How to Find Trending Topics on Social Media with Free Tools

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You can find trending topics on social media using free tools like Google Trends and Hashtagify.

Google Trends is a powerful tool that analyzes search data to identify popular topics.

Hashtagify is another useful tool that helps you find trending hashtags on Twitter and other social media platforms.

Using these tools, you can identify trending topics and hashtags in real-time, allowing you to stay on top of current events and trends.

Tools and Resources

To find trending topics on social media, you'll want to use the right tools and resources. Virlo's Virality Analysis Tool is a great option, offering AI-powered trend analysis to help you understand and leverage virality.

You can also use Semrush Traffic & Market Toolkit to get a macro and micro view of trend changes in your industry. This includes features like Traffic Analytics, Market Overview, EyeOn, and Audience Profile.

For a more comprehensive view, consider using Awario, a social listening tool that scans most of the web, including popular social media platforms, forums, and blogs. It's a very thorough sample of data, but keep in mind that the content included may be fads rather than sustainable trends.

Credit: youtube.com, 5 Tools To Find Trending Topics on Social Media

Here are some tools and resources to help you find trending topics on social media:

Semrush Traffic & Market Toolkit

The Semrush Traffic & Market Toolkit is a powerful tool that helps you stay on top of industry trends. It shows you the popularity of topics, companies, and websites.

With Traffic Analytics, you can see how a specific website or product page has fluctuated in popularity over time. This feature is based on visits, giving you a clear picture of what's working and what's not.

The Market Overview feature displays trends' fluctuating market share, with related trends or companies displayed in an easy-to-read growth quadrant. This helps you identify opportunities and challenges in your industry.

EyeOn delivers automatic insights about the type of content your competitors create, and their posting frequency. This feature helps you stay ahead of the competition and create content that resonates with your audience.

Audience Profile shares demographic insights about the audiences engaging with the trends you're tracking. This information can help you tailor your content and marketing efforts to reach your target audience.

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By using these tools together, you can:

  • Find trending topics in your industry
  • Identify the competing companies attracting notice for products and services related to those trends
  • Understand their audience
  • Keep an eye on competitor activity

Semrush updates its data monthly, so you may not get daily trend updates, but the information you see is still fairly recent. This means you can rely on the data to inform your decisions, but you may need to adjust your strategy as trends evolve.

The toolkit reports include a lot of information that you may find useful, such as trending related keywords, popularity by location, and more.

Here's an interesting read: How Does Facebook Get People You May Know

Awario

Awario is a social listening tool that can help you find trending topics and popular content on the web. It's particularly useful for content marketers who want to discover what's currently popular and relevant to their audience.

You can enter a general keyword into Awario's search bar, and it will produce a list of content containing that keyword. The content sources it uses include X, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Vimeo, News/Blogs, and Web.

Each list is ordered by recency, and you can also see the total reach data for each post. This means you can quickly identify the most popular content on a particular topic.

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Awario scans most of the web, including popular social media platforms, forums, and blogs, making it a very thorough sample of data. However, it's worth noting that the posts it surfaces may not all be relevant to you, so you may need to add negative keywords to refine your notifications.

The Content Explorer feature allows you to see the website's domain rating, referring domains, page traffic, and traffic value for each article. This can be useful for getting a more detailed understanding of the content you're interested in.

Here are some of the key features of Awario:

  • Scans most of the web, including social media platforms, forums, and blogs
  • Orders content by recency and total reach data
  • Allows you to add negative keywords to refine notifications
  • Includes features like domain rating, referring domains, page traffic, and traffic value

Check Out Google

Google Trends is a valuable tool for staying on top of trending topics. It lets you see how popular specific topics are in the US and globally.

You can compare multiple topics side-by-side to get a better sense of which ones are on the rise. This feature is especially useful for social media marketers who want to create relevant content.

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Google Trends updates its data regularly, giving you a fairly recent snapshot of what's trending. However, the data is not updated daily, so keep that in mind.

To get the most out of Google Trends, use the "Recently trending" section to get new ideas for social media posts. You can also use it to confirm existing trends.

Here are some key features of Google Trends:

  • See how popular specific topics are in the US and globally
  • Compare multiple topics side-by-side
  • Get new ideas for social media posts
  • Confirm existing trends

Finding trends on social media can be a challenge, but there are several tools and platforms that can help you stay on top of what's hot. You can use YouTube's "Explore" section to see popular videos and get a sense of what's currently popular on the platform.

YouTube's "Shorts" section is also a great place to find trending content, with its short-form video style similar to TikTok and Instagram Reels. You can check both sections daily to spot anything that catches your eye.

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Trend Hunter is another platform that uses AI to scrape the web and find new topics, which can be added to its trend database. You can search by topic and see a basic definition and images for each trend.

NewsWhip's Spike upgrade monitors and analyzes content on social media channels to identify pre-viral stories, so you can be the first to post the next big thing. This can be especially useful for keeping up with multiple social media channels at once.

To get a wider overview of what's trending on Twitter, you can use a VPN or a Twitter trends tool that allows you to see trending hashtags by Country or state. This can be useful for searching for trends in countries other than your own.

You can also use Google Trends to see how popular specific topics are in the US and globally, and compare multiple topics side-by-side to get a better sense of which ones are on the rise. This can be especially useful for confirming existing trends or getting new ideas for social media posts.

Here are some popular social media platforms to check for trending topics:

  • YouTube: Explore and Shorts sections
  • Twitter: Trending feature (country-specific)
  • Instagram: Explore page and large meme accounts
  • Google Trends: Recently trending section

Increasing Brand Visibility

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Joining in on popular trends can be a great way to draw attention to your brand and lead more social media users toward your content. This is especially true on platforms like TikTok, where trending topics can spread like wildfire.

TikTok's Creative Center is a valuable resource for finding trending topics. This platform-specific database of trending topics, videos, and accounts provides valuable insights into what's currently popular on the platform.

You can use the Creative Center to see associated information like post frequency, interest over time, audience demographics, regional popularity, and related topics. This can help you get a better understanding of what's currently trending and how to create content that resonates with your target audience.

Here are some key features of the TikTok Creative Center:

  • Post frequency
  • Interest over time
  • Audience demographics
  • Regional popularity
  • Related topics
  • Popular related videos and creators

By leveraging trending topics and creating unique and comprehensive content, you can differentiate yourself from the noise and attract more followers. Remember to maximize your content for search engines by using relevant hashtags and keywords.

For your interest: Content House

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Using AI and human analysts is a key differentiator in identifying trending topics, as seen in Exploding Topics. Their AI scrapes data from sources like Reddit, Quora, and Google Search to identify popular topics, which are then researched and approved by human analysts for business value.

Exploding Topics uses Google Search volume to determine trend growth, which is a reliable method to measure trend growth as it measures the global population's interest in a keyword for as far back as 10 years. This data is used to qualify each industry trend and provide a forecast feature that uses a time series machine learning algorithm to project future growth.

Trend Hunter uses AI to scrape the web and find new topics, but it lacks human analysis, which can lead to irrelevant topics being added to the database. This is because Trend Hunter's data reliability is based solely on user engagement, which is a small sample size and may not accurately represent the target market's interest.

Credit: youtube.com, How To Identify Trending Topics On Social Media? - Everyday-Networking

TikTok's Creative Center is a platform-specific database of trending topics, videos, and accounts. It provides detailed information on trending hashtags, including post frequency, interest over time, audience demographics, and regional popularity. This information can be extremely useful for finding new and emerging trends, especially since new trends often hit TikTok first.

Buzzsumo is a content ideation tool that scans social networks and aggregates the most popular posts published in the last 24 hours. It provides a trending topics feature that lists trends in order of their Trend Score, which is a proprietary calculation based on social shares over time.

Here are some key tools for identifying trending topics:

Quora and Reddit are also great resources for finding trending content, as they provide personalized information feeds and allow users to search for specific keyword phrases and browse popular comments. Google Trends is another useful tool that lets you see how popular specific topics are in the US and globally, and compare multiple topics side-by-side to get a better sense of which ones are on the rise.

Examples and Inspiration

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TikTok's Creative Center is a platform-specific database of trending topics, videos, and accounts.

The platform's trend data is updated regularly, so you can use it to get a good idea of what's popular among TikTok users right now. This makes it a valuable tool for marketers, content creators, and influencers.

You can select various timeframes, such as the country you want to analyze or even the industry, to get a more focused view of trending topics. For example, you can explore what's trending as recently as one day ago in the hashtag section.

Here are some key features of the TikTok Creative Center's hashtag section:

  • Post frequency
  • Interest over time
  • Audience demographics
  • Regional popularity
  • Related topics
  • Popular related videos and creators

These insights can help you get your content in front of your target audience and stay ahead of the curve by discovering new and emerging trends.

See on YouTube

YouTube is an amazing resource for staying on top of trends. The site's "Explore" section highlights popular videos, giving you a good idea of what's currently popular on the platform.

Credit: youtube.com, The true story of Daniel Dejapin. Watch and be inspired.

You can browse through the "Explore" section daily to spot anything that catches your eye. You can also check out the "Shorts" section, which is similar to TikTok or Instagram reel style content.

Over 80% of businesses are using video marketing as a form of digital marketing, and YouTube trending videos are a great place to get trending video ideas. Click on the "Explore" and then "trending" tab to see top videos from different categories.

You can also use the hashtags of popular videos or shorts and cross-reference them with TikTok's Creative Center or Google Trends to get more insight into emerging trends. This will help you understand if a hashtag is relevant and worth exploring further.

Gucci Creatives on TikTok

Gucci tapped into TikTok's love for unique visuals with branded filters and user-generated content challenges. The #GucciModelChallenge encouraged fans to showcase creative outfits inspired by the brand.

The campaign expanded Gucci's reach to younger, fashion-forward audiences. This is a great example of how to leverage TikTok's creative potential to connect with your target audience.

Close-Up Shot of a TikTok App on a Phone
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Gucci's branded filters and challenges increased follower count and positive brand perception. This shows that investing in creative content on TikTok can have a significant impact on your brand's reputation.

Here are some key takeaways from Gucci's successful TikTok campaign:

  • Branded filters and user-generated content challenges can increase engagement and reach
  • TikTok's creative potential can be leveraged to connect with younger, fashion-forward audiences
  • Investing in creative content on TikTok can improve brand perception and increase follower count

Best Practices and Tips

To find trending topics on social media, it's essential to keep an eye on popular hashtags. Hashtags are a great way to discover what's currently trending, with over 75% of Twitter users using them to categorize and make their tweets more discoverable.

Use social media listening tools to monitor conversations around specific topics. This can help you identify emerging trends and stay ahead of the curve.

Timing is everything when it comes to posting content. Posting during peak hours, such as 12 pm and 5 pm, can increase engagement by 20%.

Utilize the "Explore" page on Instagram to discover trending topics and hashtags. This feature showcases popular content and can give you ideas for your own posts.

Don't be afraid to experiment and try out new topics. You can use the "Trending" tab on Twitter to see what's currently popular and use that as inspiration for your own content.

Cory Hayashi

Writer

Cory Hayashi is a writer with a passion for technology and innovation. He started his career as a software developer and quickly became interested in the intersection of tech and society. His writing explores how emerging technologies impact our lives, from the way we work to the way we communicate.

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