STEPS FORSEARCHINGSPOTTING

DIGITALTRENDS

by Paris Daniellwww.parisdaniell.com

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TREND SEARCHING Methodology of discovery and insight.

Discovering a trend in digital is greatly determined by recognizing and following specific topics and keywords on the web. Diving deeper into each keyword can reveal new behaviors and outlooks projected by consumers.

The following slides describe how to find trends on the web with a combination of these steps.

• Stay updated on the news– Leads to start with.• Community controlled - trending information by the people.• Keep your hand on the digital pulse – Real-time topics.• Track and validate – See what is happening.

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E-mail subscriptions to Smart Brief’s on Social Media and IAB.

RSS feeds from sources like Mashable.com, Techcrunch, and Clickz.com

Set up Google Alert’s for appropriate interests,i.e. ‘social media advertising, new mobile technology, user generated content, etc.

This is more effective in confirming a trend, or tracking it’s evolution over time.

STAY UPDATED WITH THE NEWS

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2Digg.com and Reddit.com provide a list of community controlled interests. Site’s like these can provide excellent leads on digital trends.

This can help un-cover what topics people are interested in and sharing amongst themselves.

Deliciousis a bookmark sharing network, the delicious website feature’s current trending bookmarks.

COMMUNITY

CONTROLLED TRENDING INFORMATION.

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3Twitter search. Looking at popular topics on real-time networks like Twitter can reveal a lot of information. Logging onto twitter and checking out the Trending topics of the day can be a good starting point.

Going to www.tweetcloud.com allows you to see what’s being said on twitter in the form of a word cloud. Find related keywords in relation to another word (i.e..“SUPPORT”), which can lead to relevant discoveries.

Spending time on social media search engines such as www.topsy.com enables you to browse trending topics amongst trending websites. Looking to this search engine can reveal new environments that users inhabit, and what they are doing within those places. I have also recently discovered http://sency.com/, it is much like Topsy, although includes a ‘what’s going on lately’ section.

Once a trending topic is found, looking to http://whatthetrend.com/ can help uncover what that topic means, or who started it. Looking through www.urbandictionary.com or Wikipedia is also a good way to define trending topics.

Information that is passing between people via re-tweets can find at www.dailyrt.com. This site shows you popular re-tweeted posts, and the details of the connected content.

KEEP YOUR HAND ON THE DIGITAL PULSE

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4Google insights for search lets you track and discover trending search topics. This can helpful in tracking seasonality of topics, geographic specific interests, as well as categories of interest.

Facebook Lexicon counts the occurrences of words and phrases on walls over time. This tool is very much like Google insight, except designated to track more specific activity. Lexicon can be a handy tool in tracking and comparing current trends within Facebook, or discovering and confirming new ones – given there is sufficient conversation around the subject to be discovered.

When tracking twitter trends, the website http://trendistic.com is helpful in creating flow charts that link to specific tweets linked to peaks in the chart. This trend tracker is not specific to hash tags, allowing for a broader range of keywords to be searched. The results can be tracked from the past 24 hours to the last 180 days.

Track validate

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