4 Steps to Stay on Top of Industry Trends

New trends are constantly emerging on social media platforms, and while scrolling, you often come across funny posts that grab your attention. It turns out that keeping up with these trends is essential for brand building and project success.

Social media trends are an effective way to promote small businesses with much less effort than most people would expect. However, for this method to succeed, you need to find and capitalise on trends as soon as they appear so your content can reach a wider audience.

Trends are crucial in all fields of work, and you can leverage them to increase your content's reach and engage with your target audience. You shouldn't view trends as a boring obligation to maintain your brand's popularity, but as a fun and inspiring activity.

This article offers a set of steps to help you follow industry trends.

Steps to Stay on Top of Industry Trends

1. Customise Your Notifications

The first step is to customise your notifications to stay on top of what's trending on social media platforms. We recommend using X (formerly Twitter) to follow trending topics and breaking news. Simply type "trending topics" into the search bar to check for trends relevant to your industry.

Adjusting Your X Notifications

X determines a user's interests based on past tweets, likes, and interactions. On the right-hand side of the desktop homepage, there's a section titled "Trends for you." For the mobile app, you can tap the settings button in the top-right corner of the page or navigate to settings by tapping the arrow button. From there, you can tap "Notifications" and choose when to receive custom notifications.

Enable the "Trending in your network" and "News" options. Customising your X notifications will help you keep up with social media's trending topics.

Enabling Instagram Notifications

You can set up similar settings on Instagram. It's a good idea to enable notifications for posts from key influencers in your industry and popular news outlets.

This means you should follow famous websites, magazines, and forums related to your field to keep up with trending topics. You can receive a notification whenever these accounts post on Instagram to stay updated on the latest trends relevant to your brand. To do this, open the desired account, tap the "Following" button, then "Notifications." You can then receive notifications whenever the account posts, adds a story, a reel, or goes live.

You should apply this step in moderation, especially with accounts that post daily or multiple times a day. Too many notifications can be overwhelming, annoying, and distracting. Therefore, be selective in your search and only enable notifications for accounts crucial for keeping up with trends.

2. Stay Up to Date with the Latest News

Staying informed about industry news helps you keep up with trends. For this reason, we recommend subscribing to newsletters and mailing lists relevant to your field to get the information you need about trending topics.

You can start by subscribing to popular newsletters in your industry and those from your colleagues. However, creating your own newsletter or blog is a good idea to keep your customers informed about market developments. This content is designed to help customers and keep up with industry trends, ultimately turning your information into a source of market trends.

This process can take a long time, so reading just one or two news articles a day is recommended. This step is easy to stick to when you enable social media notifications and subscribe to the right newsletters.

3. Engage on Social Media

Engaging on social media has become incredibly important today, but most people don't realise the personal benefits of interacting with others online.

Engaging on social media takes some time, but it yields promising results. This is done by visiting the "Explore page" and checking trending posts. The results on the Explore page are based on your interests and industry. You can start by engaging with these trending posts and conversing with the post's owner or commenters. This method helps you understand the type of content and information people like.

Pay Attention to Comments and Content

Engagement should be part of your social media marketing strategy. You can use comments to start spontaneous conversations with colleagues and potential customers. Committing to this daily helps you stay informed about trending topics within your industry.

Communicating with influencers in your field allows you to analyse the content that gets the best response from your target audience. You can use this method to get ideas for your future posts. Try to draw inspiration from industry leaders and use their content to formulate your posts without plagiarising their ideas.

You can engage with others on Facebook, X, Instagram, and LinkedIn. We recommend using the Explore page and customer comments to search for branded hashtags. For example, if you work in real estate, you can search for the hashtags "#realestate" or "#realtor" and use the top-ranking posts to stay informed about market developments. You can further customise your search by adding a location to the hashtag, e.g., "#dubaiproperties." Be sure to follow these hashtags on Instagram, too.

These actions require much time and effort, but they are useful for establishing your presence and credibility. By keeping up with the latest news and developments, you can prove your expertise and trustworthiness. This encourages followers to contact you with their inquiries, and as a result, you can attract more potential customers.

4. Build a Network

Building a network is extremely important, especially if you seek information about your field. This is why major companies like Apple hold their "Worldwide Developer Conference" yearly. These conferences help developers, startups, and social media users keep up with technological developments.

Attending major events helps you stay abreast of developments, remain competitive in the market, and use the acquired information to create content that trends. This way, you can get tips and news about social media trends.

The Right Places to Network

You can start by attending local events in your area and following communities related to this topic on social media platforms and websites. It is recommended that you attend at least one event per month to share ideas and trends with colleagues.

After getting used to attending local meetups, you can start hosting your networking events. You can use these events to inform your colleagues or potential customers about the latest trends, highlight your leadership role in your industry, and you might even get a chance to be a keynote speaker at a major national conference.

You can use social media platforms to build a network, but you must check a group's information before joining. Make sure to choose a group that includes experts in your field so you can benefit from asking questions, offering advice, and participating in conversations about trends.

Free Tools to Stay on Top of Trends

You can use many free tools to follow trends instead of attending local events, reading industry blogs, and engaging on social media. Here are a few tools that help you stay updated on the latest industry trends:

1. TweetDeck

One of the drawbacks of the X platform is the lack of organisation and direction, which means that tweets from influencers and important posts might not show up in your feed.

This is where the TweetDeck tool comes in handy. It schedules tweets and simplifies searching for and posting about trending topics. You can also keep the trends tab open to follow worldwide trends.

2. Google Trends

This tool provides information about what people are talking about. For example, if you search for "personal branding," you will get the following results:

• What is personal branding?
• Personal branding photography.
• Examples of personal branding mission statements.
• Personal branding examples.

These results can be used to prepare content for blogs, social media posts, and newsletters because they reflect the topics that your target audience is discussing. For instance, you can filter the search results by region, time, or platform.

3. SEM Rush

SEM Rush lets you connect your website and social media accounts with its databases, which analyse your content. The tool features a post-performance rating feature and determines the best-performing ones based on search engine criteria.

It also uses these results to suggest ideas for future content. The tool provides keywords that help you rank higher in search results based on trending topics, which leads to increased website traffic and, as a result, attracts more potential customers.

In Conclusion

The goal of following trends is to stay informed about what's popular and talked about, keep up with industry developments, and use this information to outperform your competitors. The article provided a set of steps and free tools to help you follow industry trends.