The word ‘trending’ has caught on in a big way among online audiences. Dictionary.com clarifies that, in many instances, a ‘trending’ subject can be defined as one that is “widely mentioned or discussed on the internet, especially on social media websites”.
There are many ways to discern what’s trending. For example, you could hit the ‘Trending’ tab in Twitter’s mobile app, or use Google Trends to see what subjects people associated with your industry are searching. However, why would it benefit you, as a marketer, to know what’s trending?
You could spy opportunities to demonstrate your specialist knowledge
Not everything you see trending is likely to be of particularly huge interest to your brand’s target audience. However, in keeping close track of what’s trending, you could find that a timely subject presents you with a chance to genuinely help people by imparting what you already know.
Let’s take the example of the emerging cost-of-living crisis, which retailers have warned will impact consumer spending. That might initially seem like bad news to retail brands – but, if you are at the helm of one, you could give consumers tips and tricks for cutting the cost of essentials.
Perhaps you could subtly nudge people towards your budget range of products, or highlight how your loyalty points scheme could help shoppers to amass money-off vouchers. In positioning yourself as a fountain of wisdom in this way, you can strengthen your brand’s image and appeal.
Keep your content relevant to what you actually do
Otherwise, this content could too easily come across as disingenuous, potentially leading to a backlash that would harm your brand’s reputation.
If you’re struggling to figure out how to comment on trending topics in a way that looks natural, remember to keep your target audience’s needs at the forefront of your thinking. So, once you see a particular topic trending, think about how it could affect members of your audience.
If there’s no obvious way it would affect them, then resist producing content about it. You certainly don’t need to cover every single trend that pops up online.
Make your content immersive and interesting
Focusing on something topical might initially tempt people into clicking on your content, but it’s the quality of the content itself that will decide whether they stay long enough to fully consume it.
One good idea is to mix up the formats through which you deliver content. So, while our digital copywriters can pen short, snappy blog posts for you, you could also ask our graphic designers to come up with infographics that would potentially be easier for visual learners to digest.
Go great guns on search engine optimisation (SEO), too
One strong incentive to post high-quality topical pieces – whether they take the form of text, imagery or video – is that Google could consequently assign your website higher places on SERPs (search engine results pages).
Through leveraging our SEO specialists’ expertise, you could help Google to ascertain what your content is about and thus when it should be thrown up on SERPs.
