Stay on Top of the Trends
January 22, 2009 by Kori Ellis
Filed under Marketing
In marketing and advertising, it’s very important to network, research and stay on top of trends. Here are just a few free business resources and tools that may help you discover the latest trends, news and developments in your niche.
Trendrr – This website allows you to track the popularity of trends in social networks, blogs, video downloads and more – all in real time. You can compare trends to each other, share trends with other users, and view trends that others are tracking.
BoardTracker – This discussion search engine searches message boards for mentions of trends, brands, etc. You can set up your preferences and BoardTracker will notify you (via email, instant message or other ways) as soon as a thread is posted on any of the forums they track. Like Trendrr, they offer a free service as well as a paid premium account.
Keotag – With this search engine, you can search Twitter, You Tube, del.icio.us, and a number of other social bookmarking and networking sites. You simply type a keyword or keyword phrase to retrieve results from the past 30 days. You can also subscribe to an RSS feed to track your search.
Marzar – This is a free business resource site. Entrepreneurs, companies and other professionals sign up and can promote their business, join specific-interest communities, network with others, discover business opportunities, share and store documents and much more. I just discovered this site recently and particularly like the Blogs section which allows users to exchange ideas and knowledge.
Photo credit: sxc.hu
Kori,
Thanks for the information shared in your post – very useful indeed. Without a doubt staying on top of trends is key. Below a list of tools that help me stay on top of trends and relevant competitive & industry information.
Keyword Spy (www.keywordspy.com) – online keyword tool to research competitors keyword activities in Google Adwords & Other PPC platforms as well as organic search results.
Trendpedia (www.trendpedia.com) – aggregates content from social media sites based on specific topics and keywords, organizing the articles in a trendline that shows the popularity of the topic over time. A great tool to connect with individuals talking about important topics to your business or site.
BlogPulse Trends (www.blogpulse.com) is the one-click answer to the simple question: “What’s the buzz?” BlogPulse Trends identifies the topics and subjects that people are talking about in their blogs.
Hi Alain,
Thanks for the comment and the suggestions. I have seen Trendpedia before but haven’t done much with the others. I’ll check them out.
Thanks for stopping by.
-Kori