In the world of journalism, staying ahead of the competition requires you to be quick at identifying news trends. This not only benefits you as a publisher but also your audience. By being the first to accurately report on breaking news, your website gains credibility and trust. When publishers become consistent at this they become the go-to place for readers.
For news publishers, trend discovery involves searching keywords on Google, tracking X (formerly Twitter) hashtags, exploring relevant Reddit subreddits, and utilizing media monitoring tools such as BuzzSumo. Additionally, staying informed through industry reports, press releases, and expert insights can provide valuable perspectives for news coverage.
While these are available to every publisher how can you be one step ahead in spotting trends? In this guide, we’ll cover tools (both free and paid) to spot growing trends, create content, and grow your readership organically.
Google Trends is a valuable tool for uncovering current trends and popular searches across diverse categories. With this tool, you can dive into trending topics in specific regions or explore recently surging searches. What sets Google Trends apart is its real-time search data, making it ideal for generating content that naturally attracts organic traffic.
Google Trends features:
Pricing
Google Trends is a free tool that is available for everyone.
X (Twitter Trending) is a powerful tool that helps media publishers stay up-to-date on the most popular topics and hashtags on X. This feature provides publishers with a real-time view of what millions of people are talking about, giving them a direct link to the pulse of online conversations.
By using X Trending, media publishers can gain a distinct advantage in covering breaking news and trending discussions as they unfold. This tool offers an immediate and unfiltered view of the latest conversations, providing insights into the interests, opinions, and concerns of users in the X community.
News Publishers Should use X (Twitter) to:
(X) Twitter is a social media platform that can be freely accessed.
Glimpse's primary tool is a Chrome extension that enhances the data available from Google Trends. When you visit Google Trends and search for a topic, Glimpse offers additional insights beyond the standard information provided by Google.
Glimpse Features:
Pricing
Glimpse is a free extension for the Chrome browser.
4. Google News
Google News is a news aggregator which gathers and organizes news articles from sources around the world. It organizes news across a variety of topics, regions, and languages. Google News uses algorithms to rank these news articles to highlight the most relevant and interesting stories.
News Publishers can leverage Google News by using:
Pricing
Free for everyone.
Also Read: Publisher's Guide to Optimize for Google News
Video consumption has increased drastically around the world. Reports suggest people spend an average of 17 hours a week watching videos. Publishers creating video content can use TrendWatchers to discover popular TikTok and YouTube trends.
YouTube and TikTok trending searches can be used to identify popular topics and find inspiration for articles and blog posts.
TrendWatchers features:
Pricing
Feature |
Free Plan |
Pro Plan $97 (lifetime) |
Daily Discovery Uses |
3 |
Unlimited |
Daily Viral Video Maker Uses |
10 |
Unlimited |
Unlocked Countries |
1 |
All |
Search Filters |
Locked |
Unlocked |
Exploding Topics is a freemium tool that helps publishers discover trending topics before they become mainstream. The tool uses AI and human analysis to identify emerging trends in dozens of categories, including tech, business, finance, entertainment, and more.
Exploding Topics is a tool that uses a spotting algorithm to analyze millions of searches and conversations on the web and through social networks. It is endorsed by many major brands and agencies and is constantly being updated.
Exploding Topics Features:
Pricing
This tool offers both free and paid plans. The free plan provides limited access while the paid plan unlocks all features and more.
Trend Hunter is a website that offers a database of trends. Search for trends by topic, such as fashion, tech, culture, or design.
Trend Hunter determines whether or not a topic is a trend by using AI to scrape the web and find new topics. The team then curates topics and adds them to the database.
After a topic is added to the database, it is assigned three scores: Popularity, Activity, and Freshness.
Trend Hunter Features:
BuzzSumo is a cloud-based platform that helps you find trending topics and well-performing content on social media. It is used by SEO and content marketing professionals to find new ideas for content, track the performance of their content, and monitor competitors.
BuzzSumo Features:
Pricing
BuzzSumo offers a free plan and four paid plans: Basic, Content Creation, PR & Comms, and Suite.
Plan |
Features |
Price |
Free |
10 searches per month, 10 results per search, 1 project, export 10 results per search |
Free |
Basic |
Unlimited searches, unlimited results per search, unlimited projects, export all results, access to the BuzzSumo Chrome extension |
$99 per month |
Content Creation |
Basic plan + create content briefs, track content performance |
$199 per month |
PR & Comms |
Content Creation plan + identify influencers and reach out to them |
$299 per month |
Suite |
PR & Comms plan + track competitors + custom reports |
$499 per month |
SparkToro Trending is a research tool that tracks trending tweets and delivers an organized list of the most shared content by active web marketers on Twitter. It is designed to be the "Front Page of The Web Marketing World."
How SparkToro Trending Works:
SparkToro Trending is also a valuable tool for publishers who want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends in web marketing and find new content ideas.
News Publishers should use SparkToro to:
Pricing
Sparktoro offers a free plan with access to 20 searches per month. For businesses, the best plan starts at $112 per month, depending on the requirements. Their most premium plan for larger agencies comes at ₹225 per month with unlimited searches.
SEMrush Trends is a tool that provides insights into the latest trends in search engine marketing (SEM). It tracks data from over 100 million keywords and can help you analyze the content marketing strategies of your competitors. News publishers can also use Semrush Trends to identify the rising popularity of video content and create content around it.
Semrush Trends Features:
To get access to all these features, publishers will have to buy the complete SEMrush subscription which offers a 7-day free trial.
Plan |
Features |
Price |
Pro Plan |
Unlimited daily searches, access to all keyword trend data, access to advanced features such as Traffic Analytics, Market Explorer, EyeOn, and One2Target |
$129 per month |
Guru Plan |
Pro Plan + access to additional features such as keyword difficulty, backlink analysis, and SERP analysis |
$249 per month |
Business Plan |
Guru Plan + access to additional features such as competitor analysis, audience insights, and custom reports |
$499 per month |
With over 2 billion and 430 million active users on YouTube and Reddit respectively, these platforms have a large pool of people who are actively consuming content.
You can choose one or more tools to analyze trends accurately. Here are a few additional tips for identifying news trends:
By following these tips, you can stay ahead of your competition by creating relevant content and attracting more readers.