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Are you able to spot trends in their infancy?

If I were asked what is the one piece of advice I could give to industries that want to make their blogs productive and their business prosper; that would be it.  Seek out information your target visitors want to see – not just what’s generating the biggest buzz now (though that’s important); but what appears to be on the verge of being “the next big thing.”

Sure, I hear you saying, trends may be relevant for some industries like pop music or women’s clothes; but I machine custom parts for antique tractors…what possible use could trend-spotting have for me?   Maybe nothing.  But, maybe it might be fun to be ahead of the curve on new technology under development that could increase machine tolerances while decreasing cost.  And for those industries that are, perhaps, not as dependent on the prevailing wind as fashion, but still would gain a competitive advantage by staying on top of breaking trends, your time has arrived.

Legions of websites have grown up purporting to put you ahead of the curve.  But you don’t have to depend on their priorities.  You can become your own “Director of Trend Spotting” (which by the way, is a real job title at a major American advertiser).  Social media and the Internet put into your hands, or the hand of your contract agents, the tools they need to put you on the leading edge of what’s going on.  You can put new products into the marketplace ahead of the competition and build your brand based on innovation and a dynamic understanding of the your market by using them.

The first thing to know is that there is a vast ocean of trend information available on the Internet.  Blogs, static websites, chat rooms and forums, social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIN all feature people, consumers, talking about what they want, what they’ve purchased, how they liked it, and what they’re going to buy next; information that could be crucial to you…and which is there for the taking.  What’s more, there are free tools to help you mine this rich vein of consumer trend information.

Google, a name everybody knows, has gone out of its way to develop easy to use, and relatively powerful, free products.  Google Keyword Tool, Google Trends, Google Alerts and Google Insights for Search all can help you find out what people are thinking and what they’re planning to buy.  If you need the ultimate in social media data mining products, you can rent programs that will search amazingly deeply, then categorize and cross reference your data.  These programs aren’t cheap but in some applications they are useful.

Now is the time to get ahead of your competitors…NOW…while many CEO’s are still stuck in the stone age; still trying to fit that wooden wagon wheel to the sleek Ferrari that is the way people do business today.  A recent survey indicates that 25 percent of business will not allow their employees access to social media; fearing it will eat productive work time.  By the way, that excuse was also used to resist things like, well, E-mail.  The Internet, through blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the rest are where people gather these days to talk, to plan, and to dream.  That’s where you should be if you want to know what they’re going to be buying tomorrow.  If you don’t have the time to keep up; then hire somebody who does.
photo credit: hardeep.singh

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