Getting a ride on trends can be really helpful for your business, as it increases the flow of potential clients while getting some of that desirable brand recognition and association at the same time. If you want to use trends so your business can gain some traction then you should start looking at social media networks first, big name websites such as Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are useful if you are looking for tendencies, as it shows you what people are putting their attention in. You can invest in some data analysis if you want a more in-deep study of the current tendencies, but if you’re starting small, some navigation and common sense can be enough. Finding the “things of the moment” shouldn’t be that hard, the things that are truly difficult are filtering trends and knowing how to use them.

Filtering tendencies is obligatory and should be done quickly after studying trends, as you wouldn’t want to invest in a trend that is quickly dying or that is associated with things you don’t want your business to be associated with.

For example, if your business sells cakes and sweets and after studying tendencies you found that unicorns and street fights are trending, then you might want to filter out the latter one, as your consumer base should be more into nice and adorable things, but if the unicorn trend is quickly dying, then you might want to keep looking for another one.

After doing proper research and finding a trend that works for your business you should start looking for ways to use it to your advantage, such as using it to boost the social media marketing of your existing products and services or designing a product around that trend. Many successful companies make blatant use of tendencies because it works for them, just look at McDonald’s or The Lego Group, whenever there is a new trend they look for a way to incorporate it into their existing products.

Both small and big business owners can make a more simple and economic use of trends in their social networks. Depending on your age, you might see memes as a funny thing or just “jokes for millenials”, but if you are a community manager then you already know that these are a marketing tool that can be used to promote products and services to a determined customer base, as using a trending topic to make a good joke while subtly publishing your business will give it exposure in the way of views and image sharing.

Every business owner that wants to have success has to look for ways to use hot merchandising trends for the benefits of their products, as they are an easy way of getting exposure. But making constant use of trends isn’t always good, as you don’t want your business to be seem as one that just grabs the “thing of the moment” to push their products. As long as your company keeps its integrity to the view of their customer base then making use of tendencies should be fine.