Who would have suspected ten (or maybe even five) years ago that cell phones would evolve into a multifunction tool that allows you to surf the internet, check your email, take pictures, send text messages, download and listen to music, get GPS directions, keep your schedule and contacts organized, play games, watch TV, and have your fortune read — let alone talk on the phone? How many of us foresaw a few years ago that millions of people would share their deepest personal and professional thoughts on blogs (over 27 million blogs now, with a new one starting each second)? How do these trends affect what we do to try to reach our target audiences?
Trendwatching.com gives us insight into the techniques they use to track consumer trends in their latest briefing on Tips & Tricks on How to Become a Better Trend Watcher. What exactly is a trend? They define it as “a manifestation of something that has ‘unlocked’ or newly serviced an existing (and hardly ever changing) consumer need, desire, want, or value” — something that we definitely need to pay attention to as social marketers.
The three main challenges they lay out that we face in watching and using trends in our own work are:
- Management and corporate culture (‘They’re just not into trends’)
- Resources (Information overload or starvation, lack of time and/or lack of funds)
- Understanding and applying trends (How to think Big Picture? What to actually do with your point of view?)
They offer ways to deal with each of these challenges. Here is their handy list of the types of resources you can use to spot trends:
- Papers, websites, blogs, news, newsletters (online and offline); also see VIRTUAL ANTHROPOLOGY
- Magazines (online and offline), books
- TV, movies, radio
- Seminars, fairs, trade shows
- Eaves-dropping, chat rooms, conversations
- In-house trend units
- Advertising at large
- Other trend firms, thinkers (philosophers, architects, sociologists), management gurus
- Street life, travel
- Friends, colleagues, family
- Customers(!)
- Trend reports
- Consultants, researchers, experts
- Universities
- Shops, museums, hotels, airports
- Catalogues
- Competition
And once you have identified a trend, what then? Ask yourself if the trend has the potential to change any of the following:
- Vision
Influence your company’s vision - New business concepts
Come up with a new business concept, an entirely new venture - New products, services, experiences
Add ‘something’ new for a certain customer segment - Marketing, advertising, PR
Speak the language of those consumers ‘setting the trend’: we haven’t come across too many trends that were not useful in shaping (part of your) marketing messages. - Internal
Improve your organizational processes
I highly recommend reading the whole article and exploring trendwatching.com’s database of trend briefings. They are fascinating and may help you look at what’s happening around you in a whole new way.
Nedra helps nonprofits and public agencies create positive change on health and social issues through social marketing and transmedia storytelling strategies at Weinreich Communications since founding the company in 1995. She helps organizations make a difference for the populations they serve by strategically designing programs that draw on state-of-the-art behavior change techniques, digital media approaches and the power of stories. 
