#GoogleTrends - Can It Drive Marketing Growth?

#GoogleTrends - Can It Drive Marketing Growth?

Whatever business you’re in, here’s why I think that leveraging current events and popular trends in your content strategy can drive #GrowthMarketing.

We’ve all woken up to days of social feeds buzzing with real-life events. Be it the Covid-19 outbreak, Russia’s war in Ukraine, or the overturn of Roe v Wade in the US. But hey, not all social trends and events are negative! On a more positive note, we’ve all been elated to wake up to our social feeds buzzing with social applause and celebration of the European Women’s Championship #ItsComingHome. If you’re not caught up, England has won over Germany in its first-ever major women’s championship, Euro 2022.

Big brands in the UK and worldwide didn’t miss the chance to show support and leverage this win for different reasons – whether it’s part of their brand values to support gender equality and inclusivity, seeing how engaged their online audience is with the topic, or because news high jacking is part of their marketing strategy - some of them did it very well. Nike went the extra mile to replace “Nike” with “Home” in their logo - Fair enough since they’re the official sponsors of Chloe Kelly’s, who took off her shirt in celebration, post the winning goal, revealing her Nike sports bra. Not as extravagant, but equally supportive and powerful, Royal Mail congratulated the lionesses and ‘welcomed home’ a ball package. Other brands like Domino’s, Weetabix, and Specsavers also paid their respect!

But it’s more than just news high jacking. Good marketing strategies put community and social engagement at the frontline in their activities. They understand the importance of staying relevant and on top of social trends for a successful digital marketing strategy. You have probably also noticed that most of these social media posts come to your feeds from your online circles – which shows not only that these brands have done their homework but that social applause and user-generated content are paramount to their success and brand awareness.

So, if you’re creating engaging and creative content that is reactive to what’s happening in real life, to what online users are reacting to, and most importantly, to what your customers and target audience care about, your content is more likely to perform well, and who knows, it might even go viral.

Notice that these posts are not trying to sell you anything or have you click and go to any link. Their main objective? To stay at the forefront of our minds.

Here’s where Google Trends come to play. This tool helps you visualise and discover Top and Rising Related Topics and Queries from people’s search behaviour and interest over a period of time within Google products – Google Search, Google News, Google Images, Google Shopping and YouTube.

Given that our feeds and algorithms are influenced by the industries of our profiles and what we usually engage with as users, it’s vital to use impartial and 3rd party tools to get a greater perspective than our own, especially when working with clients from different industries.

Staying on top of the digital marketing game is crucial for brand relevance and success. As marketers, we need to regularly check these Google Trends and other social listening tools to incorporate and build content based on the findings.

What can you expect from growth marketing? Well, engagement. Engagement creates advocacy. Advocacy grows your customer's lifetime value organically. And customer's lifetime value drives more revenue for your business.

If you'd like me to help you capture trends and what people are talking about in your industry, get in touch, and we can work on your digital #ContentStrategy and #SEO to become/stay relevant to your online audiences and capture their attention.