Snapchat has launched a new data tool to help creators identify popular Snaps and trending topics on its platform. 

The company introduced Snapchat Trends, which spotlights the most popular keywords shared on the platform by large groups through both public Stories and My Stories. 

The tool also explains how popular phrases are being used and provides a searchable database to browse trending topics and see how they perform over time.

Will other platforms follow suit? How will the introductions of these tools affect the development of similar tools in the future? What Snapchat is providing should be a wake-up call for other platforms to follow suit because it is a beneficial service that not many others provide yet.

How Snapchat Trends Works

In a recent Snapchat blog post, they explained, “For marketers and content creators, Snapchat Trends offers a brand new source of insight into the Snapchat Generation and an opportunity to learn more about the Snapchat community and the topics they care about.”

Advertisers can use the tool to conduct product market research, produce creative messaging, build user profiles and personas, research key moments, and competitive research.

“Through testing of Snapchat Trends, we’ve seen a number of partners successfully derive and apply new insights — both on and off-platform,” they said. 

This tool is specifically helpful for people and businesses looking to use the platform more effectively and capitalize on trends that can give them a leg up in their own content creation. 

Trends can provide support in a few ways. First, it can help with market research. It can provide information on organic consumer behavior to evaluate the overall market fit for a product or service. 

It can also provide insights into creative messaging. For brands looking to build contextually relevant content, this is a great way to keep an eye out on consumer trends and offers ideas on content that fits its context and stands out to users. 

Brands can further use Trends to build profiles based on user’s conversations with each other. This can be based on researching key moments or keywords trending on the platform at any given time. For example, if someone wants to capitalize on International Women’s Day or National Ice Cream Day, they can see what keywords are lining up with key moments and provide the brand the ability to tackle many angles at once while aligning with a certain event. 

One final and important use is to understand the market in which a brand operates. It can be used to understand consumer sentiment towards specific products or types of products and understand competitive offerings and how those products fit in the market. 

By analyzing multiple products through trending topics and keywords for any given industry, brands can effectively compare conversations over time to see how any brand is competing relative to the competition on Snapchat. This can be helpful for both ongoing brand-health monitoring and also larger quarterly business reviews. 

How does Snapchat Trends compare to trend metrics on other platforms? According to a recent Social Media Today article, Snapchat Trends is much like Google Trends and Pinterest Trends, using a similar UI to facilitate research into keyword usage. 

But what Snapchat is doing that other platforms aren’t is providing a more thorough approach to providing insights by showing users examples of trending Snaps, as well as generated case studies and insights to further assist in content planning and strategy. Snapchat does a lot more work for the user than other trending services provide.

In Closing

What is interesting about Snapchat Trends is that it can be helpful for any content strategy, even if Snapchat is not the target platform. The insights provided are a natural magnet for brands and influencers and provides traffic for Snapchat while also offering an indirect service. Other social media platforms could benefit from a similar open-source service before brands get wise to how beneficial a feature like Trends can be and jump ship.

We only do marketing that works.

The post Snapchat Introduces New ‘Trends’ Tool To Help Creators Identify Popular Snaps appeared first on Viral Nation.