How to Use Social Listening to Track Seasonal Trends and Topics

Social listening can be tricky. There are so many data points to consider. It even gets trickier if you plan to use social listening to capitalize on trends. Which data points should you be focusing on? And how do you turn those data into actual pieces of content?

This blog post is going to help you do exactly that. We’ll discuss:

• How to create a social listening strategy focusing on seasonal trends.
• Three tools with the features you need to track trends effectively.
• How to turn data into actual pieces of content.

Let’s get started!

Social listening strategy for seasonal trends

Social listening can involve many steps. But to keep it simple, especially for seasonal campaigns, we’ve turned it into a 5-step plan. This can help you focus on the critical elements of a successful social listening process tailored to seasonal trends.

Start with a goal

Identify your objectives for tracking seasonal trends. Are you looking to boost engagement during specific holidays, create timely promotions, or stay ahead of seasonal shifts in consumer behavior? Having a clear goal will guide your entire strategy.

It also allows you to understand which specific elements you need to monitor.

Prioritize what to monitor

Tune out the noise by focusing on keywords, hashtags, and brand mentions relevant to seasonal trends:

Holiday-Specific Keywords: Track mentions of holidays such as “Christmas,” “Halloween,” “Black Friday,” or “Valentine’s Day,” along with terms related to your products or services.

Seasonal Buzzwords: Monitor phrases that capture the essence of the season, like “spring cleaning,” “summer vacation,” “winter fashion,” or “back to school.”

Competitor Campaigns: Keep an eye on your competitors’ seasonal campaigns to see what works well and identify gaps you can fill.

Event-Specific Hashtags: On social media platforms, follow hashtags related to major events and holidays, such as #ChristmasGifts, #BlackFridayDeals, #SummerSale, or #HalloweenCostume.

We advise you to monitor industry publications and news aggregators to keep track of the latest trends.

Choose a tool

There are tons of tools to help you with social listening and tracking trends. Depending on the social media platform, you can even do it natively and manually. For example, Twitter allows you to monitor specific accounts by creating a list.

But choosing a tool specifically for social listening is also important. Here are social listening features to look for:

Real-time Monitoring: Track mentions and trends as they happen to capitalize on seasonal opportunities quickly.

Customizable Alerts: Set alerts for specific seasonal keywords and hashtags to stay informed about relevant conversations.

Sentiment Analysis: Understand the sentiment around seasonal trends and how people feel about holiday-related topics.

Competitor Analysis: Monitor your competitors’ seasonal activities to identify their strategies and potential opportunities for differentiation.

Data Export and Reporting: Generate insightful reports with customizable charts and graphs to visualize data and collaborate with your team.

Of course, you’ll also want to consider pricing options and tool integrations, especially if multiple team members are responsible for social listening.

Analyze data

Having data is one thing, but interpreting it is another. Make sure to take the time to analyze all your data points, what they mean, and what specific actions you can take. By 2026, 65% of organizations are expected to be entirely data-driven, highlighting the importance of making data-informed decisions.

Here are a few specific data points you need to consider when it comes to tracking seasonal trends:

• Volume: Track the volume of mentions for specific seasonal keywords and hashtags over time to identify emerging trends and gauge overall conversation levels. You don’t want to create a campaign around something few people discuss.
• Reach: Analyze the reach of seasonal conversations. Who is participating? Are influencers or industry leaders involved? This can help determine a trend’s potential impact. This is especially important for brand awareness or sales campaigns. You need as many people as possible to see your posts.
• Timing: Pay attention to when conversations peak around seasonal events to time your content and promotions effectively. Are you planning a Halloween campaign? When does the conversation around Halloween start? Or are you offering fitness classes? When do people start discussing exercise?
• Demographics: Use demographic filtering to see which audience segments are most engaged in specific seasonal conversations. Tailor your content to resonate with these groups. Or discover new segments that you don’t usually market to.

Lastly, sentiment analysis can provide additional insights into how people feel about seasonal trends and your brand’s seasonal campaigns.

Analyzing sentiment is crucial for understanding how people feel about seasonal trends and your brand’s related campaigns. For instance, if your brand is frequently mentioned in “Christmas sales,” but the sentiment is primarily negative, it indicates a need to address issues related to your holiday promotions or customer service.

Adjust strategy

Continuously refine your social listening strategy to ensure it remains effective for tracking seasonal trends.

Align with Goals: Ensure the information you’re gathering directly aligns with your seasonal goals. For example, to boost holiday sales, focus on trends and conversations that can drive purchasing decisions.

Avoid Information Overload: Monitor a manageable number of seasonal keywords and hashtags to avoid information overload and focus on key themes.

Iterate and Improve: Based on your insights, refine your approach to better capitalize on future seasonal opportunities. This iterative process ensures your marketing strategies stay relevant and effective.

Following this strategy, you can effectively use social listening to track seasonal trends and create timely, engaging content that resonates with your audience.

Best trend-tracking tools for effective social listening

If you’ve been manually tracking trends, it’s time to take it to the next level by using a tool designed for social listening. Luckily, there are plenty of powerful ones available. When choosing the right trend-tracking tool, consider your goals, needs, team size, and budget.

Here are the top trend-tracking tools that can work with different creators and businesses:

Mention

Mention is a user-friendly and affordable social listening tool ideal for businesses of all sizes and content creators to track industry trends.

Here are some of its key features:

Main Features:

• Brand & Keyword Monitoring: Tracks mentions of your brand, trends, competitors, and relevant keywords across social media, news, blogs, RSS feeds, and websites.
• Sentiment Analysis: Analyzes the sentiment (positive, negative, neutral) behind brand mentions and seasonal trends.
• Reporting & Analytics: Provides clear reports with metrics like reach, engagement, and brand sentiment over time.

Mention is straightforward but provides powerful data points that allow you to stay on top of market trends.

Price: Paid plan starts at $41 with a free trial

Brandwatch

If you’re a business or a creator with more complex social listening needs, Brandwatch is a great option to analyze trends.

Main Features:

• Advanced Analytics & Benchmarking: Get topic modeling and social network graphs to uncover hidden trends and compare your brand’s performance against competitors for deeper insights.
• Global Market Monitoring & Consumer Research: Track conversations across a broader range of languages and international platforms. This is helpful for understanding how trends translate in different countries.
• Enterprise-grade Scalability & Security: Brandwatch caters to the needs of large organizations with features like secure data handling, custom dashboards, and the ability to manage complex social media workflows at scale.

Price: Custom quotes based on enterprise needs (generally start in the thousands per month).

Sprout Social

If you don’t have a solid social listening and social media scheduling process yet, Sprout Social might be the perfect option.

Main Features:

• All-in-One Solution: Combines social listening with social media scheduling, publishing, and engagement management tools.
• Social Listening & Publishing: Manage everything in one place, allowing you to listen to conversations and publish content simultaneously.
• Social CRM: Integrates with CRM systems, allowing you to link social media interactions with customer data for better personalization. Combining social listening and scheduling lets you gather valuable insights, react faster, and turn trends into scheduled content.

Price: Plans start at $249/month.

More social listening tools exist, but these three options could be enough to get you started. Other interesting trend-tracking tools include Google Trends and Google Search Console, which are both free tools.
A keyword research tool like Ahrefs is also an interesting option for tracking the search engine popularity of specific keywords.

Before purchasing any new tool, consider auditing your existing social media tools. Does it have social listening features that you haven’t tried yet? Is it enough for what you need? Can you spot trending topics and seasonal patterns with the tool?

Once you have a better understanding of what you need to track, you can always branch out to a more comprehensive social listening tool.

Tuning into trends

Turning data from social listening into compelling content is an art and science. Here’s how you can create your process for turning data into content.

Is the trend relevant?

Before creating content, you must ask yourself if the trend is relevant to your target market and brand. You don’t want to look like you’re just joining the trend for the sake of it; instead, ensure that your content adds value and aligns with your brand’s voice and message.

If you own a video platform, focus on trends relevant to video consumption to ensure your content resonates with your members.

For example, Pepsi’s 2017 ad featuring Kendall Jenner faced significant backlash because it attempted to capitalize on social justice movements without a genuine connection to the brand.

The ad was seen as tone-deaf and insensitive, showing the risks of jumping on trends without a clear, authentic message.

Here are 4 questions to ask for a quick check before publishing anything:

• Does this trend align with our brand values and messaging?
• Will our target audience find this trend engaging and relevant?
• Can we add a unique perspective or valuable insight to this trend?
• Does the trend have a sufficient search volume?

Depending on your business, you should also check with your legal team to avoid potential problems.

If you’re a solo creator without a legal team, an option is to share the content with a few of your trusted followers. What’s their feedback? That extra pair of eyes will give you perspective before publishing it.

Act fast

Acting quickly on social listening data is crucial for capitalizing on emerging trends and staying relevant. Here are some tips to ensure you can turn insights into content rapidly:

• Start Simple: If you identify a relevant trend, begin with something straightforward like a photo and a text post. This allows you to respond quickly without overcomplicating the process.
• Leverage Existing Processes: Utilize content creation processes already in place. For example, if you don’t have a video production process or software, stick to formats like images or text that you can produce quickly.
• Utilize AI Tools: Many AI-driven platforms, such as FlexClip, can generate videos, graphics, and written content in a fraction of the time it would take manually.

For example, Chipotle has a fun and simple way of joining the buzz on the United States professional basketball finals. They release codes that allow you to get a free burrito when the players make a “perfect free throw.”

This tweet generated over 146K impressions and 217 comments. They know their audience loves basketball and burritos.

Analyze success (or failure)

What does success look like for this campaign? For example, did you join the trend to boost brand awareness? Therefore, you’ll measure the campaign with the number of impressions and engagement.

On the other hand, if you have a sales goal, how many sales did you generate? Measuring success is always based on your initial goals.

Once you have the numbers, also understand the why. Why did it succeed? Understanding the factors that contributed to success will help you recreate the same result in the future.

Now, if it fails, don’t worry. The worst that can happen is that nobody will interact with your post. But it’s still essential to review why it didn’t succeed. This way, you can avoid the same mistake in your future campaigns.

Ask these questions if your post didn’t gain traction:

• Was the format (video, image, text) appropriate for the chosen platform?
• Was the message clear and concise?
• Did the visuals effectively complement the message?

The more campaigns you release, the better data accuracy you get. Eventually, you’ll be a pro at turning content from social listening.

Wrapping Up

So, there you have it! Hopefully, this blog post has equipped you with everything you need to start social listening.

You have the strategy, tools, and process for turning data into content pieces. If there’s only one thing you should take away from this post, it’s this:

_Always provide valuable content that resonates with your audience and doesn’t go against your values as a brand.

To start tracking seasonal trends, try Mention for free!