Discover the Secret to Predicting Consumer Trends Before Your Competitors

The discovery of emerging trends has become increasingly important in recent years. Product development and innovation executives are constantly searching for ways to predict what consumers will want before their competitors. In this post, we will explore how trend discovery was done in the past, and more importantly, we will highlight cutting-edge Natural Language Processing technology that can help you identify emerging trends before they become mainstream.

The process of discovering consumer trends has undergone a massive transformation over the past 15 years, primarily due to the advent of social media and Artificial Intelligence.

In the past, companies had to rely on traditional market research methods that were time-consuming and expensive. However, with the rise of social media listening tools, it has become much easier for companies to track and analyse consumer behaviour, preferences, and opinions. In this post, we will explore the challenges faced by companies in discovering consumer trends 15 years ago, compared to the ease with which it can be done now.

In the Past
 

To be more specific, in the past, companies relied primarily on surveys and focus groups to understand their customers. These traditional methods were often expensive, time-consuming, and had a limited sample size. Companies had to go through a rigorous process of recruiting participants, conducting the survey or focus group, analysing the data, and then interpreting the findings. This entire process could take weeks or even months to complete, making it difficult for companies to innovate and be competitive.

Moreover, surveys and focus groups were often limited to a specific geographic area or demographic, making it difficult to get a broad understanding of consumer behaviour. This lack of data often led to companies making assumptions about their customers' preferences, which could result in costly mistakes.

According to various studies, the failure rate for new products is estimated to be between 70% and 90%. In other words, most new products that are launched fail to achieve their business objectives, such as generating sufficient revenue or profitability. This underscores the importance of conducting thorough market research, testing, and analysis before launching a new product to increase the chances of success.

Today

With the rise of social media, companies now have access to a wealth of data that can be used to uncover consumer trends. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have billions of users, and each one of them is creating content, sharing opinions, and engaging with brands. Social media listening tools have made it easier for companies to monitor these conversations and extract meaningful insights.

Social media listening tools allow companies to track specific keywords and hashtags related to their brand or industry. These tools analyse the data and provide valuable insights, such as sentiment analysis, conversation drivers, engagement metrics and virality. This information can be used to identify emerging trends, monitor brand reputation, and engage with customers in real-time.

In addition, social media listening tools allow companies to track their competitors' activities, which can provide valuable insights into their marketing strategies and product development. By monitoring their competitors, companies can identify gaps in the market, and create products or services that meet the needs of their customers.

Furthermore, social media listening tools have made it possible for companies to connect with their customers in a more personalized way. By monitoring social media conversations, companies can identify individuals who are influential in their industry or have a large following. These individuals – the influencers - can be targeted to become brand advocates or ambassadors and to propagate offers, which can lead to increased engagement and more sales.

DMR has developed a proprietary approach to discovering emerging trends that involves the following steps:

• Gathering consumer posts from various social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Reddit, Quora, as well as blogs, forums, news, and reviews.
• Utilizing a custom machine learning model for product category and language to automatically label the posts with relevant topics, sub-topics, and attributes.
• Identifying themes that are being talked about online, even if they are only mentioned in a few posts, that grow exponentially in volume from one day to the next.
• Selecting a rapidly growing theme as an emerging topic, which is highlighted as a potential trend.
• Allowing listening247 users to perform more in-depth research using the drilldown approach to verify the early indicators of the trend and determine what actions to take as a result.

By using this approach, DMR provides valuable insights into emerging consumer trends that can help companies stay ahead of the competition and better understand their customers.

Conclusion
 

The process of discovering consumer trends has evolved significantly over the past 15 years, thanks to the rise of social media listening tools such as listening247. These tools have made it easier for companies to monitor and analyse consumer behaviour, preferences, and opinions. They have also provided valuable insights into competitors' activities and enabled companies to connect with their customers in a more personalized way. With the help of social media listening tools, companies can stay ahead of the competition and create products or services that meet the evolving needs of their customers.