Using Current Events or Trending Topics in Your Content Marketing

Content marketing effectively promotes your brand, engages your audience, and drives traffic to your website. However, to keep your content relevant and interesting, you need to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and current events. Using current events or trending topics in your content marketing can help you capture your target audience’s attention and create timely and engaging content.

Here are some tips on how to use current events or trending topics in your content marketing:

• Choose Relevant Topics – Not all current events or trending topics will be relevant to your brand or audience. Choose topics that are relevant to your industry or that relate to your brand’s values or mission. For example, if you’re a health and wellness brand, you could create content around the latest healthy eating or fitness trends.
• Create Timely Content – One of the benefits of using current events or trending topics in your content marketing is that it allows you to create timely content. This means you can create content relevant to what is happening right now. For example, if there is a major sporting event happening, you could create content that ties into the event, such as a blog post on the health benefits of exercise or a social media post about your brand’s support for the event.
• Provide Insight and Analysis – One way to make your content stand out is to provide insight and analysis on the latest trends or current events. This means going beyond simply reporting on the news and offering your perspective on what it means for your audience. For example, if there is a new technology trend that is relevant to your industry, you could create a blog post that discusses the potential impact of the trend on your industry and your audience.
• Be Sensitive – When using current events or trending topics in your content marketing, it is essential to be sensitive to the news and your audience. Avoid using tragic or controversial events to promote your brand, as this can come across as insensitive or virtue signaling (pretending to stand for a cause or something but only for the public perception of it) . Instead, focus on topics that are positive or that align with your brand’s values.
• Use Different Formats – Finally, remember that there are different formats that you can use to incorporate current events or trending topics into your content marketing. For example, you could create a blog post, a video, an infographic, or a social media post. Experiment with different formats to see what works best for your brand and audience.

The Pros and Cons of Using Trending Topics & Current Events in Content Marketing

Using current events or trending topics in content marketing can be a powerful way to increase engagement and visibility, but it also comes with risks. Brands need to be careful to create timely and sensitive content while ensuring that it aligns with their overall marketing strategy and brand values.

Here are some of the pros and cons:

Pros:

1. Increased engagement: By creating timely and relevant content, you are more likely to capture the attention of your target audience and increase engagement with your brand.
2. Higher visibility: Content tied to current events or trending topics is more likely to be shared on social media and other online platforms, increasing your brand’s visibility.
3. Improved SEO: By incorporating trending keywords and topics into your content, you can improve your search engine rankings and drive more traffic to your website.
4. Establishes brand as a thought leader: By providing analysis and insights on current events or trends, your brand can establish itself as a thought leader in your industry.
5. Creates a sense of urgency: Timely content can create a sense of urgency among your audience, leading to increased conversions and sales.

Cons:

1. Risk of being insensitive: Using current events or trending topics can be risky if not done carefully. Brands must be careful not to use tragic or controversial events to promote their products or services, which can be insensitive.
2. Short shelf life: Content tied to current events or trends may have a short shelf life and become outdated quickly, reducing its long-term value.
3. Risk of being overshadowed: With so much content created around current events or trending topics, it can be difficult to stand out and get noticed.
4. Limited scope: Using current events or trending topics can limit the scope of your content marketing strategy, as you may need to focus on a specific topic or event.
5. May not align with brand values: Not all current events or trending topics will align with a brand’s values or mission, which can make it challenging to create content that feels authentic and may make your audience think you are just using virtue-signaling to pump up your brand’s reputation.
6. Polarization: Some trending content can be polarizing or culturally and racially insensitive. Often, a trending topic or event may not be fully vetted or fully understood until sometime after the event transpires. Using this type of content may raise questions about where your business stands on sensitive topics that may not affect your business or its customers.

What Are the Best Ways to Find Trending Topics And Events To Include In Content Marketing?

Finding trending topics and events to include in your content marketing requires a combination of efforts to produce timely, relevant, and meaningful content.

Here are some of the best ways to find trending topics and events:

1. Social Media: Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn can be great sources of trending topics and events. Keep an eye on trending hashtags and topics, as well as popular posts and conversations within your industry.
2. Google Trends: Google Trends is a free tool allowing you to see what topics are trending on Google. You can use it to monitor specific keywords and phrases related to your industry and see how they trend over time.
3. News Aggregators: News aggregators like Feedly, Flipboard, and Google News can help you stay up-to-date with your industry’s latest news and events. You can customize your feed to include only the topics and sources most relevant to your brand.
4. Industry Blogs and Newsletters: Industry-specific blogs and newsletters can be a great source of information on the latest trends and events. Subscribe to the ones that are most relevant to your industry, and keep an eye out for updates and insights.
5. Competitor Analysis: Keep an eye on what your competitors are doing regarding content marketing. Look at their social media accounts, blog posts, and other content to see what topics they cover and how they engage with their audience.
6. Online Communities: Online communities like Reddit, Quora, and LinkedIn groups can be a great source of information on your industry’s latest trends and events. Join relevant groups and participate in conversations to stay informed and engage with your audience.

In conclusion, using current events or trending topics in your content marketing can help you create timely, relevant, important, useful, and engaging content. By staying up-to-date with the news, choosing relevant topics, and providing insight and analysis, you can capture the attention of your target audience and promote your brand in a way that resonates with your audience in real time.

How can you integrate trending topics and current events into your content strategy? Contact us today to Schedule a free consultation call with our team here at Vinci today. We’ll work with you to learn more about your audience and see what type of trending content might suit them. We can also review your overall content strategy to understand better how trending content can integrate into what is already being created.