In public relations, we have to evaluate whether or not our campaign, crisis communication strategies, or even a particular issue is being covered in the news or discussed among our stakeholders.  With the increase number of corporations and individuals gravitating towards communicating online, it is important for public relations professionals to be aware of what are the current trends that people are discussing, and how to track them.

There are several ways that a public relations professional can do this.  There are several options that we all think about at first – Google Alerts, BlogPulse, Samepoint, etc.  However, there is another new site that tracks what are the current trends floating around on the Internet and in social media.  The site is called Trend Tracker, and it shows what people are tweeting about on Twitter and creates a list not only for what are the top trends being discussed, but also offers what could possibly be the future trends that may appear on these sites.

Not only can you look to see what are the current trends on social media – but you can see where in the world they are the most popular.  Trendsmap combines both Twitter trend topics and Google Earth to give you an idea what are the most talked about issues in the United States, Europe, China, etc.

We are living in a very exciting and ever changing world – and public relations professionals need to be up to speed on the latest developments in both technology and social media.  The way we are evaluating our PR campaigns is changing every day, every hour, and it has most likely changed since I started writing this blog post! 🙂

Hope you all are having a great day! 🙂

Best Wishes,

Karen