The tools in this category help you find, track and monitor content and marketing intelligence. Three types of research tools are listed, competitive intelligence, outdated content finders and trend trackers.
Competitive Intelligence
Bottlenose Trend intelligence on people, topics, and content through dashboard and visualization tool. Shows positive and negative influencers, trending images, videos, links. Enterprise level tool, request demo.
Buzzsumo Analyzes content performance by topic or competitor across Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest and Google Plus. Sends alerts when new content published, can filter by time and export via RSS. Free trial, four paid plans.
Consumer Behavior A graphing tool that shows how consumers research online before buying. No charge.
Gravity As content is published across the web and shared on social networks, Gravity crawls, indexes and semantically analyzes each web page, tweet or status update. Rates available upon request, enterprise level tool.
Hashtags.org Shows top 40 hashtags trending on Twitter in the last 24 hours, click to see details, tweets in real-time and related hashtags. Upgrade to paid version to see historical data plus compare terms.
NetComber – Created by a former Googler on the search quality team, this tool uses 3000 factors to show sites in related networks. Free and paid versions. [Note: Not always right but interesting what it groups together]
NODX3X Free dashboard allows you to track social media trends across Google Plus and YouTube paid service adds trends and gives historical data on Twitter, Facebook, news sites, blogs and Instagram. See top influencers, engagers, hashtags, terms people are using when discussing specific topics. Has a support and insight community on Google Plus.
RedditEdit Free tool shows which articles are doing well on Reddit as well as NYT, Fox News, WSJ, BuzzFeed, Yahoo! News, BBC, WashingtonPost, HuffPo, Guardian. No charge
SimilarWeb Competitive intelligence tool benchmarks your site against competitors and an industry as a whole, helps discover new partner and affiliate opportunities, identifies trends and new players. Chrome extension (free) shows traffic and engagement metrics. Free option with live demo plus two paid plans.
Site Alerts Get instant but basic insights and answers to how much traffic a website receives, where the traffic comes from, what tools the site is using, keywords they rank for and social media impact. Use it for your site or a competitor. One free and two paid plans
TrackEngine – Sends email to alert you when changes made to a competitors/retail webpage. Will also send emails to your visitors list when you add content to your site. Drag and drop button to your toolbar, no charge.
Track Maven – Follows up to ten competitors across various social media networks and content channels. Emails results, pricing upon request.
Twazzup Enter hashtag and tool returns influential trending tweets using a hashtag. Lists top influencers using the term, plus top tweeted links using the hashtag. Must be signed into Twitter to use, comes in multiple languages. Quick, clean and free to use. (TIP) Integration with Flamory.
VisualPing – Tool monitors webpages for changes. Receive email when it detects any change to the content on the page. Great for finding out when content is added, price tracking, ticket and product availability, competitive snooping and more! 250 credits free, then pay as you go.
WPromote Runs a site audit and compares your site to a competitor for the number of pages indexed, link counts, and keyword ranking. No charge
Content Research
Outdated Content Finder – This tool finds published content by the dates Google discovered it, this usually syncs with the day it was published. Find outdated content and replace with new. Eight results at a time, no charge.
Trend Trackers
EtsyTrends What is trending on Etsy, no charge.
Google Trends Compares long-term and recent trends by keyword term in news, image, shopping, Web or YouTube. Updates can be sent via weekly email, no cost.
Nielsen – Most of us are familiar with the term “Nielsen ratings” and understand this is a form of digital tracking associated with television but that is just one of many tracking and trending solutions they offer. All enterprise level solutions, their News Center offers insightful articles at no charge.
Spike Follows articles, videos and other content in real-time and predicts what will go hot by following tweets, shares, and comments. Tracks in 20 countries, pick a publisher and watch how their content is performing in real-time. Free trial, three paid plans, division of NewsWhip. (TIP) Check out their news app by topic or geographic location for trending news at no cost.
Trend Hunters With a global network of 190,000+people, this tool crowdsources ideas from the network and uses a custom research platform to analyze their insights. Four paid plans, blog updates daily with trending insights worth reading.
Trendwatching This is an enterprise level tool that spots trends using human “spotters” and business model data that captures shifts in consumer behavior. Three monthly plans available, subscription to monthly Trend Briefing is free.
Trendsmap Tracks Twitter trends in real time from anywhere in the world by keyword, hashtags or users. Click on a keyword trend to see the top tweets, images, and videos being shared for the term. Data can be exported into visualizations. Two paid options, both offer a free trial.
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Worth Reading:
1. Ten Trends For 2015 – Prime Innovation Opportunities
2. How To Increase Organic Search Traffic By up To 300% Using Google Trends
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