Although Google got a lot of press earlier this month when it introduced its “hot trends” function that identified the fastest growing search statements daily, I still much prefer the older Google Trends to track the frequency of searches over time, and have recently been considering its value in helping discover new markets.
What I think is the most interesting is that on Google trends you can view results broken down by cities and regions. You can also choose what time period you’d like to see the trend graphed for. So, for instance, in the image here, the phrase “carbon trading” was searched most often in the city of Mumbai India, followed by Sydney Australia and then Delhi, India.This regional breakdown adds meaning and value. For instance, if you were thinking of entering the carbon trading market, and wanted a lead as to what parts of the globe are most attuned to this concept and where people are looking for more information, this could be potentially valuable information.
The best words and phrases to use on Google Trends would be those that are more “packed” with meaning (e.g. “sustainability”; “social networks”) and where you could reasonably presume that a search implies that it’s a hot topic/and or people are thinking about it, and/or there is some demand for learning more. You could do this for product names as well, of course. And combining words or phrases (via commas) could also be used to help ensure that the word/phrase is in the context you want: e.g. “social networks,” “web 2.0″
Keep in mind, though, that the trends site is what Google calls a “Google Labs” product which means that it’s still in an early stage of development and that you can’t really count on what you discover as a sure thing. But I still think it’s pretty neat to consider for possible leads as one more input when doing initial new market research
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