How to Track Event Industry Trends: A Guide for Business Event Professionals

Short for time? Scroll to the bottom to discover the key takeaways. 

How to Track Industry Trends: A Guide for Business Event Professionals

Responding to and capitalising on trends can be the key to success in the MICE/business event industry. Not only are you offering your attendees something desirable, but you’re also demonstrating that you’re in touch with the latest developments and ideas, and therefore are a brand that knows what its audience wants and what the industry can offer.

Knowing how to identify and track trends in the meetings and events industry is the key to ensuring that your business remains competitive and informed. In this article, we explore what makes an industry trend, how to research and identify trends in the MICE/business event industry, and the best trend tracking tools to help you with your research.

What is an Industry Trend?

An industry trend refers to a general topic or idea that has emerged in an industry and been adopted by a growing majority of people or businesses within it. They tend to grow in popularity, reach a point where they are adopted or engaged with by the majority, and then eventually either be moved on from or become a commonplace practice in the industry.

Industry trends are influenced by a range of factors, including but not limited to things like popular culture, politics, technology, current events, consumer demand and economic activity. They might come about because of a new discovery or innovation within the industry that is quickly adopted by others, or they might result from external factors that the industry responds to.

In the Events industry, trends often dictate the technology and approaches used at meetings and events, responding to changing attendee demand and interests. Following current industry trends is one of the best ways to ensure that your events remain relevant, engaging and valuable to attendees, and also to make sure that you’re keeping up with competitors and retaining an advantage in your sector.

How to Research Event Industry Trends

Knowing how to track industry trends begins with being able to research what’s happening in the MICE/business event industry and knowing where to look to hear about the latest trends.

You have two options when it comes to researching current industry trends; you can read round-ups that other professionals have put together, or you can identify trends yourself. The former is a simple approach which can be really useful for keeping up to date with popular ideas and developments, but it’s not always the best way to catch a trend just as it is developing. If you know where to look to research emerging trends, you’ll likely be ahead of the curve when it comes to spotting the latest industry trends.

Here are some of the best places to conduct research on emerging and current industry trends.

Social Media

Social media is one of the best places to start when you’re researching current and future trends in the industry. This is often the first place that professionals will start talking about new and popular ideas and approaches that they’re using or they’ve seen others implement, as well as being a space where attendees will also share thoughts on what they’re loving from event providers right now.

Different social media platforms will be useful for different kinds of research, and it’s definitely worth keeping track of multiple channels in order to get a full picture of what’s being talked about in your industry. LinkedIn is the best platform to gain insight from other industry professionals about top industry trends that they’re following, and also a great place to engage in discussion about trends that may or may not be about to take off. You’ll also often see speculation about potential trends that might be about to enter the industry.

Platforms like Instagram or TikTok are more likely to be used by companies in the industry to talk about the events that they’re putting on, which is also very useful as a way of spotting recurring themes or features in different types of events. You’ll also likely get attendee opinions on trends on these channels, which is a great way to gauge whether a trend is really going to take off or not.

Newsletters

Newsletters offer a more curated commentary on topics and ideas in the industry, and can be one of the best places to research current trends in the market and opinions of what’s going to be popular in the future. These might be written and published by organisations or by individuals, but can provide a very well-rounded perspective overall which is great for tracking MICE trends.

The best approach is to subscribe to a range of different newsletters and then identify which trends and topics are mentioned across a majority of these, as this is a great indicator of significant popularity and impact. You’ll also get a good range of individual insight and research or data from industry organisations, providing both subjective and objective input about trends in the industry.

Industry Publications

If you’re looking for more reliable information about emerging and current trends, or opinions that have been backed up with research, industry publications are a very useful source for trend monitoring. Nowadays, publications are more likely to be online than in print, but they carry more credibility than opinions shared on social media and are usually more respected because of their status.

A good way to use Industry publications for trend research is to have several websites that you like bookmarked and check their latest content every couple of days. If you’re looking for industry publications to support, look at the kinds of articles that are shared or discussed by others in your sector and explore the site that they were published on for more information.

Polls and Surveys

A different approach to trend monitoring and research in the industry is to collect your own data through surveys and polls. You can also look at the results of research that has been done by other organisations, but if there are particular topics you want to keep an eye on or gauge interest in then something as simple as a poll can be really insightful.

If you get attendees to review events after they have happened then you already have access to data which can help you identify trends, based on what is mentioned and praised. But if you’re looking for emerging trend data, conducting surveys about attendee preferences and priorities can be a great way to predict trends and tap into the most popular approaches to adopt for your own events.

How to Identify Trends in the Industry

Researching trends that people are already talking about is one thing. But what about tracking trends in the industry that are only just emerging?

Knowing how to identify trends is a process that requires a fair amount of practice and experience. It’s also something that you won't always get right, as trends can always be a bit unpredictable and sometimes popularity emerges very suddenly from somewhere unexpected.

The first technique in identifying trends in the industry is through social listening. This involves keeping track of what’s being talked about by attendees and other industry professionals in order to notice when particular topics or themes keep cropping up. This is one of the best ways to notice trends early on, but it does require you to keep active on social media and up-to-date with what’s being shared online in your sector.

Actually, attending events is another great way to identify Industry trends because you’ll see first-hand what other businesses are doing and how attendees are responding to this. Some events might also involve talks and panels where leaders in the industry share their insight on new ideas, which is another avenue for getting early access to trends that take off shortly after they are talked about.

Knowing what’s going to be a trend takes both skill and intuition, as well as a good understanding of the industry and its customers and attendees. As a general approach, trends are likely to offer or respond to something new, be talked about both by attendees and industry professionals, and see a gradual and then steep spike in popularity. Identifying this growth before it peaks is the key to predicting and capitalising on a trend in order to get the most from it.

There are various tools which can be used for trend tracking, some of which we’ll discuss in the next section of the article, which do the hard work for you of monitoring what’s been talked about or identifying common themes. These tools can be incredibly useful if you want to stay on top of trends in the industry but don’t have the time to read a lot of content regularly, or if you want assistance in sorting through what’s being talked about.

The Best Trend Tracking Tools

The final part of this guide on how to track industry trends is a roundup of some of the best tools that you can use to inspire or support your research.

Google Trends

If you’re looking for a free option then Google Trends is a great tool to use. It works by giving you historical data on the popularity of different search phrases, allowing you to identify when a topic is increasing in popularity. It also picks out related topics that are trending, which have varying degrees of usefulness but can be interesting to help develop your understanding of an emerging trend.

Google Trends isn’t as useful at identifying newly emerging trends, but it is one of the best sources of how popular a trending digital topic has been. It’s also an easy way to get a snapshot of what is trending right now on Google, which will sometimes be useful.

Exploding Topics

Another free tool that is designed to help users identify emerging trends is Exploding Topics, which does also have a paid option. On this website, users can filter different trending search terms by topic and see what people have been searching for over a set period of time, with analysis provided about which trends are going to take off and why certain topics have become popular.

Exploding Topics is a great place to start if you’re looking for trending ideas in the Industry or you want to identify potentially relevant topics which might have an impact in the future. The predictions and data are very accurate and having the option to filter trends by their industry makes it easier to find what you’re looking for. 

BrandMentions

If you’re looking to keep an eye on certain brands or companies that are growing in popularity then a tool like BrandMentions can be incredibly useful. It’s essentially a tool that does your social listening for you, providing updates when brands are mentioned and helping to make competitor monitoring much easier. Whether you want to monitor trends related to your own brand or want to keep an eye on what other MICE companies are doing through their online mentions, this is the tool to help.

Semrush Trends

Semrush is well known for its SEO capabilities, but now also offers a tool called Semrush Trends which helps you monitor and analyse how different websites are performing. It’s most useful for competitor research when it comes to trends, but can be a great way to identify what others in the Industry are doing well and make the most of these techniques to boost your own success.

BuzzSumo

If you’re looking for trend tracking tools catering to social media, BuzzSumo is one of the most popular options on the market. It has a range of different features, but its monitoring tool not only allows you to keep track of brand mentions but also reports on trending topics being shared on social media. It’s best suited to professionals who want to identify trends that they can jump on as opposed to trends that are only just emerging, but for many industry professionals this will be very valuable.

Summary

Event’s industry trends are always changing, and it’s important to know that you shouldn’t always be at the whim of what they indicate you should be doing. Having a solid offering as a brand in the event industry is the most important, along with the insight to know what trends make sense for you to adopt and which ones won’t actually provide value to your audience. It’s this knowledge, along with knowing how to research industry trends and best respond to them, which will be the most valuable.

Key takeaways

• Understand industry trends: Trends in the MICE/business event industry often emerge in response to new technology, attendee demands, or external factors such as economic activity. Staying informed ensures relevance and competitiveness.
• Research effectively: Use sources like social media, newsletters, industry publications, and polls or surveys to monitor both current and emerging trends in the sector.
• Utilise social listening: Pay attention to discussions among event professionals and attendees to identify early patterns and understand what’s gaining traction.
• Attend events: First-hand exposure to industry practices and networking with professionals provides valuable insight into ongoing and upcoming trends.
• Leverage trend tracking tools: Tools like Google Trends, Exploding Topics, and other analytics platforms can simplify monitoring and provide crucial data to stay ahead of the curve. 
   

For more valuable insight on understanding trends and finding success in the Industry, take a look at the other articles on our blog.

Looking for something else?