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What is Exploding Topics and How Do You Use It Properly?

Written by James Parsons • Updated January 14, 2025

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What is Exploding Topics and How Do You Use It Properly

One of the biggest challenges in content marketing is finding topics to cover. My usual strategy is to look for topics that are evergreen. That is, topics that have significance no matter when you’re searching for them. Someone looking up how to build a deck doesn’t need to know the most cutting-edge news for sawmills or bolt manufacturing. They just need a step-by-step guide on how to build supports, how to build a frame, and how to lay decking.

On the opposite side of the coin is the trend chaser. Instead of seeking out evergreen topics, you look for topics that are about to explode in popularity. When you get in on a trend before it goes big, people searching for the topic when it explodes are going to find your content first. You have time to get established before everyone else. This is great because, a lot of times, it means you have more SEO weight to your content before anyone else.

There’s just one problem. How do you find topics before they start to trend? It’s easy to do if you’re a time traveler and have a printout of everything that trended on a given day. Sadly, most of us don’t have access to a time machine. We need to use the next best thing: Big Data from companies like Google.

What is Exploding Topics and How Does it Work?

This is where Exploding Topics comes in.

Exploding Topics is a trend analysis tool that was created by Josh Howarth under the name Trennd. Brian Dean of Backlinko fame acquired it shortly after and listed himself as co-founder. With Biran’s backing, the newly-renamed Exploding Topics grew quickly. Eventually, Semrush got in on the game as well and acquired the tool to add to their portfolio, leaving both Dean and Howarth in charge.

The way the tool works is surprisingly simple.

First, the tool gathers data from a wide range of sources. These sources start with big data like Google Trends, but they add to the data with information from social media like TikTok and Facebook, forums like Reddit, and other platforms like Spotify and Amazon.

With a massive amount of data on hand, they make use of machine learning algorithms to evaluate the data. With machine learning, the tool is able to look for patterns in data that humans won’t notice and can’t predict. They can separate the flash-in-the-pan micro-trends from the long-term spikes in growing topics. In other words, their algorithms can tell the difference between something that will go viral for a few days versus something that will surge in popularity for months or years to come.

What is Exploding Topics and How Does it Work

The key is not just that their algorithms can point out these potential trends. It’s that they can detect them before they’ve started to grow enough for other trend-watchers to notice. They also have a staff of trained analysts who can help filter and sort the trend data, validating their algorithm output and filtering out fads, gossip, and other short-term surges.

The biggest benefit of using Exploding Topics is that you get to see these trends very quickly. Instead of waiting for the trend to take off, you can see it before it starts to trend. That gives you the opportunity to set yourself up as a resource for the topic as soon as possible.

As long as you have a content marketing team that can produce high-quality content in a matter of hours or days, you can take advantage of this forewarning.

Exploding Topics as a product also has some specific benefits aimed at helping you out as a business.

  • They sort trending topics by industry, niche, and topic so you can drill down to find the most relevant trends for your business.
  • They give you search volume and growth rate data so you can double-check if you agree with their analysis.
  • They give you specific products that may be trending, so you can add them to your list of affiliate links or to your store directly.
  • They look for specific startups and businesses that may be growing so you can invest or cover them.
  • They create a cluster map of trending topics so you can create a related cluster of content.
  • They give you information about where a topic is trending so you can see if it’s just on one platform or on many.

All of this helps you make use of a rapid response content production team to cover trending topics before they explode in popularity.

How is Exploding Topics Different from Google Trends?

Exploding Topics provides a lot of the same data that Google Trends provides. Google Trends also pulls from a wide range of data sources, including social media, forums, and blogs. So, why should you pay for Exploding Topics instead of just using Google Trends?

The short answer is that Exploding Topics adds onto what Google Trends offers. Google Trends gives you a lot of information but does not provide any sort of context or additional analysis of the data. You have to figure out how to sort the trends from the duds on your own. With Exploding Topics, you get their machine learning algorithms sorting and identifying that data for you, as well as experts who give you their opinions on the side.

How is Exploding Topics Different from Google Trends

There are also platforms like Glimpse that you can use that promise the same thing. To me, Glimpse is less valuable because it’s more heavily reliant on AI instead of dedicated machine learning, does not have expert analysis, and is a little harder to use in bulk. You can read my opinions on Glimpse elsewhere on this blog.

How Much Does Exploding Topics Cost?

Nothing in business is truly free. Exploding Topics has a “free” plan of a sort, but for the most useful data, you will need to pay.

The free plan isn’t actually a real plan. You don’t get access to the trending topics data or any of the dashboards. Instead, you simply sign up for a newsletter. Exploding Topics sends you a weekly newsletter of some of their trends, curated and analyzed by their data team.

The benefit of the free newsletter is that it’s free to sign up and use. The downside is that it’s relatively limited. They only cover a few trends each week. With as much as six days of delay on the trend, you end up a little behind the curve when trying to cover it with your content. It’s also sent out to everyone just the same, so you don’t have the option of getting unique insights. On top of all of that, if you’re in a smaller or narrower niche, the choice of trends that they curate may not line up with your business. It might just not be useful to you.

Since it’s free, there’s no reason not to sign up and give it a try, so click here and plug in your email address to get started. There’s no referral attached to that link, either.

The paid plans of Exploding Topics are where the real value can be found. They have three tiers of paid plans to pick from.

How Much Does Exploding Topics Cost

Entrepreneur is $39 per month. It gives you access to their data dashboards and the option to track up to 100 trends to watch. You can get 10 deep dives into specific trends, access to the trends database, and access to trending products. They also give you meta trends, which are trends within larger industries. You also get the channel breakdown information at this plan level.

Investor is their middle-tier plan and costs $99 per month. It bumps up the numbers so you get 500 tracked trends and 100 trend analyses. You also get up to four user seats if you want to have a team working on your data analysis in-house. In addition to the features you get in the Entrepreneur plan, you also get the trending startups information, trend forecasting, and the ability to export data as a CSV for your own use.

Business is the top-tier plan and costs a whopping $250 per month. Your limits are bumped up again to 2,000 tracked trends and 500 trend analyses. You get ten user seats as well. In addition to everything else in the Investor plan, you also get trend reports, which are expert analyses of specific trends just for you. And, you get API access if you want to build your own front-end for their data.

Which of the three paid plans should you buy? It really comes down to how much information you need. As a marketing agency, I need to be able to watch data for different industries for each of my clients, so the Business plan works best for me. For a single business or blog, I would recommend just going with the Entrepreneur plan until you decide you need more data.

Don’t forget that all three plans have a two-week, almost-free trial (it’s just $1 as a way to validate users and prevent exploits), so you can try before you buy.

How to Use Exploding Topics for the Best Effect

If you want to use Exploding Topics to get the most out of the tool, here’s my advice.

Before you start to follow these steps, you need to make sure that chasing trends is something you actually want to do and can benefit from doing.

There are a lot of businesses that can’t really benefit from chasing trends. A landscaping company can follow annual trends but doesn’t need daily trends. A service provider is more likely to benefit from long-term content strategies rather than short-term trend chasing. Some brands are in static enough industries that there just aren’t enough trends to make it worthwhile.

Step 1: Sign up for the newsletter.

I already mentioned that the newsletter has some big downsides, but that doesn’t mean it’s useless.

Step 1 Sign up for the newsletter

The way I see it, there are three benefits to signing up for the newsletter.

  1. You get to see what kind of analysis they provide for their trending data, even if it’s not relevant to your brand.
  2. You might luck into trend data that does work for your business.
  3. It can give you ideas on how to branch out or expand your brand into secondary markets.

Since it’s free, there’s no downside to signing up and finding you can’t use the data they give you. You can always unsubscribe later.

Step 2: Use the paid platform to search for relevant trends.

At a minimum, sign up for the $1 trial. Once you have an account that can see the dashboards, you can start digging into data right away. Look for topics that are most relevant to your industry and niche. Once you find them, keep track of them in a spreadsheet.

Step 2 Use the paid platform to search for relevant trends

I highly recommend using the two-week period to determine if you can get enough data out of the tool to be worthwhile. If you find you can’t really use it, don’t bother paying for the full plan.

Step 3: Do keyword and topic research for your chosen trend.

The biggest stumbling block for brands trying to use Exploding Topics is that trend data is not necessarily SEO data. You need to be able to do keyword and topic research with the trend in mind.

Step 3 Do keyword and topic research for your chosen trend

There are a lot of different ways you can do this, but I highly recommend using Topicfinder to convert a basic trending topic into a list of potential topics to cover.

Step 4: Use a fast content pipeline to produce content.

The key when you’re chasing trends is to be able to react and publish very, very quickly. The longer it takes you to publish content, the less you’re able to capitalize on the data you’re given.

A Person Creating Blog Content

Don’t rely on generative AI. Instead, develop a fast process for creating content with skilled writers, designers, and SEO pros. If you don’t think you can produce content fast enough, drop me a line, and I can help.

Step 5: Determine if trending products fit your needs.

Exploding Topics also gives you the option to see specific products that are trending or associated with a trend. Some kinds of brands, like drop shipping or affiliate brands, can use this information to great effect. Others, like service providers, usually can’t. If products are useful to you, browse the product data and see if you can add any of them to your store.

Step 5 Determine if trending products fit your needs

Once you have this process down, you’ll be in a great position to take advantage of Exploding Topics.

Written by James Parsons

James is the founder and CEO of Topicfinder, a purpose-built topic research tool for bloggers and content marketers. He also runs a content marketing agency, Content Powered, and writes for Forbes, Inc, Entrepreneur, Business Insider, and other large publications. He's been a content marketer for over 15 years and helps companies from startups to Fortune 500's get more organic traffic and create valuable people-first content.

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