12 Best Exploding Topics Alternative Tools

Consider you nailed a cool Instagram post, but your followers aren't vibing with it. You should dig into what's hot right now rather than taking it personally and sulking over your past performance. It could provide you with ideas for your next post.  Looking at social media trends can help boost engagement and create viral content. But, how to find social media trends?

Blogs like Exploding Topics can help you identify trends, but if you're looking for an Exploding Topics alternative, try a social media trend tracker like Virlo. This guide will explore the value of using a tool like Virlo to help you achieve your social media goals, including identifying trends and going viral yourself.

Virlo offers a virality analysis tool solution that provides data on social media trends and viral content to help you achieve your goals. 

Table of Contents

• What is Exploding Topics?

• Exploding Topics Pricing

• 12 Best Exploding Topics Alternative Tools

• Pros and Cons of Exploding Topics

• Go Viral with Virlo's Virality Analysis Tool

What is Exploding Topics?

Exploding Topics tracks the trajectory of trends across various industries, pinpointing where rapid growth and buzz are surging. This data fuels innovation. You can discover untapped markets, develop products your audience desperately needs, or shape content that resonates at precisely the right moment. With Exploding Topics, you can stop guessing your business strategy and take a data-driven approach. You can keep an eye on what’s happening worldwide and pinpoint the opportunities with the highest potential for success. 

Outpace Your Competitors

Exploding Topics helps you stay ahead of the curve, uncovering emerging trends before your competitors catch the wind.  The tool's database is constantly updating, so you can get real-time insights on trends. 

Identify Short-Term Fads 

Not every trend has staying power. Exploding Topics allows you to differentiate between short-term fads and trends with significant long-term potential, ensuring you invest your resources wisely. 

Build Authority in Your Niche 

Position yourself as a visionary leader by consistently identifying and discussing hot trends. Your audience will recognize you as a go-to source for what’s new and vital in your field. 

Find Investing Opportunities 

Looking for the next big thing to invest in? Exploding Topics uncovers breakout niches, promising startups, or trends indicating shifts in specific markets, providing valuable insights for savvy investors.

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Exploding Topics Pricing

Exploding Topics offers a 14-day free trial of its software for only $1. During this period, you will be able to test all the features of the Pro account. After the trial, you can choose from three pricing plans, starting at $39 monthly for the Pro plan. All pricing packages are paid annually. Let’s take a closer look at these packages and what they include.  

Entrepreneur Plan  

The Entrepreneur plan costs $39 per month when billed annually. Here’s what you get with this plan:  

• Trends database  

• Trend tracking  

• Trending products  

• Meta trends  

• Channel breakdown to see which social media networks the topic is exploding on  

• 1 user seat  

Investor Plan  

The Investor plan costs $99 per month when billed annually. Here’s what you get with this plan:  

• Trends database  

• Trend tracking  

• Trending products  

• Trending startups  

• Meta trends  

• Channel breakdown  

• Trend forecasting  

• Trend search  

• CSV export  

• 4 user seats  

Business Plan  

The Business plan costs $249 per month when billed annually. Here’s what you get with this plan:  

• Trends database  

• Trend tracking  

• Trending products  

• Trending startups  

• Meta trends  

• Channel breakdown  

• Trend forecasting  

• Trend search  

• CSV export  

• Custom trend reports  

• API Access  

• 10 user seats  

12 Best Exploding Topics Alternative Tools

1. Virlo: Your Shortcut to Social Media Virality

Virlo helps short-form content creators crack the code of virality through AI-powered trend analysis. Our platform combines creator insights with advanced analytics to identify winning content patterns, optimal posting times, and successful audio/video combinations that help your content stand out in today's fast-moving social landscape. Perfect for independent creators looking to build a sustainable side business, Virlo takes the guesswork out of content strategy. We analyze the latest viral trends and help you understand when to post and what combinations of elements drive engagement. Whether you're just starting or looking to optimize your existing content, Virlo enables you to navigate the ever-changing algorithms to increase your chances of going viral. Go viral with Virlo's virality analysis tool.  

2. Google Trends: The Standard For Tracking Exploding Topics 

Google Trends is a helpful search trend feature that shows how frequently a search term is entered into Google’s search engine relative to the site’s total search volume over a given period. 

3. Mention.com

Mention.com is a real-time monitoring tool perfect for tracking specific keywords across various social media platforms, forums, blogs, and news websites. It keeps track of brand awareness, customer sentiment, and engagement for specific keywords and topics. Along with tracking, Mention.com helps you connect with your audience across social media and publish content to grow your social presence. 

Best Features

• Real-time data across a variety of metrics: Monitor and track sudden ups and downs of keyword mentions across the web and get insights on user engagement and social media presence

• Analysis of your competition: Understand the strategies employed by your rivals and get insights into their social media presence and engagement to stay ahead in the game with detailed competitive analysis 

• Social channel management: Organize, schedule, and analyze your social channels effortlessly using a multi-channel editorial calendar 

• Online brand monitoring: Use Mention’s  brand management features to measure reputation metrics, pinpoint media collaborations, proactively monitor and tackle crises, and strengthen your brand strategy

Limitations

• Some standard features are missing: Features such as capturing historical data after creating a boolean search cannot be found.

• Search is limited: Due to inadequate search configurations, there’s a significant risk of missing out on crucial mentions.

4. SimilarWeb

Similarweb helps businesses, market analysts, and marketers discover opportunities, identify risks, and make data-driven decisions without much fuss. It keeps track of customer behavior, analyzes market trends, and gives insights into the marketing strategy of your rivals. It even pinpoints the keywords and content that outperform. The recently upgraded v3 platform boosts performance even more, making analysis faster and more accurate.

Similarweb best features

• Extensive traffic data: View traffic data for every website that gathers over 10,000 monthly visits. Get a bird’s eye view of your website’s online performance with metrics such as bounce rate, pages per visit, and average visit duration.

• Multi-platform breakdown: Receive an in-depth traffic analysis categorized by channels, including comparative charts like email versus ads, social versus search, and segmentation based on region, age groups, and demographics

• Chrome extension: Displays website traffic data for any site across specific time frames and provides real-time page or website rankings directly from your browser 

• Regional filtering and growth metrics: Gain insights into a website’s geographical performance and access detailed statistics on primary traffic sources and growth strategies, visually represented through percentages, graphs, and pie charts

Similarweb limitations

• Limited data window: Similar web's free extension is limited to showing only the past six months of data

• Accuracy is not the best: While its metrics offer directional accuracy, they may not provide precise absolute volume numbers.

5. BuzzSumo

Buzzsumo is a versatile content marketing tool that helps you with various marketing strategies, from outreach and discovery to research and monitoring. Leverage its comprehensive journalist database of 700K active professionals, with 330K monthly profile updates, to connect with high-impact individuals exhibiting strong social engagement. Its AI pitching tool ensures more niche topic results, enabling you to write relevant pitches swiftly. You can access real-time trends, viral stories, and eight bn worldwide articles, facilitating content idea generation and in-depth analysis spanning 15 minutes to five years.

BuzzSumo best features

• AI-powered writer: Compose impactful pitches faster with Buzz Sumo's built-in AI pitching tool to develop pitch ideas and generate  compositions that resonate with your target audience

• Extensive discovery options: Access an archive of over 8 billion web articles for inspiration and valuable insights

• In-depth monitoring: Use Buzz Sumo's tracking tools to accurately track mentions, trends, and updates and get competitor insights to stay ahead in the race

• Tools for better content strategy and planning: Discover and filter content based on audience engagement and trending topics

BuzzSumo limitations

• Steep pricing structure: Users find Buzzsumo expensive 

• Accuracy concerns: The Topic Explorer feature is not helpful and accurate as it tends to display all the words in a single panel

6. Twinword Ideas 

It is an AI keyword research tool designed to search trends and bring you only the best keywords. Instead of manually reviewing long lists of keywords, use this AI keyword generator to get a more relevant selection of potential phrases to target. 💡

Twinword Ideas' best features

• See accurate keyword data, including search volume, organic traffic, and cost per click (CPC)

• Save time building your list of related keywords with automatic keyword grouping.

• View keyword scores and build your campaign around your best SEO ranking opportunities.

Twinword Ideas limitations

• This is purely a keyword research tool, so teams looking for a platform with other content or SEO features may need to consider an alternative.

• The keyword search tool feels more essential than other keyword research tools.

7.  Treendly

It is another versatile and capable entry that compiles and provides detailed insights on new and curated trends. It has all the features you’d expect from a keyword analysis tool in 2023. Instantly explore trends and seasonality of any topic or keyword across various regions. Treendly’s accumulated case studies provide valuable insights into how trends operate within specific industries.

Treendly best features

• Trend curation: Create and manage your exclusive trend collection effortlessly within the dashboard with updates in real-time

• Industry monitors: Identify thriving and declining industries within a specific timeframe to make informed, data-driven decisions and fine-tune your SEO strategy

• Smart suggestions of related keywords: Explore associated keywords that people are searching for on popular websites related to any topic of interest

• Trend forecasting: Use predictive algorithms that leverage customer sentiment segmentation and market trend analysis to forecast how a trend will likely perform in the coming months accurately

Treendly limitations

• Limited Starter plan: The entry-level plan offers limited features

• No ability to access custom reports: Basic users have no way to access custom reports

8. SEMrush

Semrush is a digital marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) platform with SEO-focused tools and features, including keyword research and competitive analysis. Semrush’s keyword research tools allow you to spot keyword gaps, research competitor keywords, and build keyword lists in no time. 🙌

Semrush best features

• Build lists of thousands of long-tail keywords from one initial seed keyword.

• Find competitive keyword opportunities and content gaps with competitor analysis.

• Get valuable insights into the search algorithm, keyword rankings, and cross-reference data with Google Analytics.

Semrush limitations

• Semrush’s pricing plans may put it out of reach of smaller businesses and agencies.

• Some users suggest that the range of features means there’s a learning curve to understand how to use the software effectively.

9. Google Ads Keyword Planner 

It is a must-have tool for running Google Ad campaigns, but it is also useful. Use the tool to find new keywords, get insights and recommendations, and let that knowledge power your ad campaigns. 📊

Google Keyword Planner's best features

• Build your keyword plan for Google Ads

• See projected search traffic and how many projected clicks, impressions, or conversions you may get

• Turn your plan into a functional Google Ads campaign in a few clicks

Google Keyword Planner limitations

• As this is a Google keyword explorer tool, you’ll only be able to see projected organic search data for Google search terms.

• If you’re not planning to run Google Ad campaigns, another tool with a broader feature set may be beneficial.

10. SurferSEO

Surfer is a search engine optimization and AI content creation tool that gives teams the ability to not only research keywords but generate content and audit existing content, too. As well as an AI-powered copywriting tool, Surfer offers a free extension for Chrome that lets you research all the keywords you need without leaving Google. 🏄

Surfer best features

• Uncover relevant topic clusters based on your niche

• Analyze search intent, see keyword difficulty scores, and check monthly search volumes

• Do keyword research on the fly with the Keyword Surfer extension

Surfer limitations

• Users suggest that you can’t modify topic clusters once created.

• Some users report that the keyword research functionality is more essential than other alternatives.

11. Keyword Tool

Keywordtool is a nifty tool that automatically finds the best keywords with the help of Google Autocomplete. It is a power-packed alternative to Google Trends and Google Keyword Planner, as the free version of this keyword tool can generate more than 750 long-tail keyword suggestions for just one search term. It is invaluable for content marketers and content creation.

Keywordtool.io best features

• No hassle of signing in: Get right into keyword generation without wasting time on creating an account 

• Reliability as a focus: Focus on keyword generation with Keywordtool’s robust algorithm, which operates flawlessly 99.9% of the time

• Unparalleled outputs: Generate more than 750 long-tail keywords instantly. Access keyword suggestions from real-user queries for content creation, search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, or other marketing activities

• Internation SEO support: The paid plans cover all Google domains and languages, offering exact search volume numbers, cost-per-click, and Google Ads Competition Data across 192 supported countries, 50,236 specific locations, and 46 languages

Keywordtool.io limitations

• Not the most data-accurate: Data accuracy could be enhanced as there are occasional discrepancies between Google search volume data and other keyword results

• Tier-locked features: Some essential features, such as search volume, are locked behind the higher-priced tiers

12.  Copy.ai 

It is an AI marketing tool designed for sales and marketing teams that want to use generative AI to create and deploy content at scale. Like most AI keyword generators, Copy.ai creates a list of potential keywords with the right prompts, so teams have plenty to use in website projects. 💻

Copy.ai best features

• Create keyword clusters and ideas for potential phrases to target

• Brainstorm content ideas and form a content plan

• Use Copy.ai to build a content brief based on your keyword prompts

Copy.ai limitations

• As it’s primarily an AI content writer, some teams may find this tool lacks specific keyword research functionality.

• Some users may discover that purchasing credits for content generation is frustrating.

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Pros and Cons of Exploding Topics

Pros of Exploding Topics

Extensive Trending Products Database

Exploding Topics has an extensive database of trending products across multiple categories. You can quickly discover new opportunities for your niche by finding specific items that are rising in popularity. This can help you generate content ideas, find products to dropship, and explore new business ventures. 

Historical Trends Available

Exploding Topics doesn’t just show you what’s trending right now. You can also view historical data for topics to see how interest has changed. This can help you understand whether a trend is emerging, peaking, or declining so you can make informed decisions. 

Easy to Use Interface

The layout and design of Exploding Topics make it easy to find and analyze trending topics. You can quickly browse the database, view related issues, and organize them by category. There’s also a handy search function to find specific trends in seconds. 

Free Weekly Newsletter

You don’t have to sign up for an account to get Exploding Topics' benefits. You can subscribe to the free weekly newsletter to deliver the latest trending topics to your inbox. This way, you can stay up-to-date on the latest trends in your niche without even having to visit the website. 

Cons of Exploding Topics

Trends Limited to Set Categories

While the categories in Exploding Topics cover a wide range of topics, the trends are still limited to these set categories. As a result, you may not find some of the more niche or specific issues you’re looking for. 

Only 10 Topic Searches on the Starter Plan

If you’re using the free version of Exploding Topics, you’re limited to just 10 topic searches. This means you won’t be able to fully explore the database to find all the relevant trends for your business before upgrading to a paid plan. 

Lack of Transparency in Data Sources

While there is a lot of valuable data within Exploding Topics, the platform doesn’t provide much transparency into how it gets this information. For instance, it’s unclear what sources the platform pulls data from, how it determines the trends, and how reliable these sources are.

Go Viral with Virlo's Virality Analysis Tool

Virlo helps short-form content creators crack the code of virality through AI-powered trend analysis. Our platform combines creator insights with advanced analytics to identify winning content patterns, optimal posting times, and successful audio/video combinations that help your content stand out in today's fast-moving social landscape. 

Perfect for independent creators looking to build a sustainable side business, Virlo takes the guesswork out of content strategy. We analyze the latest viral trends and help you understand when to post and what combinations of elements drive engagement. Whether you're just starting or looking to optimize your existing content, Virlo enables you to navigate the ever-changing algorithms to increase your chances of going viral. Go viral with Virlo's virality analysis tool.  

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