Google Top Trends List For 2015

Google today released their 15th annual Year in Search lists and it's telling.  The thing about Google Trends lists is that they chronicle not just the major events of the year but who we are and what makes us tick.  Not only can we see what the world was interested in but what our own nation was and other nations around the world.  If nothing else this can help us as humans gain an understanding of how similar (and different) we are and as marketers it can help us gain a strong understanding of the how different markets tick. Let's look at what we mean by this.  Let's look at the global trends for Searches, Global News and People ...

Google Trends 2015: Top Global Searches

1. Lamar Odom
2. Charlie Hebdo
3. Agar.io
4. Jurassic World
5. Paris

Google Trends 2015: Top Global News

1. Charlie Hebdo
2. Paris
3. Hurricane Patricia
4. Isis
5. Nepal

Google Trends 2015: Top Global People

1. Lamar Odom
2. Ronda Rousey
3. Caitlyn Jenner
4. Adele
5. Charlie Sheen

What's interesting is if we start to compare that with US results ...

Google Trends 2015: Top US Searches

1. Lamar Odom
2. Jurassic World
3. American Sniper
4. Caitlyn Jenner
5. Ronda Rousey

And the top people are ...

Google Trends 2015: Top US People

1. Lamar Odom
2. Caitlyn Jenner
3. Ronda Rousey
4. Donald Trump
5. Ruby Rose

And of course I'd be remiss not to include my own "home and native land" and review the results from Canada ...

Google Trends 2015: Top Canadian Searches

1. Blue Jays
2. Justin Trudeau
3. Federal Election
4. Pan Am Games
5. Paris Shooting

And the top people are ...

Google Trends 2015: Top Canadian People

1. Justin Trudeau
2. Joel Legendre
3. Pierre Trudeau
4. Mike Babcock
5. Drake

The Canadian trending to the Trudeau's and the election are definitely skewed due to the federal election that was held in 2015 but it's worth noting the interest in it.  That the election itself made a top trend as well as both the winning Prime Minister as well as his father (a former Prime Minister) can help us understand what to expect during the next election if we want to capitalize on it.  These are the types of trends I personally like to be aware of. There is a lot more than just the global data above in the trends for marketers.  While the categories differ country-to-country here's the list of categories in the US:

Google Trends 2015: US Categories

1. Searches
2. People
3. Movies
4. Actors
5. Actresses
6. Athletes
7. Beauty Questions
8. Beer
9. Calorie Searches
10. Car Models
11. Celebrity Pregnancies
12. Celebrity Weddings
13. Cocktails
14. Diets
15. Dog Questions
16. Fashion Designers
17. Fashion Questions
18. GIF
19. How to ...?
20. Losses
21. Memes
22. Men's Soccer Players
23. MLB Players
24. MLB Teams
25. Music Artists
26. Natural Events
27. NBA Players
28. NBA Teams
29. NFL Players
30. NFL Teams
31. Oscar Red Carpet Dresses
32. Politicians
33. Recipes
34. Selfies
35. Soccer Teams
36. Song Lyrics
37. Sports Teams
38. Symptoms
39. Travel Questions
40. TV Shows
41. Video Games
42. What is ... ?
43. WNBA Teams
44. Women's Soccer Players
45. Workouts and Exercises

The sections of particular interest to me generally are the "how to" and "what is" queries to gain insight into content ideas but seeing how the trends work and what people do can be extremely helpful as a marketer and as a person. Also helpful is that Google allows you to also quickly look at the data from previous years to find patterns and trends over time. So head over and enjoy though prepare to "waste" an hour or two.  Before you do that, here's an interesting video Google also put out about the year.