Snapchat has unveiled a new marketing tool that brings valuable insights into what its 293 million daily active users are sharing. Snapchat Trends highlights the most popular keywords shared via the app’s public and shared Stories feature.

For the first time ever, we are releasing consumer trending data to the public 🙌 Visit Snapchat Trends today to uncover valuable new audience insights!

— Snapchat for Business (@SnapForBusiness) August 17, 2021

Using a concept not unlike Google Trends and Pinterest Trends, Snapchat Trends shares a list of topics that have been trending in the last week, along with an example of a Snap referring to that keyword. Clicking on one of the top trends will take you to a chart showing the popularity of the keyword over time. Among the biggest trends Snapchatters posted about during the previous week were the Saweetie Meal, McDonald’s latest celebrity collab; turmoil in Afghanistan; International Lefthanders Day; fantasy football drafts; and regional county fairs.

Snapchat Trends shares the topics that trended on the app over the last week.

The bottom of the main page also shares a handful of case studies, purporting to show how other businesses “reach an engaged audience that lives only on Snapchat.” A case study on how optimism for in-person learning this year will drive back-to-school spending could have particular relevance for the promo industry, for example.

Users can also input their own search terms to see how popular they’ve been and to see examples of recent Snaps featuring the keywords. For instance, a quick search found that the term “logo” appeared in captions 21 times during the week of Aug. 8 to 14, whereas “pen” appeared 72 times.

Snap, Snapchat’s parent company, says the trends feature “is able to provide a new level of visibility into organic chatter on Snapchat, looking at what our community is talking about and showcasing popular Snaps that exemplify each trending topic.”

Early testing of trends, the company says, has helped marketers and creators in several ways, including product market research. “Within the last few months, we’ve seen a market increase in the volume of conversation around seasonal summer flavors like strawberry, watermelon and rhubarb,” Snap notes, adding that such insights could help brands explore new products or shift marking to focus on those flavor categories. Other ways to use the trends include researching language trends and new slang, researching key moments and behavior (mentions of “streaming” increase on Fridays, for example) or looking up mentions of your and your competitors’ brands and products.

There are limitations, though, since Snap isn’t sharing all its data, only insights from public stories. Plus, “Snap doesn’t provide specific data on where these mentions occur, nor does it provide all data on shared Snaps between friends,” Social Media Today points out.

Still, it’s a valuable tool, whether or not your company is active on Snapchat, providing users with a quick and easy way to get a glimpse into the topics and events that resonate most with younger demographics.