Quantifying Culture: Spring 2024

Are you a trend forecaster, strategist, or cultural analyst who needs to find data and stats to prove your research, sell an idea or help size an amorphous insight or observation?

Does quantifying culture or unearthing stats sometimes feel like an impossible task?

Finding useful data can be confusing, time-consuming, expensive, and hard.

... but it doesn't have to be.

What you will learn in this class:

1) Foundational Frameworks:

Before getting into the details of using these tools, it's important to understand the why and how behind this system. I will set the stage for understanding and unlocking the value hidden everywhere online.

• Thinking critically and creatively about data
• The fastest ways to find quality data online
• Best practices for finding, vetting, and presenting existing data and stats
• How to develop and present original data findings

2) How to Source Data from 3 Top Global Platforms (Google, Reddit & Amazon):

📈 Google (Search Data)

Google dominates the search market, with +91% of all search activity happening on the platform. Every day Google handles 99,000 searches a second - that adds up to over 8.5 BILLION searches per day. It is quite literally a gold mine when it comes to understanding trends, consumer intention, and desire. Almost anything can be sourced and quantified using a suite of platforms around Google search.

Some of what we will cover:

• Google Trends Mastery: I will show you how to use and maximize all of the features of Google Trends when extracting data and insights. It still amazes me that this is a completely free resource.
• The Keyword Tool Secret: To truly supercharge and contextualize trends data, you must turn to keyword analysis software like Ubersuggest or Ahrefs. Without the exact numbers they reveal, you only have half the story.
• Power Up with Soovle & Answer The Public: These sites are a crucial component when investigating search data. While they don't quantify search, they do offer alternative keywords and search paths to take.

🧵Reddit (Community Data)

Reddit is one of the world's largest community platforms, consistently ranking in the top 10 most visited sites in the world and a trove of honest, detailed, and diverse conversations about literally everything. From games to parenting, health, sports - you name it. Reddit contains a multitude of valuable information and things to quantify.

Some of what we will cover:

• Reddit Quant Hacks: There are at least 5 different ways to jump in and quantify activity on Reddit without using separate analysis software.
• Gigabrain, Gummy Search & Redditlist : These are built on top of Reddit's API and offer a free way to get inside communities and understand and quantify topics and growth.
• Map of Reddit: Shows relative size and relationships between related communities. This can be used in a similar way to Soovie/Answer The Public for Reddit.

🛒 Amazon (Shopping Data)

Amazon is one of the world's biggest online shopping platforms. The data and insights you can extract from it will help define and quantify cultural movements, emerging trends, and other commerce-related areas.

• Amazon Quant Hacks: Understand product ranking, reviews, and ratings along with other ways to pull data from the site.
• Jungle Scout / Erank: This platform and Chrome extension (originally intended for sellers) gets you an inside look at sales numbers and growth in verticals or for specific products.
• KD Spy: A similar tool but for Kindle books. Eye-opening when understanding what content is resonating and trending.

3) How to Quantify Almost Anything (Social platforms, App stores, Websites, and Beyond)

The 3 platforms above can provide an infinite source of data for almost all your research projects. Sometimes you need different types of proof points, and that's where you can use a site like SimilarWeb or dive into other social or shopping sites like:

• Twitter
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Youtube
• TikTok
• Pinterest
• Apple Store
• Google Play
• Ebay
• Etsy
• Walmart
• + more...

Free Bonus Material:

Everyone who signs up for this class will receive a bundle of 4 free bonuses as a special thank you:

• 2024 Trends Toolbox: An updated version of my popular handbook of trend tracking tools and best practices.
• The Ultimate Google Search Hacks Guide: A live document and collection of search hacks to find specific information or for discovery.
• Lifetime access to a dedicated Quantifying Culture Community Discord Channel
• Regular AMA and Q&A office hours

💯 My Guarantee to you:

I know that you will come away from this class with valuable tools and frameworks that can be applied immediately to projects and client work and used again and again. If, for any reason, you feel differently, I will personally work with you inside our Discord Community to make sure you have these skills perfected.

🤯"I learned more in this one hour than I have at expensive, weekend-long events!"

- a participant from the inaugural version of this class

🗓 The Details:

Four live 1.5 hour sessions over the course of April 2024 from 2-3:30 PM EST

🚀 Class 1, April 5th:

• Introduction
• Overview and frameworks
• Google / Search Data

🚀 Class 2, April 12th:

• Commerce & Community
  • Reddit & Facebook Groups
  • Amazon
  • Etsy, Ebay & Other Shopping Platforms

🚀 Class 3, April 19th:

• Social & Streaming Video
  • All major social media platforms
  • YouTube, Twitch and other video platforms

🚀 Class 4, April 26th:

• Other platforms and methods to quantify
• Questions and live case studies

About Me:

My name is Dan Gould and I've been in the trends, insights, and innovation field for over a decade. In that time, I’ve scanned hundreds of thousands of cultural signals, given hundreds of culture briefings, written 3,000+ blog posts about innovation at PSFK, and helped build an agency (sparks & honey) from the ground up based on the marriage of culture and data analytics, worked at Google to bring “human truths” to top advertising clients and most recently started an insights and trends team at Reddit before becoming an independent consultant.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dangould100/

Any questions? DM on Linkedin or dangould@gmail.com