Beyond trends: Why cultural insights is still the hottest thing in social intelligence

The word on everyone’s lips these days is “trends.” We talk about them all the time: in pitches, in presentation decks, in dashboards. We’re obsessed with tracking them, following them, replicating them, predicting them with the hope that maybe our brand can have its moment in the sun. One day, maybe our brand will go viral (in a good way) and we’ll be able to ride that wave. We’ll be seen as trendsetters, as being able to tap into the zeitgeist, and everyone will talk about us in case studies. We’ll have cracked it. 

Except…that’s pretty hard to do. And even harder if you’re simply focusing on the trends themselves. Because behind every “what’s trending” conversation is a deeper question most social listening teams still struggle to answer:

What’s actually changing, and why?

And this is where cultural insights come in.

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Trends vs cultural insight: What’s the difference?

Trends are what you see. They sit on the surface. They’re usually fast-moving and hype-driven, reflecting current fashion and emerging popularity, and they don’t last long. They’re often shaped by platform logic: a trend isn’t always a true reflection of what people think and like, it’s a reflection of what the algorithm wants you to see. Ultimately, trendspotting can tell you what’s gaining traction, but rarely what it means.

Cultural insight, however, goes deeper to understand what a trend reflects, the belief systems that lie behind it and the drivers that shape it and bring it to the surface. Applied to brands, cultural insights can show how people think and behave, and highlight the way brands and products fit into their lives.

Trends might be the gateway to understanding consumers, but you need cultural insight to decode the meaning. And this makes it a whole lot more valuable than simple trendspotting. This is insight that helps you think strategically.

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Why cultural insight still matters

We’ve been talking about the importance of cultural insight for years, but it matters more now than ever (yes, we say that everytime, but it’s always true). It might be a cliché to say that we live in uncertain times, but most of you would probably agree. We’re seeing major identity shifts - of societal groups, political parties and of the online spaces we’re familiar with. Across all of these, we’re experiencing polarisation and narrative overload as people have even more ways to shout their opinions to the world. 

We’ve never had so much data to work with. And yet, this doesn’t get us closer to understanding people. 

Because more data just means more noise, not better signal. It makes it harder to find the nuggets of insight that give us the”ah-ha!” moment, so all we end up doing is counting conversations. Cultural insight forces us to ask better questions about the data to bring in context that can help us decode all the conversations that are happening online:

What is this really about?

Who is being heard (and who isn’t)?

What’s shaping this narrative beneath the keywords?

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How does cultural insight work?

We know you’re probably looking for a simple step-by-step guide on how to ‘do cultural insight’, or at least a methodology with definitive truths. However, we’re going to be awkward and tell you that cultural insight isn’t a method. It’s a way of seeing. 

Yes, we know that sounds a bit too vibey to be helpful, but stick with us. There are a few rules:

✅Get comfortable in contradiction
✅Follow what’s not being said
✅Delay interpretation
✅Sit with complexity before sorting it into categories

Still not helpful?

When approaching cultural insight, you need to think about the data differently. We’ve been talking about Big Data for years, but in this case simply analysing what you see isn’t going to get you the answer you need. Instead, you should think about “Thick Data” as digital anthropologist, Tricia Wang, termed it. The textured, layered nuances of the data. You need to look at what isn’t being shown - the invisible forces which impact the perceptions and choices of people. Because there’s usually a wider story to what’s actually being said.

Take attitudes towards the environment: the loudest voices are those looking for change. Our very own Dr Jillian Ney uses the example of a supermarket. "Looking at the numbers of social conversations in isolation may lead you to think that you should be plastic-free and totally vegan. Without understanding the origins of the conversation and balancing other areas like how people make decisions about the products they buy, you could make potentially damaging assumptions."

And this is where credibility comes in.

Beyond thinking about the unsaid behind the data you’re seeing, when we talk about cultural insight, you need to question what data is visible in the first place. Who gets amplified? What gets counted? What gets left out?

Dr Jillian has been working on a new model so we don't get lost in the noise, she calls it credibility engineering. This is about reducing bias in our data and methods so we don’t mistake visibility for significance. It’s about pressure-testing what we take as “real” in the data and asking:

1. What shaped this conversation?

2. Whose voice is missing?

3. What platform dynamics might be distorting our view?

Without this layer, cultural insight risks falling into the same trap as surface-level trend reporting: mistaking volume for relevance. Credibility engineering helps us see differently, so we don’t just chase the scroll, we decode the structure underneath it.

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The work is messy…but that’s the point

If dashboards are your comfort zone, cultural insight might feel like a shock to the system. Because it’s not the sort of thing that you can put a percentage against or package up in a neat soundbite to share with your manager. 

Instead, it means getting your hands dirty and going in search of the data and the people producing it. Cultural insights strategist, Billy Greville, reckons that this is only possible when we: “hang out with online groups and communities, learning about their unique beliefs, values, rituals, pain points, conversations, and behaviors.” This is a way of joining the invisible dots.

So you’ll spend a lot of time in potentially weird and wacky forums and subreddits, looking for:

✅Online subcultures
✅Rituals and memes
✅Contradictory behaviours
✅Visual codes and emotional language
✅Communities that don’t fit your segmentation model

It might feel like you’re working on a wing and a prayer at first, but the rigour is in how you ask questions, how you sit with ambiguity and and how you avoid flattening a complex topic simply to fit it into a standard template that people are used to working with. 

And after a while it’ll start to feel intuitive. It’s an unexpected aspect of cultural insights work, as semiotician Dominika Noworolska explains, "how natural it feels, once trained, but how often it offers you fascinating insights that other people relate to but find difficult to voice themselves. It's how we all interpret meaning usually without putting much thought into it. However, once seen it cannot be unseen; it becomes like a Matrix vision that allows you to notice and point out to others how culture shapes all aspects of communication and interpersonal relationships."

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Cultural insights in practice

Ok, so…enough with the vague advice. How can you start incorporating cultural insights into your work? 

The best way is to blend a few different lenses.

Firstly, digital ethnography. That means immersing yourself in the online communities that you’re trying to understand. 

From this, you can do social data analysis. Here, you’ll be looking at the different signals shared from the conversations in the spaces you’re analysing. You need to assess not only what impact these are having on that community, but also the scale of the impact. 

Semiotics, the decoding of imagery and language, is another key element of cultural insights. And, given how the amoung of image and video data is growing, it will likely become more important. As Dominika explains, when we see a meaningful image - a logo, an object or a scene - we need to take a moment to really look at the images and start asking some simple questions:

1. Where is the image posted?

2. What’s the context?

3. Why do you think the person decided to show this particular image over others?

Once you’ve covered the content, you then need to go deep and start looking at the details in the image:

1. How do all the details work together to communicate the message intended in the image?

2. What’s not shown in the image?

3. How does it differ from other images that are shown in a similar context?

Finally, to bring all of this together, you need to provide strategic framing. This is perhaps the most crucial element (particularly when you’re trying to sell it into the leadership team) as it explains . This is how you apply cultural insights to strategy, whether that’s brand, communications or product development. This is where it all comes together. 

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Cultural insight is a mindset, not just a method

Cultural insight is hard work. It demands more curiosity, more patience and the ability to hold multiple meanings at once. 

It also takes time. We’re talking weeks, sometimes months, as it involves spending time in a specific community to really understand them. You need to know what they mean without them having to say it. 

But spending the time pays off. As Billie points out, you’re “often on the cultural edges, that allows for the unexpected to emerge which is so important when looking to discover new opportunities and innovation or for spotting emergent cultural shifts.”

And the payoff of cultural insight overall is huge. It creates work that lasts and strategy that doesn’t go out of date in a week. Because culture isn’t a trend. Understanding people and their motivations to do certain things or buy certain products will always bring value.

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