Stock Footage Trends: Be Aware, Yet Wary

Feeling behind on trends?

Just today, I found myself Googling whether flare jeans are really making a comeback or not.

Fingers crossed for any alternative to high waist!

I'm all packed and ready to hop on a plane for a little family vacation tomorrow morning, so what to wear was on my mind.

Fashion aside, the stock footage agencies are great about sharing past, current, and upcoming trends with us!

Here is my mantra on the subject:

When it comes to stock footage trends be aware, yet wary.

While it may be tempting to snap up every single keyword the internet tells you is currently popular, it will be in your best interest to dig a little deeper.

Pay attention to the two different types of trends: Evergreen vs. Fads

The evergreen trends are likely to remain popular for a long period of time while the fads may quickly become a forgotten thing of the past.

If you're uploading through BlackBox, you won't be able to edit your metadata once you submit your clip, so it's important to make your keywords and titles as evergreen as possible.

Here's an example of what I consider a fad trend:

Shutterstock's three 2020 color trend predictions, "Lush Lava", "Aqua Menthe", and "Phantom Blue".

If you want to add "lush lava" to your keywords, that's fine! I'd think twice before you add it to your titles, though.

I recommend using a more evergreen color in the title (dark blue, deep blue, etc.) that is likely to remain relevant and popular for years to come. If you really want to add "lush lava" or a similar trendy color name to your title, I'd personally only add it to one clip in your batch.


So where can you find more reliable, evergreen keywords?

1) Check out the Pond5 "Best of 2019" Top Video Search Terms.

These are the keywords that held strong on their agency for a full year and you can likely count on many of these keywords remaining popular for a while.

2) Pond5 also has an entire section of their website dedicated to sharing Data & Trends broken down by month.

For example, "green screen" was in the top two most-searched keywords for the last seven months straight and was still high in the rankings in the months prior to that.

This tells us that "green screen" is a very valuable keyword to add. Since you might have a lot of competition for that category, be sure to add lots of specific keywords to help buyers find your clips after weeding out the more general keywords.

Here are even more recent trend resources you can look up—just remember to use your best judgment when writing your titles and keywords!

1) Shutterstock lists a ton of popular search terms right on their home page! Just be sure to switch to "Footage home" rather than "Images Home" if those are the results you'd like to see.

2) Browse the Shutterstock data-driven 2020 trend report.

3) If you head over to the Shutterstock blog and search "Trend" , you'll find all the articles they've written on creative trends in reverse chronological order.

In their recent article on the occulture trend, they give valuable search trend data that tells you exactly what buyers are searching for. These keywords can also serve as a launchpad for further brainstorming.

"There’s data to back up this new-found obsession. The Shutterstock 2020 Creative Trends report identifies Occulture as a major emerging trend, based on yearly searches by Shutterstock users. A +525% rise in searches for “magic” and +289% for “spiritual” indicate that users are seeking out imagery that connects to alt-faiths, the occult, and astrology."

4) The Adobe Blog also has a fair number of trend articles to share with us! Type "trend" in their search bar to narrow down the results.

They have design trend predictions for 2020, a collection of 2020 visual trends, and more!


Feel free to browse through these resources next time you're in need of a little inspiration!

If you come across any interesting trends, updates, or new articles, I'd love for you to send them to me to add to the next newsletter.

I'm going to go check and make sure I packed snacks and earplugs!

Have a great day,

If you haven't had a chance to check out my keywording course yet, How to Write Killer Keywords for your Stock Footage, you can check it out on Udemy!

I'll teach you all the best practices you need to know to write professional titles and keywords for Shutterstock, Adobe, and Pond5. As a bonus, you'll get my second course with my personal brainstorming methods included for FREE!