Trends and Search in Social Media:

You want to know where to go to search for different things regarding social media on the social web and you want to know where you can go to really find trends:
Alltop
This is one of my favorite resources when it comes to researching social media and the social web. It splits up different blogs and different categories to help let you know what’s going on across the Web. It’s easy to navigation and easy to understand.
Google Custom Search
This is an easy way to use Google. But customize it so that you’re only seeing results from blogs or social networks that may have the answer.
Technorati
This is another resource you can use to see what is being said across the social web. It’s easy to use, so you don’t have to sift through Google results. Instead, you can head right over and know that you’re getting the most recent and up-to-date information. Not just an article that happens to have a lot of backlinks.
Google Trends
This is probably the best way to see what is trending in social media on the social web.
source://smallbiztrends.com/