Working with Microstock+ Trends

What’s Microstock+ Trends?

Microstock+ Trends is a service that determines the market trends by analyzing the information gathered from one of the biggest microstock agencies — Shutterstock.

How can I benefit from it?

With M+ Trends you can easily track fresh content that’s quickly heading to the top. Using this information you can make similar content just in time to get into the trend and earn great sales. There are many search, filtering and sorting options that allow you to fine-tune the displayed results and get a full content coverage. In addition, every M+ Trends user receives a trend indicator that’s integrated into the M+ interface. This indicator allows you to predict popularity and sales of your files.

How does Microstock+ Trends work?

M+ Trends continuously monitors Shutterstock search results for every type of content (video, photo, vectors and illustrations). Each time a file changes its position, M+ Trends stores this information in its database. After that it’s using it to build the file position graph and determine its “trendiness”.

Trend indicator

All M+Trends plans include a trend indicator on your files. It is integrated into M+ and StockSubmitter, so immediately after purchasing a subscription, you will notice colored badges with a flame icon and a number displaying the file's trendiness from 0 to 100.
The trend calculation algorithm is based on analyzing the arithmetic mean rating of all keywords, but the formula is much more complex and takes into account aspects such as the frequency of a keyword's use in other works on stock platforms or its alignment with the selected category and content type. Thus, the same keywords may be used more often for video than for photo, which increases the number of competitors for your work among videos. Accordingly, its trendiness will be lower, while a work with similar keywords among photos will have higher trendiness.
A few successful keywords can significantly increase your work's trendiness! They will help you enter narrow and trending niches, which means more frequent appearances in search results.
Search results change over time: people pick up certain trends, produce more works in a specific niche, or, conversely, some works become scarcer as demand grows, which also affects the indicator. We continually improve our calculation methods, so results may become more accurate, and for this reason, they may also decrease or increase without any action on your part. This last factor makes the indicator more honest and useful for you.
Works with a lower indicator value still have a chance to sell, but more trending works promise higher overall sales in the long run. And although this is just a tool, it can become a reliable guide in a situation of increasing competition in the microstock market.

A brighter indicator padding color combined with a higher numeric value indicates a greater probability that the file is potentially appealing to buyers. The illustration above demonstrates the possible gradations of the indicator's color intensity.

Quickmeta with trends

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  M+Trends tab in quickmeta

All active M+Trends subscribers have access to advanced automatic metadata suggestions. Within the M+ metadata editor, a dedicated quickmeta tab displays a curated selection of thumbnails featuring the most trending works from the Shutterstock database. This functionality enables users to instantly copy titles and keywords from those thumbnails into their own files.

Our neural networks analyze the user's preview image, automatically generate a corresponding search query, and display a relevant selection of results within the quickmeta tool. Users retain the ability to manually edit, expand, or completely replace this automatically generated query at any time.

More information on metadata completion using quickmeta can be found in этой статье | the relevant article.

Language and subscription settings

You can choose the interface language (English or Russian) and check your subscription plan in the top right corner. Left click on the subscription plan's name redirects you to the Store.

Stock Files section

“Stock Files” section is located in the top left corner. Here you can explore the trending categories and keywords. If your payment plan allows it, you'll also get access to a sales chart for the file, powered by neural networks and data calculations. We do NOT use your personal data — we are committed to security and privacy.

How to work with the “Stock Files” section?

1. Navigate to the "Trends Database" section using the top icon in the left menu.
2. Click the "Type" dropdown menu and choose the appropriate file type: video, photo, vector files, or illustrations.
3. The field located below the type selector is used for global search. Directly beneath it, an additional "Search by" dropdown menu provides advanced mode with advanced filtering options, such as the ability to find files by a specific author or select the file age you are interested in.
4. The "Category" dropdown menu enables selection of a specific file category. By default, M+ Trends displays files from all categories, but users may restrict the view to a single category (e.g., animals or nature).
5. The "Sort" dropdown menu allows users to order files according to various criteria. By default, works are sorted by M+ rating.

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What do those numbers and icons on the thumbnails in the “Stock Files” section mean?

Once you get the right search options it’s time to analyze the search results. There should be a number of thumbnails to the right depending on your search options. A picture below is an example of a video file thumbnail with a legend.

A green controls panel appears upon hovering your mouse cursor over a file thumbnail.

Clicking the left mouse button on the "Categories" or "Keywords" icons located in the top panel will display the corresponding metadata for the selected file. To hide the displayed information, click the same icon a second time. To copy categories or keywords, select the desired text using standard text selection methods. Users may then copy the selected content using standard keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+C on Windows / Cmd+C on macOS) or by right-clicking the highlighted text to access the context menu and selecting "Copy". On mobile devices, text selection followed by the device's native copy command (typically via a long press and the "Copy" option) will achieve the same result.

For payment plans that include access to the file sales chart, left-clicking the corresponding icon will overlay an estimated sales chart for that file directly on top of its thumbnail.

Clicking on any thumbnail will redirect you to the original file's location on the Shutterstock platform.

The bottom panel describes the file's position in the global Shutterstock top, its age in months from the moment it appeared on the platform, its M+ rating in stars and numerical value. The higher the rating, the better.

If you are in doubt about the certain keywords, you may verify whether any works featuring similar keywords appear in low-ranking positions. If no such works are found, the observed keyword match is unlikely to be coincidental, and incorporating these keywords into one's own work is advisable.

What is the M+ Rating/Trendiness

Any file that reaches page 10 of the Shutterstock top ranking within its first month after upload is considered a potential hit. Statistical data indicates that files typically reach the first page of the top ranking within approximately one year. During the intervening period, the file may continue to sell well; however, it remains visible only to users who browse beyond the first several pages (specifically page 10 or deeper). By the time such a file finally ascends to the first page, the original trend that drove its early performance may have already become obsolete.

The M+ rating reflects the growth rate of a file in search results and allows you to identify potential hits. The higher this rating, the younger and more promising the file.

Explore Tops section

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“Explore Tops” section icon is located in the top left corner under the “Stock Files” one. In this section you can trace the most popular keywords and categories and see what files contain them.

1. Перейдите в раздел «Топ выдачи». Для этого кликните на иконку с графиком в левом меню.
2. Выберите тип контента. Кликните по выпадающему списку «Тип» и в нём выберите подходящий тип файлов: видео, фото, векторные файлы или иллюстрации.
3. Выберите режим сортировки файлов. По умолчанию файлы сортируются по тегам.
4. Выберите интересующие вас категории. По умолчанию М+ Trends выбирает файлы из всех категорий, но вы можете выбрать и одну определённую категорию (например, только животных или только природу).

Please note that if you have the “Category” sorting mode active the last option will not be available!

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What do numbers and icons on the thumbnails in the “Explore tops” section mean?

Once you get the right search options it’s time to analyze the search results. There should be a number of thumbnails to the right depending on your search options. A picture below is an example of a video file thumbnail with a legend. “Top For” is set to “by tags”.

Unlike the “Stock Files” section, thumbnails in the “Explore Tops” section have no controls panel and each thumbnail contains four smaller thumbnails grouped by a unifying parameter (in this case it’s a keyword all these files have). Сlick on the thumbnail to open a collection of all content matching this parameter in the “Stock Files” section. A unifying parameter may be a category (all files belonging to the same popular category), author (all content made by the same author), etc.

Microstock+ Trends subscription plans

This service uses a monthly subscription model. You can find more details in the Microstock+ Trends section of our Store. To open the Store please click your current subscription plan in the top right corner. Every subscription plan includes the integrated trending indicator. There are three subscription plans at the moment:

Novice

Provides access to all files submitted more than a year ago and all content in the tops starting from the #20 position. This is a budget subscription plan, a nice way to become familiar with the service.

Pro

Provides access to all files uploaded more than six months ago and all content in the tops starting from the #5 position

Guru

Provides unlimited access to the database. This plan is the only one that has access to the sales graphs (this feature is still in development). It is the most efficient plan in our range because trending files can show their potential within their first 1-3 months on sale. It means the earlier you see the trend the easier it’s for you to be one of the first authors getting into the niche and to gain the biggest advantage.

Guru

Полный доступ к базам данных без ограничений. Этот тариф является самым эффективным в линейке, ведь трендовые файлы могут проявить свой потенциал за первые 1-3 месяца на стоке. Чем раньше вы уловите тренд, тем выше шанс занять нишу в числе первых и получить самое большое преимущество.