As contributors, what are the tools at our disposal for doing market research?
i.e. - statistics of how many times content was searched in agancies, popularity of images or clips (with view and download count) and so on.

Are there any tools out there like the sales tools (StockAgent, Microstockr) but for research? (Not keyword research)
And what information is shared by the sites?

Thanks

These days I just watch/read the local and national news to see what's going on and plan my shoots around that, here's some themes I've picked up lately:

- Higher security around landmarks + transport hubs
- Protesting at austerity / right-wing policies (see the latest LGTB news from the US).
- Troubles in Jerusalem (lucky I was there in Feb and have some pics I overlooked and submitted recently)
- Refugee crisis (in Europe)
- Young people taking selfies at landmarks
- Latest pieces of technology (illustrative editorials)

The above are editorials on their own right and can be turned into commercial with some effort.

The above aren't a recipe for making money but a good start instead of shooting in the dark or worse, taking snapshots of beaches, pets, flags and flowers.

I do read what the sites publish but if the top contributors are also reading it then surely after a few weeks will be a 'fad'?

Hi,

you may want to try my free tool: http://www.keyword.io/tool/stock-photo-research which shows you views&sales stats based on keywords on 30+ million photos, videos and vector graphics across multiple agencies.

No # of searches though, sorry.