[Theme Horse Support Team]

Hi Matt,

Yes, Trending Stories section relies on a category rather than on views.

For to set the category posts for footer featured posts just see this video tutorial.

Yes the demo data was set to whole from the latest posts because of category id which will miss match with customer site. You have to set the category for each and every sections individually. You can see this video tutorial for to set category from different sections manually.

Thank you!