Influencers are at the heart of content creation, but trends—often unpredictable and sometimes mysterious in origin—drive much of the content people consume.
While influencers can spark trends, the social media landscape is so vast that staying on top of trends can be overwhelming. The root of some trends is difficult to trace, and their spread can be spontaneous, making it hard to predict what will take off.
So, how can creators navigate this chaotic environment and turn trends into opportunities for growth? Here’s how you can stay ahead of trends and capitalize on them in real-time.
5 Ways to Capitalize on Trends in Social Media
1) Set Guidelines for Trends to Align With Your Brand
Don’t go in blind. Social media isn’t going anywhere, so don’t worry about rushing in. Take the time to do the preemptive work that will better position you down the road. Start by setting guidelines for trends to align with your brand vision.
Every trend that emerges carries inherent growth potential for your brand, but not every trend will allow for seamless content integration beneath your brand umbrella. For this reason, you should set a framework for how trends can align with your brand.
What are the qualifiers? What are the key elements to look for? Are you limited to a certain sport, or can you branch out? When do you know, with certainty, that a trend is the right one to spend time, energy, and resources on? Set your guidelines to find out.
Maybe you’re searching for events-based trends in a specific field. Maybe you’re targeting cultural trends that directly fuel connection. Whatever the case, establish what you’re looking for here, so you don’t get caught with analysis paralysis in the heat of the moment.
2) Understand How Your Audience Responds to Trends
In the first step, you conducted analysis on your internal brand vision, and set guidelines for trend alignment with your brand. Once you’ve done that, you now turn the focus outward to your audience.
If you’re an independent content creator, you’ll no doubt have cultivated an audience of your own. But audiences exist in the vast realm of social media, and are never untouched by trends that spread far enough.
Conduct a behavioral analysis of your audience, and determine how they react to certain types of content and emerging trends. Learn how trends manifest in their early stages. What are the signs in an audience? What kinds of stimuli do they respond to? And when do you know a trend has that audience inertia that makes it a growth opportunity for you?
Ask all these questions, and you’ll be on the right track. Maybe your audience is primed to directly engage and converse over trending content. Maybe your audience favors trends from a specific social media platform and catches those early. Your analysis will vary based on your field.
3) Keep a Constant Finger on the Pulse
Once you’ve identified your brand alignment guidelines and the behavioral indicators in your audience, you now keep a constant finger on the pulse of your audience in the social media landscape, to stay tuned-in for trends that might emerge.
Obviously, “constant” doesn’t mean 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You need to eat, sleep, and maintain a healthy work-life balance. That comes before everything else. But when you’re on the clock, give regular attention to the social landscape, and search for indicators that might call you to action. Check specified trends, but also look at what your audience is paying attention to, and what is spurring interaction.
And remember, you’re not working from scratch here. You know what you’re looking for. You know what your audience is looking for. And you know that trends can be ushered by events and cultural movements. Use this information to mind the pulse with focus and efficiency.
4) Use Guidelines and Audience Insights to Spot Relevant Trends
You’ve now done all of the necessary preemptive work, and you’re keeping a constant finger on the pulse to monitor the environment. Now, you simply use your set guidelines and your audience knowledge to identify relevant trends.
Remember, what defines a “relevant” trend depends on your brand alignment guidelines you set earlier. If there’s a trend within your sphere of focus or the sport you cover, you can optimize to that. If your platform allows you to expand and integrate cultural influences, you can connect with your audience that way.
5) Tailor Your Content to Fit the Trend
You’ve gotten ahead of the curve with your preemptive work, and you’ve identified a trend that aligns with your brand vision. And even better: The trend is still in the early stages.
This is the green light for you to ride the wave. But how do you get on the wave to begin with? Adjust your value offering to incorporate the trend. Create special content that is crafted around the trend itself.
As an example, let’s say there’s an NFL head coach who’s fired, and a quote or clip from a player that goes viral. You can integrate this trend in different ways based on your brand identity, and tailor it to your platform and audience.
If your brand is in-depth analysis, you can look back at the coach’s tenure and his usage of the player. If you’re a podcaster, you can record a show dedicated to the trend, manifesting engaging content while also driving audience conversation. If you’re a video personality who favors light-hearted, comedic content, you can create a skit around the incident.
Proper execution depends on not only your preemptive work and your quick recognition, but also your creativity. Then, you simply use social media to maximize your output through promotion, engagement, and interaction.
Playbook
- Set brand alignment guidelines for trends
- Know how your audience will react to trends
- Keep a constant finger on the pulse
- Identify trends early with guidelines and audience knowledge
- Incorporate the trend in your value offering
