How to Stay on Top of Social Media Trends

Keeping up with social media trends can be an uphill battle. Even when you do keep up, it’s not guaranteed that your post will do numbers. Nevertheless, it’s becoming increasingly important for businesses and marketing teams to keep up. At HatchMark Studio, our social media team keeps their finger on the pulse for all of the latest trends taking over on social media for our clients. In this article, we will go over how social media trends are defined, how you can keep up with them, and some best practices to execute on them for your business.

Let’s Define Trending in Social Media

Do you know what it means to be trending on social media? On platform X, the “Trending” tab shows topics with high post volumes. While this is the literal definition, social media trends can vary. For instance, on Instagram and TikTok, a dance might frequently appear in your feed. It may not be on the “Trending” tab, but it’s still a trend. Think of trends on social media as content trends. Let’s look at an example.

In 2024, we created a trending reel for a client of ours, Culinary Productions. The trend involved showing how people perceive business owners contrasted with what it’s like to be an actual business owner. (You can check out the reel here!) Let’s examine why this reel trended in the first place. 

  • It’s relatable. Even though our client is in the catering industry, any business owner around the world can instantly relate to this content. When people can see themselves in the content, they are more likely to resonate with it. 
  • It’s instantly shareable. Since it’s so relatable, people are more willing to share it on their own channels. When people are more willing to share your content, it boosts the amount of views you receive and can increase engagement. More shares also tells the algorithm that you’re making great content and can start to serve it on explore pages to people who aren’t already following your account. 
  • It’s easy to recreate. This is probably the most important part of any social media trend. Think about it. There probably aren’t that many people who are going to try to recreate a parkour stunt or anything else with a high barrier to entry. Trends need to be something that the average person can grab their phone and do themselves without any prior knowledge. Accessibility is key! 
  • It’s funny. Not every trend needs to be funny, but it definitely helps. Everyone loves to laugh, and making content that makes people laugh can be a lot of fun and will boost participation among the people you need to help you recreate it. 

Now…Here’s How to Keep up With Social Media Trends

We know what a social media trend is. We know what makes for great trending content. Now, how do we keep up with it? A lot of these trends can be fleeting. This means that, if you wait too long to strike, you can miss the magic of the moment. This is especially true when you’re using trending sounds on TikTok and Instagram. You always want to publish your trends when they are at their most popular to increase your chances of high impressions and engagement. Below are a few ways you can stay in the know. 

  • Make sure you’re following industry influencers and thought leaders. Find a handful of your favorite accounts that are always doing trends. Set alerts so that you are notified when they post to see if they are doing anything new and trendy that you can recreate. (Pause for a shameless self-promotion. Follow us on Instagram where we release a trend report every Friday!) 
  • Subscribe to industry newsletters and blogs. Hey, you’re already on our blog reading this article. Find some other industry leaders who are putting out great written content and make sure your inbox is always full of the latest and greatest trends. This helps a lot if you aren’t on your phone as much during the workday. 
  • Leverage a social media platform. Many of the most popular social media platforms for professionals have social listening and trend reporting capabilities built into their stack. If you’re in a marketing department or a larger business, you probably already have these services working for you. This might not be practical for everyone, especially small business owners with limited budgets. 
  • Spend time on social media. Maybe this one goes without saying, but we have to mention it. It’s hard to keep up to date with all of the latest social media trends if you’re…not on social media. This means scrolling through all of the popular platforms every day to see what’s being posted and engaging with that content. You might be surprised how just investing at least 30 minutes a day scrolling through your feed can give you plenty of ideas for your content calendar. 

Best Practices to Start Making Trending Social Media Content Today

Okay. You’ve found a trend that you think you can pull off. You might be nervous or feeling shy about creating it for yourself. After all, you’re not really a content creator, right? Wrong! If you have a phone in your pocket and the motivation, we’re here to tell you that you have what it takes to create engaging, trending content. Here are some best practices to keep in mind. 

  • Don’t overthink it. The worst thing you can do is spend way too much time planning and overthinking every detail instead of just doing it. Once you find a trend you like, make a plan to do it and stick to it. Throw a date on the calendar in the near future and refuse to cancel it. 
  • Make it your own. Some of the best trends leave the door open for tailoring and tweaking it so that it makes sense for your account. Find a fun way to tie it into your service or product that makes your post uniquely yours so that it will resonate better with your audience. 
  • Stay consistent. It’s not uncommon for someone to try a new social media trend for the first time and lose hope because it didn’t perform the way they wanted it to. Think of this as a volume game. The more you do it, the higher the chances are that you have one that finally takes off. Don’t give up after a few false starts! 
  • Have fun with it. We’ve noticed that our social media clients have the best results when they’re having fun with the content. If you dread doing it, it’s going to show when you go to post the final cut. Turn it into something you enjoy doing, and it will make it that much easier on content days. 

Final Thoughts on Staying on Top of Social Media Trends

Social media trends can be a fun way to come up with content for your business. If trends aren’t currently part of your monthly content calendar, make a plan to do at least one trend per month to make it easy on yourself. Setting an achievable goal that is realistic is the best way to help you gain the confidence you need to keep the trend train moving. 

Let Us Help You Get Trendy on Social Media

So, you’ve decided that you still need some help. That’s totally normal. We know business owners like you are busy and might not have enough hours in the day to dedicate to social media trends. That’s where partnering with an agency that does this stuff all day can take a huge task off your plate. At HatchMark Studio, we have a team of content creators and social media professionals who can help get you the results you want and grow your social media channel. Get in touch with us to set up a free discovery session to learn more about how we can support you!