Picture this: You see a trend all over your For You page and when you are finally about to post your version of it realize there is already a new trend happening that everyone moved on to. We have all been there! Industry trends change in the blink of an eye. The worst thing is showing up to a trend late and being seen as out of touch. Social media is always moving and the public expects you to keep up with this incredibly rapid pace. Do not worry, Peppr has a few tips on how to stay ahead of the trends!
To understand the gravity of how fast social media runs, let’s look at the lifespan of posts on different platforms. According to The Refinery, the lifespan of Twitter is 15 minutes, TikTok is immediate, Facebook is six hours, and Instagram is 48 hours. This shows how short of a time you have to notice a trend, hop on it, post it, and engage with your audience. The question remains: How do you do this?
Two words: Environmental scanning! If your business deals with social media, you need to be on social media and take note of what is trending and what your audience reacts to. According to Coegi Partners, spending time on social media everyday, subscribing to trade journals/publications, and staying up to date on different social media explore pages can help you stay up to date on those trends. If you see a video trend or specific meme going viral, take note and brainstorm on how you can put your own unique twist on the trend to fit your brand.
Use apps like Hootsuite, HubSpot, or even Twitter to create streams on specific accounts, hashtags, or keywords that you want to follow. This will allow you to be able to scan what your competitors are doing and what trends and happening all in one easy location. You can even directly create Twitter streams, along with other social media streams, in Hootsuite and Hubspot. Additionally, Hootsuite allows you to create different boards to help categorize the different streams you are watching.
And lastly, don’t be scared to hop on a trend! At Peppr, we believe in putting pep in your step and that means taking advantage of the trends before they are gone. Do not be afraid to put your business out there and adopt trends as your own to further your company objectives.
Our team at Peppr recently hopped on one of the latest TikTok trends to promote our client, Saucy Shrimp. We had the owner, Adam, stand on Georgia Southern’s campus with a sign telling students that if they did the simple task of washing their hands in cocktail sauce they would be rewarded with $20. The kicker was that Adam was not allowed to answer the students’ persistent questions, he just held the sign and waited to see which students would complete the task. In the end, the trend paid off and the video had one of the top views on Saucy Shrimp’s page and the most liked video on their page by over 70 likes.
