That turnaround is impossible without a well-defined trend strategy. Your social media team needs to be able to spot trends, understand why they resonate with audiences, apply that understanding to tangible business goals and execute according to your brand guidelines-within a week. However, a poorly executed trend will dilute your brand, alienate your audience and erode trust with your customers. A well-executed trend strategy is one of the best ways to connect with your audience and promote your brand story. Trends are informal but that doesn’t mean they’re not impactful. Operating on a campaign-by-campaign basis just isn’t possible for marketers looking to incorporate trends into their strategy. The content and trends they generate are exponential by nature. Today, new communities and subcultures emerge on social with their own language, values and customs seemingly every hour. Less content also meant fewer coinciding trends, which meant less work for marketers looking to capitalize on the latest fad. A force could last a decade, a signal might last for five years and moments would last for eight to 10 months. Why you need a trend strategy (and how to create one)īefore social media, trends were much simpler. When a cute kid gave an interview about how much he loved corn, it reached an existing community and became a moment. First, a signal-#InnerChild-racked up over 1.5 billion views on TikTok. Remember when everyone was obsessed with corn? It wasn’t as random as you might think. They’re a shared language that shows people who you are. Moments are the primary way we express signals. Their fleeting nature doesn’t make them unimportant though. These are the TikTok sounds, dances or stitch prompts that take over your FYP. Moments are what immediately comes to mind when you imagine a trend. MomentsĪfter a signal takes hold, its followers create ways to identify each other. These microidentities give people a common framework to express their interests or values. Someone looking to find new skincare products might stumble upon a signal like the Clean Girl Aesthetic or #VanLife. ![]() ![]() As people search for the things they like and explore new ideas, subcultures and lifestyles start to pop up. If our force is discovery, our signal is what we’re looking for and how we look for it. Signals are shorter than forces, clocking in at a few months to a year. These expressions of greater cultural shifts are called signals. SignalsĪs forces filter down into different demographics, communities find unique ways to frame them. Google estimates that 40% of Gen Z prefer to search on TikTok first with traditional search engines coming in second. Younger generations are increasingly relying on social media as a learning tool. Chronological timelines of your friends’ posts have been replaced by algorithm-led feeds of content you’re likely to enjoy. Today, social media is a place to discover. In the early days of social networks, we focused on the social aspects-a place to connect with like-minded people in a virtual social setting. They show up as the kind of content styles and communities we gravitate towards. Forces are how we connect to the world around us. In our fast-paced trend economy, they only last a few years. In a pre-social media world, a force might have lasted a decade. Forces are long-term cultural shifts that impact everyone. There are three types of trends: ForcesĪll trends come from forces. To help brands understand the different types of trends and where they come from, TikTok created and shared a helpful framework. The platform’s constant stream of bite-sized content has exponentially increased the speed of the trend cycle. TikTok cycles through trends faster than any other source. The more we talk, the faster we cycle through trends. The average lifespan of a trend declines with every new communication tool we create. The anatomy of a trend hasn’t changed much since the first one emerged. Where do trends come from?Īs long as people have lived in groups, we’ve created and latched onto trends. The trick is approaching the new landscape with the right strategy. Embracing customer-driven trends can be even more effective than creating your own. Marketers often view this new dynamic as a net negative or an obstacle to overcome. ![]() Today, consumers now set the trends and brands fall in line. Social media blurs the lines between brands and consumers. It’s easy to focus on how the techniques we’ve used have changed but there’s a much larger shift that deserves our attention: Social media democratized the power of trends.īefore social, marketing was a one-sided conversation-brands were in control and set the trends, persuading consumers through TV, radio, magazines and billboards, and consumers would adhere to those messages. We’re more targeted yet we have a broader reach, we move faster and we send out a lot more messages. Social media fundamentally changed how we market.
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