Thanks to the astronomical growth in people using social media – an estimated 5.17 billion people worldwide in 2024 – you can quite literally get your brand in front of millions of potential customers, across countries, simply by posting content.

However, with the growth of users, has also come the growth of trends. Whether it’s trends around how people are searching for information, the length of videos, how people engage with content (comments, likes, DMs), shopping via social media (hello TikTok Shop) or trending sounds, they are ever-evolving, with new ones emerging often weekly.

Piggybacking off social media trends is an effective way to create engagement and reach new followers, but a lot of small businesses struggle to keep on top of trends or are often a bit late to the party. It’s something that even larger businesses struggle with. However, it’s not something that has to be tackled solo; there are lots of ways of keeping your ear to the ground and staying ahead of the curve.

1. Be cautious with who you follow: If you’re following hundreds of thousands of people, your social media feed will be busy and will make it difficult to spot the trends. Make sure you’re following influencers in your industry as they often spot trends early and it’s also worthwhile following hashtags relevant to your industry whether that’s fashion, sport, beauty, finance or fitness.
2. Use social listening tools: Platforms such as Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and Brandwatch are all great in helping you track trends. Also, listen to your audience. How are they behaving, what are they saying and talking about? Let that help to shape your social media content. Your audience can help drive trends and help you become a trend setter.
3. Join relevant groups and communities: Facebook might be seen as the platform for the slightly older generation but the groups on this platform are still a huge and engaged space. Reddit is also a great community network that can help you spot trends, particularly when it comes to gaining insight.
4. Move quickly: Trends are time sensitive; you need to jump on them while they are hot and that means moving quickly. A great example is when Saltburn was released in November 2023, which led to the song ‘Murder on the dancefloor’ trending soon after. It ended up getting back into the top 10, over 20 years after Sophie Ellis-Bextor first released the song, and was used in thousands of social media videos including Paris Hilton, who used the track on a video about her secret pregnancy.
5. Explore different channels: TikTok often picks up trends earlier than Instagram, typically around 1-2 weeks ahead. It’s a great trend-starting space. Even if TikTok isn’t the right platform for your business to have an active presence, it will be useful to be on as a spectator.
6. Stay up to date with industry news: Sign up to relevant newsletters, listen to what the industry media are saying, and keep an eye on news generally.
7. When you see a trend – use it in multiple ways: Use the trend across your videos, stories and posts; it doesn’t have to just be a one-time thing. You can also take a trend and adapt it to fit your brand. Airbnb did this brilliantly when the Barbie movie came out, which had a huge amount of hype around it. Barbie and Airbnb don’t naturally go hand-in-hand but they collaborated to offer fans the chance to stay at the real-world Malibu DreamHouse, which was listed on Airbnb, complete with access to Ken’s wardrobe and infinity pool.
8. Save ideas: Small business owners are busy, and you can’t necessarily stop your tasks to pick up on a trend. TikTok and Instagram allow you to save videos into an album, which you can then revisit and think around how you can recreate your own version to suit your business and brand.