On common, YouTubers add 20 million movies every day, whereas Instagram customers place 66,000 visuals on that platform each minute.
A overwhelming majority of that content material slips by with little fanfare. However each from time to time, one thing breaks by way of the barrage of trip images and dance clips to go completely viral. a few of them properly: the model problem, sea shanties, “This Barbie is…”
Cultural moments like these hit the algorithm good, ricochet throughout the globe, and depart folks speeding to get in on the pattern.
Manufacturers can faucet into these occasions—a tactic referred to as trendjacking— to seize the eye of recent folks and broaden their circle of affect at an unimaginable scale. However not all viral traits are created equal. Some can injury your model simply as shortly.
Let’s dig into the phenomenon of trendjacking, methods to leverage it for enterprise progress, and when it’s finest to proceed with warning.
Contents
What’s trendjacking?
Trendjacking is the act of capitalizing on a viral cultural second. And the follow can take a number of kinds. In case your model…
- Reshares a trending meme (Suppose: “One doesn’t merely…”)
- Faucets your staff to recreate a viral dance or efficiency problem (Suppose: Gangnam Fashion)
- Participates in a problem for charity (Suppose: the Ice Bucket Problem)
- Creates its personal model of a trending GPT picture (Suppose: the Studio Ghibli picture pattern)
- Shares content material associated to a trending phrase (Suppose: “Very demure, very aware”)
…or in any other case creates content material that’s based mostly on an “of the second” web craze, congratulations, you’re trendjacking.
You might also strive your hand at trendjacking’s shut cousin, newsjacking.
Whereas trendjacking trades in cultural cachet, newsjacking is the artwork of partaking with a viral information second. After all, there’s a little bit of a grey space between the 2 ways. For instance, commenting on the Sydney Sweeney “good denims/genes” advert marketing campaign is a little bit of each. However the essential part in both follow is the timeliness of the content material and commentary.
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Why strive trendjacking?
On the web, consideration is foreign money. So, discovering artistic methods to attract consideration to your model pays dividends. That’s why many manufacturers wish to work trendjacking into their social media technique.
Performed proper, trendjacking can assist you:
- Get higher attain with out creating your individual virality: You journey the wave of a broader cultural second.
- Show your cultural bona fides: Companies in trend-based industries (style, magnificence, wellness, and so forth.) get bonus factors for cultural fluency. Partaking with a viral fad indicators you understand what’s up.
- Exhibit your character: Faucet right into a pattern that has a cheeky hyperlink to your model, and also you show your wit. Few issues make a model extra enticing than humorousness.
- Drive visitors: In case your contribution to the pattern takes off, you enhance visitors to your social pages and web site. Hi there, new group of results in nurture!
- Construct model consciousness: Even when these new followers aren’t prepared to purchase, it’s by no means dangerous to have extra eyeballs in your model. They could purchase from you in six months, or their buddies may wish to purchase immediately.
8 trendjacking dos and don’ts (with examples)
Simply because trendjacking can produce wins to your model doesn’t imply it’s all the time the precise selection.
Some traits are too risqué for a model to take an opportunity on. Others merely aren’t the precise match for your model. And a few companies aren’t positioned to maneuver shortly sufficient to profit from a viral second.
For those who’ve sat on the sidelines earlier than otherwise you’ve gotten concerned with out a lot success, these dos and don’ts can assist you assess future trendjacking alternatives and leverage them extra successfully.
Trendjacking dos
Wish to get higher at figuring out worthy trendjacking moments and capitalizing on those with actual promise? Begin right here.
1. Do goal traits related to your business
If you see a pattern and assume you may wish to take part, begin by asking your self, “Does this make sense with my model’s focus?” If the reply is sure, you’ll be able to proceed to additional analysis. If the reply is not any, save your self a while and cease proper right here.
Undecided what this appears like in follow? Let’s discover the query for some hypothetical manufacturers utilizing the sea shanty pattern for example.
In early 2021, COVID was nonetheless proscribing our lives considerably. Maybe as a result of being trapped at dwelling for 11 months straight felt somewhat like taking an extended journey throughout the ocean, a Nineteenth-century sea shanty went fully viral on TikTok. What began as duets on the unique video quickly blossomed into sea shanty variations of up to date songs. (Smash Mouth’s All Star as a sea shanty? Sure, that basically occurred.)
Think about you’re main advertising for what you are promoting presently. You see the ocean shanty pattern taking off and assume to your self, “Ought to we get in on this?”
Situation 1: You run a neighborhood CPA agency. Your model has nothing to do with the ocean. You don’t want to become involved within the sea shanty pattern.
Situation 2: You use a restaurant with seafood on the menu. Certain, you’ll be able to think about this pattern. (This instance was impressed by Arby’s, which discovered success creating a sea shanty TikTok about its fish sandwich.)
2. Do ask if this pattern issues to your audience
When you’ve assessed a pattern’s relevance to your business, go somewhat deeper. Will your audience care in case you put up one thing about it?
Take into consideration your viewers’s demographics, psychographics, and basic demeanor. Will they get the reference? And in the event that they perceive it, will they care that you simply’re partaking with it?
To proceed with the ocean shanty instance, Arby’s handed this take a look at, too. Its audience, in keeping with an interview with its VP of brand name and company communications, is youthful shoppers (aged 18-34) who “like to have enjoyable.”
An irreverent, purposefully cringe TikTok video? That’s an ideal match for this viewers.
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3. Do use associated hashtags
Trendjacking is all about capitalizing on a viral second to broaden your attain. Including related hashtags to your content material can enhance your distribution and place your model alongside fellow trendjackers.
On its fish sandwich video, Arby’s added some strategic hashtags employed on different trending sea shanty movies.
4. Do be artistic
A viral pattern goes stale shortly as a result of it’s, by definition, repetitive. There are solely so many sea shanty movies a TikToker can watch earlier than their eyes glaze over.
That’s why creativity is important for manufacturers making an attempt trendjacking. What distinctive spin are you able to placed on the pattern, and the way can it assist your content material stand out from the others?
That is additionally a chance to indicate off your model’s character. Don’t be afraid to take a artistic threat inside the framework of the pattern.
Trendjacking don’ts
For those who’ve tried trendjacking up to now with little success, these don’ts could be holding you again. Keep away from these frequent errors to get additional along with your viral-inspired content material.
5. Don’t chase dangerous traits
Some traits aren’t match to your model. However different traits aren’t match for any model. Keep away from these kind of traits in any respect prices:
- Imply or offensive traits: Customers don’t like manufacturers that punch down or are unnecessarily crass. If getting in on the pattern means being petty or gross, don’t do it. *The exception right here is manufacturers with an edgy voice. Grownup Swim, you’ll be able to take part!
- Complicated traits: In case your advertising staff doesn’t perceive the pattern, don’t do it. Which means the pattern is both: 1) Inscrutable to everybody (during which case, why trouble?), or 2) Doubtlessly hazardous. It’s possible you’ll be lacking a nefarious which means that resonates on some darkish facet of the net.
- Hole traits: This one will be laborious to gauge—who’d have thought we’d all nonetheless know the model problem practically a decade later? But when a pattern feels notably vapid or fleeting, take a cross.
DiGiorno needed to eat its phrases after leaping on the flawed viral pattern.
6. Don’t trendjack too usually
Chasing each final pattern is exhausting to your staff. You have got restricted bandwidth, so consider carefully earlier than leaping at a trendjacking alternative.
Not solely that, in case your model participates too frequently in viral moments, you turn into a one-trick pony. Give your staff the respiratory room to create significant content material and your viewers the area to be shocked and delighted if you do have interaction in a pattern.
7. Don’t take eternally to put up
Viral traits transfer quick. A brand new meme, GIF, or problem might solely final every week or so earlier than it reaches peak saturation and fully sputters out. For those who consider trendjacking as current on a bell curve, you wish to get your content material out earlier than the height.
In case your inside approval course of means it would take weeks to get your trendjacking content material printed, sit this one out.
And in case you work in a extremely regulated business the place compliance and authorized usually have to opine in your advertising output, create a fast-track approval course of for trend-related posts upfront. Then, when the precise pattern comes alongside, you’ve already created a pathway to your staff to get content material out shortly.
8. Don’t assume success
As you strive trendjacking, all the time maintain monitor of your content material’s outcomes. Which trendjacking posts transfer the needle to your model in significant methods (reshares, new follows, nice client suggestions, media mentions), and which fall flat?
As you proceed to play with trendjacking, you’ll see patterns emerge. Figuring out the weather of a trending second that resonate along with your viewers can assist you additional refine your trendjacking technique and drive higher social media success.
Strive trendjacking for an enormous enhance in model consciousness
When finished efficiently, trendjacking is a confirmed tactic for gaining a ton of consideration, particularly on social media.
As you assume by way of your first pattern hijacking journey, bear in mind these dos and don’ts:
- Do goal traits related to your business
- Do ask if this pattern issues to your audience
- Do use relatable hashtags
- Do be artistic
- Don’t chase dangerous traits
- Don’t trendjack too usually
- Don’t take eternally to put up
- Don’t assume success
