When a new social media trend pops up, you have two options. You can either jump on the bandwagon and see what's what or let it pass you by and watch your competitors reap the rewards. If you're trying to figure out how to find social media trends, it means you want to get ahead of the pack and find the next big thing before it goes mainstream. This guide will show you how to find social media trends to get back to what you do best: creating excellent content for your audience.

One of the best ways to get a grip on the latest social media trends is with the help of the right tools. Virlo AI's virality analysis tool can help you achieve your goals by quickly analyzing posts' content to help you easily find viral social media trends. 

Table of Content

• Importance of Trends on Social Media

• How to Find Social Media Trends In 10 Simple Ways

• 10 Incredible Tips to Capitalize Social Media Trends

• Examples of Companies Using Social Media Trends

• Go Viral with Virlo's Virality Analysis Tool

Importance of Trends on Social Media

Social media trends represent what’s popular on different social media channels at a certain point in time. Social media trends refer to the constantly changing behaviors and topics that are popular on social media. In other words, trends are ephemeral content types that capture the attention of a broad audience and can quickly spread across all major social media platforms. 

They come in many forms, including discussion topics, memes, short-form videos, and challenges. As trends constantly change and evolve, staying up-to-date with what’s popular is essential to creating content that resonates with your target audience. Here are the main benefits of participating in social media trends as a business: 

Increase brand visibility

Joining in on popular trends can be a great way to draw attention to your brand and lead more social media users toward your content. 

Connect with your audience.

Social media trends allow you to engage and bond with your followers over a shared interest. 

Boost engagement

Participating in trends will boost your engagement due to the overwhelming interest it generates among social media users. 

Examples of Social Media Trends

Let’s go through some trend examples that have been popular on social media over the years: 

The Mannequin Challenge.

This trend spread quickly worldwide in 2016 when people would freeze suddenly in mid-action while music played until the camera traveled around the entire group. 

The Bottle Cap Challenge

This challenge was popularized in 2019, where participants would try to unscrew a bottle cap using an untraditional physical technique such as a spin kick without touching the bottle. 

Dance Challenges

These challenges involve learning a short choreography of a song and then creating your rendition of it. Popular dance challenge songs include “The Git Up” by Blanco Brown and “Renegade” by K Camp. 

Voiceover Dubs

Lip-syncing to an audio clip taken from popular videos, movies, TV shows, and even songs has become a popular TikTok trend that spreads all over social media. By taking short fragments of a song or a couple of lines from a scene, online users get creative and provide a different meaning than intended for the original content. 

Reenactment Trends

These trends involve the recreations of iconic scenes from movies or TV shows. 

Prank Videos

These videos include users playing harmless pranks on friends or family, usually for comedic purposes.

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How to Find Social Media Trends In 10 Simple Ways

1. Use Virlo

Virlo offers short-form content creators a way to understand and leverage virality through AI-powered trend analysis. Our platform combines creator insights with advanced analytics to identify winning content patterns, optimal posting times, and successful audio/video combinations that help your content stand out in today’s fast-moving social landscape. 

Perfect for independent creators looking to build a sustainable side business, Virlo takes the guesswork out of content strategy. We analyze the latest viral trends and help you understand when to post and what combinations of elements drive engagement. Whether you’re just starting or looking to optimize your existing content, Virlo enables you to navigate the ever-changing algorithms to increase your chances of going viral. Go viral with Virlo’s virality analysis tool.

2. Use TikTok Creative Center

TikTok is still a relatively new social media platform that has exploded in popularity over the past few years. Thanks to its viral content, easy-to-use app, and creative filters, TikTok has become one of the most popular social media platforms for content creators and influencers. But it’s not just an app to browse the latest dance videos. TikTok also provides a wealth of information regarding trend discovery and analytics. TikTok’s Creative Center allows you to filter through songs, hashtags, creators, and TikTok videos. 

You can select various timeframes, such as the country you want to analyze or even the industry. The most helpful part of TikTok’s Creative Center is its hashtag section, where you can explore what’s trending as recently as one day ago. Once you see a trend that interests you, click it for more details. For example, I clicked on #strangerthings, and here we can see everything from the interest graph over time, including a link to videos related to that hashtag. This chart shows the age range, related interest queries, and more.

3. Use Google Trends

Google Trends is the best way to monitor trending topics expansively. Because Google Trends uses search data, it will give you a much broader picture of what is trending than you’d see by analyzing data on a single social network. That data may help you make more informed decisions about what you promote, engage with, and follow. You can set up a Google Alert for any keyword you want to watch so you will always know what is happening.

4. Follow Influencers in Your Industry

Another great way to stay current on emerging trends is to follow influencers in your industry simply. Not all trends will apply to all niches, so staying on top of what’s relevant to your niche is essential. Whichever platform you spend the most time on, make an effort to seek out other public figures in your niche and follow what they post. You can even turn on post notifications on platforms like Twitter or YouTube to be alerted as soon as their post or video is live. 

The faster you can react, make relevant content, and ride a particular trend, the better your chance of growing your social media presence. If you want to take it a step further, try reaching out to these influencers via DM or a link in their bio (if they have Linktree or a similar service) to see if there are any collaboration opportunities you could work on together. 

5. Use Hootsuite

With a wide selection of tools and an excellent method for searching across several social media platforms, Hootsuite allows you to monitor trends daily, whether only one trending hashtag or a variety of social media trending topics. Be sure to check out Hootsuite’s webinars to see some of the lesser-known features available to pro users. 

6. Check Out What’s Trending on Twitter

Many people prefer to use Twitter to stay updated on what’s trending. This platform is known for being a hotbed of activity, with new ideas and perspectives constantly emerging. You can use Twitter’s Trending feature, but this doesn’t always give the complete picture of what’s trending as it’s Country-specific. Therefore, you’ll need to use a VPN or a Twitter trends tool to search for trends in countries other than yours. 

This one, for instance, allows you to see that the latest trending hashtags are by Country or state. This will give you a more exhaustive overview of what’s trending worldwide or on a more granular level. Based on what you find, you can create content around it and publish it to the platform of your choice to have a higher chance of being seen by people interested in that topic. 

7. Use Tumblr

When you see a meme or other trending content on Facebook, it may have been circulating on Tumblr for weeks or months. Though not as popular as it once was, Tumblr is an excellent source of internet content ― especially in the pop culture domain ― right when it has been posted, and you will see it first if you keep your dashboard filled with a good selection of active blogs.

8. Use Exploding Topics

Exploding Topics is a freemium tool that lets you see topics in various niches increasing in popularity. Simply select a timeframe and your niche; the tool will provide you with a list of up-and-coming search terms. This gives you an edge over your competition as you’ll find emerging search terms before they’re even picked up on social media. Combine your social media post with a trending song (which can be found on TikTok’s Creative Center), and you might just stumble upon something that goes viral.

9. Social Mention 

Social Mention allows trend tracking across multiple social platforms. Search for a keyword or phrase. Social Mention will tell you the networks where that search term is the most popular, along with other metrics, such as whether the sentiment associated with the trend or term is positive, negative, or neutral. 

10. Join Social Media Groups on Facebook

Facebook isn’t considered the “hub” for the world’s latest trends. However, you can still use Facebook to connect with others and share ideas. That’s where Facebook groups come in. To get ideas from others about the following social trends, try joining Facebook groups like this one. Many are out there; all you have to do is a quick Facebook search. Try joining a few to see if it fits your niche. Someone in that group might just stumble upon and share the next big trend - before it goes viral.

10 Incredible Tips to Capitalize Social Media Trends

1. Leverage AI to Uncover Social Media Trends

If you run a social media management agency, you spend hours on each client account weekly. While some of this time goes toward high-level analysis and optimization, other tasks are simple yet time-consuming. The good news? Many of these tasks can be automated with artificial intelligence. 

Smart agencies increasingly rely on AI for these social media duties, including deciding what or when to post. Many have also begun using AI to automate influencer discovery, brand monitoring, posting, and understanding social media trends. With AI-powered tools like Linkfluence and Cortex, you can automate aspects of social management and boost productivity by 40%. 

2. Master TikTok to Skyrocket Client Reach and Engagement

Since its 2017 debut, TikTok has stood out at the top of the list of social media trends. The app has rapidly built a global user base of over 800 million, and its short video format has proven to be a massive hit. Users spend an average of 500 minutes on the app each month, and average engagement rates per post are over 50%. 

Most TikTok’s users are 16 to 24 years old, likely outside your agency’s target audience. However, the platform may perfectly match your clients, especially those with TikTok influencer potential. By becoming TikTok experts, your team can help clients establish impressive reach and engagement. Then, you can ensure they’re positioned to leverage advertising and revenue opportunities as they become more common.

3. Showcase Your Agency’s Creativity With Instagram Reels

Instagram introduced Reels mid-2020, and the response to these short videos has been explosive. Global brands have racked up millions of views for their most popular Reels. Many brands have achieved significantly higher engagement with Reels than Stories or standard video posts. Because they appear in their own Explore feed, Reels can also drive brand awareness and audience growth. 

Why choose Instagram Reels over TikTok? You don’t necessarily have to choose. Many brands repurpose TikTok videos on Instagram Reels, reaching both sets of followers with the same content. While the platforms’ formats are similar, the audiences and partnership opportunities are worlds apart. 

Instagram has over a billion active monthly users, compared to TikTok’s 100 million. Instagram’s audience also skews older, as over 30% of users are 25 to 34. If your agency has invested in Instagram, adding Reels is a great way to let your creativity shine while expanding your audience and boosting your engagement rate.

4. Get More Value From Instagram Stories With Stickers

I love the idea of Instagram Stories but wish they offered more value for your agency. Instagram routinely introduces new sticker types designed to do anything from increasing engagement to driving revenue. Here are a few new options for your agency to test: 

Boost engagement

Use quiz stickers to educate followers and get audience feedback or hashtag stickers to drive discovery. 

Get DMs

Add DM Me stickers to encourage followers to start conversations with your team. 

Make connections

Use mention stickers to tag influencers and clients. 

Sell products and services

Add shopping or gift card stickers to help clients generate revenue. 

5. Start Conversations on Reddit With Polls

Not all agencies have a dedicated Reddit strategy, but if your clients have popular products with high customer satisfaction, you’re probably keeping an eye on their Reddit community. Building a strong community on Reddit is a valuable way to provide social proof for your clients and to gain traction and engagement for new products or ideas. 

With Reddit’s poll feature, you can natively ask community-specific questions and get much higher engagement than a text post. The higher response rates to the poll can also positively impact the comment rates. This makes polls a compelling feature for gaining deep engagement from your Reddit community and capitalizing on social media trends relevant to your client’s audiences. 

6. Leverage LinkedIn Polls for Lead Generation

LinkedIn launched a handful of new features in 2020, and the poll option offers lots of potential for agencies. Create polls from your company page or personal profile to accomplish goals like 

Gauging your audience’s goals

Have current events caused your audience’s goals to shift? Find out what they’re planning so you can align your offerings appropriately. 

Learning about pain points

What are your audience’s most significant challenges? Ask your followers what they’re struggling with to get new ideas for content. 

Assessing interest in new ideas

Are you thinking about offering a new program or service? Poll your audience to gauge interest and use the results to guide your launch. 

Starting conversations

Want to get your followers talking or find out how your audience feels about emerging trends? Ask simple questions so followers can weigh in quickly—and encourage them to say more in the comments. 

Qualifying leads

Need to fill your agency’s pipeline? Poll your audience about the strategies they want to prioritize and use their responses to create a list of prospects for future follow-up. 

7. Share Thought Leadership Via LinkedIn Events

As a social platform designed for professionals, LinkedIn is the optimal place to share your team’s thought leadership. But why stick to basic posts, articles, or videos when you can host entire events on LinkedIn? Take the new LinkedIn Events feature for a test drive and livestream public or private events with LinkedIn Live—no Zoom is necessary. 

Create a LinkedIn landing page to promote your event. Drive organic discovery by sharing events in your feed and adding them to your page’s events tab. Generate interest via polls and videos before events. Interact with attendees via live chat during events. Share highlights to your page and collect feedback after events.

8. Transform Your Team Into Social Commerce Experts

If your agency supports e-commerce clients, you can help them increase conversions by becoming social commerce experts. Here’s how to leverage some of these shopping-focused social media trends: 

Pinterest

Almost half of Pinterest users visit the platform to shop and search for products. Create Rich Pins from clients’ product pages to make shoppable Pins that drive sales. 

Instagram

Instagram users have relied on the platform for product discovery and research for years. With Instagram Shopping, you can tag products in client posts, carousel posts, and Stories so followers can purchase instantly. 

Facebook

New for 2021, Facebook Live Shopping lets your clients host their home shopping shows. Help them learn how to sell during livestreams by linking to products on their website or in their Facebook Catalog. 

9. Take a Mobile-First Approach to Video Production 

When developing a video strategy, prioritizing mobile users is more important than ever. If you aren’t taking a mobile-first approach to video, you could miss countless opportunities for awareness, engagement, and conversions. After all, mobile devices are responsible for 75% of all video plays, and over 90% of users who consume video on mobile devices share the content with others. 

Here’s how to adopt a mobile-first strategy: 

Use vertical or square formats

Use a 1:1 or 4:5 ratio so viewers can watch your content without reorienting their smartphones. 

Keep it short and sweet.

Produce clips no more than 15 seconds long so users can watch in their Stories or newsfeeds. 

Make it engaging without sound

Add text overlays, subtitles, or graphics to convey the point visually. 

10. Gaining the upper hand: Turning competitive advantage into your secret weapon 

If you’re one of the few businesses in your industry staying on top of social media trends, you’ll have a significant competitive advantage. By identifying what’s hot and creating content around those trends, you can set yourself apart from your competitors and position yourself as a leader in your industry. The goal of any business is to make sales. Social media trends can help you do just that. By creating relevant and engaging content, you’ll be able to attract new customers, increase customer loyalty, and ultimately drive sales. 

What Is Virlo, and How Can It Help You Find Social Media Trends? 

Virlo offers short-form content creators a way to understand and leverage virality through AI-powered trend analysis. Our platform combines creator insights with advanced analytics to identify winning content patterns, optimal posting times, and successful audio/video combinations that help your content stand out in today’s fast-moving social landscape. 

Perfect for independent creators looking to build a sustainable side business, Virlo takes the guesswork out of content strategy. We analyze the latest viral trends and help you understand when to post and what combinations of elements drive engagement. Whether you’re just starting or looking to optimize your existing content, Virlo enables you to navigate the ever-changing algorithms to increase your chances of going viral. Go viral with Virlo’s virality analysis tool.

Related Reading

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• What Hashtags Are Trending on YouTube
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Examples of Companies Using Social Media Trends

1. Duolingo: A Fun and Relatable Brand

Trend

TikTok humor and pop culture.  

Execution

Duolingo’s mascot, Duo the Owl, often participates in trending challenges, memes, and viral dances. Duolingo has cultivated a quirky, relatable brand personality by aligning with TikTok's irreverent humor.  

Result

Millions of views and increased brand awareness, particularly among Gen Z audiences.  

2. Ocean Spray: Bringing Back the Classics 

Trend

Viral TikTok video featuring Nathan Apodaca skateboarding while drinking Ocean Spray cranberry juice to Fleetwood Mac’s "Dreams."  

Execution

Ocean Spray gifted Nathan a new truck filled with cranberry juice and recreated the video with their CEO.  

Result

Sales surged, and the brand regained cultural relevance.  

3. Netflix: Joining the Conversation 

Trend

Memes and current events.  

Execution

Netflix often tweets relatable memes about its shows or interacts humorously with fans, tying into trending topics or viral moments.  

Result

Strengthened community engagement and sustained conversation around its content.  

4. McDonald’s: The Potential of Celebrity 

Trend

celebrity meals and viral collaborations.  

Execution

Collaborations with artists like BTS, Travis Scott, and others created exclusive meals with branded merchandise. Social media was flooded with fans sharing their orders and merchandise.  

Result

Boosted sales and massive online chatter, making McDonald’s a trending topic.  

5. Wendy’s: A Roast to Remember 

Trend

National Roast Day and Twitter humor.  

Execution

Wendy’s started a yearly tradition of roasting customers and other brands on Twitter. By incorporating trending jokes and memes, it stays highly relevant.  

Result

Consistently high engagement and a reputation as a social media-savvy brand.  

6. Gucci: Getting Creative on TikTok 

Trend

TikTok challenges and AR filters.  

Execution

Gucci tapped into TikTok's love for unique visuals with branded filters and user-generated content challenges. For example, the #GucciModelChallenge encouraged fans to showcase creative outfits inspired by the brand.  

Result

Expanded reach to younger, fashion-forward audiences.  

7. Nike: Taking a Stance

 Trend

Social justice and advocacy.  

Execution

During the George Floyd protests, Nike’s "For Once, Don’t Do It" campaign trended widely, tapping into the public’s call for change.  

Result

Garnered widespread attention and reinforced Nike’s image as a brand that aligns with progressive values.  

8. Aldi (UK): A Legal Dispute That’s Fun 

Trend

A viral legal dispute was between Aldi and M&S over a caterpillar cake (Cuthbert vs. Colin).  

Execution

Aldi turned the legal spat into a social media sensation with witty posts and hashtags like #FreeCuthbert.  

Result

Increased follower count and positive brand perception.  

Go Viral with Virlo's Virality Analysis Tool

Virlo offers short-form content creators a way to understand and leverage virality through AI-powered trend analysis. Our platform combines creator insights with advanced analytics to identify winning content patterns, optimal posting times, and successful audio/video combinations that help your content stand out in today’s fast-moving social landscape. 

Perfect for independent creators looking to build a sustainable side business, Virlo takes the guesswork out of content strategy. We analyze the latest viral trends and help you understand when to post and what combinations of elements drive engagement. Whether you’re just starting or looking to optimize your existing content, Virlo enables you to navigate the ever-changing algorithms to increase your chances of going viral. Go viral with Virlo’s virality analysis tool.

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