Avoid Over-Investing in Social Trends and Lead with Your Own Perspective

Embracing the right trends on social media is helpful for earning attention and staying relevant. But it's important that you don't overdo it either by becoming overly reliant on trends. If you only react to what's happening in your field and across these platforms, it'll be hard to hold attention long-term or become known.

Instead, you've got to lead the conversation more often with your own storytelling to develop a brand worth remembering, in addition to taking part in meaningful trends. It's all about finding the right balance. Something we're all working on.

As part of this balance, you should thoughtfully consider which trends make sense to follow like trying out a new social network or reacting to a popular meme, as well as knowing which ones don't add any value to your audience.

One way to simplify the process of deciding which trends are worth embracing or not is recognizing that there's two types, macro and micro trends. Each offers unique value for your brand and requires different levels of commitment.

In this edition, we'll review how to balance your own storytelling with trends, the process of finding relevant trends and deciding whether to embrace them, and finally, the difference between macro and micro social media trends.

Prioritize storytelling, while balancing the inclusion of trends

Original storytelling over just chasing trends should be the focal point of your social media activities. Why? First off, sharing your unique perspective as an organization is what can help distinguish you from competitors and competing content. What makes this unique perspective stick is consistency which is the second reason why your own storytelling is a better bet for your social efforts. Thoughtful repetition of your own ideas expressed with content is how you build a lasting connection with customers.

This brings us to the final reason to commit to original storytelling, familiarity. Seeing consistent people, themes, and formatting from your storytelling on a particular channel can be a comfort as it's easier to recognize amongst the sea of new content. This doesn't mean people will buy into what you're sharing simply because you're consistent, but if your content is genuinely engaging, then it can help build familiarity and trust. Which matters.

How to find trends and determine whether to embrace them

On the Pit Stops to Podium podcast from RevPartners , starting at the 8:02 time stamp, I spoke about why social media trends are useful for companies, how to find trends in B2B and B2C, and how your perspective or values should guide your decision whether your chime in on a particular trend or not.

The value of micro vs. macro social media trends

Micro trends are specific patterns of activity or the adoption of new features and tactics popularized on a particular social network. They have a shorter life span and have a reduced level of impact, as they only affect users and businesses active on a single platform. Micro trends are narrower in scope and require active participation on the social network to identify them and embrace them quickly.

On the other hand, macro trends are widespread shifts in behavior and the adoption of new strategic approaches. They are universally applicable across multiple social networks and use cases, making it easier for organizations to embrace them thoughtfully. However, macro trends can lead to a large influx of businesses competing to drive results from following them, making certain one's more difficult to gain visibility from. The best-case scenario is to pay attention to both micro and macro trends and embrace each from time to time.

For more insights on how social media continues to evolve, listen to my LinkedIn Learning audio course on?Social Media Marketing Trends.