Introduction to social media trends
Have you ever wondered why you’re seeing everyone on your social media feed posting similar content?
The answer… it is because they are ‘following a trend’.
Social media trends are renowned for their high engagement levels such as video views, likes, shares, and comments.
The reason people do this is because it’s a great way to bring exposure and awareness to your business.
Now, not everyone is selling products online. You might be selling services, if you’re an engineering business, professional or financial services firm for example.
Trends are still applicable but it’s important to understand whether it will apply to your audience (or not!)
Why are social trends important for small businesses?
As I said in the introduction, there is no point hopping on a trend if it’s not relevant, but I am going to point out why it is important for small businesses.
Firstly, I should say that if you are growing your own presence organically (without paid ads) then social media is only a gateway to new business and not a direct sales channel.
Finding what you should talk about to increase the awareness of your company, yourself as the business owner, or demonstrating your knowledge and experience, is SUPER hard and it’s really daunting to know where to start…
That is why I want to start with the ‘science behind social’. I’m always banging on about this to my own team because there is a reason behind why we do what we do.
Understanding your content pillars
The first thing you should do, before you go looking for trends, is work out who your audience is online and what your goals are for social media.
For your goals, choose the ones that are important for you and the direction you’re taking to grow your company.
These can be:
- Increase brand awareness
- Drive traffic to your website
- Boost brand engagement
- Building up a strong community
- Increase mentions in the press
For your audience, make a simple list of:
- Industries
- Job titles
- Locations
- Age
- Gender
- Pain Points
- Solutions (that you solve!)
This will help us to focus the social media content on things that matter to them and not what you think they should know.
Next, you should come up with 3-4 ‘umbrella’ topics you can discuss in your business.
These could be:
- Educational Content (insights, how-tos, industry updates)
- Credibility Content (case studies, customer testimonials)
- Thought Leadership Content (opinions on trending matters in your industry)
Now, this is quite generic, so let me put a real example to you using a law firm.
Let’s say we have chosen the following 3 umbrella topics:
- Conveyancing
- Family Law
- Personal Injury
Before, we begin the research to gather our ideas, be sure to make a sub-item list of the services you offer under each topic.
It will also be important for you to consider which goals you set, and how they would work for each topic that you would like to talk about.
Add in a (- [insert goal(s) here] next to each one to remind you!
Step One: Research
There are a couple of methods of research that I like to do when gathering a list of trending ideas for my topics, so I will cover both and will leave it up to you to decide!
FREE Tool #1 – Google Search (Others want to know)
A fantastic FREE tool to get real-time trending data is Google Search. After all, it’s the largest search engine in the world and people are always asking it questions.
Source: google.co.uk
The first thing that you want to do is type in your umbrella topic OR the sub-item services and hit ENTER.
You’ll see a list of results appear and you want to scroll down until you see the heading ‘People Also Asked’ or ‘Others Want To Know’.
Source: google.co.uk
Here, you will find a list of questions people have asked the search engine recently.
These are your trending questions. These are what people are specifically asking right now and you have the answers for them!
Source: google.co.uk
When you click on the question, a snippet will appear from a website that Google thinks answers this question perfectly.
But, do you know what the beautiful thing is….
As you click on the questions, more start to appear and it’ll get more specific depending on what questions you engage with!
Repeat this for each topic and sub-service item.
FREE Tool #2 – Answer The Public (https://answerthepublic.com/)
Before you start going crackers with Google Search, make sure you check out a fantastic free tool I stumbled upon (by accident!) called Answer The Public.
This is a social listening and market research tool that allows you to enter in up to 3 topics PLUS a location and language and it generates current and trending questions and prepositions about the topics entered.
The tool has developed a lot since I started using it and it now even features search volume and CPC data for paid ads, but that is a whole other topic!
I must say that you only get 3 free searches a day before it prompts you to buy. Don’t worry! You can try again tomorrow.
Disclaimer: This information was correct at the time of writing in April 2023.
So, you have your tools to discover trending topics, questions, and prepositions but now what?
Step Two: Recording
The research phase can be SUPER overwhelming, and you’ll start to think about what you can talk about to specifically answer the questions you’re researching.
But it’s important to hang fire and think about recording this data before you do anything else.
Open a blank Spreadsheet or Google Sheets and add your umbrella topics into separate columns.
Using the research tools above, start to populate each column with the questions and prepositions you want to talk about.
Go crazy and add as many as you like under each topic, but I think it’s good to set an initial limit of 10 ideas per topic to start off with, because that will be a LOT of content to get you started.
TOP TIP: ADD A FIFTH COLUMN TO YOUR SPREADSHEET AND LIST THE AUDIENCES YOU THINK YOU COULD MAKE THESE IDEAS SPECIFIC TOWARDS.
For example, the idea could be: “conveyancing fees for shared ownership” but you could make this more targeted by adding a location or demographic – “conveyancing fees for shared ownership in Worcester” or “conveyancing fees for shared ownership as a married couple”.
Step Three: Planning
So, you’ve done your research and now you have a good list of specifically targeted ideas that are trending online asked by your audience.
Now, it’s time to plan out when you’re going to post them.
In the same Spreadsheet or Google Sheets document, create a fresh tab and add 8 columns to start forming a schedule/calendar:
- Platform
- Date To Post
- Time To Post
- Platform Output
- Topic
- Content To Create
- Caption
- Hashtags
- Status
Then, you can add rows for each week of the year and each platform you would like to post on.
Something like this would be an easy way to map out your ideas:
You can plan as far ahead in the future as you wish and, if you have some time to spare, then you can post multiple times in a week rather than just the one per platform as depicted above.
Step Four: Creating
Creating content will feel much easier now that you have an organised plan with specific ideas that are targeted towards your audience.
Your next question might be… What content do I create?
It’s fair to say that you have a few options:
- Videos
- Graphics
- Carousel Slides
- Stories
- Reels
To name a few, so your best bet would be to create a FREE Canva account and start playing around with one of your ideas to design your content.
Canva is a growing, popular, easy-to-use graphic design tool that you can create multiple designs in many different formats in seconds!
If you’re choosing the video option, then recording yourself on your smartphone is all you need.
Want to edit the video to make it look professional?
I introduce to you… CapCut! Another FREE tool to edit videos, add titles, captions, filters (and more!) within the comfort of your own phone (see what I did there 😉)
A real life example
Ever heard of Scrub Daddy?
Of course you have!
Scrub Daddy are an international cleaning tools brand, who rose to fame after appearing on Shark Tank in 2012 seeking investment for their Sponge invention.
With Mrs Hinch as their brand partner in the UK, the Scrub Daddy team have quickly become a popular household name.
Diving into their social media strategy, the Scrub Daddy team pivoted to the growing social platform, TikTok, to reach a Gen-Z audience.
Their content is purely comedic, and they use this platform to drive product awareness.
Here is one video we picked out that received 159.5k views, 11.8k likes and 129 comments:
@scrubdaddy Is it a problem? Maybe. Do I care? No. #scrubdaddy #smile #cleantok #cleaningtiktok #americasfavoritesponge #meme #pedropascal ♬ original sound - TheVincentMottola
They literally use their own product as a background and the viral video clip of Pedro Pascal to entice users to buy more of their product, as they reckon you need more than one (I can’t say I don’t agree 😉)
They now have over 3.1m followers and a total of 65.5m likes on their TikTok account*, so it’s fair to say they are achieving that goal.
*correct as of 14th April 2023
Summary & final word
You’ve made it!
If you’ve got this far and kept with me the whole way, then I applaud you.
I hope you have found this step-by-step guide useful, and you give it a try to see what content ideas you can come up with for your business.
If you’d like other guides for Getting Started on Social, then please get in touch.
Did you know that we’re offering a free digital marketing review for all small businesses?
We’ll do a personalised video that provides you with feedback on what’s good, what could be improved and actionable steps to implement the improvements across your website and social media.
All you need to do, is fill out this REALLY quick form HERE.
Thank you again for taking the time to read this guide and be sure to SAVE this in your bookmarks for the future!
#TeamInfinityDigital
