Whether you’re an influencer in the making or an actor or model that promotes yourself on social media, it’s always important to stay on top of the latest social media trends. But aside from reading super-informative articles like this one, how else can you keep up with current trends?
Short form videos are back in vogue
Despite the fact that TikTok extended its limitation on videos to ten minutes, short form videos are proving to be the most popular and most consumed videos across all social media. Now, this makes sense as they’re easy to watch on Instagram and TikTok feeds. Meanwhile, recent studies have shown that viewers are more likely to watch a video to the end if it’s a minute or less in length.
This is significant for both brands using social media to sell and influencers. After all, they need viewers to get to that all-important call-to-action that is usually found at the end of a video. Unsurprisingly, this means that short form video content is growing increasingly popular. And yes, TikTok no doubt has a lot to do with that.
Filters take a back seat
Remember when #nofilter was a thing? Well, brands and influencers crunched the numbers and it turns out that trends such as this that reflect authenticity have a hugely positive impact on conversion rates. As many as 45% of consumers say that authenticity is the most important factor in a brand’s online presence while 54% say they’ll unfollow a brand or influencer if they feel their content is irrelevant or unrelatable.
What this means is that brands and influencers alike are moving away from being aesthetically pleasing and pushing for more authenticity in their content. Real life is what people relate to especially on social media and so we’re seeing more authentic content, warts and all—figuratively speaking of course!
How to keep up with social media trends
So now that we know what some of the biggest are right now, let’s take a look at how to keep up with social media trends.
Use and track hashtags
Hashtags are used to attract viewers to your content, right? But they can also be used to learn more about what is trending right now. You can easily do this on Twitter by saving your searches for specific hashtags or you can use Twitter’s Tweetdeck which allows you to have multiple feeds on one screen. This is great when using a desktop pc as you can see everything based on those all-important hashtags.
Take care not to use hashtags that are too general or you’ll need to sift through a lot of content. Instead try using terms such as #socialmediamarketing or #socialmediatrends.
Follow influencers
And by influencers we mean influencers who specialise in social media marketing. The beauty of social media is that it’s where all the social media marketers hang out and it’s where they share their latest tips and advice. So pick a few that are on top of their game and who like to share their methods on a regular basis.
And don’t limit yourself to one platform. You may find that the best influencers to follow are more active on platforms that you don’t usually use such as LinkedIn or even Facebook (yes, people do still use it!)
Join groups
Wow, such a 2010s thing to do, right? Seriously though, groups on platforms such as Linkedin and Facebook (those two again!) can be great places not just to follow trends but to also ask for advice. Look for niche groups that are solely dedicated to your areas of interest which is pretty much anything related to social media marketing and trends.
Set up an IFTTT
IFTTT (If this, then that) is a pretty nifty service that links apps and services that you may already use for tracking social media trends and sizing up content ideas. Basically, it allows you to tell IFTTT to perform an action such as saving a social media post with a specific hashtag to a google spreadsheet.
It may take a little time to set up, but if you are struggling to consolidate your social media trends into one place, then this might be just the ticket.
Aside from paying attention to other people in your niche and what they are doing, that’s all we can recommend for now. Once you get the hang of tracking these trends you’ll not only find that it will become a part of your everyday ritual but that it can help guide your content creation efforts.
If you’re a social media influencer who would like to take your game to the next level, perhaps it’s time we had a chat. Here at Hunter Talent, our network of industry contacts means that we can introduce you to the right brands. So if this sounds like something you’re interested in, go ahead and get in touch or apply to join Hunter.
