In today’s digital world, businesses are competing to stay relevant, interesting and grab the attention of potential customers. This will help them stand out among their competitors.
Often humorous, relatable, and rapidly content shared across social media platforms, such as memes have become a part of online culture. This form of entertainment can be a unique opportunity for brands to connect with their audience meaningfully.
So, what are the ways can brands leverage this phenomenon to their advantage?
Have a clear understanding of your brand identity
Firstly, it is important to clearly define your brand’s mission, values, and voice. Determining them will be easier to align any kind of content, especially the trending ones with the brand.
Stick to your brand voice
Aligning trending content with your brand will make it appear more relevant, making sense and create familiarity to the audience. This is why it is important to use the tone and voice of your brand. If a brand suddenly using other brand tone, it can be confusing to the audience. Hence, a harmonious alignment between the trending content and your brand will lead to increase in engagement.
Include values and brand stories
Sharing anecdotes or stories can humanize your brand and deepen the connection with your audience. When done thoughtfully, integrating values and brand stories into trending content allows you to stand out, engage your audience, and reinforce your brand’s identity in a relatable and memorable way. Including values and storytelling can invoke emotions which can make people to engage more.
What should be avoided?
Mindlessly following the trend
When a brand ignoring the context and nuances surrounding the trending content, it may cause issues such as misinterpretation, backlash, which will cause the brand image to be damaged. It is important to remember that not all trends fit with brands.
Not being authentic
Simply making content just as other brands without adding any values of extra creative flairs will not gain engagement. This is because audience has already know or is familiar about the content, which disinterest them.
Excessive brand promotion
While every brand intention is to gain attention so that they could boost visibility which leading to sales, avoid promoting the brand too much. It can come across as a brand that is trying to be opportunistic or tone deaf. Rather, brands should put values to the contents.
Jumping into the trend too late
When a new trend emerges, it is important to not only think and act quick, but also to be creative so that the content will be impactful. Spending too much time thinking of a content might be a sign that brands should think of other strategies while still maintain focus on creativity and impact.
Conclusions
In order for brands to gain visibility through engagement of using trending contents, they can stay relevant to the audience. When brands align their messaging and participation with topics that are currently capturing the audience’s attention, they increase the likelihood of being noticed and remembered. With this, they could also stand out among competitors and be remembered by audiences.
