There's a new trend sweeping through social media; several content creators have already tapped into the trend, and their videos are drawing tons of views, likes, and comments. You've been working on a social media growth strategy, and this trend presents the perfect opportunity to get a few thousand fresh viewers looking at your content. However, you definitely aren't the only content creator thinking of leveraging this trend to boost your engagement metrics: dozens of other content creators on your chosen platform have the same thought.
The worst thing you could do at this moment is to jump onto the trend without adding a personal spin or unique angle. With plenty of videos on the same topic flooding the platform, your video will blend into a sea of near-identical ones and fail to draw the engagement you are looking for. What you should do is use trending topics as starting points, rather than the entire point of your content, to stand out from the dozens to hundreds of other creators following the same trend.
This guide will discuss why adding your unique angle to trend-based content is important, techniques you can use to find your angle, and how you can execute this strategy without diluting the trend's core appeal.
Why a Unique Angle Matters for Trend-Based Content
In some ways, a new trend is kind of like a gold rush. The massive attention trends draw from social media users is the gold, while content creators are the prospectors rushing in to dig before the gold runs out. Like any gold rush, trends will rapidly attract hundreds to thousands of creators desperate for a piece of the treasure. But while real-life gold prospectors just had to get there before everyone else, content creators have to be early and capable of making the trend their own to capture and retain audience attention once the trend loses steam.
Let's look at a real-world example. Apple, Sony, or any other leading technology company suddenly unveils a cutting-edge product that makes the entire internet lose its mind. In the days after the product launch, dozens of creators drop videos talking about its specifications and the impact it could have on the industry. The first creators to publish will draw a ton of attention, but as more videos flood into your chosen platform, audience attention dilutes across dozens of videos. So you release a video a week into the trend, also talking about its specifications and expected impact, sit back, and wait for your views, likes, and comment counts to spike.
Unfortunately, there are hundreds of other nearly identical videos online. Your video, as high-quality as it is, has nothing new to offer or differentiate it from all the other videos on the topic. Why would viewers flock to your video when they can get the same message from hundreds of other videos? That's why you absolutely need to add a unique angle to a popular trend. It helps your videos stand out to the algorithm during initial testing periods and generates the engagement metrics you need to build algorithmic momentum.
Techniques for Finding Your Unique Angle
Okay, we've established why you need to put a distinct and personal spin on trend-based content. That's the why. Now we will dive into the how and cover some techniques you can use to find a unique angle that keeps your video from fading into the background.
Filter the Trend Through Your Niche
The first thing you should do is filter the trend through your niche, the core topics you have built your entire content strategy around. One of the main mistakes content creators make with trend-based content is failing to consider how the trend aligns with their niche. As a result, they end up making the same generic video that everyone on the platform is making. Instead of just copying the trend, you can make it useful to your existing followers and target audience.
This does two important things: it naturally differentiates your video from other generic versions that cover the same trend, and it keeps your established audience satisfied while attracting new, relevant viewers to your content.
Add a Personal Story or Perspective
You can also make trend-based videos unique by adding a personal story or perspective. This instantly makes you stand out from the rest of the crowd that's covering the trend in its purest form. Viewers are much more likely to connect with real human experience than with generic trend formats or dry facts, making your video more valuable to viewers and, in turn, incentivizing the algorithm to scale up distribution. Sharing your story helps viewers feel a sense of connection and trust.
Every other content creator on the platform can copy a hot trend, but only you have your specific life experience. Showing your true self makes viewers feel they know you, helping you build trust with your audience and boost engagement metrics such as comments, saves, and shares.
Combine Two Trends or Formats
Creativity is the name of the game in content creation. The more creative you are, the more viewers you can attract and retain over the long term. And what's more creative than blending a popular trend with a second, slightly older trend or format to create a distinct piece of engaging content? For example, you could combine trend A with trend B by integrating their core elements or themes, resulting in a fresh and recognizable format. While everyone else is exclusively creating videos about trend A, you can sprinkle in a bit of trend B.
The result is a combination that captures a new trend while still feeling familiar to both viewers and algorithms. Viewers watching videos about the trend get something different and easily recognizable to latch onto, and algorithms will have a wider audience of relevant viewers to distribute the content to.
Executing a Unique Angle Without Losing the Trend's Appeal
You don't want to put so much focus on making a trending topic unique that you lose its appeal. After all, the goal is to attract people interested in the trend to your account and then convert them to followers. This means you have to inject originality while keeping the trend recognizable enough that interested viewers can easily identify it as part of a trend they enjoy.
Keep the Core Structure Recognizable
The key to successfully hijacking a trend is striking a balance between originality and recognizability. You lose viral momentum if you change the core structure too much, and your video will disappear into a sea of similar content if your changes are too small. You need to find a balance that preserves the key elements that made the trend go viral in the first place while injecting just enough originality to make it your own. Maintain the same hashtags, visual templates, and audio tracks, as well as similar pacing, and layer your unique angle on top of this recognizable structure.
Introduce the Twist Early
Viewers have to get to your unique angle for your trend-based content strategy to be effective. This means inserting or introducing your twist as early as possible to ensure viewers actually see it. An early twist captures the audience's attention in the opening seconds, when they are most likely to scroll past. It uses the trend's recognizability to draw viewers in before establishing your originality from all the other trend-based content, incentivizing viewers to continue watching.
Avoid Overcomplicating the Concept
Adding an overly complex twist is the last thing you want to do when you add a unique angle to a popular trend. It will confuse viewers who were expecting something entirely different (and were only giving the video a couple of seconds of attention), leading to high drop-off rates as they scroll away. Keep your unique angle simple enough that it doesn't overshadow the original trend and lands quickly.
Examples of Strong Trend Adaptations
The most effective trend-based content strategy expertly blends originality and popular trends in a way that satisfies viewer curiosity and incentivizes algorithms to scale up distribution. Here are some of the most effective ways you can stand out from the crowd, hijack a trend, and get it to work for you:
- Use an unexpected twist to subvert the expected ending of a popular trend.
- Apply an ironic or unexpected context to a popular social media challenge.
- Share niche-relevant, genuinely personal content using a popular storytelling structure.
- Rework a popular format or sound around your core niche or profession.
Your Angle is What Makes the Trend-Based Content Uniquely Yours
Trends, by their very nature, attract significant attention from hundreds of thousands to millions of viewers. They provide fertile ground for content creators to draw fresh eyes to their accounts and grow their followings. But as creators flood platforms with trend-based content, those that bring nothing new to the table get lost in all the noise and fail to ride the wave of conversation. Ultimately, the key to standing out is adding a personal spin or unique angle that sets you apart from the sea of similar content and grabs viewers' attention.
Filtering the trend through your core niche allows you to satisfy your established audience and attract relevant audiences more likely to resonate with your usual content and convert into followers. But make sure not to change the trend's core structure so much that it becomes unrecognizable and loses its viral momentum. Next time a viral, niche-relevant trend appears, think of four possible angles aligned with your niche, and pick the one that resonates most with your usual content.
