How To Capitalize On Pop Culture Trends For Your Brand

The best thing about pop culture references? There’s an everlasting supply. That being said, this leaves room for ample opportunity to get involved with what’s currently being talked about most and turn that into increased traffic for your brand.

The most important concept to keep in mind when taking advantage of the increase of traffic in what’s trending is to make sure you incorporate pop culture references in an authentic manner so that it makes sense for your brand and audience. To put it simply, don’t just jump on the bandwagon. 

Tying in pop culture trends into your content is a great way to increase your visibility and connect with followers, so it’s important to know HOW to capitalize on pop culture trends for YOUR brand.

Whether you’re extremely on top of the latest gossip and supplying original content, or simply stealing another account’s meme to use for yourself, the aim here is to carpe diem whatever pop culture trend is currently in front of us to the best of our ability. 

The rate at which pop culture trends are born is scientifically equivalent to the speed of light, and their lifespan can sometimes be just as quick, which is why if you aren’t on top of your game you’ll completely miss the boat. And missing opportunities definitely isn’t good for business. 

In order to be a part of the chatter, you’ll have to be involved before the pop culture trend reaches redundancy. What does this mean? Ever hear a new song and absolutely love it, then it gets played on every radio station non-stop and it soon becomes your least favorite song? Pop culture trend redundancy is exactly like that. You want to hop on the trend while it’s hot and entertaining, not when people have overdone it. 

Don’t freight though – even if you miss out on one opportunity, the general public loves to be entertained, so there will be another trend taking it’s place in .005 milliseconds. 

In order to make sure you’re on top of your pop culture trend game and implement it into your content correctly, here are some helpful tips to keep in mind.

Tip #1: Catch On Quickly

Do you have a team who can act quickly? With pop culture trends, these events happen in real time so you will need to make sure you’re both on top of the trend and capable of producing content the day of in order to gain the engagement you want on social media. If the content is not produced while the trend is hot, you’re essentially late to the party.

Keeping an eye on trends and being able to monitor what is happening definitely takes time and effort. You certainly can’t expect the latest trends to come waltzing over to you! 

Even if you aren’t in the know of the latest social media pop culture references, another option is to make note of popular upcoming events that are well-known amongst the general public and relevant to your brand. This can range from the Olympics to the release of a popular new music album. These types of events are a lot easier to prep for as opposed to real time events since there’s usually a pre-determined date.  

Tip #2: Brand Alignment

Does it make sense for your brand to reference what’s going on? This is important because you can only capitalize on pop culture traffic if it aligns well with your brand. Even if something is popular, if it’s irrelevant to your account, the content will not flow authentically and this could potentially harm your account rather than help it.

Tip #3: Spin Off

Going off of tip #2, a pop culture trend may not make sense for your brand initially, however, you can spin it in a direction where it does. This will allow you to still insert yourself in the action while remaining true to your brand. Plus, this enables you to lead rather than follow, and people prefer originality over copied content.

At the end of the day, pop culture references are there to give people a quick chuckle and open up a friendly door to connect to your brand. So no need to get too complicated with it! With that being said, let’s take a look at the different ways you can include pop culture references within your social media strategy.

Make Memes

Take whatever is currently trending and make it your own. For example, we all know Ariana Grande’s new album is killing the charts right now. It makes sense to use her lyrics in any viable way possible since it’s currently what a lot of people are listening too. ‘Thank u, next’ may not apply to your brand (Plus, it’s very played out at this point), but Ariana’s other current popular song lyrics might, and you can change the lyrics around to work appropriately for your brand. 

Again, just make sure whatever your referencing isn’t already exhausted or else you won’t receive much traction on your post.

Incorporate Trends Into Captions

If you’ve ever had writers block when writing a caption for an Instagram post, this tip may be your saving grace. Using trends within your captions is a great way to remain relevant and easily connect with followers. Additionally, it makes room for you to get creative with your posts! 

You may have a seemingly simple photo or image of a product, but if you can somehow relate that image to a current pop culture happening, it will turn the every day photo into an image people can now relate to.

For instance, the wave of people turning to minimalism because of Marie Kondo’s current rise to fame is opening up the doors for accounts like home decorators to tap into images of simple spaces so that they can connect with a larger audience of followers who are already on a Marie Kondo cleaning spree. 

See if you can connect current events with the vibe of your image. If done well, it will either make someone have a little laugh, like your post, and/or take a look into what your account is all about/what products or services you offer. 

Products Design

Of course, this is taking it a step further than social media strategy, however, a great tactic for getting involved with a pop culture trend is to literally be a part of it. Design products that are inspired by pop culture trends especially if you offer something that can easily incorporate the trend.

Ultimately, taking part in pop culture trends comes down to timing and relevance. If the two are taken into consideration, anyone is able to leverage their own marketing efforts by capitalizing on the latest pop culture trends on social media. It’s a great way to remain culturally relevant and connect with your followers while improving your brand’s visibility.  

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