How to blow up your social media and go viral with trendjacking

Discover the secret brands and influencers use to go viral. With trendjacking, you can skyrocket views, boost engagement, link yourself with popular topics, develop your brand’s personality and build your following in the process.

In this article, we’re going to be exploring trendjacking: what it is and how brands use it successfully.

What is trendjacking?

Trendjacking is a term used to describe a social media profile creating content that spins off something or someone popular, or a current trend. Brands do this by creating content relating to celebrities, popular movies, TV shows, songs, influencers, YouTubers etc. This helps brands ride a wave of views from people who are interested in the topic they are linking their brand to. 

Trendjacking is a simple but incredibly powerful way to explode views and engagement and it can assist content in going viral. The best part about it is you don’t have to be officially affiliated with something popular to get started. Instead, trends and popular topics can inspire your content and help you relate to and connect with people beyond your current audience. It’s not always obvious whether content is created as part of an official brand partnership or whether it's just a clever piece of trendjacking, but that’s kind of the point. Trendjacking links itself to something else by being inspired by it.

Trendjacking is sometimes referred to as socialjacking, social hacking or trend hacking. However, it’s not to be mistaken for newsjacking. The difference being that newsjacking jumps on current news stories, whereas trendjacking jumps on cultural trends.

How brands use trendjacking

There are multiple points of entry into trendjacking and many different ways to approach it. How you trendjack will depend on your brand’s voice, content style and the types of people you’re trying to reach as a business. 

Here are 3 examples of different types of trendjacking alongside businesses that are already making this technique work for them…

1. Celebrities & Cultural Moments

Public figures and celebrities are often trying to remain in the public eye and keep relevant to the masses. This makes their most talked about content the perfect opportunity to try out trendjacking. Celebrities already have a large audience and a loyal fanbase, so making content that directly references their viral content or current escapades can leverage their audience.

Recently, megastar Paris Hilton hit social media and the tabloids with a coachella look that got people talking. Language learning app Duolingo saw this as the perfect opportunity to do a little trendjacking. Duolingo’s comical Instagram post placed its mascot, Duo, in a festival outfit of its own. Putting both outfits side-by-side and tagging Paris Hilton’s Instagram account in the description made the reference clear, so all could enjoy the nod to both divas. 

2. Movies & TV Shows

TV Shows and movies can garner cult followings and new releases offer up excitement which can be harnessed for social media gains. When a new movie with a big budget is launched or a TV series has a new season approaching, riding the wave of hype around its release date is a clever way to get your brand seen by lots of people. While some brands whip up official collaborations, there are other ways to get seen. Creating content that’s inspired by the characters, topics, themes and well-known elements is a good way to get people talking about your brand in relation to the movie or TV show.

One TV series that has seen a lot of trendjacking in relation to it is the Apple TV+ series Severance. Several brands have created memes and inserted their mascots into elements of the show. Check out an example by doughnut brand Dunkin’ below. The term ‘outie’ is a reference to Severance which resonates with viewers of this highly successful show.

3. Social Media Trends

One of the latest social media trends has been to turn yourself, or your brand, into an AI-generated action figure. Using an artificial intelligence tool brands, influencers and individuals have created images of tiny toy versions of who they are, complete with accessories of what is associated with them.

While the trend has come under fire for being environmentally unfriendly, its popularity has harnessed the power of new technology and peaked a lot of interest. Two brands that have pulled off the trend well are Scrub Daddy and Royal Mail.

Top tips for trendjacking

1. Make it timely

A big reason why trendjacking can be a successful element of social media marketing is it leverages a moment in time. Being quick to hop on a trend means your brand can ride the wave of relevance for as long as possible. If your turnaround time is too long, you’ll miss the opportunity to make the most out of a trend. If you’re late to a trend, you may find yourself caught up in a phenomenon called trend fatigue. This is when social media users get tired of a trend and it’s often fuelled by an overabundance of content on the topic. Get on a trend fast and you’ll not only boost your brand but avoid trend fatigue. 

2. Make it tasteful 

Trendjacking is all about riding a positive wave of the current cultural experience. Many times this involves referencing other brands, businesses and the products they create. When making content about others online, it’s best to keep it positive and tasteful. In other words, don’t punch down. You’ll come off better as a brand if you use trendjacking to align your brand with other brands and businesses you admire and avoid using it as an opportunity to be dismissive or distasteful.

3. Make it tactful

Before committing to a piece of content involving trendjacking, it’s important to make sure you understand the trend and only get on board if it sits right for your brand. Making sure you’ve got an understanding about the situation or the trend you’re hopping on is important to make the right kind of impact with your content. 

One of the most iconic moments of trendjacking was by Oreo amidst the superbowl XLVII power outage. It’s gone down as one of the best marketing moments in history, but this might not have been the case if the blackout had been caused by something serious. Oreo made sure that the blackout wasn’t cause for serious concern before going forward with its landmark social media post. This was hugely important in its success.

See how your trendjacking content stacks up against other types of content for your brand by using Minter.io - the social media analytics tool every business needs. Track key metrics for your social media content, profiles, optimisation, competitors and more. See how it can transform your social media today!