Social Media Trends for Small Business Owners

Written by: Eryn Gilson & Isabelle Dietrich

The rapid increase in the need to stay trendy on social media has been at an ultimate high recently. With reels, trending audio, fun dances, TikTok challenges, and more. There is a lot of noise on social media and your business needs to stand out. But where do you draw the line on staying true to your brand while standing out online? It’s a delicate balancing act that we work with our clients on every day.

Business owners are thrown all sorts of advice, especially on social media on the do’s and don'ts of marketing themselves and their brands. How do you know where to draw the line on trends and still be able to maintain your strong business image while growing your digital presence? Recent data shows that 80% of social marketers say their key strategy is to increase engagement across social channels. We agree that engagement is the metric to watch. As of 2021, there were 230.5 million online shoppers highlighting the importance of a social media presence and how it is more prevalent than ever.

Social media is key to helping increase your brand awareness and…your profit. Now, this is where trends come in. By utilizing trendy social media sounds or ideas you're able to access a wider audience which leads to more engagement (plus a higher potential of “going viral”). But what is the true cost of “going viral”? We’ll get into that in another blog post.

Have you ever considered participating in fun social media trends but just aren’t sure how to do it?

Maybe you feel nervous that you’ll lose your credibility with your clients or prospective clients. We get it. We have these conversations daily based on each trend.

It might not seem like these two things work together, but we're here to tell you they do. Almost all of the social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, etc.) have some sort of short-form videos like reels, etc. It’s important when utilizing these features to use the sounds that are trending because these sounds are being pushed out at a way higher volume compared to others. This is how you can increase the number of people seeing your brand. Next, keep up with what video ideas are trendy because if you're seeing a lot of one idea chances are people are watching these videos a lot (hints at the fact that they’re everywhere). When executing these trends it’s important to relate everything you're doing to your business whether it’s certain features, services, or any important aspect that you want your potential consumer to know about. It even is relevant to tell the story behind your company which can help connect you to your audience to you more. The goal is to use these trends but keep them related and aligned with your business's identity and goals. Make sure you say things you actually mean and stay true to who you are. It’s okay to lean into having fun on social media and showing your personality or brand personality. Eryn’s advice on this is to think about how your ideal customer will view this - not your average social media critic/troll.

Don't forget that your business has its own unique story, so utilizing that is going to help you stand out in such an oversaturated social media world. Finally, something that people tend to overlook is to include a call to action this is critical for businesses and something that you need to include on every social media post especially the fun trendy stuff.

Being able to leverage this is extremely important for growth. We know here at EGC that we are constantly researching and keeping up with what’s trendy so that we are able to give our best when it comes to our clients. Just remember to keep it connected to the core of your business and think about your ideal customer. If this does feel like too much to handle on top of running your own business (which by the way you're crushing it!) be sure to reach out to us here at EGC! We’d love to help you continue to grow your amazing company through thoughtful strategy and mindful execution. :)