From Trends to Sales: How Small Businesses Can Capitalize and Maximum Reach on Social Media

Social media is among the most effective marketing platforms that entrepreneurs and small businesses can use. Since 84% of all buyers now look at a brand’s social media page before making a purchase, links from social media account for 20% of all sales. For this reason, entrepreneurs generally emphasize acquiring as much attention on social media as possible. One of the most successful methods to accomplish this is by developing viral content and taking advantage of rising trends.

Trends provide a problem since they only produce a brief window of opportunity that lasts a few days or weeks. It might be challenging to identify these trends when they are just getting started. The majority of brands that try to take advantage of trends do so while they are fading and don’t reap the greatest rewards. Businesses that can seize the opportunity to be at the forefront of a trend can greatly enhance their chances of being given priority by the social media platform’s algorithm and achieve enormous momentum through virality. Your post or social media profile may receive thousands, if not millions, more views as a result. The long-term performance of your business can be drastically impacted by a single viral post.

1. Make use of social listening.

It can be difficult to spot a new trend at its inception. Despite their seeming suddenness, these trends frequently begin as quiet rumblings on social media. Your business can find terms or topics that are trending more and more on social media and online forums by using a social listening strategy. You may more precisely forecast which themes are poised to take off on social media by identifying these early indicators. Businesses can use a variety of social listening tools to swiftly and efficiently examine online conversations to identify possible trends.

Additionally, you should keep an eye on developments in pop culture or with prominent industry leaders in the field. Influencers and prominent figures in the field can frequently spark extensive conversations on a particular topic, particularly when those topics are contentious. People pay attention when they speak.

2. Be creative and original, but follow the trend.

The fact that brands value following a trend more than producing high-quality content is one of the main issues with social media nowadays. Many businesses forgo innovation in favor of speed since trends are short-lived. This frequently leads to boring replicas of other creators’ posts. If your post is merely a rehash of thousands of identical postings, social media users are more likely to scroll past it, even though you might receive some more traffic from joining the trend. Rather, concentrate on giving your brand a new spin on the trend and customizing it for your target market. This will increase the likelihood that your post will go viral.

3. Recognize the trend and match your brand with it.

For certain demographics, many trends have a deeper cultural significance. This is why it’s essential to comprehend a trend’s context. A trend that is misunderstood might cause serious PR problems and damage the reputation of your business’s brand. It is advisable to stay away from delicate or contentious subjects unless you are comfortable handling them. Posting something that generates bad publicity might harm your brand’s reputation, so it’s always better to err on the side of caution.

Read more: CMOs Should Know These 5 Social Media Trends in 2025

Your brand is not a suitable fit for every trend. Better not to push it. It could be better to let a trend go and search for the next opportunity if it doesn’t fit with your overall brand strategy.

4. Design tailored to a certain platform.

Every social media site is unique. Finding a trend won’t go you very far. Making content that appeals to the audience type on that particular social media platform is something you must do. On Instagram, for example, video and visual content are typically preferred, but a strong hashtag strategy may be more important for Twitter success. Your social media posts might need to be tailored specifically for each site.

5. Make careful use of hashtags.

Using hashtags to connect your social media postings to trending topics is an excellent strategy. You should use hashtags with consideration, though. Certain social media algorithms may punish your account if you use hashtags that are irrelevant to your post. Furthermore, end consumers may perceive your content as spam if it contains a large number of unrelated hashtags.

6. Recognize when to give up.

As fast as they appear, trends can also go away. You should be quick to follow the trends that you want to follow, but you also need to know when to let go. Posting about trends that are no longer relevant can give the impression that your business is out of date.