Okay, no more downer pieces without solutions. I was starting to sound like Lester Bangs from Almost Famous, bemoaning the industry I love in search of inspiration. So today, we’re hitting on trends again, but with a little branding & a simple lil’ way to start making original content again.

We’ll also hit on:

• TikTok’s Holiday Campaign Guide

• LinkedIn’s new video carousels

• very demure, very mindful

—Jack Appleby

Brand Social needs a Trend Detox

It really feels like many modern social media marketers like social media a whole lot more than marketing.

I’ve been in the brainstorms, where every suggested idea starts with a trend, then awkwardly backs the brand into said trend. I’ve sat in the offices where no work gets done because something’s trending and we’re suddenly all hands on deck, frantically figuring out a brand tie before the trend flickers out.

Kinda feels like the pursuit of engagement’s made many forget why we’re getting paid—that we’re marketing products.

I get it. Our jobs are online, we’re scrolling the onlines, we see things popping off online, and we want to tie our online jobs to the online things. That’s a natural reaction!

But it’s also devaluing our jobs, discrediting that the brands we work for not bringing in audiences who’d actually want our products, and failing to build real brands.

That’s why I think your brand needs to take a trend detox.

What’s a trend detox?

I want your brand to take a 30-day cleanse from trend content. Completely ignore what’s new & hot on the internet, and focus all your efforts on making truly original content that doesn’t rely on cultural context.

Your brand can be entertaining, educational, or interesting all on its own. Every brand’s got strong reasons to believe! Every brand has unique selling points! Every brand has consumers with emotional needs that could be met through brand content!

I want you to spend a month fully focusing on making your brand as compelling as possible by leaning into the brand and products. Because when brand content about the brand performs well, you get engagement from the people who will actually buy from your brand.

What do you have against trends?

Listen, trend content can be great! I’ve advised on plenty of trend content for brands, and I ultimately do believe they have a place in your social strategy.

But there are so many reasons why an over-reliance on trends can be a major misstep in brand social strategies.

• Trend content disrupts workflow & costs time. Pausing your regularly scheduled content development to devise trend content is wayyy more time-consuming than we acknowledge.

• Risk of brand identity dilution. Most trend content naturally pulls your brand away from what you’re known for in favor of something on the internet.

• Brand trend content often misses the boat. A huge % of the time, brands can’t get approval on their trend attempts til after the trend is long gone.

• Trend content usually attracts people who’d never purchase. Congrats, your brand trend content went semi-viral! Are the people who engaged truly potential buyers? Or more internet lurkers just laughing at brand shenanigans?

Case-in-point…

We need to love our brands a lot more (or at least fake it well).

This is my more honest point. I feel like brand content would be a whole lot better if we all spent more time… you know… focusing on making great brand content.

We have the best jobs in the world. We’re paid to be creative! We get to make content for a living! Yeah, it’s for brands, but that’s the job! And it’s a good one.

We should be able to make our brands interesting on the internet without relying on what’s happening on the internet. That’s where 99% of brainstorming power should be concentrated—not on the ~culture~.

I’ll stress that I’m not telling you to be boring! If you think it’s boring making content for your brand without relying on trends and memes… that’s kind of a you thing.

The easiest, most simplistic no-trend brainstorm technique

I’m biggg on fundamentals. I’m not gonna show you some complex exercise for complexity’s sake. We’re gonna think through ideas as basic as pumpkin spice.

I’m also a big believer in volume-based brainstorming. If your content calendar’s full of your first ideas, you’re not generating enough ideas.

I want you to sit down, put the phone away, and do some thinking.

• Write down 25 ways people use your product

• Then write 4 content ideas for each of those use cases

• Use zero trends or memes in those content ideas

Yeah, this is as Social Media Marketing 101 as it gets, but it’s an often skipped style of brainstorming. We get caught up in seasonal briefs. We try to imagine the visual and copy before we’ve even come up with the idea. We fill out content calendars instead of generating concepts. I know you’re a seasoned social pro, but get in the habit of step-by-stepping.

Okay, now you can sprinkle in some trends.

Listen, I was never gonna fully ban you from trends. Now that you’ve got a bunch of original content ideas, feel free to season them with trends, or generate new ideas that are more trend based. I just don’t want your whole strategy based on memes and trends. Don’t eat the peanut butter off the spoon, spread it on whole wheat for a more nutritious meal.

You reallyyy should be posting on LinkedIn…

I’m begging you to take advantage of LinkedIn. Seriously. Just a couple of posts can get you noticed by your next client or boss. It happened to me—my last 3 jobs came in the DMs.

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Social Cues

How Brands Should Navigate Microtrends (Vogue Business). I like giving you additional and/or alternative take reading when I go all thought leader in the newsletter.

TikTok’s Holiday Campaign Playbook (TikTok For Business). I actually love when the platforms self-advocate with data. Give me all the numbers to put on slides to justify more budget!

LinkedIn launches video carousels (Social Media Today). Get ready for the latest pivot to video. It’s gonna be on LinkedIn, the videos are going to be everywhere, and it’ll actually be a nice reprieve from those every-other-line-spaced LinkedIn posts.