From a brand awareness and community engagement perspective, jumping on social media trends can be rewarding for higher education institutions. However, there are risks attached if you leverage the wrong trends incorrectly.

To help you get it right, we’ve rounded up all the key takeaways from our recent panel session on social media trends, featuring insights from:

They discussed everything from identifying relevant trends to incorporating trending formats into a pre-existing social media strategy. Plus, there were plenty of real-life examples.

Let’s get into it.

How To Spot Social Media Trends

The first challenge of jumping on social media trends is to spot those trends in the first place.

As a social media marketer, you likely spend a ton of time on multiple social platforms, and you probably follow a bunch of influencers and other higher ed institutions. This gives you plenty of scope to identify trends before they’ve gone mainstream — but not all will be a good fit for your brand.

For Kaytlyn at UNC Charlotte, spotting and evaluating trends is a mix of instinct and strategy.

She gives an example of the recent very demure, very mindful trend, as popularized by TikToker Jools Lebron:

@joolieannie #fyp #demure ♬ original sound – Jools Lebron

Even though she thought it was “so cool,” Kaytlyn decided to pass on this trend. “It lasted a weekend, and after that weekend, when I saw other versions, I kept scrolling. So when I saw that higher education institutions were doing it, I thought we shouldn’t do it because it’s not going to land well.”

Running ideas past her team helps Kaytlyn determine which trends to jump on and which to ignore.

“We brainstorm and see if there are ways that we can make a trend our own. And if it doesn’t land well then we let it go by. That way, we’re not hopping on a bandwagon but creating content that’s true to us.”

Brett at the University of Kansas also highlights the importance of teamwork.

She has a whole team of students who “keep their fingers on the pulse” of Instagram and TikTok and compile weekly roundups of the trends they’ve spotted, how long they’re lasting, and who else has jumped on. “We discuss the trends, determine which ones are worth our time, which ones are going to last a little longer, which ones are fizzling out, and then we’re able to create content based on our findings.”

Beyond this, Brett relies on several resources to spot and evaluate trends before they’re played out. In particular, she recommends:

Katie adds HeyOrca’s regularly updated trend roundups to that list, including top sounds on Instagram and TikTok and trending CapCut templates.

Identifying Out-of-Niche Trends

Chances are you follow a ton of other higher ed institutions on social media. However, our panelists agreed that accounts outside the higher ed niche are an invaluable source of content inspiration.

“We can get a little echo chamber-y, and we all start doing the same things,” Katie says. “So we try to keep an eye out for what we like from other brands or influencers.”

So, which brands and industries are worth paying attention to?

Kaytlyn is a big fan of the soft drink brand Poppi.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Poppi (@drinkpoppi)

“I love their drinks, I love their social media platforms, their marketing strategies, their communication strategies, so I look at their accounts for inspiration,” she says.

Meanwhile, Brett hat-tips restaurant chain Cava (“I’m obsessed with their content and food”) and Dunkin’.

More generally, she recommends watching food and beverage and retail brands. “I find that they’re able to take a little more risk, their content is very shareable, and it resonates with their audience.”

Assessing Whether a Trend Is Right for Your Higher Ed Brand

Evaluating social media trends often feels like second nature — it’s a good fit or it isn’t. But are there any specific criteria or formulas you can use to formalize this process and remove the guesswork?

Kaytlyn suggests running potential trends through the filter of your brand mission and values. “At UNC Charlotte, we want to reflect our values of innovation, inclusion, student success, and student experience. If a trend doesn’t fit with those, we probably won’t move forward with it.”

Meanwhile, Katie at the University of Iowa uses a simple acronym to quickly evaluate trends:

  • Relevancy
  • Appropriateness
  • Timeliness
  • Execution

Once again, she uses very demure, very mindful as an example. Because she spotted the trend quickly enough, it was still relevant and timely, and the lack of copyright issues made it easy to execute.

Katie also works with the University of Iowa’s Social Media Coordinator and her student worker to understand whether certain trends will resonate with their audience of prospective students. “It’s about staying up to date with what they’re doing and making sure that we can speak their language, but also not come off super cringy in doing so.”

Brett also stresses the importance of an audience-first approach to assessing content trends.

She gives the example of Taylor Swift releasing her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department. On the one hand, Brett was worried that the topic was oversaturated and that people were getting bored with Taylor. On the other hand, the University of Kansas had seen a ton of success with previous Taylor Swift content.

After much discussion, they decided to roll with the trend.

“We felt that this post would tie in really well with our existing content themes,” she explains. “The title of the album referencing a poet department had a natural academic tie-in that we were able to play to in the caption, so we decided this was a really good fit for our brand voice.”

Ditching Trends on Cultural and Sensitivity Grounds

A lot of trends are just harmless, fleeting fun. But some can be polarizing or high-risk, and they might be best avoided.

You don’t necessarily want to play it too safe, but you also don’t want to leave your institution open to potential backlash. Unfortunately, these things are rarely 100% objective. So, how do you decide whether to jump on or steer clear?

For Katie, the most important thing is to dig into the background of a trend before committing. “You have to think about the full context. Is it just a fun sound, or did it come from someplace that, if you get the whole picture, is not so great? So I think due diligence is always important.”

Kaytlyn agrees that doing further reading is essential before tapping into a trend.

In particular, she recommends digging into the comments on existing content to see how the trend is being received. “Do people have positive things to say about it? Are they saying negative things? We have to really do our research. We are investigators.”

Dealing With Creative Disagreements Around Trending Topics

Evaluating whether a trend is a good or bad fit for your brand can be a real minefield.

To make matters worse, your colleagues might have different opinions about what’s suitable (and what isn’t). How should you manage these conflicting viewpoints and move forward as a team?

Kaytlyn says it’s important to remember your brand and mission when evaluating trends. “When we make these decisions, we’re not making it super personal. We work for the university; we are the university’s brand on social media. So there’s no need to get upset if we aren’t agreeing with each other.”

Meanwhile, Brett points out that creative differences can be an opportunity and a challenge.

Her team is small but spans three generations — and not everyone has the same cultural reference points. So, they have to consider trends from all angles before giving them the green light.

“There’s so many different ways to get your wires crossed, so having open and honest communication is super encouraged,” she says. “You have to be able to air your grievances but also feel safe to admit ‘I don’t know about this.’”

Learning From Posts That Don’t Perform

Of course, even when you identify a hot trend before it’s played out, do your research, and discuss it thoroughly with your team, there’s still no guarantee that it’ll do numbers.

For example, the University of Kansas was one of many higher ed institutions to hop on the trend of Moo Deng, the adorably slimy baby hippo:

This post played super well with the university’s audience.

So when they saw a similar opportunity around Pesto, the penguin, they hoped for the same (or better) results — especially given the many shared characteristics between Pesto and the school’s two mascots:

However, in the end, it only performed okay.

Brett puts this down to a lack of familiarity with Pesto among the school’s target audience. She also felt the timing was an issue: “We had posted something similar [the Moo Deng post] just a few weeks ago. This one didn’t perform quite as well because it was kind of a repeat, but in a different format.”

Katie also stresses the importance of relevance when jumping on a trend. Specifically, she notes that just because your younger team members like a trend doesn’t mean it’ll appeal to your target audience, too.

“You and your friends might love a trend,” she says. “But how far removed are you from your audience? Yes, I have Gen Z employees, but they’re five or six years older than the incoming group that we’re looking to.”

Joining TikTok: Do You Need It?

Regarding social media trends, TikTok is arguably the single biggest driving force — especially among younger audiences. But that doesn’t mean you necessarily need to be on there.

Two of our three panelists — Kaytlyn at UNC Charlotte and Katie at the University of Iowa — aren’t on TikTok. Iowa has banned the platform, so there’s no prospect of Katie’s team joining any time soon, whereas Kaytlyn doesn’t currently have the bandwidth but is keen to add it at some point.

If you are thinking of expanding to TikTok, Kaytlyn recommends doing your planning and research first. “Eventually incorporating it is going to be positive for your brand, but I think that making sure you have all of the key goals in place for it is going to be necessary before you do integrate it.”

The University of Kansas, meanwhile, is already on TikTok, but Brett admits that creating content can be pretty labor-intensive. “A lot of times, we spend hours on one TikTok to make sure that it’s perfect.”

@universityofkansas Is it a glitch … or a sign? 🤔 Applications open July 1. All you need to apply is your GPA and your official or unofficial transcript. Video description: A person wipes away rice from an iPad screen to reveal the browser navigating to apply.ku.edu, seemingly of its own accord. #FYP #CollegeLife #RockChalk ♬ original sound – song recommendations

While she feels it’s been worth the effort, she also stresses the importance of not rushing in. “I definitely encourage anyone who doesn’t have a TikTok and is interested in joining the platform to think about the amount of time that would go into each piece, but also think about If your audience is there.”

👉 Learn more: Thinking of joining TikTok? Get inspired by reading 19 Great Examples of TikTok Content for Higher Education.

Interested to learn more about best practices for creating engaging content that resonates with current and future students? Register for our next Social Media for Higher Ed Virtual Conference.

Featured image by Freepik.

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