Viral trends play a crucial role in marketing on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Brands that successfully adapt these trends can increase their reach, boost engagement, and establish strong awareness—key to ultimately generating relevant conversions. In this post, we explore examples of viral trends and how to identify them.
What are viral trends?
According to the Duden dictionary, “viral” means “rapidly spreading on the internet, especially through social media contacts.” A social media post generates so much interaction that it gets shown to additional users. Content tends to go viral when it evokes emotions, entertains, or focuses on relevant or current information.
The algorithms of TikTok and Instagram promote such content by presenting it to a wider audience, potentially leading to exponential growth. These algorithms rely heavily on user interaction—such as saves, shares, comments, likes, video views, and watch time. Examples of viral content include challenges, memes, songs, or specific hashtags that gain massive popularity in a short period.
There is no fixed threshold for when a post is considered “viral.” However, some sources suggest a post is typically considered viral when a video garners at least 100,000 to 1,000,000 views in a short time.
Effective strategies for adapting viral trends
There are various methods for identifying and adapting trends. Companies should pay attention to several key aspects to truly benefit from a trend rather than getting lost in the content noise.
Trend scouting: Brands should continuously monitor current trends to identify relevant developments early on. Social media monitoring tools like Talkwalker can be helpful here.
Authenticity & brand fit: Not every trend suits every brand. It’s essential to find trends that align with the brand’s values and identity to maintain authenticity.
Personalization: Rather than copying trends one-to-one, brands should creatively adapt them to highlight their uniqueness.
Timing & speed: In the fast-paced world of social media, it’s vital to pick up on trends quickly to stay relevant. Processes should be in place to stay current. For example, tasks created with ChatGPT can deliver up-to-date knowledge each morning or weekly.
Interaction & community engagement: Actively involving the community through challenges or user-generated content boosts loyalty and expands reach.
Examples of viral marketing trends
In recent years, many trends have emerged and were creatively personalized by brands. Here are a few popular social media content examples:
1. De-Influencing and Underconsumption
Unlike traditional influencers, de-influencers promote conscious consumption, minimalism, and “repair instead of replace.” Many users show their real lives—like unwashed dishes, messy apartments, or acne cream on their faces. Brands can leverage this trend by showcasing real office life or bloopers from video shoots—presenting themselves as human and relatable.
Example: @joi_bella auf Instagram
2. Car Promotion
It started with a video showcasing a Bentley as a status symbol. Since then, many parodies have followed — such as Knossi recreating it with a DeLorean.
Example: @therealknossi auf TikTok
3. Gen Z marketing script
Here, phrases and slang commonly used by Gen Z are acted out by older people in videos. The Hugendubel bookstore received around 65K likes with this approach.
Example: @hugendubelbuchhandlungen auf TikTok
4. AI-generated promotion videos
Remember Barbenheimer? The campaign video generated enormous attention and drew crowds to the cinema. “Barbie” led the box office in 2023. Together, both films grossed $235 million.
The campaign video was generated using AI and blended both worlds. Since then, AI-generated videos have become mainstream. Adidas even launched a commercial this year using the AI tool Midjourney.
5. „Very demure, very mindful“
This phrase gained significant attention in 2024. It was coined by Joolie Lebron in a satirical video about “appropriate” workplace makeup. After receiving lots of attention, she embraced the phrase and created several videos about how to eat politely, exit a plane properly, etc.
Interactive challenges are not only a great content format to drive engagement but also to build stronger community bonds.
For example, the German retailer Otto launched the #MachDichZumOtto challenge on TikTok, encouraging users to create humorous content. Within four weeks, the challenge generated 147 million views and 59,000 uploaded videos.
Conclusion & Outlook
Successfully adapting viral trends requires a deep understanding of your brand, audience, and the dynamics of social media. Through authentic and creative execution, brands can increase relevance and foster stronger community bonds. In the future, the ability to respond quickly and flexibly to new trends will remain a key success factor in digital marketing.
