Trendjacking: riding a trend, and the short window that decides whether it works

A trend is anything that gained traction fast: an audio, a video format, a meme, a running joke, a subject of the moment. Trendjacking is using that wave as a vehicle for what you have to say.

The reason it works is practical. When a format is rising, the system already recognises the pattern and the audience already knows how to consume it. You spend no attention explaining the format, only on your message.

Worth separating from a close relative: newsjacking is the same manoeuvre with news instead of entertainment trends. It is more powerful and considerably riskier, because news usually involves real people and real consequences.

A trend has three phases, and the outcome changes completely depending on when you enter.

• The rise. Few people using it, generous distribution. Almost all the return sits here.
• The peak. Everyone doing it. Still works, but you compete with hundreds of identical versions.
• Saturation. The audience is already tired of it. Here the ride produces the opposite effect: it signals the account is behind.

The practical conclusion is uncomfortable for anyone needing internal approval: if the decision takes three days, do not enter. Arriving at saturation is worse than having stayed out, because it communicates slowness.

• A real connection to what you do. The trend is the vehicle, your message is the cargo. With no cargo, it is just a copy.
• Adapt, do not reproduce. An identical reproduction does not differentiate and leaves no memory.
• Respect the original tone. Entering a joke with institutional language breaks both the format and the joke.
• Check the origin. Audios and formats sometimes come from a problematic context, and the ride brings the context with it.
• Know when not to enter. Not every trend is for every account, and staying out costs nothing.

The disasters follow a pattern, and they are almost always failures of reading rather than execution:

• Tragedy as opportunity. The simplest newsjacking rule: if there is a victim, no ride is possible.
• Identity or political topics with no track record. If the account never talked about it, joining the wave reads as opportunism, and the judgement is harsh.
• A trend that already turned into criticism. Sometimes what is rising is precisely the mockery of brands that jumped on.
• Forcing the connection. When the bridge between trend and product is too long, everyone sees the seam.

The quick test: if you have to explain why your brand is there, you should not be.

• I am on the rise of the trend, not at saturation.
• There is a real connection to what I do.
• I adapted rather than reproducing it identically.
• I checked the origin of the audio or format.
• I do not need to explain why I am there.