What does a crew of nerdy people and a yorkie in “Lord of the Rings” attire have to do with marketing trends? Glad you asked.
The RM Creative Services team recently celebrated three years of creating killer content. To celebrate, we wanted to put our skills to work for us and enjoy some time outside. We planned, brainstormed, scheduled, rescheduled, and made things happen. And the results turned out to be pretty great and we can only hope our audience enjoys watching and learning from them as much as we did making them.
Of course, when you are planning a content creation endeavor like this, there’s plenty to learn, even as you are helping to teach. For those curious about what we learned, here are five key takeaways to make the most out of trends that are true to your brand.
Lesson 1. Use trends that let you put the spotlight on the best aspects of your brand.
There are a lot of trends out there to choose from so take a scroll and try to find the ones that will really put the spotlight on what makes your business the best.
For example, if you are trying to represent your business that sells vegan makeup, you’d likely want to stick to trends that allow you to show off your makeup being used in action. This could translate to following the astrology-themed looks trend and using your eyeshadow palette to create some unique beauty styles. Or it can mean tapping into the trend of using the “us versus them” theme to show what sets your brand apart from your competition.
We landed on our particular trend choices by selecting video styles that dovetailed into our creativity and industry expertise that would resonate with our audience.
Lesson 2. Adapt the trend to what you want to say to make it your own.
You need to make sure that every trend you use relates to what you have to say or what you are about. If you hop on a trend just to use the same dance as everyone else, you won’t stand out as much. Make the trend your own!
Marketing especially is a tough industry to keep up with so finding evergreen content to focus on was tricky. When we pulled from our combined experience though, we found we had plenty to say. Once we knew what we needed to tell our audience, we just had to make things our own. We did that by adapting everything to be “Lord of the Rings”-themed.
We aren’t the first people to use social media videos to create branded content. Making these trends fit into our brand is what helped us make them our own.
Lesson 3. Don’t try to force your brand to fit a trend.
Not to sound repetitive, but there are a LOT of trends out there. Just like how not every business needs to be on every social media platform, you shouldn’t feel pressured to be a part of every single trend that comes out.
If you are a band, you shouldn’t hop on every dance trend on TikTok, even if you do have killer moves. If you are a makeup brand, you don’t have to hop on every new look that someone comes up with (moms around the world were annoyed by the eye-bag trend).
The whole reason why our team opted to mash together marketing concepts and “Lord of the Rings” is because it worked for us. We combined our expertise and our love for LOTR because they worked well with our branding.
Lesson 4. Make sure the trends you choose work with your current strategy.
As fun as some trends are, you want ones that fit well with your current marketing strategy. You don’t want to hop on a trend that pulls the focus off of the products and branding themes you have been highlighting for months. Not only will it feel off key with your audience, it may actually do a lot of damage to the momentum you’ve been building.
It is far better to hunt for the trends that allow you to enhance your strategy rather than distracting from it. Whether that looks like promoting the same products or highlighting the same branding details that bring a wider audience to you, the best options are those that raise the volume on what you’ve already got going on.
Lesson 5. Create content that is adaptable for more than one platform.
We’ve said it more than once on our blogs, create content that you can get real mileage from. Not everyone in your audience comes from the same platform.
If you’re making the effort to create a set of videos or photos that put the best spotlight on your business and its products or services, make sure you can use it across more than one platform. For example, if you have a YouTube channel where you post a particular series of videos, find ways to embed said videos in a blog on your website to offset a wall of text. Or share them on Facebook or LinkedIn along with a call to action that alerts your audience that you have a YouTube channel so they can subscribe and follow your brand. Videos and photos make the perfect evergreen content for an omnichannel strategy.
Your hard work deserves to be seen!
Bonus Lesson. If you can’t have some fun with it, reroute.
If you aren’t able to enjoy the content that you create, chances are high that your audience is going to notice. Forcing your brand to fit into a trend or trying to force yourself to keep up with a trend that you just aren’t a fan of isn’t going to do you any good.
The same way that you shouldn’t try to force your brand to meet every trend that pops up, you shouldn’t have to deal with creating content that makes you feel like you’re eating your least favorite food on earth. There are plenty of other options out there that you can use to market your brand that will highlight your business and be enjoyable to actually create.
If you haven’t had a chance to watch our new content, give it a click and tell us your thoughts. And, as always, if you need some added help with your brand’s marketing strategy, content creation, etc., then you can reach out to us anytime. Your content may not be LOTR-themed, but it will reach the right people, at just the right time, and have the optimum impact you’re looking for.
Contact RM Creative Services by sending a message to rachael@rmcsofficial.com or visiting our Contact page.
Written by Brianna Fries, a California-based writer, editor, bookworm, and mother of two. You can contact her at brianna@rmcsofficial.com and discover more of her work at briwritesthings.com.