The ideal content recognizes your audience’s needs and retains viewers for long-term engagement.

The article explores how you can use a TikTok trend to resonate with your voice, connect with your audience for lasting impressions, and stand out.

Introduction to TikTok

TikTok has quickly grown into one of the world’s most influential social media platforms, with over two billion users worldwide. Its unique short-form video format—often set to catchy music or trending sounds—creates a lively space where brands, creators, and users can showcase their creativity and connect with their target audience. What really sets TikTok apart is its constantly changing landscape of trends, from viral dance challenges to niche trends that cater to specific communities and interests.

For brands and creators wanting to stay relevant, understanding and tapping into these trends is essential. Whether you’re jumping on the latest TikTok dance trends or exploring emerging trends in your industry, aligning your content with what’s hot on the platform helps you reach new audiences and boost engagement. TikTok’s Creative Center is a valuable tool for discovering trending hashtags, sounds, and fresh content ideas, making it easier to spot what’s resonating with users right now. By staying tuned to these trends and adapting them to fit your brand’s voice, you can create TikTok videos that stand out and build lasting connections with your audience.

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Why Just Copying Trends Doesn’t Work

40% of TikTok users believe that brands become relevant when they showcase their personality rather than shifting into different trends. This data indicates that people are increasingly rejecting brands that copy and instead, demanding something that aligns with their values and resonates with them.

Here are some of the reasons why copying TikTok trends without adding your own voice fails:

• Low retention due to trend saturation: If your video follows a format that most creators overuse, your viewers are most likely to scroll past in the early stages. TikTok’s algorithm is heavily dependent on watch time, particularly within the first 3 seconds. If viewers bounce, your content loses reach in this competitive platform.
• Loss of brand identity: Following trends blindly makes it difficult for your viewers to connect, leading to higher bounce rates. Over time, your content feed starts becoming generic rather than memorable.
• Missed opportunities: When you mirror a trend, you forfeit attribution; viewers remember the format, not you. Add ownable cues (POV, sonic/logo, editing style) and a story twist to boost recall and repeat engagement. If you want to experiment with trends but control who sees your early tests or drafts, consider making your TikTok account private so you can iterate safely before going public.
• Shorter shelf life: Trends in social media platforms like TikTok are versatile and change in short intervals. Copying content or a particular style, even after a few days, may result in outdated content and higher bounce rates for your content.
• Algorithmic disadvantages: TikTok algorithm rewards signals, such as replays, high completion rates, and repeat view-throughs. Blindly copying content without a unique hook tends to produce weak early signals, which may result in the lack of amplification of your content.
• Lack of engagement: Generic trend content leads to fewer shares and saves since it fails to offer new perspectives and insights to the audience.
• Scenario of copying gone wrong: Imagine a scenario where a brand copies a trending dance and apparently expects instant viral success, but the result is just another generic video lost in the feed. This highlights how simply following trends without originality rarely pays off.

Every TikTok trend has a core concept that drives its popularity, and brands should adapt this concept to fit their own identity and audience. Instead of just replicating what’s popular, focus on your unique message and how you can bring a fresh perspective to the trend. This approach helps you stand out and build a stronger connection with your viewers.

Real-World Example

A recent TikTok campaign from Nike used a hashtag challenge called #MagicBoots. They collaborated with a popular football creator and tied their products with an appropriate tone and visuals reflecting Nike’s style.

Nike’s TikTok profile literally gained 215,000 followers in just six days, and this highlights the significance of strong user engagement in content for TikTok.

Using TikTok trends means adapting them to your audience’s needs and brand story for a long-term impact. The point is, simply copying trends won’t help you build lasting relevance—adapting the core idea to your brand is what truly matters. One thing that remains constant is that audiences respond best to authenticity and creativity, not just repetition.

How to Make Trends Work for You

59% of consumers prefer social media platforms to purchase products, with higher recall of tailor-made content for audiences. It shows that copying TikTok trends is not sufficient to gain traction, but they should be used as a framework while ensuring consistent messaging. A strong way to begin a TikTok video is with a teaser or foreshadowing that hints at what will happen later, hooking viewers from the start.

Here are five ways in which you can make effective use of TikTok trends:

1. Adapting Trends to Your Niche

Instead of repeating an overused format that appears regularly, it is important to reshape the content that reflects your expertise and industry. Such actions can mean altering the setting and integrating appropriate props and narrations that discuss the problems and expectations of your audience. 

2. Appropriate Use of a Narrative

Even in a 20-second video format of TikTok, it is important to maintain user engagement with an engaging beginning, a comprehensive middle section, and a conclusion.

The rule of thumb for an engaging narrative is to start with an effective hook, followed by a relatable scenario that introduces a situation or conflict, and provide a resolution that ties to your brand. Talking directly to the camera while narrating your story can make it more engaging and personal. Such an approach is necessary for an engaging and memorable storytelling experience.

3. Aligning TikTok Trends With Audience Priorities

It is important to analyze audience feedback and common questions to identify elements that matter for engaging content. For example, adapting beauty trends to reflect authenticity and diversity can resonate strongly with audiences seeking inclusive self-expression. Women on TikTok are actively driving conversations around wellness, finances, and career growth, making these topics especially relevant for content creators. You can apply trending formats as vehicles to address such priorities, such as highlighting personal growth, milestone achievements, reducing costs, or solving a recurring challenge.

4. Maintaining Consistent Brand Cues

Your content should always include recognizable elements, such as distinct color schemes, tone of voice, editing styles, and signature outfit choices. It makes your content identifiable across a larger audience base, and despite volatility in trends, such cues can ensure long-term trust and recognition of your brand or product.

In this context, Murf’s audio translator can help you. It converts voiceovers into 30+ languages while preserving tone, lip-sync, and background audio. It supports MP4, MOV, MKV, MP3, WAV, and more, and lets you export language-specific tracks without re-editing.

Localized dubs retain brand identity and editing flow, while rapid AI-driven turnaround ensures you can capitalize on time-sensitive TikTok trends and test performance across markets. Some brands break through the trends by changing common formats into authentic content.

As short-form video grows, many teams now hire remote roles like TikTok creative strategist, short-form video editor, or sound designer remote. To stand out, align your portfolio with trend adaptation, strong hooks, and consistent brand cues and show how you use A/B testing to boost retention.

Finally, don’t overlook the small details. Beyond tone and translation, grammatical accuracy in captions, on-screen text, and hashtags matters too. Running your drafts through a reliable grammar checker can catch easy-to-miss errors, especially when adapting content for global audiences.

5. Regular Testing of Variations

Instead of relying on a single version of a trend, it is important to experiment by posting different variations—try changing hook actions, visual statements, or endings. Since TikTok trends can change from week to week, regularly testing and posting new content helps you quickly jump on what’s working. Appropriate monitoring of TikTok metrics for retention, shares, and saves can enhance your content formats and identify those that are underperforming.

Examples of Standing Out With Trends

Jumping on TikTok trends does not always mean you need to follow a conventional script. The concept behind a trend is what makes it adaptable—creators can take the core idea and add their own spin. Some of the most memorable trends are intentionally weird, using surreal or absurd elements to capture attention and spark engagement. These trends not only entertain but also reflect and shape contemporary culture, as TikTok becomes a hub where pop culture, fashion, and social behaviors intersect.

Here are two examples that demonstrate how you can stand out with TikTok trends:

1. Jet2’s Holiday Jingle 

Jet2’s jingle “Nothing beats a Jet2 Holiday” paired with Jess Glynne’s Hold My Hand became a viral soundtrack on TikTok. Users quickly attached the sound to videos capturing real-life events, such as cancelled plans, rainy trips, and awkward holiday moments in their feed. Many scenarios focused on the feeling of waiting for a perfect holiday, adding to the trend’s appeal. Jet2 smartly launched an official challenge, offering a whopping £1,000 voucher prize for better user engagement.

Why It Works:

• Jet2 did not fight the ironic twist and rather amplified it, which made the brand look more authentic and aligned with user intents.
• The soundtrack was designed to showcase the perfect holidays; however, highlighting messy realities made it relatable to most viewers.
• The addition of prize money influenced users to join in and maintain the relevance of the trend.

2. Loewe’s Craft Meets Playful Endings  

Luxury label Loewe created meticulous fashion storytelling with light-hearted humor. On TikTok, the brand highlights the craftsmanship process, such as bag making with unexpected twists like mixing in meme references. The overall mix of high fashion and humor provides Loewe’s feed a critical edge over its competitors. 

Why It Works:

• Audiences expect luxury brands to remain polished and maintain a playful ending for engaging content. 
• The content balances relatability and brand identity to highlight craftsmanship for broad-based customer appeal.
• Signals cultural fluency by integrating luxury marketing and memes, showcasing that Loewe understands TikTok’s style. 

If you want to benefit from the latest TikTok trends, you need data-driven insights that highlight what engages on this competitive platform. 

How Data Helps You Use Trends Better

Trends often experience sudden spikes; however, data can reveal which one has the potential for long-term engagement and growth.

Here’s how insights help you utilize trends for TikTok content:

• Review Analytics: Initiate with checking metrics such as average watch time and completion percentage. A video using sounds holds viewers until the end, which highlights a trend that aligns with your audience. Tracking which sounds users hear most on the For You page can inform future content decisions and help you select audio cues that drive more engagement.
• Isolate Patterns Across Posts: Identifying critical frames, such as behind-the-scenes moments or effective text overlay, that consistently spark comments, saves, or rewatches helps you prioritize and repeat those elements in future posts.
• Track Which Formats Sustain Engagement: Certain audio clips bring in a one-time spike, while some generate constant comments, shares, and saves. Select categories that have stronger interactions, so that you can prioritize those TikTok trends that perform better.

Using Sotrender to Refine TikTok Trends

Social media analytics tool Sotrender provides you with a complete view of your TikTok trends depending on performance. You can compare engagement across profiles, campaigns and hashtags to monitor metrics, supporting both business and creative decisions.

With those insights, you can refine your content based on budget choices and creative thoughts.

Before experimenting with TikTok trends in real life, it’s necessary to recognize some mistakes that can negatively impact your content.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

TikTok Trends are critical for higher user engagement, but several creators fall into overused and predictable trends, which reduces their overall originality.

Here are some of the common mistakes many creators make when creating content aligned with the latest trends:

• Late Adaptation of Trends: Trends change fast, and once any such trend reaches its peak, it loses its relevance. Therefore, avoiding such issues can strengthen your TikTok content and your presence on social media. 
• Random Copying of Content: Blind replication of content, which is popular in social media, risks falling flat and confusing viewers about what to expect. Instead, adapt a format that fits your tone and sends clear messaging. 
• Lack of Connection Between Trends and Message: Misalignment of your content with the latest trends may result in a short-lived impression among viewers. Each trend-based video depends on backing it up with themes and values, which strengthen brand identity. 
• Overusing Trends: Appropriate use of TikTok trends can improve visibility; however, balancing them with creativity and original content maintains a reliable TikTok engagement rate among your viewers. 

Be Trendy, But Be You!

Appropriate utilization of TikTok trends can improve content visibility and viewer retention, which is a vital currency on TikTok. The real challenge for most creators and brands is standing out from the competitive feed of TikTok, which is critical for trust and recognition. 

It is essential to adapt trends with original insights and measuring metrics to maintain the credibility of your content. Maintaining authenticity and using trends requires a delicate balance that ensures user engagement in the long run.