Managing Client Accounts and Staying on Top of Trends: How Are We Doing This?
On your daily doom scroll, of course, trends are popping up constantly. While we'd love to participate in every single one, as a social media manager with a planned out calendar who's likely not always a drive away from a content shoot filming, jumping on trends can be more challenging than it seems.
Today we want to open up a conversation on how we are actually managing trends with client account as social media managers.
What trends should I do?
How quickly do I need to jump on trends?
How do I get my client to approve the content fast enough?
How do I plan out trends if I don't even know what's trending, yet?
Don't worry, we've had the same thoughts pop into our brains. So, that's why we are sharing our top advice for managing clients' accounts and staying on top of trends.
Managing Client Accounts and Staying on Top of Trends: How Are We Doing This?
Being Selective About Trends
Firstly, why are you jumping on the trend? You already know our opinions on going viral, so we hope this isn't your reason. On the other hand, trends can be a great source of inspiration, engagement, and can lead to amazing connections. When deciding if your client should be in on the trend or not, think about the following:
Is this relevant to their account and audience? (i.e., will the audience 'get it?')
Can you put our own spin on it to add to the conversation versus copying and pasting?
What's your end goal?
Where is the trend at in the lifecycle? Is it fizzling out? Just starting? You want to give yourself enough time to make this happen.
Remember that even the trendiest accounts don't lean into every single trend that's out there.
Consider the Timing
Expanding on our last point, the trend lifecycle is important to consider. The last thing you want to do is jump on a trend a month late. Make sure you have enough time in your schedule for ideation, to creation, to approval, to scheduling.
Leaning into Flexible Calendars
While we love to be prepared and have all clients and our own content done ahead of time, there are some flaws with that, too! This is where having a flexible calendar and being adaptable can be helpful. We always have at least a few posts per month that aren't time sensitive, meaning they aren't current promotions or seasonal, they are things that will phase out, so they can be easily moved if you need to make space. With that, you can also leave gaps in your content calendar for trends that pop up. There's no doubt that there will be at least a few trends per month that you can capitalize on!
Designate “Trend Time”
You can’t stay ahead of what’s next if you never make time for it! We treat trend research like it’s part of our client work — meaning it's going on our Asana to-do list and calendar blocking! This typically includes scanning our feed and reading industry newsletters, just in case you're missing something on your daily scroll.
Our top recommendations for trend spotting:
Trend Savvy, 150+ Trending Reel Audios
Create Systems That Keep You Proactive, Not Just Reactive
When managing multiple client accounts, it’s easy to slip into a purely reactive mode, i.e., responding to emails, chasing approvals, or fixing fires. But staying ahead means building workflows that give you breathing room to plan. Everything goes through our approval process, and any trends get priority so we don't miss the moment. This gives us time to pitch fresh ideas based on current trends rather than scrambling last minute.
Do you participate in trends on your client's accounts? Our DM are open and anxiously waiting for your reply.