Zeno Social: What's been happening in October?
With the spooky season well and truly underway, let’s look back at the biggest platform updates and emerging trends that have caught our attention across socials this month.
TRENDS
Interpretive Dance
This hilarious TikTok trend uses the power of ‘interpretive dance’ as a currency for an individual trying to win some kind of reward. For example, ‘Making my husband doing an interpretive dance so that he can watch Fortnite tonight’ which has racked up over 2M views.
The idea is that the more embarrassing the dancing, the more the person is determined to earn their prize! For anyone looking to execute this trend themselves, all you need to do is use the familiar sound of ‘Laterals - Fat Code Studio’ over your chosen person dancing and add your relevant text.
This is a great way to highlight certain relationship dynamics, such as ‘Making my sister do an interpretive dance so that she can borrow my clothes’.
Life is worth living
As we know, even the oldest of songs can have resurrections of mass popularity at any given time, often totally unexpectedly, through trending audio on TikTok.
This can definitely be said for the latest ‘life is worth living’ trend which uses an old Justin Bieber track for users to share their moments of intense joy, such as booking last minute flights or eating their fave meal.
Brands such as Oliver Bonas have jumped on this trend to show off their seasonal products in store.
Cat on a Broom
Content formats are continually being influenced by online meme culture, and we frequently spot the use of simple motion graphics to tell a story through Reels and TikToks.
The latest example, a moving meme of a cat on a broomstick slowly flying away from the centre of the screen before disappearing into the abyss.
But what’s so great about this? The simplicity of using the disappearing cat to show which situations you’d rather avoid works brilliantly because you know what’s coming and the punchline is completely understandable from the get go.
Examples such as ‘me noticing a problem at the very end of the work day’ and ‘me when my social battery runs out’ are immediately relatable.
PLATFORM UPDATES
Instagram Announces Halloween-Themed Activations
Just in time for Halloween, Instagram announced last week that they’ve introduced some sPoOky FeAtUrEs for the festive season such as:
- “Secret” Halloween-themed keywords in DMs and Notes which will activate effects and animations
- 5 custom “Add Yours” templates to prompt Stories interaction for the event
- A Halloween font and text effect
TikTok Announces Electronic Music Hub
This month, TikTok has taken even more steps to solidify its connection with the music industry. Specifically, electronic music, with the launch of a new electronic music hub in the app.
The platform releases a post saying that ‘#ElectronicMusic is one of the most celebrated genres on TikTok’ and essentially, the idea is for this hub to provide more exposure for emerging electronic music artists, as TikTok looks to capatalise on this ongoing interest.
IG Chief Recommends Posting Carousels To Improve Reach
With Instagram carousels now being able to include up to 20 frames along with musical accompaniment, Instagram Chief Adam Mosseri has been encouraging users to post more carousels to boost their reach.
In his words, carousels have the potential to gain more reach because multiple pieces of media are being posted which in turn, leads to a higher likelihood for engagement. This notion, coupled with optimising trending audio and tracks seems like a no brainer for brands to jump on to elevate their organic content results.
