Are Trending Audios Important on Social Media?
In short - no. We’re breaking down why in this blog.
Trending audios have taken social media by storm since short form video came out, from seeing ‘trend alerts’ on your feed & downloading outside apps to help determine what audios are trending — it’s safe to say that trending audios are deemed important to many who post on social media!
WHY THEY DON’T MATTER ON INSTAGRAM
On Instagram, you can either use audio from Instagram’s library, or an original audio. An audio from Instagram’s library can be trending, or not, and an original audio is an audio you create yourself, or an audio you export from a video from another platform (like TikTok).
On Instagram, there’s a little arrow next to the audio, indicating whether the audio is trending or not, like we see in this video by @productive.mo.
We all know by now, that Instagram is prioritizing “original content”, which means a video that has been “made from scratch”, as Mosseri himself said in a video. This essentially means that audios and fonts that are unknown to the Instagram app, are prioritized - because creators make those videos from scratch. So, our question is, why is everyone so hung up on audios that are trending on Instagram? A trending audio is the opposite of being original! A trending audio is an over-saturated audio, that a mass of people are using at once.
You might be thinking, “but the video you added as an image, from @productive.mo, is using a trending audio, and their engagement is really good… so how does that make sense?” Yes, you’re right - but let’s break their video down. They’re using a trending audio, but they’re also using an outside font! Which marks their video as more original.
Back to trending sounds — how does a sound go viral? A creator posts it, whether it’s an exported audio from TikTok or a sound they created themselves, it’s not the sound that made them go viral, but the contents of the video itself and not the fact that the sound is trending. In short, the reason why they don’t matter on Instagram, is because Instagram prioritizes original content.
WHY THEY DON’T MATTER ON TIKTOK
Similarly to Instagram, on TikTok, you can choose a sound from the TikTok library, or you can upload your own sound. Have you ever see those trend alerts come up on your feed on TikTok? They look something like this: “use this sound, this creator with 1,000 followers got 1 million views in 24 hours”. There’s an overarching, popular belief on TikTok, that trending sounds help you grow. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Unlike Instagram, TikTok has no indication of whether a sound is trending, unless you notice that everyone is using it. How do you know when everyone is using it? You see it multiple times on your “for you page”, and the audio is growing in numbers quickly.
You might be asking “but, you give us trending audios to use every week on our email list, if they don’t work, why are you giving them to us?” Good question! The reason is because these trending audios are great content ideas. These trending audios will not help you grow, or get more views, unless; 1) the actual context of the video makes sense, 2) it’s relatable to the masses or your niche, and lastly, 3) it’s entertaining to the masses or your niche.
Do you ever notice a trending sound from 6 months ago resurface? That means, a creator used that sound again and the video in which they used the sound was most likely relatable and/or entertaining to the masses - it then sparked inspiration amongst other creators, and other creators started using the sound again, and boom, the audio is trending again. Did the creator who initially used the audio go viral because the audio they used was trending? No, they went viral because their video gave value (i.e. the video was relatable and/or entertaining). The creator was essentially the trend setter and ignited the audio to go viral.
“Stop following trends, be a trend setter instead.”
AUDIOS ADD LIFE to the video
This is not to say that audios don’t matter. They do. They add life to your video, they help you tell the story you want to convey with your video. It’s far more important to choose the right audios for your brand and the video itself. For example, don’t use a sad, calm audio if it’s a fun, upbeat video and visa versa. Choose audios that match to the goal you’re trying to achieve with your video, and not only to your video, but to your brand as well.
Think about your brand values. Are you going for the aesthetic, inspiring, calming vibe that you want your audience to feel when they visit your page? Then, choose audios that compliment that. Are you going for a fun, upbeat, young, vibrant vibe that you want your audience to feel? Same goes for you, choose audios that compliment your brand values.
WHAT TO DO INSTEAD
Export your videos from TikTok to Instagram, like Later do - that way, your audio will come up as an “original” audio on Instagram.
Use a separate app to add original fonts to your video, but keep in mind to only do that for Instagram, NOT TikTok. Using TikTok’s native text is important for ranking in the search engine and if you want to learn more about that, read this blog.
Create your own audio that people can use, by adding a voice over of a motivational quote, inspiring words or entertaining audio.
