How do brands follow hot topics? 3 methods

In the short video operation tutorials or practical summaries that everyone has seen, it must have been clearly mentioned that you need to follow hot spots, but basically no one explained clearly how to follow hot spots.

So in today's article, I will try to refine the methodology of "chasing hot spots" so that everyone can get what they need, whether you are a newbie who is still exploring or a content operation operator with certain practical experience.

It should be noted that this article is written from the perspective of brand private domain traffic operation; the operation of personal Douyin account is essentially the same method and routine.

1. What exactly is a hotspot?

The hot topics we summarized can be divided into the following three categories according to the different contents and participation methods.

1. Festivals

We generally classify major celebrations that can be expected as festivals.

The festivals here include both traditional festivals, such as the Dragon Boat Festival and New Year’s Eve, as well as generally-watched marketing festivals, such as 618 and Double 11.

In addition, we also include predictable regular natural events, such as the blood moon and total lunar eclipse, into the broad category of festivals.

2. Events

Refers to sudden major social or natural changes; pay attention to 3 key words:

1. Unexpected: Generally, such events cannot be predicted;
2. Significant: A hot spot is a hot spot only if it has significant spread power;
3. Change: Change emphasizes that the state of things has changed. It is because of the change that there is communication value;

For example, celebrity divorces, major scientific discoveries, and suddenly released management policies.

In addition, for the convenience of analysis, we also put hot memes and popular gameplay into this category. For example, the popular ways of playing or buzzwords such as cross-dressing, dancing with car lights on, ants, and just playing, also meet the above three characteristics.

3. Popular elements

Different from the hot spots of “atmosphere groups” such as festivals and events, popular elements can be directly inserted into the video as part of it, that is to say: they are essentially part of the video elements. Common hot elements are as follows:

• Music: Popular songs on TikTok. Many videos use popular songs as BGM.
• Video clips: popular video materials can be directly inserted into the video;
• Dubbing: For example, the dubbing of "Give them a fierce look" in pet videos.

In addition, elements such as stickers and sound effects can also be very popular and become important elements in the video.

2. Why should video content follow hot topics?

A hotspot is the result of an event or an element being spread to a certain order of magnitude. It can be said that it brings its own traffic.

On the one hand, many users who are unaware of the hot event will actively search for it, thereby further boosting the heat value of the event; therefore, the earlier you pursue the hot event, the more users' attention you can get.

On the other hand, hot events will also be "blessed" by the platform and even receive official recommendations. For example, Douyin’s search recommendations and Douyin’s hot list aggregate videos on the topic.

Simply put, you must chase hot spots, just like chasing waves when surfing. As long as you can catch the waves, you will get twice the result with half the effort.

3. What kind of hot spots should not be touched?

Not all hot spots can be pursued.

First of all, try not to follow the hot political events.

Secondly, don’t pursue controversial events.

Don't pursue events that undermine social order and morals. Since this incident is inconsistent with the mainstream values ​​of society, it shows that netizens have the same stance; if a brand rashly promotes it and ties itself to the hot event, netizens will think that the brand is also morally corrupt and untrustworthy. In the face of surging public opinion, although the brand's popularity has increased, it is all negative and the loss outweighs the gain.

If you still remember the Uniqlo incident in Sanlitun in 2015, many brands blindly followed the trend and took advantage of the marketing momentum, which eventually led to an article of criticism from the People's Daily and negative comments from netizens.

In addition, many hot events have multiple reversals. Before a matter is settled, hastily throwing out a brand’s stance is not only an irresponsible statement to the protagonist of the incident and the public, but is also very dangerous to brand safety.

Again, don’t chase hot events that have little relevance to your brand. As a brand, it must have its core positioning and a definite style. Don’t chase hot topics just for the sake of chasing hot topics. Even if the video goes viral, are the new followers necessarily the TA (target audience) that the brand hopes to reach? Not to mention that the pursuit is inappropriate and will only lead to resentment among the brand's existing fans.

Of course, many tragic hot topics are indeed strongly related to your own brand, but you must not promote them at this time. A brand must have its own values ​​and bottom line, and should not take advantage of others’ mistakes. For example, when Academician Yuan Longping passed away, people across the country fell into great grief, but some businesses actually released advertisements for free rice, which attracted criticism from many media and netizens.

4. How should I follow the hot spots?

When deciding on a topic, everyone must not forget their “original intention”: hot videos also need to serve brand marketing , they need to have corporate values, be consistent with the brand tone, and reveal brand/product information.

The exposure of brand information must not be forced in the video, or adding an advertisement at the end. It must be integrated into the entire video story. This is what is called "native".

Therefore, hot spots must be integrated with brands. What we need to do is to find the "bridge" between hot spots and brands so that this link can flow smoothly.

I summarize it as the "associative connection method."

1. Find the topic: Association connection method

It looks mysterious, but it is actually very simple to operate. Write down the hot spots and brands (products) on a piece of paper, and then see if you can find 1 or 2 middle words to connect the two. The middle word must be strongly associated with both the hot topic and the brand.

Why is the upper limit of middle words limited to 2? The fewer the middle words, the more natural the association is and the video does not need to spend a lot of contextual explanation. Once the cost of understanding is too high, users will easily lose interest, and the video’s completion rate and likes and comments will definitely be worrying.

You may ask, sometimes I really can’t think of anything, how should I develop my associations?

Come on, let’s continue disassembling. A hot spot must have a protagonist, atmosphere or behavior.

For example, on Mother's Day, the protagonist is the mother (child) and the behavior is (gratitude); in the upcoming college entrance examination, the protagonist is the candidate, and the behavior is writing, filling out applications, etc. These are all points that can be combined.

Correspondingly, the people, goods and places of a brand or product are also definite and clear. Taking the catering industry as an example, people include chefs, customers, and waiters, goods refer to dishes or raw materials for cooking, and place refers to the venue, which is the restaurant.

Therefore, we are actually looking for connections between the protagonists, atmosphere/behaviors of the hot spots and the people, goods, and places of the products.

2. Three ways to track hot spots

1) Reuse

The easiest way to pursue popular elements is to reuse them. For example, mentioning hot memes in the video or title, or using popular soundtracks.

There are two big taboos to avoid here.

One is to remake and apply it without any changes. For example, the video clip of “Golden Retriever calls you to go out and play” was very popular some time ago. In addition to the repeatedly created "still doing homework" plot, there are also security guard version, henpecked version, and doctor version, which also received high praise.

In addition, some official Douyin accounts also followed the hot topics. For example, Pop Mart used the image of Molly and reproduced it with the help of the "homework not finished" joke; Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf continued the setting that Big Big Wolf is afraid of Red Wolf.

The second is to take the initiative. What everyone needs to remember is that hot spots are always just elements to assist brand communication. We need to master them and let them serve the theme creation of the video, rather than forgetting the brand, positioning and style and using them just for the sake of using hot spots. Only when popular elements complement the brand tone can the communication effect be maximized.

Previously, some customers of Douyin Enterprise Accounts came to us for consultation and asked us to help diagnose the problems of Douyin Enterprise Accounts. After entering the Douyin homepages of several customers, we found that they were clearly restaurants or clothing stores, but the videos posted included photos of babies and Sun Wukong templates; the same was true for music. They would use whatever song was popular as the BGM of the video. The previous one is still nostalgic and sounds like being in a late-night canteen, then scrolling down it becomes electronic music like being in a bar, and scrolling down again it becomes passionate as if going to the front line.

Some time ago, the female version of "Lovelor Alliance" became a big hit on TikTok. This song, whether it is the singer's voice or the intention of the lyrics, has a sense of maturity and vicissitudes, so the one who made this song popular is the young lady below. Many users commented: "Strong sense of substitution" and "No sense of disobedience".

2) Derivatives

Derivatives refer to providing additional information around the protagonists and actions of the event.

After a hot event occurs, netizens will not only pay attention to the event itself, but also pay attention to the ins and outs of it. More topics will be derived around this topic and combined with the brand.

Recently, Bill Gates divorced his wife of 27 years, and has been on various hot lists for a long time. In addition to Gates's romantic affair, topics such as the growth of independent women and balance of power in marriage have also become hot topics for bloggers in the fields of emotional counseling and psychological counseling; legal bloggers are concerned about how their property is divided; and technology bloggers are more concerned about Gates' influence on Microsoft and technology.

What needs to be noted here is: What I have been emphasizing here is "additional information". In other words, you should not integrate information from various sources together like you would write a literature review, even if you integrate various types of information into a logical narrative framework.

On the one hand, the integrated information still revolves around the hot event itself and may not be related to your own brand; on the other hand, the integrated information is just plagiarizing others. As an original account, you must have your own opinions. From the perspective of netizens, the videos you posted do not provide any additional valuable information. Why should I follow you?

3) Contrast

When it comes to festivals, what everyone thinks of is "going with the flow": for example, 520 is inseparable from love and gifts; Mother's Day is inseparable from gratitude and gifts. But you have to know that everyone will use the same method to follow hot topics, and your video will be like a coin sinking into the sea without even a sound.

So, my experience is: contrast is more suitable for use in festival hotspots.

Contrast is a more advanced way to play with popular elements. In essence, it reuses one of the popular elements, but integrates more of its own creation and thinking. The form is similar but the content is different, and it "goes against the grain" in one of the constituent elements. Therefore, it can not only take advantage of popular elements, but also highlight its own characteristics, making it easier to stand out among a bunch of remakes.

Although the female version of "Lovelorn Front Alliance" was popular at the beginning, and then a band released a lyrics version of "Broken Jetta", this wave of popularity was a little weaker than the female version, but there were a lot of remakes of the song.

For example, gender reversal is also a common way to create a sense of contrast. For example, in the "Girls' Rakugo" challenge, the most likes were from a group of boys dancing; age reversal was also common, such as five old men covering a popular internet celebrity's song... Of course, there were also identity reversals (children imitating adults, rural atmosphere VS fashionable internet celebrities).

Back to the 520 festival, love and gifts are indeed the "main melody" of this day, but in comparison, the loneliness of singles, the cautiousness of lickers, and the frustration of "drowned dogs" who failed in their confession will also be reflected in many people; the catering industry can consider leaning towards the narrative style of the late-night canteen.

5. Final Thoughts

Hot spots are important, but don’t forget why you started when you are chasing them.

All videos need to be in line with the positioning of your Douyin account, and the Douyin account needs to serve the growth of your business. These are the two major prerequisites for chasing hot spots.

Finally, I wrote a limerick to encourage everyone:

You have to follow the hot topics on Tik Tok, but the prerequisite is that you have a good positioning.

There are three categories of hot atmosphere, festival events and elements.

Don’t follow current affairs topics and don’t touch anything controversial or negative.

If you learn the method of thematic association and connection, you will be the winner.

Derivative reuse and contrast, memorize and utilize Wanfenjia.

Author: Yu Zishen

Source public account: Abbreviation 2019