It feels like many modern social media marketers are more passionate about social media itself than the actual art of marketing.

I’ve been in brainstorming sessions where every idea awkwardly forces a brand into a trending topic. I’ve sat in offices where actual work grinds to a halt because something’s trending, and suddenly everyone scrambles to tie the brand to the fleeting moment before it’s gone.

The pursuit of engagement often makes us forget the core reason we’re here: to market products effectively.

Why Are We So Trend-Obsessed?

It’s natural. Our jobs revolve around the internet—we’re constantly online, scrolling, and seeing what’s popping off. Naturally, we want to align our work with the viral things we encounter.

But this fixation on trends is devaluing our work. It undermines the brands we represent, alienates audiences who might actually want the products, and distracts from building a strong, enduring brand identity.

That’s why I believe it’s time for a trend detox.

What Is a Trend Detox?

A trend detox is a 30-day challenge to completely ignore what’s hot on the internet and focus on creating truly original content. No memes, no cultural moments—just content that highlights your brand and its unique selling points.

Your brand can stand on its own. It can be educational, entertaining, or interesting without relying on the fleeting buzz of the internet.

Every brand has strong reasons to believe in its value. Every brand has unique features. Every brand has customers with needs that can be addressed through meaningful, creative content.

Spend a month leaning into these strengths. Create content that makes your brand compelling in its own right. The goal is to attract genuine engagement from people who are actually likely to buy your product.

Why Trends Aren’t Always the Answer

To be clear, trend content has its place. I’ve worked on plenty of successful trend-based campaigns. But relying too heavily on trends can hurt your strategy in several ways:

• It disrupts workflow. Dropping everything to chase a trend is more time-consuming than we often admit.
• It dilutes your brand identity. Trends often pull your brand away from what makes it unique.
• You risk missing the moment. Trends move fast, and by the time you’ve gotten approval, the trend may already be stale.
• It attracts the wrong audience. Viral trend content might bring engagement, but are those viewers actually potential customers?

Love Your Brand (or Fake It)

At its core, our job is to make brands interesting online. That doesn’t require hopping on every viral moment—it requires creativity and focus on what makes the brand special.

We’re in one of the best industries out there. We get paid to be creative, to make things, and to solve problems. If creating great content for your brand without trends feels boring, that’s a challenge to your creativity—not a limitation of the brand.

The Simplest Brainstorming Hack

Here’s a no-frills, back-to-basics brainstorming exercise:

1. Write down 25 ways people use your product.
2. Come up with 4 content ideas for each use case.
3. Avoid trends or memes entirely in these ideas.

This might feel overly simplistic, but it’s a foundational approach many overlook. We often get so caught up in seasonal briefs or visualizing the final product that we skip this essential step. Focus on generating a high volume of ideas before refining them.

Now, Sprinkle in Some Trends

Once you’ve built a library of original ideas, you can add trends to enhance your content. Think of trends as seasoning—use them to complement your core strategy, not define it.

The goal isn’t to ban trends entirely. It’s to use them wisely and sparingly, ensuring your brand remains the star of your social strategy. After all, strong, original content will always be the backbone of effective marketing.