How to Use TikTok Trends in 2026: 5 Tips to Go Viral

TikTok trends are viral sounds, relatable memes, or clever video formats that reach a wide audience. Understanding how they start and which ones are worth following can help you create timely content that connects with audiences.

According to a 2025 report by social media management tool Sprout Social, 93% of consumers think brands should participate in online culture. Consumers also believe the most important qualities for brand content are authenticity, relatability, and entertainment. TikTok trends can offer a way to meet these expectations.

In this article, you’ll learn how to find TikTok trends and see examples of how brands approach trending content, with tips from social media consultant and Content Bar cofounder Kenzie Epperson.

What is a TikTok trend?

A TikTok trend is a video format, sound, hashtag, challenge, meme, or storytelling style that gains traction rapidly. 

Many trends begin with a single creator posting something entertaining, relatable, or unexpected. As other creators and brands see it—and recognize its potential for shareability and to engage audiences—they post their versions of the trend. TikTok’s algorithm picks it up and recommends the trend to more viewers, allowing it to spread quickly across the app. 

TikTok trends can be short-term, lasting just days, weeks, or months, or reflect the type of content audiences want to see regularly, like an outfit-of-the-day post. 

According to social media consultant Kenzie Epperson, successful trends generally include three key elements: 

• A strong hook: The first few seconds make viewers stop scrolling. 

• An emotional trigger: Humor, surprise, curiosity, inspiration, or relatability all encourage viewers to keep watching.

• A repeatable format: The best trends give other creators a simple framework they can adapt for their own audiences.

For brands, new trends work best as part of a larger content strategy. Kenzie recommends focusing mainly on your established content pillars. “[Aim for] roughly 80% brand-owned content that you’re planning in your content calendar, and then 20% trend participation,” she says. 

How to find TikTok trends

• Scroll your For You page
• Focus on your niche
• Monitor TikTok Creative Center
• Explore trending sounds
• Follow trend roundups

You don’t have to wait until a trend blows up to participate in it. Businesses that spend time on the app and use the platform’s resources can discover trends before they become mainstream. Here are a few ways to find TikTok trends: 

Scroll your For You page

Your For You page (FYP), a personalized content feed, is one of the easiest ways to discover emerging trends. As you like, comment, and follow content and creators, your FYP becomes more tailored to you. You’ll begin to notice recurring hashtags, jokes, memes, and video formats. 

If you regularly check your FYP, you’ll see different trends, but they may not all apply to your business. Aim to jump on trends that will feel relatable to your audience. Otherwise, it won’t work, according to Kenzie.

“If you have to force your way into the trend, the audience feels it, and it’s not authentic,” she says.

An example of successfully jumping on a trend is doll brand American Girl’s video in which two team members say a phrase in four different tones: supportive, sarcastic, impressed, and disappointed.

As part of the trend, creators and businesses used different phrases that fit their brand. American Girl chose, “You sold all of your American Girl dolls?” The content connected with fans. In the comment section, their audience expressed regret about getting rid of dolls they thought they had outgrown. 

Focus on your niche

A good starting point to find relevant trends is to dig deeper within your niche, according to Kenzie. 

“Spend time observing the micro-creators, the subcultures, the comment sections,” she says. “If you can find what your audience is interacting with, what they find funny, that is the trend you should be creating content around.” 

Rocky Xu, founder of Rocky’s Matcha, makes a point of monitoring TikTok for niche trends. “I look at what’s going on on Matcha Tok, as they’re calling it now,” he says on Shopify Masters. “Just people going out and buying a ton of matcha to try because they want to find their favorite flavor profile or taste profile.”

If you have yet to identify the most impactful people in your industry, try a social listening tool, which lets you monitor public conversations happening in your niche and the people who are leading the dialogue. 

Monitor TikTok Creative Center

TikTok’s Creative Center is a resource that provides insight on what’s performing well on TikTok. The Trends section has three categories: Hashtags, Creators, and Videos.

Within each category, you can use filters to find content that’s most relevant to you. For example, if you’re using the Hashtags section, you can filter by time period and topic, such as education, travel, and household products.

If you click on individual hashtags, you’ll learn how popular the term is, how the interest has evolved over time, who finds this content appealing, and see examples of videos that are already performing well. All of this information can help you decide if this hashtag trend makes sense for you. 

Although you don’t need an account to browse TikTok Creative Center, signing in unlocks additional data and lets you save ideas for later. 

Explore trending sounds

Many TikTok trends revolve around a specific audio clip. Merely adding audio to a video is not following a TikTok trend. You must understand how people are using the audio to be in conversation with other videos. 

“[Just using audio] will push your videos out a little bit more than they would be normally,” Kenzie says. “But if you’re using the trending sound without actually doing the trend that is associated with the sound, it’s not going to perform much better.”

When you click the plus sign at the bottom of your screen as if you’re adding a new video, the video editor will open. At the top of the screen, you’ll see the words “Add Sound.” TikTok will offer a few categories, including “Hot,” or sounds that are trending. It will include information on how many posts have used that sound.

Once you get the title of a sound, you can search for it on TikTok to learn how people are using it, ensuring you use the trending audio correctly.

Keep in mind that TikTok recommends brands only use sounds available via its Commercial Music Library, as those are available for commercial use. 

Follow trend roundups

TikTok regularly highlights monthly trends within the platform. Their roundup mostly features dance trends and trending audio. You’ll also come across creators who explain how these trends work.

Outside of TikTok, there are websites that put together lists of trending content. For example, Ramdam, a platform that connects brands and creators, curates TikTok trends each month.

TikTok trend examples

• Sound of water vs. the sound of…
• CEO burger reaction
• Dot cakes
• Behind-the-scenes content
• Founder-led storytelling
• Authentic product reviews

Not every TikTok trend looks the same. Some are short-term trends that quickly come and go, while others become more permanent. Successful brands pay attention to both to understand the bigger picture:

Sound of water vs. the sound of…

With “sound of water vs. the sound of …,” creators stir a glass of water and hear the clinking of ice and the swishing of water. They then stir another beverage, and an upbeat song begins to play. 

Prebiotic soda brand Olipop capitalized on the short-lived trend. When they stir the Olipop soda in their video, their version of the classic 1950s pop song “Lollipop,” titled “Oli Oli (The Olipop Song),” begins to play. The video has more than 56 million views and 25,000 likes. 

CEO burger reaction

After the McDonald’s CEO went viral for taking an unusually small bite of a burger in a promotional video in early 2026, food brands began posting their own executives enthusiastically eating their products. 

Olive oil brand Graza participated in the cultural moment by posting CEO Andrew Benin taking an oversized bite of a burger smothered in Graza mayonnaise. The response earned nearly 12 million views and more than 3,000 comments, making it one of the brand’s most successful videos.

Dot cakes

Dot cakes are small, sprinkled-topped cakes in a jar that became a TikTok sensation as creators shared videos of baking, decorating, and slicing into the eye-catching desserts. Peanut butter brand One Trick Pony put their own spin on the trend by creating a PB&J dot cake. 

Behind-the-scenes content

Videos showing the process of designing, manufacturing, packing, or shipping let brands build trust by pulling back the curtain on their operations. This content can help customers feel like insiders. 

Kenzie notes that audiences expect this sort of content from brands. “What we’re seeing media turn to, trend-wise, is behind the scenes, showing the process, showing the human behind the brand,” she says. “That is the meat of the shift that’s going on.” 

Behind-the-scenes content is a significant component of tinned fish brand Fishwife’s TikTok strategy, including one video where they explain how they source their tinned fish. The viewer gets to learn where each fish comes from and what ingredients the brand uses when packaging them.

Founder-led storytelling

Founder videos share the realities of building a business, which helps customers connect with the people behind the brands. This is beneficial because, as Kenzie says, “People want to buy from people.”

Lexi Hensler is a creator-turned-business owner who launched Hugz, a weighted stuffed animal company. Lexi is comfortable in front of the camera and candidly discusses her own experience with anxiety. In one video, Lexi talks about a new product, a brown bunny named Benito that she says she finds particularly useful for period cramps and panic attacks. 

Authentic product reviews

Videos showing real people using your products in everyday moments can make your product-focused content feel less like an advertisement. “Audiences are now skeptics,” Kenzie says. “They’re not looking at your product online and saying, ‘Oh, this is shiny, and I like the brand packaging.’” 

To help them overcome this skepticism, Kenzie suggests tapping micro-influencers who have between 10,000 and 50,000 followers, because audiences feel a connection to them. “[Micro-creators] are absolutely driving higher conversions for ecommerce brands than macro-influencers because their audience trusts them like a friend,” she says. 

For example, in one micro-influencer video on beauty brand Dieux’s feed, skincare creator Sydney Heinemann explains that, because her skin needs can change from day to day, she cycles through Dieux’s three different moisturizers. She breaks down her routine and how she layers products depending on the weather and how her skin feels.