Stop Chasing Hacks: The Truth About Trends, Tactics & Tools That Actually Work on Social Media

Are you tired of feeling like you’re constantly chasing the next big hack? In this episode, Ruthie breaks down how to make sense of the endless stream of trends, tactics, and tools flooding your social media feed — and how to use them strategically for your brand.

You’ll learn how to identify which trends actually serve your business goals, why you don’t need to hop on every viral sound, and how to use tools like trending audio and scheduling apps without burning out. Ruthie even shares her honest take on using AI for trend research (and why it’s not the shortcut you think it is).

This conversation will help you reframe how you think about trends — not as a magic bullet, but as an amplifier for your message when used intentionally. You’ll walk away with clarity, confidence, and a few practical tools to make social media feel more sustainable.

✨ You’ll Learn:

• Why chasing hacks leads to burnout
  
  
  
• How to evaluate trends strategically
  
  
  
• Tools that make trendspotting easier
  
  
  
• What to do when you go viral
  
  
  
• Why connection always beats constant creation
  
  

🎟️ Want to go deeper? Join Ruthie at the next Social Media Mixer — part networking, part workshop, and 100% real conversation about what’s working on social right now.

Save your seat here!

Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode, and follow along over on Instagram!
@ruthie.sterrett
@theconsistencycorner

Transcript

Ruthie Sterrett (00:01.078)

Welcome back to another episode of the Consistency Corner podcast. If you're listening to this episode, not seeing it on YouTube, what you don't know is that I'm not recording today in my office with my palm print wallpaper background that everybody knows and loves, but I'm sitting on my couch. If you're watching this on YouTube, yes, you can see this, but hold with me here. You know, sometimes you just need a couch work session and that's where I was today when I got super.

inspired to record this and so I was just gonna record it right here on my couch in my sweats and that's what we're gonna do. And this episode is airing on my birthday so it's my birthday I can do what I want right? But that's not really all that important. What's important is what we're talking about today which is trends, tactics, and tools that work on social media. Listen, if you've ever felt like you're drowning in a sea of hacks, tips, you should try this.

posts, you probably are. Doom is crawling is real. And in the chaos of 2025, along with all the business tips and hacks and tricks and coaches you're probably following, you're also in swimming in the sea of politics, noise, and the dumpster fire that is this year. And it can feel impossible to keep up. We've talked about this before on the podcast, like our brains were not really designed to go from

Reels that make us laugh, funny memes, videos of dogs, pictures of our friends' kids, then business advice and personal development and politics and tragedies. It's a lot. But I'm not talking about all of those things today. What I am talking about is the fact that you don't have to chase every hack to make social media work for your business. And today I'm actually going to show you how to think about

trends, tactics, and tools in a way that actually feels good. And a few of the trends, tactics, and tools that are working right now because I'm gonna save you the time suck of scrolling for gimmicky hacks that might just leave you exhausted. Side note, if you hear a squeak in the background, my dog just decided he wanted to play with his toy. He's been quiet all morning, but now that I'm recording a podcast, he's gonna do that. Anyway.

Ruthie Sterrett (02:22.154)

Back to hacks and trends. A lot of the time that hack and trend type content quote unquote works is because it's short, snappy, and it gives you a dopamine hit. And the algorithm knows this. It pushes out the stuff that people engage with fast. That's why you see the same audio or the same format show up again and again. And as a marketer,

who studies this stuff, sees this stuff, understands how it works, why it works. I get kind of over it sometimes. I'm over the hacks that promise the world and deliver nothing. I am over the sizzle without the steak. Like that's a marketing phrase or a term in the marketing world of like sell the sizzle, not the steak. But how about you sell both? Because I don't want sizzle that doesn't actually deliver steak.

And a lot of those like trendy accounts that you see, their stake actually sucks. Their sizzle's really good. But as a marketer who cares deeply about my clients' brands, my clients' solutions, and the way they help people, I refuse to recommend tactics just because they are selling the sizzle, especially if there's no stake. And at the end of the day, trends are not magic.

There is no magic, is no silver bullet, there is no quick fix. But trends can be amplifiers. They get your content in front of people because the algorithm recognizes the format of the audio or the format of the video and like the style and the way it's filmed or the format and framework of the words. The audience or the algorithm recognizes it as something that people are engaging with.

So then it pushes out more content that is the same because the algorithm needs to push content people engage with and that's how a trend becomes a trend. But the trend only matters for your business and mine if the message behind it is worth amplifying because you and me, we care about people, we care about our message landing and hitting in front of the right people.

Ruthie Sterrett (04:40.76)

And that's why when I suggest a trend to a client, I come back to the strategy of what is the job of this post? Are we focusing on awareness? Do we need some awareness top of funnel content? Are we focusing on engagement? Maybe we are needing some nurture content or we're needing some engagement because our platform has gotten a little quiet. Are we driving to the next step in the customer journey with this trend?

And if the trend can't really do that job and it doesn't feel good for you, we skip it. That's fine. You don't have to jump on every single trend. And there are times that I am going to recommend trends to clients and they're like, Ruthie, I don't know about this. But when we break it down and we talk about why this trend is working, how I think it can work for your content and your audience, often my clients are like, okay, I get it. Let's give it a try. And the times that they say, this one is not for me. Okay, we skip it.

We don't have to do every single trend. So let's talk about tools that actually make using or following and finding trends easier. First of all, I have to give a shout out to Shannon McKinstry. She is an OG Instagram influencer, been in the game for years. I followed her for years and I am actually a member of her Reels lab where every single week she gives you trends to try. Trending audio, trending formats.

She also does this right in her Instagram. So give her a follow and like shout out over here, community and collaboration over competition. She's an Instagram teacher. I help people with Instagram, but I'm telling you also follow her. I love her content and she does a great job of teaching trends. Second, don't underestimate Instagram itself. The little arrow on the audio of the reels you're watching will show you if an, a

audio is trending or not. Also, if you see something in your feed a few times, it's probably a trend and you can jump on it. There's also a way to go in the reels or not the audio, like when you're creating a reel, you can go to select a song and you can slide over to trending and it literally shows you a list of trending audios so you can try it. And when you click on an audio,

Ruthie Sterrett (07:03.286)

You can see other Reels that have used it so you can see how other people are using that audio. Now again, you don't have time to keep up with all this. Shannon's work membership Reels lab is great. Or hey, you know where to find me. We can do it for you. But here's a quick side note. I want to discuss about a way that you think it might be easier to follow trends and that is using chat GPT.

I love AI for a lot of things. love creating custom GBTs. I love collaborating with AI for ideas, but AI is not great at finding trends because the models are not always updated in real time. They can't hear audio and watch videos on Instagram. And so when they tell you what's trending, often they're like,

pulling generic advice from articles or blog posts or content on the internet that's a little bit dated or they've kind of like, I don't know, repackaged it so it's really generic. Like find a trending audio that sounds like this, but it's not an actual audio that you can find. So finding trends on ChatGBT is probably not the way to go. What you could do is take the trend, explain it to ChatGBT.

and then ask it for a way to help you brainstorm with how to apply it for your business. And so that's one way that you can use ChatGPT, but you definitely cannot find trends using it. And here's another thing that a lot of people get wrong. They chase the trend just for the sake of visibility. But what happens if you do go viral and you don't have a plan or a full funnel strategy behind it?

You get eyeballs, but no impact. So instead we want to ask ourselves, is this trend helping me attract followers, like the right audience? Is it deepening engagement with my current audience? Is it going to help me point people to the next step in the funnel? So give every trend a job. And it's okay if that job is just a boost in engagement or a boost in visibility. That's okay too. But

Ruthie Sterrett (09:24.94)

Remember, if that's the trend or that post's job, we're not asking it to sell for you. We need different posts doing different jobs, okay? And finally, one thing that I want to, like a myth I'd like to bust about trends, is you don't have to jump on them immediately. Yes, it's cool to catch a trend early. It's awesome to be an early adopter and one of the first people that hops on it, but it's actually not critical. And if...

you see a trend and you incorporate it into your content calendar a month, six weeks from now, nobody is gonna say, gosh, she's so behind the times, that trend was forever ago, I can't believe she just posted it now. No, nobody cares, nobody thinks that, okay? The point is you're still feeding the algorithm content formats that it knows people like. So even if the trend has cooled off or is kind of on the downswing,

It's okay. And I've seen trends actually really pop and then two, three months later kind of pop up again and they're cyclical. So again, if you like the format, if it's fun for you, if it makes sense for you, hop on it. If you're an early adopter and you're like, that really worked really well and you see the trend come back around, guess what? Post it again. Yeah, you can repurpose your own content.

because let's work smarter and not harder. And we do know people like content that feels familiar. Do you remember over the summer the trending audio about do you have any kids? If you didn't see it, like quick recap, it was this guy who takes conversations from Tinder and he turns them into songs and it's hilarious. But he's like singing this song about do you have any kids? And then the second person,

quote unquote person, it's just him dressed up as another person, says like, yes, I have one daughter. And then him, the guy says something about like, do all your kids have the same baby daddy or something like that. And she's like, but I only have one kid. And it's very catchy. And there's a spot in the middle of the song where it's like in the conversation on Tinder, it's like dot, dot, dot. And he like sings ellipses. I can't believe I just tried to sing for you. I'm sorry about that.

Ruthie Sterrett (11:52.974)

But the point is that was trending over the summer. That song was in everybody's brain and the algorithm was like pumping out content for people who were jumping on that trend and using it. And then here we are in fall and I'm seeing it come back around because people still enjoy it. And it even brings back a little hit of nostalgia. I'll even see this with audios that were trending like

a years ago, like every once in a we'll just have another spike where they come back around. But the takeaway here is don't stress about being first, don't stress about using it at the right time, focus on using trends in ways that make sense for your brand at a pace that actually works for you. And sometimes what your audience is craving and what you are craving is not just hacks that

give the algorithm a boost, but actual connection. And that's why actually I want to invite you to our social media mixer. I started this networking group as a way for founders of brands who serve moms to come together, connect, cheer each other on, and learn a few things about the tips, trends, or the tools, trends, and tactics working on social media right now. It's part workshop, part speed networking.

real conversations and connection even over a Zoom call beats doom scrolling. I'm being honest here. trends, tactics and tools, they're out there and they can help. And you don't have to follow Instagram 24 seven. You don't have to doom scroll all the time just to learn what's current right now, but you should use them because they do help in giving you a boost.

on social media and remember people are on social media. So it is helpful for your business to be on social media and it's one of many containers that we can use to connect with our ideal audience. But your brand, your business goals, that's what's steering the ship. If you're listening to this podcast, you're probably not a influencer or a full-time content creator.

Ruthie Sterrett (14:15.244)

So trends are like the seasoning, they're like the dessert, they're like the special treat in your content. They don't have to be the main course. So if you want to go deeper on trends, tools, and tactics that are working right now, come to our next social media mixer. It is linked in the show notes and we'll share what's current. And you can also connect with other amazing founders and give you a space to just feel a whole lot better than an hour of doom scrolling.

Because I can tell you from personal experience, while it might sound fun to sit down and scroll for an hour, and it is fun in the moment, it's kind of like eating a whole box of munchkins from Dunkin' Donuts. It feels good in the moment. We don't feel so good when we're done. We need to stick to moderation with both our donuts and our social media, to be honest. So.

I appreciate you being here, my friend. Be sure to follow along over on Instagram. Every so often I do share in stories a trend that's working with my hot take on why it's working. And of course, like I said, we talk about this in the social media mixer. So I'd love to see you at the next one. And we'll connect again in our next episode.