Trends: When to Chase Them and When to Forge Your Own Path

The question of trends is a difficult one to answer in business.

Many will tell you that it doesn’t make sense to chase trends, but as ever, it’s difficult to apply this one rule to every situation. There will be times when a trend is something that businesses in your industry are following for good reason and defying that common sense for the sake of it might be damaging.

Understanding what each approach can offer you at different times might help you to adopt a more discerning approach that can be flexibly suited to any given situation.

Public Trends

When it comes to currently viral trends and references, looking too eager to jump on board with these could have a detrimental impact on how audiences perceive your brand. People might think that it looks desperate – too eager to be relevant rather than being confident in what you’ve already established your brand as being.

Memes are a common example of this. While meme marketing is something that you might be familiar with seeing out in the wild, that doesn’t mean that it’s something that you should be doing. It can come across as out of touch to audiences who don’t recognize the meme, and to those who do, it might just feel like an embarrassing attempt to relate to audiences. There might be more to the meme that you’re using than you realize, so careless use of it could be reflecting badly on your message.

Technological Trends

Of course, there might be times when a trend is less of a trend and more of an evolution of relevant technology. When it comes to security, for instance, your business might want to stay one step ahead – regardless of what industry you find yourself in. While your industry might affect the kind of security that you put your full attention towards (whether it be physical or digital) you don’t want to be caught off-guard by the evolution of new threats in that area. If you’re finding that every business in your industry and beyond is interested in the capabilities of MDR technology, it might be in your interest to see what it can do for you – helping to prevent you from being the one business singled out by malicious threats and scams.

Design Trends

When it comes to your website or your app, you might also notice that you’re somewhat at the mercy of modern stylistic or aesthetic trends.

What people think looks good on a website now isn’t the same as it was ten or fifteen years ago, but does that mean that you have to strictly adhere to what else is available? Of course, this aesthetic is going to have elements of your own branding interwoven, making it unique on a certain level. Even then, it might be that there is more room to get creative than you think. Understanding what it is about these popular design trends are appealing to modern audiences can help you to take bits and pieces and leverage them for an individualistic result.