07 Aug Eye-Catching Social Media Content We Love: August 2023

Posted at 08:59h in Content Creation by
If there’s anything that can be said about social media, it’s that it’s constantly changing. Platforms evolve, trends shift, and character counts increase. It can be a struggle to incorporate fresh ideas and figure out how to innovate. That’s why we’re here to help spark social media creativity. We’ve compiled a list of some of our favorite content from the past month. Hopefully, this will help you jumpstart some ideas and give you a little creative inspiration. Our video will help walk you through the visuals, but if you prefer to read along, we’ve summarized the highlights of the discussion below.

7 of our Favorite Creative Social Media Trends of August 2023

Here is a list of 7 of our favorite social media posts we saw in the past month.

1. Simple Green Screen Trends

First up, we love this creative post from Crumbl Cookies.
This fun X-Ray box visual trick shows off their latest flavor launch in an eye-catching way instead of doing a hype reel or something simpler to promote their new flavor. At first glance, this post looks like it is challenging and probably requires special equipment. But when we break it down, this effect is simple for anyone to do in CapCut. You will need a tripod and two phones. Set up the tripod to get a stable, top-down shot. Then, pull up a green screen or Chroma Key Green on your phone. Make sure there is no glare on your screen and then wave it around above your object. Next, record just the object. In CapCut, you can stack the videos on each other and use the cutout function to pop the object onto your greenscreen. And that’s it. This is an easy, low-budget way to get these cool visual effects that will get people to stop scrolling on social media and engage with your content.

2. Remixed Content for Different Platforms

Sticking with the cookie theme, another post we loved this month is Meijer’s viral s’mores cookie recipe. Not only is it a fun, shareable post, the recipe uses all of their own products so they cleverly included a bit.ly link that directs you to how you can buy the ingredients in your local store. Another great thing about this post is that they repurposed their content for different platforms. On Facebook, they used a static post with photos showing the steps to make the recipe. On Instagram, they made a Reel with a trending audio to show the recipe with some more fun energy. They could take this further and use some short clips from the Reel on their own, like pulling the cookie apart, to further remix this into more posts.
 
View this post on Instagram
 

A post shared by Meijer (@meijerstores)

Sometimes, creating fun, dynamic content is about how to take the same concept and shoot it differently. You don’t always have to come up with completely unique ideas.

3. Continuous Carousel Trends

This Indy Car post is a great example of a continuous carousel.
Carousels are often a bunch of individual images that can stand alone. With a continuous carousel, the images all build off each other so it is like you are scrolling through a mini webpage rather than just flipping through photos. This continuous carousel is a great way to present a lot of information and text in a fun way. Instead of listing a bunch of facts in the caption or in one busy infographic, they did a great job of incorporating a bunch of information directly in the images. That makes it easy and fun to read and engage with. This post has five frames, which is in our recommended range of three to six frames per carousel.

4. Barbie Trends

Barbie is taking over everything, and this Barbie-themed M&Ms post is perfect. First, the photography is beautifully staged and the colors are clearly Barbie. The mix of M&Ms, popcorn, and movie night is the perfect, relatable combo that we all love. The Barbie trend is everywhere right now, so it is super easy for smaller brands to hop on this trend — even if you aren’t directly affiliated with Barbie or don’t have a large budget. People will instantly recognize your post as Barbie if you use shades of pink and bright, fun staging. Of course, it is important not to tag Barbie, Mattel, or anything else you don’t have an official partnership with and never violate copyright laws. But if there is a natural connection between your brand and Barbie, these subtle posts can be a great way to capitalize on a trend while it is hot, even with a small budget.

5. Positivity Trends

This next post from Mosaic is great example of how brands can make content that simply has a nice, positive message and doesn’t directly promote product.
View this post on Instagram

A post shared by MOSAIC (@mosaic)

Positivity is trending right now, and people are more likely to share and tag friends in messages that make them feel good and smile. You can incorporate subtle branding, but social media posts don’t need to have product front and center all the time to create brand recognition. This post also does a great job with the concept of “simple complexity,” making it easy for other creators to emulate. It comprises simple shots of people holding a coffee cup with different backgrounds. The photos stack on each other to some music and the video slowly zooms in to draw the viewer in. You could use some Canva templates and editing tools to recreate something like this if you don’t have access to the entire Adobe Suite or advanced designer skills.

6. Meme trends

Livingston Parish Sherriff’s office did a great job with this post, taking a serious, routine subject and making it fun and sharable. They found the perfect balance and people had a great time engaging in the comments by adding their own take on it. This type of post is super accessible for other brands, because it is easy to create without using too many assets or design skills. It uses some simple clip art and some text, but the impact is huge. Other brands could create something fun like this by doing an audience breakdown or personality quiz-type post for their audience or customers.

7. Blur Trends

This trend has been going on Instagram for a while and it is still circulating. It grabs your attention by mimicking the explicit content blur effect that social media platforms use to hide certain posts. Then, viewers can swipe to see your images. This trend can be a little controversial because it looks like a warning for inappropriate content, but it certainly grabs your attention. There is great opportunity to use this to your advantage and play it up with the copy. For example, you can include warnings that say its blurred because of how delicious or amazing your product is. Remain professional but have some fun and capture people’s attention. It is also a pretty simple to design create with some Canva templates and text editing.

Content We Love: August Takeaways

We had a great time making this list of content we’ve seen over the last 4 weeks. It gave us a lot of great, new social media trends to try, and our creative juices are flowing. We hope yours are as well.