This is the bit we somehow keep getting backwards.

Something unusual performs ridiculously well on Instagram and our immediate response is to make it… usual.

So if you’re wondering whether you should copy viral Instagram trends for your business, I’d swap the question. Before you copy anything, work out WHY it worked. Because if a post did well for being different, copying what it looked like takes away the exact thing that made it different in the first place.

Why do we copy viral Instagram trends?

Someone posts a horizontal video and it takes off. Okay everyoneeee, HORIZONTAL REELS ARE WORKING.

Someone films an unedited video in their car and suddenly we’re all one cream leather upholstered car interior away from fixing our engagement.

A carousel with tiny handwriting does well. Quick, where is the handwriting font from? (Use your own. Always use your own.)

Someone stops using hooks. Hooks are dead. Bryan says hashtags are back…

Bryan, please.

I get why we do it. When your numbers are flat and you’ve got about 20 minutes before school pickup, seeing something work for someone else feels like a shortcut. Here’s proof, here’s the format, I’ll just do that.

And we’re VERY good at spotting the visible thing that was different. The angle, the font, the car, the lack of editing. We can see it in about three seconds.

We’re much worse at asking why being different mattered at all.

Why does copying a viral trend stop working?

If something worked because it interrupted what us scroll-dependent humans had become used to seeing, copying it removes the bloody interruption.

Think about it from the other side of the phone. You’re scrolling through 40 reels that all look the same, and then one is horizontal. Your brain goes “wait, what’s that?” for half a second. That half second is the whole point.

Now imagine the next week, 300 accounts in your niche post horizontal videos. Your brain stops going “wait, what’s that?” by about the fourth one. The thing that interrupted the pattern has become the pattern.

And the more efficiently everyone copies it, the faster that happens.

That’s why trends burn out so quickly. It usually has very little to do with the algorithm “changing.” We all ran towards the same door at the same time and now it’s just another wall.

And whoever posted the original? They’ve usually moved on to the next weird idea by the time the rest of us have found the right car upholstery.

How do I work out why a post went viral?

Look, I’m not saying you shouldn’t learn from what works. I absolutely freaking do. I study posts that perform well all the time.

But I’m much more interested in understanding WHAT happened than turning what it looked like into a fill-in-the-blanks template.

So when something does really well, mine or someone else’s, I ask questions like these:

Was it visually unexpected? Did the person say something everyone else avoids facing? Was the pacing completely different from everything around it? Did it feel strangely human next to the other 12 beautifully edited videos with the butter yellow font? Did the format make the idea easier for someone to see themselves in?

Those answers give me something I can actually use.

“Jo got 2 million views filming horizontally” gives me a rectangle 😂

A quick example. Say a carousel written in someone’s messy handwriting goes off. The copy-paste response is to go find a handwriting font. The more useful response is to ask what the handwriting did. Maybe it made the post feel like a note from a friend instead of an ad. Maybe it slowed people down because they had to actually read it.

If the answer is “it felt personal,” go looking for what personal means for YOU. Maybe that’s writing the way you talk, or showing your real notes, or saying the slightly uncomfortable thing your competitors keep politely avoiding. Your version of “personal” will look completely different from hers. Which is the whole point.

Are Instagram trends worth using for business at all?

Sometimes, yes. A trending audio or format can be a perfectly good vehicle for an idea you actually have. I’m not the trend police.

The problem is when the trend is the idea. When you start with “horizontal reels are working, what can I film horizontally?” instead of “what do I want my people to understand this week, and what’s the clearest way to show it?”

One of those builds a business. The other builds a very tired person who’s chasing the next format every Monday morning and wondering why none of it adds up to clients.

And honestly, from a business point of view, a trend can get you views from people who were there for the trend, not for you. They watched because it looked like the other thing they liked. That still counts for something. They’re just less likely to remember your name when they need what you sell.

Why does this matter even more now?

Because it is SO easy to replicate what we see. People have Claude building entire products from what they’ve seen online as we speak.

We can grab the hook. The format. The pacing. The editing. The font. The camera angle. Probably the bloody picture on the wall behind them, if we search Amazon long enough.

Copying has never been cheaper or faster. Which means the copies arrive faster, and the thing that stood out stops standing out faster too.

The part nobody can copy is you. Your opinions, the things you’ve noticed from years of doing your job, the way you explain something, the stories from your actual week. That’s the one pattern interrupt that doesn’t wear out, because nobody else can post it.

What to do next time a trend catches your eye

• Save the post, but don’t copy it yet. Give it a day.
• Write down what’s visibly different about it (format, font, setting, length).
• Then write down what you think that difference DID for the viewer. Did it surprise them? Slow them down?
• Ask whether that effect is something your audience needs from you right now.
• If it is, find your own way to create that effect, in your own voice and with your own stories.
• If it isn’t, let it go. Not every viral post is a lesson for your business.

I don’t particularly want your version of someone else’s pattern interrupt. I’d much rather find out what happens when YOU are the thing people didn’t see coming.

What if you let yourself find that out?

Want to make carousels that don’t look like everyone else’s?

Carousels are one of the easiest places to fall into copying. Same templates, same fonts, same cover structure on every second post in your feed. Carousels brought me 40K new followers in 8 months, so I’ve spent a LOT of time working out what makes one actually work.

The Carousel Studio is a self-paced course with 29 lessons on hooks, slide structure and design, so you understand why a carousel works and can build your own instead of filling in someone else’s template. Lifetime access, at your pace.

If that’s what you’ve been missing, have a look at The Carousel Studio.