Social media platforms tell us everything we need to know about today’s world. A viral challenge or trend is a perfect wave of creativity and community. It’s a cultural force that can bring together millions, but when understood, can also be leveraged by brands and creators to achieve explosive growth. In this blog, we’ll look at the what, the why, and the how of social media challenges.

What Is a Social Media Challenge?

At its heart, social media challenges are user-generated content (UGC) campaigns with a specific set of instructions. It helps both a talent management agency and a user to share their own version of an action, a dance, a drawing, or something creative. While there are various challenges all over the internet, they all share three things in common.

• Clear Call-to-Action: The instructions are simple and easily understood (Ex: “Pour a bucket of ice water over your head,” or “Do this specific dance”).
• Challenge Hashtag: A specific, memorable hashtag (e.g., #MannequinChallenge) acts as a digital gathering place, bringing together all the entries and creating a sense of a huge collective experience.
• Shareability Aspect: The act is designed to be performed, recorded, and shared publicly, often tagging friends to continue the chain. If the content is received well and is entertaining, it will reach a large audience very quickly.

The Psychology of Participation

Understanding why social media challenges go viral means understanding human nature. Let us see why creators and non-creators want to get involved in social media trends.

• Community and Belonging: Challenges create some sort of inclusiveness. Participating is a way of raising your hand and saying, “I’m part of this too.” It basically acts as a solution for the digital isolation we all face.
• Social Proof: When we see our friends, family, and favorite creators all doing something, FOMO kicks in (The fear of missing out). It creates a sense of cultural urgency.
• Entertainment and Escapism: In a world that values working until you are exhausted, the simple, often silly, nature of social media challenges provides a dose of fun.
• Skill Display: More than having a fun time, challenges provide a stage for people to showcase their talents, whether it’s a difficult dance move, a clever skit, or a creative artistic interpretation of something.
• The Real Purpose: The most powerful challenges, like the #IceBucketChallenge (which raised over $115 million for ALS research), are tied to noble causes, allowing participation to not only feel fun but become meaningful as well.

How Brands Can Engineer a Successful Challenge

A branded challenge that takes off successfully is a marketing holy grail. It transforms your customers into an army of brand ambassadors. But of course, just like deciding which social media platform is best for influencer marketing, this requires careful planning too.

• Define a Clear Business Goal: What do you want to achieve? Brand awareness? Do you want to promote something or just drive user-generated content? Your goal will define the entire structure
• Lower the Barrier to Entry: The best challenges are those that are accessible. It doesn’t require a professional skill or an expensive product. The more within reach the trend, the more people will participate.
• Create a Memorable Hashtag: It should be unique, short, and easy to spell. The #Icebucket is a perfect example of a hashtag that is easy for people to remember.
• Seed it with the Right Influencers: The launch is critical. Partner with a diverse group of creators who can kickstart the trend and give it momentum initially. Their followers are the early participants who will carry it to the masses.
• Prized Participation: Offer a nice prize for the best entries. This could be a cash prize, a feature on your official page, or a month’s supply of your product. This increases the participation.
• Amplifying User-Generated Content (UGC): The golden rule is to celebrate your community. Feature the best, funniest, and most creative entries on your own social media channels. This encourages more people to participate for a chance to be featured.

The Strategic Challenge Framework

Not all challenges are created equal. To make a strategic decision as a brand or creator, you need to understand why challenges fall under two different spectrums. This framework helps your ultimate goal.

• The Mimicking Challenges: This is the first one and has an extremely low barrier to entry. They are based on copying a simple action. Examples could be doing a lip-sync to an audio, using a new Instagram filter, or doing a very simple dance.
• The Goal: To achieve the broadest possible reach and massive participation numbers. These social media challenges are easy to join and easy to share.
• Strategic Use (For Brands): Perfect for mass-market brand awareness campaigns where the goal is simply to get the brand name and hashtag in front of millions of eyes.
• Strategic Use (For Creators): A great way to quickly tap into a massive trend and potentially have a single video of yours reach a huge, new audience and increase your viewer count.
• Mastery Challenges: This is the second type, and these require a specific skill, creativity, or effort. The barrier to entry is higher. Examples include things like complex choreography, trick shots like the bottle flip challenge, makeup transformations, or artistic challenges.
• The Goal: Here, the goal is to generate high-quality, impressive UGC content and build a deeper community around a shared skill or passion.
• Strategic Use (For Brands): This is Ideal for niche brands as they would want to position themselves as experts and showcase the skills of their target audience. Many of these have led to successful brand collaborations.
• Strategic Use (For Creators): A perfect way to showcase your unique expertise in your niche. You won’t get as many participants, but you will attract a more dedicated and relevant following.

The Risks and Responsibilities

A guide to social media challenges would be irresponsible without addressing the significant risks and responsibilities involved. It is the collective responsibility of platforms to moderate dangerous content, for brands to design safe campaigns.

• Dangerous Trends: Some social media challenges have led to serious injuries, property damage. (Ex: the “Tide Pod Challenge,” the “Blackout Challenge”).
• Spread of Misinformation: Challenges can be used to spread false or misleading information under the guise of a harmless trend.
• Brand Safety Risks: For brands, there is always the risk that their hashtag could be hijacked and associated with negative content, creating a crisis in PR.
• Mental Health Consideration: The pressure to perfectly execute a challenge can contribute to anxiety and a trend of constant comparison.

Over The Years: Viral Social Media Challenges

Over the past decade, social media content creators have given rise to some unforgettable challenges. Here are some of them.

• The Ice Bucket Challenge: Participants would dump a bucket of ice-cold water over their heads, post the video, and nominate others to do the same or donate to the ALS Association
• The Mannequin Challenge: A group of people would freeze in place, mid-action, as a camera panned through the scene, often set to the song “Black Beatles” by Rae Sremmurd.
• The In My Feelings Challenge: Also called the “kiki challenge,” participants would get out of a slow-moving car and dance alongside it to a particular part from Drake’s song “In My Feelings.
• The Bottle Cap Challenge: This is a trend that helped users grow on Instagram. Participants would attempt to untwist a bottle cap with a single spin kick or any other move, which was captured in slow motion.
• The Blinding Lights Challenge: A group of people (mostly three) would perform a simple, synchronized dance to The Weeknd’s song “Blinding Lights.”
• The Vogue Challenge: Creators and photographers began creating and sharing their own high-fashion magazine covers, inspired by Vogue, to showcase the beauty and talent.
• The Grateful For Challenge: Users would post a series of photos or videos, often set to sentimental music, showing the people and moments in their lives they are most grateful for.
• The Wes Anderson Challenge: Creators would film a scene from their daily life but shoot and edit it in the highly specific, symmetrical aesthetic of film director Wes Anderson.