The Trends tab inside the TikTok Creative Center is the rising-pattern surface - trending sounds, hashtags, and creators, ranked by usage and growth, with 7-day and 30-day usage curves on the top entries. For performance teams, it's the highest-signal free trend tool on the internet for TikTok specifically. Used right, it surfaces a rising sound or hashtag 2-3 weeks before saturation, which is enough lead time to ship creative against it while the algorithmic tailwind is still active. Used wrong (sorting by all-time popular instead of rising, ignoring region, treating creator rankings as benchmarks), it just confirms last quarter's meta. This walkthrough is for teams who want to use it right.
Sub-tabs
Songs · Hashtags · Creators · Videos
Refresh cadence
Often daily for sounds and hashtags
Best signal
7-day usage curves on rising entries
Walkthrough
How to use it, step by step
- 1
Open Trends, not Top Ads
From the Creative Center home, Trends sits alongside Inspiration in the main nav. The four sub-tabs are Songs, Hashtags, Creators, and Videos. Songs and Hashtags are where rising-pattern signal lives. Creators is more of a directory than a trend tool. Videos is curated organic content - useful for cultural baseline, weaker for actionable creative input.
Bookmark the Songs sub-tab directly. It's the highest-value surface in the whole Creative Center for trend-spotting and the one you'll open most often. - 2
Set region before reading anything
Like every Creative Center surface, Trends is country-by-country. The default region matches your TikTok For Business account; the in-tool switcher exists but is unreliable. A 'trending sound' in the US is usually different from a 'trending sound' in Indonesia or the UK. Read with your target region pinned; if you manage multi-region, pull each region as a separate session.
- 3
Sort by 'Rising', not 'All-time popular'
The default sort on Songs and Hashtags is sometimes 'Popular' (all-time). That sort is useless for trend-spotting - the top of the list is dominated by sounds that have been trending for months and are already saturated. Switch to the 'Rising' or 'Last 7 days' sort. Now the top entries are sounds with sharp recent growth, which is what you want to ship against.
If a sound has been rising for more than 4 weeks, it's probably past peak. The window you want is sounds that just broke into the top 50. - 4
Read the 7-day and 30-day usage curve
Every top entry on Songs and Hashtags has a usage curve - typically 7-day and 30-day windows. The shape of the curve is the signal. Sharp uptrend, no recent flattening: rising, ship against it. Plateau or slight decline: at peak, marginal value. Sharp recent decline: past peak, skip. The numbers on the y-axis are usage counts; the shape is what matters more than the absolute values.
- 5
Click through to example videos for each rising sound or hashtag
Both Songs and Hashtags expose example videos for each entry. Click through. The example videos show you how creators are actually using the sound or tag - structure, hook, length, visual style. Creator-led content templates consistently outperform studio-led templates on TikTok in 2026, so the example videos are usually the right template to emulate.
Save 3-5 example videos for each rising sound you'll ship against. They are your reference for the production team. - 6
Cross-reference with Top Ads to see if anyone's bidding it yet
Once you've identified a rising sound or hashtag, open Top Ads in the same industry + last 7 days and check whether any advertiser has already started using it. If yes: the trend has crossed into the paid layer; you're behind the early adopters but the trend is validated. If no: you're at the leading edge; ship fast and you're first in your category.
- 7
Use Creators as a watchlist source, not a benchmark
The Creators sub-tab ranks TikTok creators by reach in your category. It's useful for building a watchlist of creators worth following (or partnering with), but it's not a creative benchmark - the top creators are entertainment-first, not brand-first, and their content templates don't always port cleanly to ad creative. Use the Creators tab to find people; use Songs and Hashtags to find patterns.
- 8
Tie Trends back to your weekly creative brief
Trends is only useful if it changes what you ship. Build the weekly habit: every Monday, scan Songs + Hashtags, identify 2-3 rising patterns, write them into Wednesday's creative brief. By Friday, ship variants using the patterns. Sunday review: which shipped variant performed best. This loop is what converts Trends scrolling into ROAS; without it, Trends is just a dashboard you look at.
Cheatsheet
Filters that matter
| Filter | What it does | When to use |
|---|---|---|
| Region | Localizes Trends to a single country. Trending sounds and hashtags differ sharply across regions. | Always set explicitly. Region drift hides the actual trends in your market. |
| Time window (7 / 30 / 120 days) | Restricts the trend ranking to a recent window. 7 days for fresh trend spotting; 30 days for confirmation; 120 days for orientation only. | Default to 7 days for weekly sweep; switch to 30 days when looking for stable patterns. |
| Industry / Category (Hashtags) | Filters trending hashtags by category - Apparel, Beauty, Food, Tech, Education, etc. | Always filter to your category. Cross-category hashtag rankings are dominated by entertainment and useless for brand work. |
| Music type / mood (Songs) | Filters trending sounds by mood and music type - upbeat, calm, dramatic, etc. Available in some regions. | Use to narrow rising sounds to ones that fit your brand voice. Don't ship against a sound that clashes with brand tone just because it's rising. |
| Sort: Rising vs Popular | Switches the ranking between recent growth (Rising) and all-time popularity (Popular). | Always 'Rising' for trend-spotting. 'Popular' is useful only for cultural baseline. |
| Creator follower range (Creators) | Filters creators by follower count - useful for finding mid-tier creators rather than mega-influencers. | Use when building creator partnership lists or finding template references at your scale. |
What it won't tell you
The gaps
Usage curve y-axis is opaque
TikTok shows the shape of the usage curve but the y-axis numbers aren't always cleanly labeled, and the units aren't documented. You can tell whether a sound is rising or declining; you can't easily tell whether it's at 100,000 uses or 10 million. The shape is what matters; treat the absolute numbers as approximate.
Trends data is region-locked
There's no global Trends view. Every region is a separate dataset. Multi-region brands need separate sweeps per region; no consolidated trend feed exists in the tool.
No historical archive of past trends
When a sound or hashtag falls out of the top rankings, it drops from the Trends surface. There's no way to look up 'sounds that were trending in March 2025' for retrospective analysis. Capture snapshots yourself if you want history.
Music licensing for ads is region-and-track specific
Trending sounds in the consumer feed aren't always cleared for paid ad use. The Sound Library inside the Creative Center surfaces a separate set of commercially-licensed sounds; the Trends > Songs surface mixes licensed and unlicensed. Always confirm licensing before shipping a paid ad against a trending track.
Shuttergen
Spot the trend. Ship the variant. Same week.
Trends tells you what's rising. Shuttergen turns rising sounds and hooks into shippable TikTok ad variants the same day - so you're in-market while the trend is still trending.
Why Trends is the most underused surface in TikTok advertising
Most performance teams open the Creative Center and go straight to Top Ads. That's a mistake. Top Ads is reactive - it shows you what already won, two to four weeks ago, after the algorithm picked it up and TikTok's internal composite ranked it. By the time an ad shows up in Top Ads, the underlying trend it's riding is often near peak.
Trends is proactive. The Songs and Hashtags surfaces show you rising patterns in something close to real-time. If a sound is trending up sharply in the last 7 days and nobody in your category has bid it yet, you can ship creative against it the same week and ride the algorithmic tailwind from the early-adopter phase through to peak. That window - early-adopter to peak - is where the highest-ROAS creative on TikTok lives.
The teams that win on TikTok in 2026 build their weekly cadence around Trends. They scan Songs and Hashtags every Monday, identify 2-3 rising patterns, write them into Wednesday's brief, ship by Friday, review on Sunday. The teams that struggle on TikTok skip Trends entirely, copy whatever's already in Top Ads, and arrive at the trend right as it saturates. Same data sources, completely different outcomes.
Reading the Songs sub-tab without being misled
The default sort can lie to you. Depending on region, the default Songs sort is sometimes 'Popular' (all-time), which puts saturated tracks at the top. Switch to 'Rising' or 'Last 7 days' before reading anything. The Rising sort is where the actionable signal lives.
The usage curve shape matters more than the absolute numbers. A sound with a sharp recent uptrend and no flattening is rising. A sound with a plateau or slight decline is at peak. A sound with a sharp recent decline is past peak. Read the shape; treat the numbers as approximate.
Time since first surfaced is the staleness check. If a sound has been on the top-50 Rising list for 4+ weeks, it's probably past peak even if the curve doesn't show it yet - the curve uses recent windows, but the consumer feed has been saturated longer. Cross-check by glancing at the consumer TikTok app and seeing how many videos in your category are already using it.
Licensing for ad use is separate. The Trends > Songs surface mixes commercially-licensed and unlicensed tracks. The Sound Library inside the Creative Center surfaces a separate, ad-cleared set. Always confirm a track is licensed for paid use before shipping; defaulting to the Sound Library's cleared set is the safe path.
Spot the trend. Ship the variant. Same week. Trends tells you what's rising. Shuttergen turns rising sounds and hooks into shippable TikTok ad variants the same day - so you're in-market while the trend is still trending.
Reading the Hashtags sub-tab for category-fit signal
Filter to your category first. The cross-category Hashtags ranking is dominated by entertainment and meme content. Filter to your category - Beauty, Food, Fintech, Apparel, etc. - and the ranking becomes useful for brand work.
Example videos under each tag are the template. Each tag exposes example videos - usually creator-led content using the tag. Watch them. The structure, hook, length, and visual style of the example videos are what you want to emulate in ad creative. Creator-led templates consistently outperform studio-led templates on TikTok in 2026.
Hashtag virality has a different shape than sound virality. Sounds spread through the algorithm; hashtags spread through cultural waves. A trending hashtag often has a longer useful life than a trending sound - 4-6 weeks instead of 2-3. The trade-off is that hashtag fit-to-brand is harder; a sound is just audio, but a hashtag carries cultural baggage that may or may not align with your brand.
Cross-reference with Top Ads. Once you've identified a rising hashtag worth shipping against, check Top Ads in your category + last 7 days. If advertisers have started using the tag, you're behind early adopters but the trend is validated. If not, you're at the leading edge.
The Trends-driven weekly creative cadence
Monday - scan. Twenty minutes. Songs > Rising (7 days). Hashtags > your category > Rising. Identify 2-3 patterns with clear uptrend curves. Save 3-5 example videos for each. Note brand-voice fit, licensing status (for sounds), and category readiness (whether competitors have started using).
Tuesday - decide. Pick the 1-2 patterns you'll ship against this week. Optimize for brand-voice fit over peak heat - a sound that fits your brand and is at 50% of peak usage will outperform a sound that's at 100% peak but feels off-brand.
Wednesday - brief. Write the creative brief. Include the rising-pattern reference (sound or hashtag), the 3-5 example videos as visual template references, the hook archetype, the duration target, and the conversion ask. Pass to the production team.
Thursday - produce. Production turnaround on TikTok creative in 2026 should be measured in hours, not days. Ship 2-3 variants of the brief - one closer to the creator-led example videos, one more brand-led, one experimental.
Friday - launch. Push the variants into Ads Manager. Set 24-72 hour learning budget. Don't pause early.
Sunday - review. Pull the data. Which variant outperformed. Note the variant-level pattern (creator-led vs brand-led, hook length, sound choice). The note becomes input to next Monday's scan - some patterns will keep working, others will saturate, the cadence catches both.
FAQ
Frequently asked
How often does the TikTok Creative Center Trends tab refresh?
Are trending sounds in the Creative Center always licensed for ad use?
How early can the Trends tab spot a rising sound?
What's the difference between 'Rising' and 'Popular' sort on Songs?
Should I trust the Creators sub-tab as a creative benchmark?
Can I see trending sounds for a specific country other than my account region?
How does Trends differ from Top Ads inside the Creative Center?
Related
Keep reading
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Tiktok creative center
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Tiktok creative center ads
Top Ads dashboard in depth.
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Tiktok creative center inspiration
Inspiration tab in depth.
Resource
Tiktok for business creative center
Account setup and access tier.
Research
Tiktok Ad Playbook 2026
The 2026 performance creative playbook for TikTok.
Sources
Spot the trend. Ship the variant. Same week.
Trends tells you what's rising. Shuttergen turns rising sounds and hooks into shippable TikTok ad variants the same day - so you're in-market while the trend is still trending.