SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS SEPTEMBER 2026

Niels van der Veen
The art of curation

The what edit
Concept
The What Edit turns personal favorites into a curated visual collection. Books, beauty products, movies, outfits, music, places… anything can be part of the edit. The images are often simple and spontaneous, but are brought together through consistent design and clear categories to create something that almost feels like a personal magazine spread.
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Why It Works
We’re seeing more and more content centered on taste rather than trends. It’s not just what someone recommends that’s interesting, but especially the combination of choices that reveals something about their style, personality, or worldview.
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How Brands Can Use This
Great for product recommendations, seasonal edits, team favorites, gift guides, or curated product selections.

Living moodboards
Concept
Moving Moodboards combine spontaneous videos with small visual references that share the same colors, shapes, textures, or atmosphere.
The connection doesn’t have to be literal—it’s mainly about the feeling the images evoke together. This turns a simple video into a small collection of visual inspiration.
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Why It Works
The aesthetic feels very curated without being too polished. The format shows that inspiration can be found anywhere and transforms ordinary moments into something that feels almost artistic.
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How Brands Can Use This
Perfect for campaign teasers, new collections, brand worlds, seasonal launches, or to showcase the inspiration behind a product.

Editorial split
Concept
A reel that feels more like a moving editorial. Video, photography, and typography are combined into a single curated composition in which it is not a single element, but the overall aesthetic that tells the story.
The use of individual words, in particular, makes this format interesting. Instead of displaying a complete message literally on the screen, words are scattered across the frame. As a viewer, you have to take a moment to look, read, and piece the different elements together yourself.
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Why It Works
It feels less like traditional social media content and more like a digital magazine spread in motion. The combination of different media makes it visually rich, while the minimalist design keeps the overall look calm.
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How Brands Can Use This
Ideal for brand storytelling, campaign messaging, manifestos, product stories, or awareness content with a more editorial feel.

Interactive typography
Concept
The classic travel recap gets a graphic twist. A single word serves as the visual thread running through the entire video. The letters remain on screen, but one letter at a time is replaced by a person, object, or detail from the footage.
The result is a playful combination of typography and real-life footage.
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Why It Works
We see recap videos everywhere, but a strong visual concept makes all the difference. The word ties together separate clips and keeps you curious about how the next letter will be incorporated into the scene.
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How Brands Can Use This
Ideal for event recaps, travel content, pop-ups, brand activations, or launch events.
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Collecting colors
Concept
Color inspiration doesn’t have to come from a Pantone swatch. This trend literally seeks out colors in everyday life: the purple of a flower, the orange of a bench, or the bright pink of a building facade.
Next to each image appears a color swatch that matches the shade found as closely as possible. Image by image, a color palette collected from real life takes shape.
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Why It Works
It aligns perfectly with the broader shift toward content centered on observing, collecting, and curating. Small details you might normally overlook suddenly become the focus of the content. Simple, satisfying, and very aesthetic.
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How Brands Can Use This
Great for product launches, new colorways, seasonal collections, packaging reveals, or content centered on your brand colors.
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Still vs. moving frame
Concept
A photo captures a single moment, while video tells the story of what’s happening around that moment. In this trend, the two are deliberately juxtaposed: a carefully chosen still from a video is combined with the moving image from which that photo was taken. Cinematic meets the editorial aesthetic.
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Why It Works
The still allows you to linger longer on composition, color, and detail, while the video immediately adds atmosphere and movement. Together, they make even the most ordinary moments interesting to watch.
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How Brands Can Use This
Ideal for product launches, campaign reveals, behind-the-scenes content, or to breathe new life into hero visuals.




