A funny phrase on TikTok can be more than just something people laugh at and scroll past.
For business owners, creators, and print-on-demand sellers, a trend can become a real product idea in minutes.
When you spot a phrase, inside joke, meme, or viral moment that people are already reacting to, you can turn that attention into a t-shirt, hoodie, mug, tote bag, or digital design.
The key is moving quickly: create the design, place it on a mockup, publish it through a print-on-demand platform like Printify, and start sharing it while the trend is still fresh.
A Word About Trends...
While trends are great and they can spark a quick jump in your income, you don't want your entire business to rely on trends. Relying totally on trends might be a little chaotic because truthfully, some of your content will land, and some may fall flat. And the big thing is that trends come and go.
The best way to use trends is to select a niche, post consistently about your niche topic, and use trends that apply to your niche.
For example, the trend to product video we created (below) uses a popular trend (FRFR) and ties it in to the food (pizza) niche.
That way, you keep the algorithm happy and it provides a boost that ties in with your primary line of business.
The Step by Step Process for Tik Tok
You do not need inventory, a warehouse, or advanced design skills — you need a good eye for what people are talking about and the willingness to take action before the moment passes.
This is basically how it's done!
Step one: I open TikTok and look at what's trending right now — a phrase, a meme, an inside joke everyone's using.
Step two: I create a design from that text. There are a number of applications you can use to create a design, Canva, Artistly, and even your favorite AI tools.
I pop that design onto a simple mockup, nothing fancy, just clean and readable.
Step three: I upload my text design into Printify, pick a product — shirt, mug, hoodie, whatever fits. Once my product is created, it is uploaded straight to TikTok.
I can also upload my product to Etsy, Beacons, Shopify, Woocommerce and more eCommerce platforms for extra exposure.
Step four: I post a video to YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook Stories and Threads using that same trend, and the product is right there, ready to buy, in my link in bio.
The entire thing — design to live listing — takes me under fift.een minutes, (the first time you do it, it may take longer, but you'll get faster with templates and systems) and I never touch inventory, never pay for printing upfront, never ship a single box myself.
If a trend is hot at 9:00 am, my product can be live by 9:15 a.m. This is the basic process, however the detailed SOP and resource documents lay out a
step by step, repeatable process and workflow you can use to promote the trends people are looking for.
You Don't Need to Be Big Time to build a merch or gift brand
Can we talk about this myth that you need to be some big influencer with a perfect personal brand to sell products online? Not true.
Some of the highest-converting shops right now are completely faceless — no influencer, no "come follow my journey," just smart designs and good timing.
I use Printify to put trending ideas onto real products, and I never once had to film my face doing it.
The brands doing this well right now aren't winning because they're famous, they're winning because they move fast on what people already want.
So if you've been holding off on starting a shop because you don't want to be "the face" of a brand, hear me — you don't have to be. You just have to be paying attention.
The Content Creation Tools We Use
Want to try this yourself? Our Tik Tok Trend to Product Kit walks you straight to our favorite tools and resources. These tools give us an organized, repeatable workflow that enables us take a hot trend, and turn it into a product quickly.
What Are Faceless Videos and How do they Help?
I attribute much of my success in sales, to marketing and promotion through videos.
Videos are unbeatable when it comes to promoting your products and services. To take it a step further, I use faceless videos.
Faceless videos are short, engaging videos that promote a message, product, or idea without requiring the creator to appear on camera.
Instead of showing your face, you use product mockups, lifestyle images, hands-only clips, text overlays, trending sounds, screen recordings, voiceovers, or AI-generated visuals to tell the story.
For merch, gifts, and products, faceless videos work especially well because they keep the focus on the item, the feeling behind it, and the reason someone would want to buy it.
My Honest Approach to Using AI in Business
As AI enters the stage, there are challenges as well as opportunities. My take is that while I have mixed feelings about it in my personal life, AI makes my life as a business owner easier, more productive and therefore more profitable.
We have a few faceless videos in this post as an example. These videos are the portrait, AI generated videos that we've posted to YouTube, Pinterest, Tik Tok and Facebook.
We used our designs, ideas and AI to quickly generate great looking images, create the video scripts and ultimately make the videos.
This is one of the many ways we use AI to boost our business without spending hours creating content.
Video marketing with AI gives us lots of exposure for our brand without having to spend all day coming up with what to say.
We use it to get ideas quickly that we can put into action, while the trend is hot. We don't have to put on make up, do our hair or look perfect to make a video.
We discussed both sides of AI in in a recent post. It's important to let you audience know when you're using AI to promote your business.
The key is moving quickly: create the design, place it on a mockup, publish it through a print-on-demand platform like Printify, and start sharing it while the trend is still fresh.
You do not need inventory, a warehouse, or advanced design skills — you need a good eye for what people are talking about and the willingness to take action before the moment passes.
