Are Viral Baking Trends Worth Chasing? (Or Should You Ignore the Dot Cake Hype?)

Maybe by the time you're reading this, you're wondering what on earth a dot cake is.

For a few glorious weeks, social media seemed to decide that what the world really needed was an ice cream tub filled with cake, topped with a frankly irresponsible amount of buttercream and enough tiny brightly coloured nonpareils (tiny round sprinkles) to keep your dentist comfortably employed for years.

Then, almost as quickly as they arrived, they disappeared again.

The internet moved on.

Normal people quietly went back to eating cupcakes with sprinkles like nothing had ever happened.

And that's exactly why I think viral baking trends are fascinating.

The problem with viral baking trends

One of the biggest challenges for a small baking business is working out whether something is a genuine customer trend or simply an internet trend.

As bakers, we're surrounded by baking content.

We watch tutorials.

We save inspiration posts.

We follow other bakers.

We spend far more time looking at cakes than the average person.

Before long, it can start to feel as though everyone is desperate to buy the latest trending bake.

The reality is that our customers may be living in a completely different online world.

The algorithm is not your customer

My own cake shed serves a village community.

In fact, the next village along, Coalpit Heath, regularly appears in statistics about having one of the oldest average age populations in the country.

That doesn't mean people of a certain age don't enjoy trying something new.

And who am I to judge anybody's doom scroll? They might all be secretly watching dot cake videos while I'm asleep.

But their social media feeds are probably very different from mine.

They might be seeing gardening tips, holidays, local history groups or pictures of the grandchildren.

They may never have heard of the latest viral baking trend.

Or they may have seen it and thought exactly what I did:

"Isn't that just a cupcake in a pot?"

Personally, I've never really understood the appeal of nonpareils.

They're very pretty, but they also seem to have been specifically designed to lodge themselves between your teeth.

That doesn't mean dot cakes are a bad idea.

It just means I shouldn't assume that because social media is obsessed with something, my own customers will be too.

Baking burnout and the pressure to keep up

I see a lot of bakers feeling exhausted.

Every week there seems to be another must-have product.

Another trending bake.

Another viral recipe.

Another thing that apparently every successful bakery should be selling.

It's easy to fall into the trap of believing that if your menu doesn't change constantly, you'll get left behind.

That's one of the reasons baking burnout is so common.

Trying to keep up with the algorithm is a full-time job.

Most of us already have one of those.

What if your customers want something completely different?

The funny thing is that some of my own best feedback has come from products that would never break the internet.

A good lemon crumble bar.

A classic brownie.

Traditional bakes that don't look particularly glamorous but taste exactly as people hoped they would.

At the moment I'm also testing a blackcurrant crumble bar.

Will it become a bestseller?

I have absolutely no idea.

Everyone seems to love Ribena, so why not blackcurrants in cake?

Perhaps my customers will agree.

Perhaps they'll hate it.

The important thing is that I don't have to guess.

Stop guessing and start understanding your customers

One of the best bakery marketing ideas isn't actually marketing at all.

It's listening.

Instead of asking:

"What's trending this week?"

perhaps we should ask:

"What do my customers actually enjoy?"

That might mean:

• trying one new product,

• asking for honest feedback,

• running a small tasting event,

• seeing what people come back for,

• paying attention to conversations instead of just sales figures.

  
  

That's not just good bakery customer research.

It's a much less stressful way to run a business.

Viral baking trends come and go

By the time this blog is a few months old, there will probably be another trend.

The dot cake will be replaced by something else.

The internet will move on.

It always does.

The customers in your local community might not.

The person who buys a brownie every Friday.

The family that always chooses the same cupcakes.

The regular who drives out of their way because they know they like what you make.

They're the people who keep a small baking business going.

So yes, enjoy the trends.

Play with them.

Experiment.

Have fun.

But don't assume that because something had fifteen minutes in the sun online, your customers are waiting for it too.

The algorithm is not your customer.

Understanding your customers will always be the better long-term strategy.

If you're a cake shed owner or small baking business and you've ever found yourself wondering, "Why did nobody buy that?", perhaps the answer isn't to chase the next trend. Perhaps it's to ask your customers what they actually want.

And if you need help figuring out how to start understanding your customers, join my workshop "Why Isn't Anyone Buying?" and learn about "The Honesty Box Paradox"

Who needs cake and buttercream?