If you’re not marketing through Instagram and Instagram Reels, you’re missing out on a massive online audience that could help bring new eyes to your brand. And if you are marketing through Instagram but aren’t using Instagram Reels’ trending audios, then you aren’t getting anywhere close to the most out of your efforts.

When an Instagram Reels user uploads a video with original audio, other users can save that audio and layer it over their Reels. Audio begins trending on Instagram Reels when more and more users start layering that original sound over their Reels content. Some trending audio can reach hundreds of thousands of uses from users worldwide, and the more widespread a trend is, the likelier a video utilizing that trend is to take off in popularity.

In other words, trending audio on Instagram Reels can help your content reach more users than ever. It’s not a cutting-edge method for getting a leg up on the competition, but it is still effective if you know how to use trending audio properly. So let's look at how you can find trending audio on Instagram Reels, how to put the audio to good use, and why trending audio can benefit your Instagram Reels.

Finding Trending Audio

Thankfully, Instagram makes finding the audio used in Reels easy. If you’re on the Reels tab, all you have to do is tap the up arrow in the bottom left corner of your screen, and Instagram will pull up a page that lets you save the sound and watch other Reels that have used it. The arrow itself is also an indicator that a soundbite is gaining popularity, so not every Reel will have it. But if you do see the arrow, its a good sign the soundbite is trending up.

If you can access the Instagram Professional Dashboard, finding trending sounds is even easier. All you have to do is tap the ‘Reels Trends’ tab on the Dashboard homepage and you’ll see an entire selection of Reels using trending audio. You will need to put in a little extra work to track down trends without this resource, but it should still be pretty easy if you follow these methods:

The easiest (and most addicting way) to find trending audio on Instagram is to simply scroll through your Instagram Reels. If you see multiple videos using the same audio, there’s a good chance it’s trending! You can see for yourself how popular an Instagram audio is by tapping the arrow in the bottom left corner of the screen and checking how many reels have used it.

Instagram’s official ‘@Creators’ account reshares some of the app’s top-performing Reels of the week every Friday. The page is a great place to look for trending audio since these compilations repost all the Reels performing better than average. There are also unofficial accounts across Instagram that track trending sounds and share them with creators; you can always look for these if you need help researching!

The Instagram Reels Templates tab is another reliable source of popular audio. And while not all of these templates use trending audio, it won’t take much scrolling before you find one that does. To get to the Templates tab, all you need to do is open up Instagram Reels, hit the camera icon in the top right of your screen, and scroll to the ‘Templates’ section, where you’ll find the ‘Trending’ category ready to browse.

The Advantages of Using Trending Audios

The most impactful reason to use Instagram trending audio is that it will recommend your Reels to more users. As a soundbite gains popularity, Instagram will begin noting it as something more users want to see and will put Reels using the audio in more people’s pages as a result. Even if a user has never visited your account, the trending audio could show the Instagram algorithm enough overlap to put your content in front of those fresh eyes.

Beyond the visibility boost, using trending audio with your Instagram Reels will keep your current audience more engaged since you’re giving them relevant, timely content. Plus, hopping on a playful Instagram trend can show off a less buttoned-up side of your brand, making your uploads feel more personal.

How to Use Trending Instagram Audio

Now that we’ve looked at ways to find trending audio and why using that audio is advantageous in the first place, let’s explore some methods for putting your new valuable, trending resource to use.

Of course, you’ll first need to put your desired audio over your Instagram Reel. All you have to do is pull up the audio you want to use (by hitting the up arrow in the corner of the Reel) and hit the ‘Use Audio’ button at the bottom of the screen. You can save the audio in your bookmarks for later if you don’t know how to use it yet. But don’t wait too long, or else that “trending” audio you saved won’t be trending by the time you use it.

Then, you can film your Reel as you normally would but with the trending audio playing over it. That said, be careful to use sounds that are original audio and don’t have large segments of copyrighted content. A lot of trending audios feature licensed music that might get flagged if you re-upload them without the license. However, if your Reels are short and only use short snippets of copyrighted music, you likely won’t run into any issues.

If your audio is safe to use, feel free to start recording! One thing to keep in mind is that most popular Instagram audio picks up steam when people use it to jump in on a spreading joke or trend. So, if you want to make the most of the trending audio, try to replicate whatever bit the other audio users are in on. That said, you don’t want to copy others, so try to find a way to stay true to the trend while sneaking your own unique voice and spin on the content.

Below, you’ll find a few examples of how we’ve used trending Instagram audios for our past Reels. Feel free to use them to inspire your next Reel, and good luck putting trending audio to use!