5 Questions I’m Asking Before Running a Trending Event for My Product

I’m working on an AI game maker SoonLab, and I’m planning to test a small trending-event campaign.

The goal is not just to get a short traffic spike. I’m more interested in whether a timely event can improve product activity, user creation, and retention.

Before running it, these are the 5 questions I’m asking myself:

1. Is the event connected to the core product loop?

This feels like the most important question.

If the event only brings people to a landing page, it may create traffic but not much product value. For SoonLab, the core loop is simple:

create a game → play it → share it → get feedback → create again

So the event needs to push users back into that loop. Otherwise, it becomes a marketing campaign outside the product, not a product growth experiment.

2. Will users have a reason to come back more than once?

A trending topic can attract attention for one day. But retention needs a repeat behavior.

I’m thinking about adding small daily actions, such as predictions, check-ins, community voting, or new creator challenges. The idea is to give users a lightweight reason to return without making the event feel like homework.

The difficult part is balance. If the daily task is too shallow, it won’t matter. If it is too heavy, users won’t do it.

3. Do rewards actually lead to product usage?

Rewards are easy to add, but I’m not sure they always create the right behavior.

For example, giving users points only makes sense if those points help them create more inside the product. If users only collect rewards and leave, the campaign may look active but fail to improve the product.

So I want to measure whether rewards lead to more creation, more publishing, or more sharing — not just more clicks.

4. Can community feedback motivate creators better than simple incentives?

For a creation tool, I suspect feedback may be more powerful than rewards.

If someone creates a game and gets likes, comments, or rankings, that may give them a stronger reason to improve and create again. A leaderboard or voting system may work better when it makes creators feel seen, not just when it gives them a prize.

But this also has risks. If only a few users get attention, others may feel ignored. So the event needs to make participation feel valuable even for people who do not rank high.

5. How will I know if this worked?

This is the part I’m trying to define clearly before launching.

The easy metrics are page visits, signups, and event participants. But those may not prove much.

The better signals may be:

• how many users come back after the first visit
• how many users create or publish during the event
• how many users share their creations
• how many users create more than once
• whether event users continue using the product after the event ends

My biggest concern is that trending events can create temporary excitement but weak long-term value.

For other founders: have you tried trending events, seasonal campaigns, creator challenges, or community voting to improve product activity?

What actually worked for you — rewards, leaderboards, daily tasks, UGC challenges, or social sharing?