TRENDS IN SOCIAL MEDIA FOR 2024

Social media is ever changing, and whether you work as a social media manager or you use social media for personal or brand development and growth, it is important to keep up with changes to help you achieve the best results you can. To help with this, I have put together some key social media trends predicted for 2024!

AUTHENTICITY:

Now more than ever audiences want to build and feel connections with brands and people, so being authentic online is key. Showcase the humanity of your brand through sharing real stories and engaging in meaningful conversations to help you build an emotional connection with your customers. Not only do you need to be authentic in what you are posting, but consider creating communities through private spaces or groups to really speak to your audiences.

INFLUENCING MARKETING:

Research from Marketing Interactive shows that 67% of marketers said that they are upping their investment in influencer marketing this year. Why? Because as I said above audiences crave authenticity, and influencers are a great way to do build narratives that resonate with their personal experiences and aspirations. Brands will start leaning towards influencers or creators who create content that resonates deeply with their audience, therefore hitting the authenticity objective.

It is also worth noting that nano and micro-influencers - people with smaller followers - will continue to emerge as more preferable, as they tend to have higher engagement rates and stronger communties. It isn’t about the number of followers, but the quality of those followers and how engaged they are!

VIDEO:

Video is still the holy grail of content, and according to a report by Cube Asia's report, 66% find short-from short-form videos the most engaging, which is why Tik Tok saw such a huge success last year - it attracted audiences who enjoyed consuming and creating bite-sized, entertaining content. More on Tik Tok in the next section! With video, consider live streams and interactive video too as these are great ways to get across your message, and don’t forget to provide entertaining and educating content, and try different types of video content to see what resonates with your community.

TIK TOK:

It’s important to note here that which social media platforms you are on will depend on what you want to achieve with your social and who your target audience is - part of my social strategy when I work with clients is recommending which platforms you should be on, but it’s worth knowing that Tik Tok should be considered. TikTok has been a significant player in the social media landscape, and saw huge successes in 2023, establishing itself as a powerhouse for short-form video content. From my experience of the app, it provides content that is both useful and entertaining, which audiences are leaning more into.

According to Capterra’s TikTok Marketing Survey, 96% of SMBs [small to midsize businesses] who market themselves on TikTok report the most engagement on TikTok compared to Meta platforms, which highlights TikTok’s effectiveness in engaging audiences, especially among Gen Z consumers. In TikTok What’s Next Report 2024, they have identified Curiosity Peaked, Storytelling Unhinged and Bridging the Trust Gap as their 3 trends to keep in mind when building out your content strategy. People are now using Tik Tok as a search engine - they like discovering new things, and want to find solutions to their problems.

USING AI:

Artificial Intelligence is being used more and more for personalised content recommendations, chatbots for customer service, and other tailored user experiences. I must admit that I was dubious for a long time, but since implementing it into my work streams I have to say that it is great - if used as a tool to help you, not to replace your work [it’s never going to have the creativity and emotional value and insight that you have!]. I go into more detail on using AI in social media here if you want to learn more. It has been said that Meta will roll out significant AI-powered updates throughout 2024, so I’m looking forward to seeing what is to come.

UTILISE SEO:

Did you know that 40% of young adults (18 - 24 year-olds) are using social media like a search engine? Research from Hootsuite showed that the social media posts which relied heavily on great SEO manage to have a higher engagement rate (30% increase). This means you should be conducting keyword research and applying those keywords to your captions when posting on social media to help get your content discovered more.

For me, the most important trend is the first - authentic content. The biggest part of social media is engagement - it is the key metric and let’s face it, it can’t be bought. Creating authentic content that encourages people to engage, i.e comment, share and link, is imperative to a successful social strategy.