Last updated - November 30, 2023
Trends on social media keep evolving at a rapid pace, as with other digital platforms. Consumer behaviors, preferences, interests, and needs can all change with time. To make matters worse, new networking platforms emerge each year while existing ones update themselves with shiny new tools, features, services, algorithms, and the latest technology, such as artificial intelligence.
Needless to say, keeping up is not easy when you are a marketer or business owner looking to step up your brand-building and customer acquisition endeavors. To plan a winning social media strategy for 2024, here are the top seven trends you must essentially follow:
Bite-Sized Content will Continue to Gain Favor
Did you know that shorter videos are 2.5 times more engaging than longer ones?
But it is not just short video clips that can win over social media audiences. Even concise text-based material seems to garner engagement, looking at how X (formerly Twitter), Threads, and similar platforms have fared in 2023.
Bite-sized content is easier to consume and share in a world where users are inundated with countless digital messages. It can also retain attention better, especially for the highly distracted and occupied younger generations. So, micro-content will continue to do well in 2024, too.
To capitalize on this trend, shift your focus to short-form material with minimal text. TikTok videos, YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, Tweets, and microblogging are excellent options for you to consider. Use them to create engaging, entertaining, and educational brand content.
Of course, this doesn’t mean it is time to retire long-form material, which still demands a sizeable audience. We recommend using a healthy mix of bite-sized and long-form content. However, giving greater emphasis to the former would be ideal.
Social Commerce will Grow in Prominence
Social media is transforming how consumers shop, bringing frictionless shopping to a wider audience. In 2024, social commerce is pegged to cross the $1.6 trillion mark.
This presents opportunities for businesses to interact and engage with audiences at a deeper level to create brand awareness, provide product information, and seamlessly guide potential customers toward product purchases on their favorite networking sites.
To make use of this new purchasing trend:
- Set up online stores on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media sites that allow in-platform transactions.
- Focus on product communication by creating interactive content.
- Deploy chatbots to answer questions and provide essential information to make purchases easier and faster.
Remember to consider your customers’ mobile experience, too, when designing your content and online stores on networking platforms.
Social Media will Thrive as a Search Engine
According to studies, 82% of customers prefer social media over traditional search engines for their information needs. This doesn’t come as a surprise, considering the volume of user-generated content circulating on these platforms.
When it comes to brands, consumers are relying on networking sites to seek recommendations, ask questions, discover products, and share their personal brand experiences.
How can you leverage this trend to your advantage in 2024? Prioritize social SEO by optimizing your social media profile and posts with relevant keywords and hashtags. Adding location tags and alt-text and creating share-worthy content that could win more eyeballs and backlinks is also essential.
Data will Become Even More Important
Data will provide businesses with a competitive edge on social sites in 2024.
On the one hand, networking platforms will serve as a massive information resource that provides critical insights into customers and their behaviors, campaign performance, competitor activities, and emerging trends.
At the same time, brands can deploy existing data gathered from other platforms to achieve social media success in unimaginable ways.
To ensure you are fully geared to make the most of this trend:
- Invest in a tech stack that allows you to collect, mine, organize, and visualize social data in real-time.
- Use social listening, carry out surveys and opinion polls, and track engagement to capture useful information.
- Clean up your data regularly to maintain accuracy and relevance. You can use Nuwber, a people search engine, to update and verify customer and lead lists collected.
- Leverage the insights gained to improve your products and services, create a more engaging and impactful customer experience, increase conversions, and build loyalty.
AI will Make a Bigger Impact
The adoption of artificial intelligence saw a significant acceleration in 2023. This momentum will carry on to 2024 with greater vigor, thanks to the phenomenal efficiencies, productivity gains, and cost savings AI tools offer marketers.
How can you use them for your benefit in the years to come? You can integrate AI to generate content ideas, write posts, design images, and schedule social media content. In addition, there are AI tools to help track customer sentiments, deploy chatbots, analyze large volumes of social data, make predictive forecasts, and inform decisions.
However, keep in mind that AI-based technology can also fuel misinformation on networking platforms. So, social media monitoring is critical for identifying and mitigating such threats.
Consumers will Demand Authentic Content
Authenticity will remain a priority for social media users in 2024. So, in order to win trust and confidence, brands will need to move away from promotional messaging and content fluff to more sincere and transparent communications that add tangible value to consumers.
Focus on education instead of manipulation to help your audience make informed decisions. Leverage and promote user-generated material that represents social proof of genuine, unchoreographed brand moments. In addition, provide a superior product experience to help generate positive customer testimonials and reviews.
Influencers will Continue to Dominate
2024 will see more influencers entering the social media space and extending their follower bases. Nano- and micro-influencers, in particular, will generate greater value with a loyal and highly targeted audience.
To effectively align your social media marketing strategy with this trend, select influencers with values that match your brand’s and an audience in sync with your potential customers. Build long-term collaborations instead of one-off tie-ups, and use authentic content to replace curated sales pitches.
Final Thoughts
Marketers will see many positive advancements on social media in 2024. When adopting emerging trends, don’t hesitate to take a few risks and experiment. Remember, you need to go where your customer is. So, identify brand-relevant networking platforms and create omnichannel engagement.
While quantity certainly matters in building a strong presence on social media, quality over quantity should be the mantra for long-term brand success.
