The social media landscape is ever evolving, and as a business you must be aware of trends and changes to stay relevant and make sure your content marketing strategies are effective.
If you’ve seen a dip in followers and engagement, perhaps it’s because your using outdated techniques and this is why its vital to keep track of social media trends. Below, I share with you five key social media trends I expect to impact businesses and how they use platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, X, and Facebook in 2024.
1. TikTok User Share Will Only Grow
Whether you like it or not, TikTok is here to stay and I expect its popularity only to increase in 2024. At the end of 2023, the shortform content social media platform surpassed 1.5 billion users and this number is expected to grow this year.
Although it’s dubbed as the Gen Z platform, the popularity of TikTok far exceeds the younger generations and businesses need to be aware of this. People of all ages and walks of life regularly check TikTok for a laugh, a bit of humour, or even to search for products and recommendations and this is one of the most interesting points.
The younger generations now use TikTok and social media as their main source of information – TikTok is essentially their Google. So, if your business markets to that younger demographic, utilising TikTok could be a great step forward as I don’t expect this social media trend1 to slow down.
2. Business Content is Becoming Less Telegraphed
Long-gone are the days where businesses would create professionally written social media posts marketing their products and services. Instead, one of the best social media trends I have witnessed is a shift away from telegraphed posts.
Instead, more and more businesses are allowing their social media content to flow freely and naturally and they are approaching posting from a human perspective. This includes conversational language, humour, and even some playful trolling of rival companies.
This could be something you consider as part of your content marketing strategy going forward – aim to make your social media more human and relatable. It’s clear that this is what customers want – we want our social media interactions to be enjoyable, and for businesses to be more approachable as opposed to faceless corporations.
3. Businesses are Becoming More Selective About Which Platforms They Use
I want you to take a moment to consider how many different social media platforms there are – Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Reddit. Those are just a few that spring to mind and there are many more!
In years past, businesses would strive to post on as many platforms as possible to reach a wider audience but many companies are moving away from this approach. It is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain a presence on multiple social media platforms and make a positive ROI.
Just think how difficult it is to maintain profiles and post on multiple platforms multiple times per day! Instead, a social medial trend that is sure to grow is businesses becoming more selective in their platform usage and concentrating solely on one or two social media strategies.
Instead of being the jack of all trades, businesses are shifting towards being the master or one or two. The idea is that they can make their social media marketing efforts far more effective by pushing all their time into Instagram and Facebook, for example.
4. AI Continues to Play an Important Role
AI and machine learning has made waves throughout many industries in 2023 and we have seen multiple tools like ChatGPT be game changers. Artificial intelligence has also made inroads into social media, and this is something that should only become more prevalent in 2024. It is used in various ways in social media including:
- Automation: The best way AI is being used in social media is to automate processes such as posting and scheduling and even likes and replies. When used properly, it can streamline a business’s social media operations and allow staff to devote more time to producing creative content.
- Image creation: Generative AI image creation is still developing but the results are already amazing, and many companies are using tools to produce images for their social media content.
- Abuse detection: Many social media platforms are using AI to combat abuse and harassment as the complex algorithms can spot potentially abusive words or posts and automatically delete them.
5. Influencer Marketing Continues to Flourish
The power of influencer marketing on social media is already huge and this will only get stronger as more interest is generated in this profession.
You only have to look at the feeds of popular influencers like Khaby Lame and Charli D’Amelio and the companies they have sponsorship deals with to see how effective this marketing can be.
For example, Khaby Lame is a TikTok comedian who has 80 million followers, and he works with companies like Google Pixel and Hugo Boss. That is 80 million potential customers the partner brands are being marketed too – without the company doing much work!
As more businesses catch onto the power of influencers, this trend should continue to flourish, and I expect more industry-focused influencers to emerge too.
Keep Track of Social Media Trends to Keep Your Brand Relevant in 2024
I understand that it can be difficult to keep track of social media trends and this is where contacting a digital marketing agency could help. However, it’s important to do so, as what worked for your social media marketing last year may be totally irrelevant today. This ultimately means that you could be wasting money and getting a poor ROI for your campaigns.
Hopefully I have given you a starting point and you can use the above trends to improve your social media strategy whether that’s by building relationships with influencers, integrating AI tools, or using a more casual and approachable style in your posts.
References
- https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-trends/
