When it comes to social media marketing, it’s important to keep your finger on the pulse of all the latest trends, memes, and discussions. But the internet moves quickly, and nowhere does it move at more of a breakneck pace than social media. You blink and suddenly the lingo that is used on social media has changed.
If you feel daunted by the task of keeping up with all the latest trends, we’ve got you covered. Here are some of the top social media trends of 2024.
More AI in Social Media Marketing and Advertising
AI made a big boom in 2023, and it seems to only be growing in 2024. One benefit of AI for SMM professionals is that it allows you to create more personalized content based on demographics and interests. It even does much of the work of creating that content for you. We’re already beginning to see this grow in prevalence when it comes to social media ads and posts.
AI can be a bit of a double edged sword. While it offers convenience and innovation for marketers, there are customers who are very turned off by what seems to be obviously artificially generated content, whether images or text. You may still need to do a thorough quality check before posting anything made by AI.
The Rise of YouTube Shorts
There are a number of platforms that are designed for short-form entertaining videos. Instagram Reels and Tik Tok are the most popular by far. But YouTube Shorts is rising to prominence, and that’s likely to continue in 2024. Because Tik Tok and Reels are so saturated, marketers are being encouraged to make use of YouTube Shorts.
Because you only have 60 seconds to get your point across, YouTube Shorts encourage creativity. You can get your point across in a funny, entertaining, and easy to understand fashion. These shorts can come up in typical YouTube searches as well as suggested videos on the home page.
More Focus on Videos Overall
In general, you need to be focusing more on videos going into 2024. Elon Musk has already discussed trying to turn the focus of X (formerly Twitter) towards video. And with many users flocking away from X, the most popular alternatives for millennials and Gen Z remain Instagram and Tik Tok, both platforms much more focused on video (and images in Instagram’s case) than written content.
Marketers will need to step up their video game, both in filming videos, tagging them properly, and captioning them to make them accessible to the right audiences.
Trimming Down on Excess Platforms
Does trying to keep an active presence on all of your social media platforms sometimes make you feel stretched too thin as a marketing professional? You’re not alone. When marketers were polled about what they felt was the greatest ROI concern with respect to social media activities, a winning 52% claimed that it was the “time or budget investment to maintain a presence on multiple social media platforms.”
We’ve been told that it’s important to be where your audience is and that it’s important to be active on all of your social media platforms. But with many marketers feeling that they’re giving more than they’re getting from social media marketing, 2024 seems to be the year of cutting back. Instead of having five to seven social media platforms, teams might choose to focus on a couple, particularly the ones that gain the most ROI for their company personally. While this means losing out on opportunities that might be available on other social media sites, it also offers the opportunity to really focus on engagement on the platforms you keep.
Less Self-Promotion, More Relatability
Why is your brand on social media? To get the word out about your brand and everything you’re doing with it. It’s only natural, then, that you would spend some time doing self-promotion. But too much self-promotion can actually be a big turnoff. Many social media users have claimed that when a brand engages in too much self-promo, they’re likely to unfollow. What do they want instead? Relatable content. Fun memes or discussions that are relevant to them.
That’s not to say that you can never promote your brand on your social media. However, you want to make that the minority of your posts. Instead, focus on doing some market research and looking for ways to relate to your audience. This is likely to endear you to your audience, who then might be more invested when you start to promote your products or services.
