We love December: it’s a month that is filled with possibility, even as the year itself is drawing to a close. Plus there’s champagne.
Will Emma be on the goode girls’ list and get another pair of gorgeous heels for Christmas?
Will Anne plump for a festive jumper or a snazzy light-up headband while beavering away at 24 fingers towers, and will anyone remember where we hid the Christmas chocolates from Scheenagh?
Burning questions all but there is one that everyone wants the answer to: what will the social media landscape look like in the New Year?
Will TikTok continue to be the uncrowned king of short-form video, and will any platform be able to out-do Linkedin as the go-to resource for professionals?
Grab an egg nog, peel open a satsuma (aka your own body weight in Celebrations) and come with us as we take you on a whistle-stop tour of the social media trends for 2024.
Bite-sized content will dominate social media platforms
One of the biggest social media trends 2024 will bring will be a marked increase in short-form videos.
It will, of course, be driven by TikTok, whose average 1.1 billion monthly active users simply cannot get enough.
There’s more to the site’s video clips than entertaining and educating Gen Z (and cats): it will continue to be the birthplace of some of social media’s smartest video trends.
As if that wasn’t enough to have you scurrying to the editing apps, TikTok Shop (previously the For You Page) has been embraced by influencers worldwide.
Considering 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool in 2023 and with revenues expected to beat YouTube in 2024, we will definitely be keeping an eye on the direction TikTok takes.
Other short-form video platforms are available
Meta-owned Instagram will be hoping to cash in on the demand for short-form content with its Reels feature, as well as Google’s YouTube.
It’s definitely a growth market, with Instagram videos getting twice as much engagement as static photos on the popular social media platform, and YouTube Shorts securing more than 30 billion views daily worldwide. Wow.
Longer-form video ain’t dead yet. Just sayin’
If the TikTok social media app is aimed squarely at Gen Z, YouTube is definitely more of an everyman and woman platform.
As well as championing short-form videos, the Google-owned platform also allows brands to develop their long-form video campaigns. It gives your social media marketing strategy the time it needs to provide excellent value for money.
YouTube also has the advantage of Google’s vast search engine when it comes to creating content. Instead of relying on individual algorithms, Google itself can help drive your traffic.
Sustainably-minded businesses can also repurpose and reuse their longer content, maximising resources. Edit it down into smaller videos for social media or IGTV, or embed them in your blog for the ultimate SEO hack.
Don’t forget subtitles, captions and descriptions to make all your video content as accessible as possible. Oh and remarketing is a biggie on YouTube too. Talk to us if you’ve heard of the term but not sure how to set it up.
AI and social media trends
There is a lot of chatter about artificial intelligence (AI), which has the potential to be (and probably will be) one of the most important social media trends of 2024.
While it certainly has its advantages, creating content faster, enhancing personalisation, and offering some potential cost savings to small businesses, many questions remain.
Some businesses are concerned about a lack of creativity and issues about authenticity, as well as the scope for errors and biases.
We foresee platforms such as Facebook and Instagram relying more on AI to recommend content to users to boost engagement.
We will be watching the development of AI tools, such as Chat GPT and Synthesia with increased interest and keep you posted.
The human touch in your social media strategy
AI may be on the rise but the social media platforms aren’t going to be losing sight of their flesh and blood audiences any time soon.
One huge social media trend for 2024 will be the boom in user generated content (UGC) and interactivity.
Audience participation has been a big feature in many brand’s campaigns in previous years (we’re looking with admiration at you, Dove).
There are whispers on the social media grapevine that some firms may ditch their stuffy approaches forever and try more conversational tones. You heard it here first.
X v Threads = a win for Elon
No rundown of the latest social media trends and what the future has in store would be complete without a nod to X.
It’s fair to say nobody really knows what Elon Musk’s social media strategy is, beyond doing and saying pretty much what he, as the richest person in the world, wants.
Whether X remains as one of the top social media platforms remains to be seen. One thing’s for sure: Threads, accessible via Meta-owned rival Instagram, showed early promise but can it stay the distance? Err…
Sure, it’s racked up over 150 million users and 23.6 million daily active users, but ask yourself when was the last time your prospect customer mentioned the great time they were having over on Threads? Exactly.
As the community grows and matures, in time it might be a rival for X, but for the moment, the 24 fingers’ jury is most definitely out.
Everyone’s linking Linkedin
For professionals, there is still just one place to go: Linkedin. You can expect a few changes in 2024, with an increase in audio content and live events.
Watch out for more posts from CEOs and other executives too, as the platform aims to provide thought-leadership with a human side. It should be an interesting 12 months. Oh, and do get yourself listed as one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices too. Does wonders for your personal brand.
Nano and micro influencers are here to stay
It might feel as if we’re in one of those technology periods where everything shrinks, but knowing influencers with a smaller following will actually benefit brands.
Every brand wants to work with someone who can increase engagement and reach their target audience effectively, right.
However, even the most ambitious start-up or small business can’t always afford the really big names. That’s where nano and micro influencers come in.
They have fewer followers, and therefore appeal to a wider range of marketing budgets, but have just as much clout among their fans across the social media networks.
With an average engagement rate of 3.69%, expect to see more nano and micro-influencers, and other community-led activity on social media platforms in 2024.
SEO and the social media search engine
Any marketer worth their salt knows about the importance of seeding content with relevant keywords for search engine optimisation, or SEO.
But move over Google – there’s a new SEO starlet in town and its name is social media.
Research shows 40% of 18 – 24 year-olds are using their social media platforms to search for all kinds of stuff, while social media posts peppered with good SEO saw a 30% increase in engagement.
Forget hashtags in your marketing strategies – it’s SEO all the way, baby.
So, there you have it, just a few of the social media trends we think will be hitting the headlines and making waves in 2024.
If you’re not sure which social media platform is right for you, or you can’t tell your AI from your algorithm, talk to us at 24 fingers. We’re straight-talking and street smart. And we don’t use jargon.
