Social Media Trends 2024
Top 12 Social Media Strategies to Drive this Year!
Social media is in constant change; this is why it’s important to keep adapting your brand. Plan yearly strategies and give your social media a fresh look. We are here to read all about the social media trends in 2024! These social media trends will change the way you do your job today.
1. Are Social Media Platforms the New Search Engines This Year?
2. ‘Shares’ Take the Spotlight as a Key Metric in 2024
3. A Game Changer For Your Social Media Strategy: AI
4. YouTube Shorts in 2024—Don’t Overestimate Their Power
5. A Twist in How We See LinkedIn—Say Hi to a More Friendly Side!
6. In the Advertising Jungle, Social Media Wears the Crown
7. This Is the Platform Where Trends Are Born From 2023 to 2024
8. Are CEOs the New Social Media Starts to Elevate Brand Authenticity and Sales?
9. User-Generated Content, Your 2024 Powerful Weapon
10. Say Hi to Micro and Nano Influencers to Be the Stars of Your Brand
11. Spice up Your Social Media Game With Text-Based Platforms
12. Voice Search Optimization as a Game Changer for 2024
First Things First:
Set Goals that Make Sense to Your Business
Make no efforts that do not serve your goals. Consider goals like:
- Reaching New Audiences
- Brand Awareness
- Leads & Sales
- Grow Your Audience
- Drive Traffic to Your Site
And choose goals that apply best to your existing business needs! What are you looking for from your social media this 2024?
Establish Your Metrics & KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
- Reach. Post reach is the number of unique users who saw your post.
- Clicks. This is the number of clicks on your content or account.
- Engagement. The total number of social interactions is divided by the number of impressions. This sheds light on how well your audience perceives you and their willingness to interact.
- Hashtag / Post Performance
- Likes
- Shares, comments
Consider:
Keep your objectives simple even if you are using a combination of these. You don’t want a messy strategy.
1. Are Social Media Platforms the New Search Engines This Year?
Can social media surpass search engines like Google by 2024? It’s a real possibility! Since 2023, Generation Z has been shifting away from Google, turning to TikTok for their searches, and this trend is set to keep growing in 2024.
According to Statista, social media now ranks second behind search engines like Google for obtaining information about products people intend to buy. Moreover, from 2020 to 2022, there has been a significant jump in user preferences. In the United States, users aged 18 to 29 increasingly rely on TikTok for news. That’s why both TikTok and Instagram have become the favorite platforms for quick, go-to-the-point queries that also include visual content.
As mentioned in our TikTok SEO post, TikTok, although not a traditional search engine, meets several requirements, including a search bar that autocompletes searches and gives preference to videos that skillfully incorporate keywords, boosting their ranking and visibility in search results and the For You Page. 🚀✨
So, here's the scoop for 2024: incorporate keywords into your content that address common questions in your niche.
This way, your ideal audience can easily find and engage with your content. Maintaining a well-balanced mix of entertaining, educational, and SEO-focused content is also crucial, as this emerging social search trend is captivating millions of users worldwide.
2. ‘Shares’ Take the Spotlight as a Key Metric in 2024
In recent years, the performance of almost every social media platform was primarily measured by likes, comments, and followers. However, in 2024, there’s a significant shift on the horizon. Shares will take center stage as the more relevant metric! Shares provide a more accurate measure of how valuable your content is. It’s worth noting that you’ll naturally acquire more likes, comments, and followers with more shares. Consequently, platforms like Instagram and TikTok now prominently display the number of times a video has been shared.
This shift suggests that your users or target audience not only appreciate but love your content enough to share it with others. So, let’s keep an eye on how this social media trend evolves in the coming months. And don’t forget to keep nurturing your community by responding to comments, answering questions from your followers, and fostering a safe space.
3. A Game Changer For Your Social Media Strategy: AI
With the buzz around artificial intelligence, some have embraced it as their new best friend, while others remain uncertain. AI can be your source of inspiration—a great tool for aiding brainstorming and providing variation and a spark in content creation.
However, in 2024, it’s time to try it if you haven’t done so yet. Not to be replaced by robots but to make your social media journey smoother. Hootsuite conducted an experiment comparing a human writer to AI, and the conclusion? It’s a great tool but still needs the human touch. So relax and get ready to play around with the different AI tools available, including ChatGPT, to see the wonders it can do in helping develop a lovely social media job.
Also, speaking of artificial intelligence, Placeit by Envato has also embraced this practice, combining the power of AI with the talent and manual work of our graphic designers to create magnificent collections for all your social media channels. So, if you’re curious, make a splash into our AI templates and start using them from now on!
4. YouTube Shorts in 2024—Don't Overestimate Their Power
Just like TikTok or Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts is a valuable gem in your video content strategy. 🌟 While you might have heard these shorts aren’t as trendy as TikTok, don’t underestimate their power.
In 2023, YouTube Shorts got 2 billion active users worldwide each month, presenting a significant opportunity for your brand, small business, or agency. Therefore, considering YouTube’s status as the king of videos, you can:
- Create a short clip from your main video to entice viewers into watching the full content.
- Produce quick and easily consumable content for users seeking a break from longer videos, as short vertical videos promise to keep being a trendy format.
- And repurpose content from your TikTok or Instagram accounts to expand your reach across different channels is also a viable strategy.
The advantages of consistently creating YouTube Shorts in 2024 are immense! The key is knowing how to use YouTube shorts most conveniently for your goals.
5. A Twist in How We See Linkedin—Say Hi to a More Friendly Side!
This social media trend is all about LinkedIn, a platform originally designed to connect people in their pursuit of the ideal job.
Over the last few months, we’ve witnessed the blue platform transform into a more welcoming space. Both users and brands have embraced it to showcase a more human and authentic side of employment and work experiences. This includes sharing advice and genuinely looking into what companies are all about.
However, it’s crucial to maintain professionalism in your posts, striking a balance to avoid it turning into something resembling Facebook.
6. In the Advertising Jungle, Social Media Wears the Crown
There’s no denying that the budget for digital advertising is set to continue increasing these next years, even reaching an estimated 836 billion U.S. dollars by 2026. This growth aligns with the overarching shift of marketing into the digital world in recent years. As consumer habits evolve, advertising parallels, too. Therefore, this social media trend underscores the soundness of investing in digital advertising. Especially after considering the increasing number of online shoppers and the role of social media platforms in influencing purchasing decisions.
The data from SurveyMonkey supports this trend, revealing that 48% of social media users have made a purchase after seeing an ad. Likewise, the evolution of ads has been different, introducing innovative ways to present information that feels natural and engaging, particularly for social media platform users. 🚀 So, as you plan your strategies for 2024, it’s crucial to analyze and leverage this social media trend to ensure a profitable, effective, and successful year ahead. 🌟
7. This Is the Platform Where Trends Are Born From 2023 to 2024
Regarding social media trends, TikTok plays a crucial role, and if your brand isn’t on it yet, it should be. Big and small, brands have embraced TikTok, finding unprecedented popularity, visibility, and a closer connection with their target audience. The allure of TikTok lies in its ever-evolving and surprising trends, injecting a dynamic energy into the platform. Therefore, to stay ahead, it’s crucial to stay tuned to TikTok, observe what your admired brands are up to, and gear up to create content that resonates with your audience. The best part? Every kind of company and niche can join in, giving a playful spin to the trends.
Moreover, in 2024, TikTok will likely remain the number one platform for creating trends. And here’s the kicker—TikTok’s influence extends beyond its own platform. Trends born on TikTok often make their way to Instagram, YouTube Shorts, and Facebook. So, don’t overlook TikTok for a winning strategy in 2024; instead, integrate it into your strategy and craft a well-elaborated TikTok plan for 2024.
Pro tip: Add captions to your videos to increase engagement and provide an alternative for people with hearing impairments.
8. Are CEOs the New Social Media Starts to Elevate Brand Authenticity and Sales?
We’ve witnessed this social media trend over the last few months, which complements perfectly with the previous trend. This is all about authenticity, trustworthiness, and emotional connection linked to consumers increasing their spending on brands that inspire these feelings.
Why?
This means the days are gone when brands were all about themselves, only focused on announcing their products and why they’re the best option. For this brilliant year ahead, brands should focus on humanizing themselves and creating genuinely authentic content that connects with people. This also includes seeing more CEOs and leaders on social media discussing current events, getting involved in the business and the industry, reinforcing the brand’s mission, vision, and core values, or simply being transparent in communications to inspire trust. Consequently, in return, it will lead to more purchases as consumers trust the brand and their integrants, especially those who represent authority. So, it’s time for CEOs and leaders to start appearing online!
Like Placeit with the #madewithplaceit hashtag, you can create a dedicated hashtag to encourage your users to share their creations, reviews, testimonials, or any other type of content. Or simply look at your tags and reviews.
9. User-Generated Content, Your 2024 Powerful Weapon
With the increasing enthusiasm around being influencers and content creators, 2024 is more than ready to welcome User-Generated Content (UGC) more than ever. This powerful social media trend should be at the top of every brand’s bucket list for the year. The openness of real consumers/users testing and sharing authentic impressions about a brand’s products or services is invaluable.
User-generated content offers a unique advantage, providing brands with genuine content to share online. Moreover, it serves as a channel for receiving honest customer feedback. Likewise, as we’ve been reiterating, consumers actively seek the authentic side of brands, leaning towards content that features real people rather than models or unfamiliar faces.
The impact of User-Generated Content is meaningful, fostering confidence in both potential and future buyers, and numbers can prove this:
- 90% of consumers said authenticity makes the difference when purchasing.
- 92% of consumers trust UGC more than any other type of content and marketing. Customer reviews are trusted 12 times more than the brand’s marketing efforts made directly,
10. Say Hi to Micro and Nano Influencers to Be the Stars of Your Brand
In the era of influencers, the spotlight has shifted from the mega-influencers to the rising stars. In 2024, the focus for brands and a strategy you should consider revolves around micro-influencers (10,000-100,000 followers) and nano-influencers (less than 10,000 followers). These influencers may have smaller followings, but their communities are highly engaged and deeply trust their recommendations. Collaborating with them brings authenticity and credibility to your brand, mainly because they often cater to specific niche markets that align with your goals.
11. Spice up Your Social Media Game With Text-Based Platforms
On the opposite side of content (videos), text-based platforms like X (formerly known as Twitter) and the recently launched Threads by Instagram seem to have a positive outlook in 2024. These purely text-based social media channels have proven alluring to millions of users worldwide. This could be due to a different way of consuming content that doesn’t seem to bother users; on the contrary, these platforms allow them to find straight-to-the-point information in only a few characters.
Plus, it’s a significant relief for marketers as it implies less time than making a video. This proves that many big brands and small to medium companies still use X and have recently incorporated Threads into their strategy. However, with the utmost consideration, before you dive in, consider that now you would be adding one more channel to your strategy, and on top of that, you have to rethink if these are the platforms where your target audience is. If that’s the case, these platforms are ideal for taking advantage of and repurposing content, summarizing your main points on what’s relevant in your niche, and interacting more closely with your community.
12. Voice Search Optimization as a Game Changer for 2024
With all the new cutting-edge technologies that are rising and facilitating how we consume content, this last social media trend is handy.
In 2024, social media marketers and managers should be prepared to optimize content for voice queries, ensuring visibility in search results on platforms like Google and TikTok. This emphasizes the importance of a robust SEO strategy, especially for the king of vertical short videos. Therefore, for 2024, make sure to include clear captions, incorporate text-based keywords, pronounce words distinctly, and leverage relevant hashtags.
To Wrap Up
These are the social media trends that will dominate this 2024. Anticipate changes and even get yourself into a few new risks to get awesome results.
Also, remember to take a look at what your competitors are doing, maybe you can do it better? Remember that all social media is time sensitive so get your calendars in order so that you don’t miss any important happening, event, seasons, and so on.
2024 is the year to put your brand in the spotlight!
Choose your content themes wisely and let’s dive into this 2024! Last but not least, complement your social media strategy and dive into the 12 design trends and 10 web design trends that will rock for 2024!
What are your thoughts? Got anything to say?
