Predicting the future of social media trends isn’t easy, but that’s precisely what makes it so much fun!
At Keyhole, social media is our bread and butter, and our team here works hard to stay up to date with all the key social media trends.
We have a good idea of where social media trends are headed in 2024. And best of all…
… we don’t mind sharing our secrets.
Here are the trends to keep an eye on in 2024 and some relevant social media tips and tricks to help you navigate your digital journey better.
1. Content is (Still) King
Social media platforms continue to update their algorithms in order to show the most relevant content to social media users.
Sure, you can pay for some extra exposure, but ads can only do so much for you. The only way you can retain visitors and turn people who stumbled upon your content into prospects is by providing them with enough value.
Here are three things to keep in mind in 2020:
1. Choose Your Platform Strategically
Choosing the right social media platform is more difficult than it seems, and more important than what you might initially think.
It’s essential that you understand the function of each platform, so that you know which one suits you best.
Let’s say you’re running a food blog, and your content revolves around posting recipes and food images.
You wouldn’t choose Twitter to be your main platform now, would you?
You’d probably opt for Instagram, as it provides a neat balance between image focus and shorter text descriptions (e.g. you could post an image of your cooked meal, and provide the recipe below).
2. Repurpose Content… The Right Way
Besides understanding each platform and choosing the right one(s) for your brand, skip cross-posting the same content as much as you can.
Yes, you read that right!
Posting the exact same content across all the platforms you’re using makes you look lazy, non-creative and repetitive.
We’re not saying that you can’t repurpose content (in fact, you should!), but each social media platform has its own audience, content strategy, as well as different areas of focus and specific writing styles.
Something that works well on Facebook may turn out to be a complete disaster or come across as unprofessional if you publish it on Linkedin.
Here are some great pieces on repurposing content that might help you get started: Ins and Outs of Repurposing Content for Social Media Posts and Tips to Repurpose Your Blogs into Social Media Posts.
If you aren’t sure how to approach this, you can always hire a social media expert to guide you.
3. Stay Consistent
Let’s not forget about consistency.
Imagine you were posting Instagram stories on a daily basis, communicated regularly with your followers, and you suddenly disappear for a month without notice to your followers, only to re-appear because you’d like to promote your newly published recipe ebook.
News flash: you’re neither getting the recognition you want, nor stepping up your marketing trends game.
People appreciate continual effort – that’s when you receive continuous validation.
2. Visual Content Continues to Dominate
The focus on visual content is needed now more than ever.
Using visual content improves overall marketing trends, and it can do wonders for your social media engagement.
Don’t just take our word for it – take a minute and consider the following visual content statistics:
- 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000X faster in the brain than text.
- 40% of people will respond better to visual information than plain text.
- Publishers who use infographics grow in traffic an average of 12% more than those who don’t.
- Pinterest generates more referral traffic for businesses than Google+, YouTube, and LinkedIn combined.
Convinced already?
Visual content is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise monotonous and quantity-driven content production.
Making visuals part of your everyday social media strategy can truly change the way customers perceive you and your brand.
And with the availability of visual tools today, it’s easier than ever!
The downside is, with such a vast number of visual tools to choose from, it can be tricky to pick the right one.
The best option is to use several visual strategies that fit your brand’s needs and that you feel comfortable with.
If you’re using Instagram, don’t skip IGTV; if you’re frequently posting on Facebook, don’t just post images or longer texts, post infographics as well as image quotes. Iif you’re on YouTube, go live every so often!
Yes, users appreciate consistency and continual work and efforts, but they cherish spontaneity too!
Visuals You Can Use on Your Social Media Platforms
- Images (both customized and stock)
- Videos (both live and recorded)
- Screenshots
- GIFs
- Memes
- Pie charts
- Quotes (placed on customized images)
Visual content adds value to your written content, helps increase engagement, and provides a more meaningful user experience.
Suggested Read: 10 Mistakes in Your Visual Content Strategy [+ Tools to Fix Them!]
Incorporating visuals in your strategy can be challenging, but visuals resonate with current marketing trends and they simply are what users prefer.
Just put yourself in their shoes for a second – would you enjoy any social media platform without visual variety or image originality?
People want what’s pleasing to the eye. Your task is to give them what they want.
3. Influencer Marketing is Still Going Strong
Contrary to popular belief, influencer marketing isn’t dead. In fact, influencer marketing is expected to become a $5-$10 billion industry by 2020. Well, guess what? It’s 2020 already!
The whole point of influencer marketing is to find influencers suitable for your brand so that they can promote it for you. And this is the key thing when starting your influential marketing campaign – to find the proper influencer(s).
Don’t get carried away by the number of followers an influencer has, or what they’ll demand as compensation (some pay influencers, or give them a free product, others may do both).
It’s not that these things are irrelevant, it’s just that there’s much more to it.
For example, what if an influencer that you’re considering to propose a collaboration to, has been known to collaborate with competitors, or tends to promote and accept EVERYTHING that is offered to them?
Do you think this would make your brand be recognized, valued or appreciated?
Or imagine contacting a well-known food blogger – this is obviously someone who frequently posts food images, visits different restaurants and writes reviews on different meals.
But, you’re selling athletic wear and you want to promote a healthy lifestyle and a proper, balanced diet. Do you believe this influencer is the right option for your brand?
Suggested Read: How to Find Micro Influencers on Instagram to Boost Sales
Remember, influencers should help build trust in your brand, not ruin it.
In an era when influential recommendations are something users highly appreciate, making sure you find the right influencers is more important than ever.
Besides this, make sure both you and your influencer are satisfied and happy with your collaboration. A successful influencer campaign is when both sides are satisfied with the cooperation.
Marketing trends are called trends for a reason – they target current popularity, and can garner immediate success.
However, a carefully crafted influential strategy can bring you more satisfactory results in the long run than just complying with ongoing marketing trends.
Suggested read: Instagram Influencer Marketing: A Start-to-Finish Guide
4. Customer Service is More Important than Ever
Social media platforms are indeed a place for you to promote your content and your brand. They’re also a place for you to interact with your customers and loyal followers.
And this aspect is becoming much more important over the course of time. Plus, establishing communication with the people following you has never been easier.
Make sure you read reviews and testimonials – see what people think of you/your brand; what they’d like to see more of, what they dislike, or what they’d expect from you in the future.
Also, try to answer any messages you might be getting as well as comments – sound professional, yet friendly; approachable, and neutral.
If you’re interacting one-on-one with a follower, always use their name when addressing them. People love hearing their name or reading their name.
It conveys a more personal tone, and makes it seem as though you’re paying extra attention to them.
On the other hand, we’re aware you can’t do everything on your own. Even if you have a whole team behind you, you’d still need additional help if your business is expanding.
Thankfully, chatbots are there to help you.
Did you know that 40% of consumers don’t care if a chatbot or a real human helps them, as long as they get the help they need?
Chatbot intelligence and algorithms are expected to grow and improve beyond what we consider imaginable.
They’re able to communicate with several people all at once, and if we’re being realistic, this isn’t something that even a whole team of customer support can surpass.
Moreover, having the ability to train ChatGPT on custom data can provide more personalized responses, aligning the bot’s capabilities with the unique needs of the business.
5. Things Are Changing
If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that things change.
Fast.
And of course, in 2020 we’ll continue to see rapid change.
So, to remain relevant, you need to embrace the unknown.
Social media platforms have a wide range of algorithms and they’re constantly upgrading, evolving and trying out new things.
One such example is Instagram deciding to remove “likes” from its platform (they’ll remain visible for you, but others won’t be able to see them).
Changing “the visibility of the Instagram likes” changes the overall perception of Instagram as a social media platform. This also changes how the upcoming marketing trends and strategies will resume on this platform.
For example, up till now the relevance of posts, captions or whole accounts in general were calculated based on the number of followers and likes.
The greater the number of likes, the greater the level of validation and recognition.
This modification changes the game now – without likes, Instagram users will have to focus on providing better content, high-quality photos as well as come up with different strategies to prove their Instagram status.
And then there’s the rise of TikTok, the video sharing app that is quickly becoming one of the most popular apps among social media users all over the world.
Currently, TikTok’s users are mainly teens and Generation Z. However, given the app’s algorithm which doesn’t require creators to have many followers to receive lots of attention, more and more people from varying age groups are joining every day.
As the app’s popularity grows, it’s only a matter of time before brands start exploring TikTok, just like it happened with Facebook and Instagram.
This only serves to show you that you can never fully master a particular social media platform, as they’re constantly evolving.
The greatest social media tip would be to never lose the sense of adjusting to what’s yet to come. That’s the ultimate marketing trend that never changes.
Now, let’s talk about…
The Top Social Media Tools to Consider in 2024
Ever noticed how the appearance of new social media tools impacts which platforms we continue using, which tools we keep and which ones we completely ignore?
As the social media world changes, the social media tools end up changing too. This in turn modifies how we perceive certain marketing trends in general.
Without further ado, here’s a short list of some of the most effective social media tools we suggest checking out:
1. Keyhole
We’ve built such a comprehensive social listening and analytics tool that you’ll wish you discovered it sooner. Keyhole keeps track of the conversations on all social channels and it analyzes them. It can help you research your market, understand the impact of your campaigns and find top influencers. The best thing? A free trial.
2. Kicksta
One of the best marketing tools for Instagram-focused brands. It helps you build your following way faster by targeting followers of similar accounts. It also assists you in finding better partnership opportunities as well as ways to boost your sales.
3. Audiense
A great audience segmentation tool. It analyzes and helps you to understand your audience, and enables you to create highly specific audience segments, adapt your targeting and deliver personalized messages, which is great.
4. AgoraPulse
A great asset to your already existing social media tools. AgoraPulse helps you manage your social media presence. It gathers all your conversations in one place and helps you schedule your posts and create a winning content calendar. It allows you to create audience segments and manage your team too.
5. Meet Edgar
A social media scheduling tool that helps you post older posts. Recycling your old killer posts increases your traffic and gets you greater exposure.
This is even more relevant if you’ve written a great piece a while ago, and in the meantime your brand has grown – it goes without saying that you’ll expose your content to more readers.
Keep in mind that this is by no means an exhaustive list. Still, it’s a basic guide to get you started.
Final Thoughts on Social Media Trends, Tips & Tricks
People spend a great deal of time on various social media, and this is nothing new.
Some of it is productive and with an end goal, and other times it’s just aimlessly scrolling through accounts, and randomly liking specific posts.
Whatever their reason may be, it’s fine either way.
What matters, however, is that now you know just the right tips and tricks to make their social media experience much more enjoyable and keep up with the ever growing competition in your industry in 2024.
Keyhole is a real-time conversation tracker that provides social media analytics and hashtag tracking for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms. Get started for free.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What are the key trends impacting social media marketing in 2024?
Video content evolution towards long-form storytelling. Brands adopting a playful "brand personality" and leveraging meme culture. Expansion of social commerce and the integration of in-app shopping experiences.
2. How is the role of search engine optimization (SEO) evolving within social media platforms in 2024?
Social media platforms becoming search engines themselves, emphasizing the need to optimize content for discoverability. The importance of SEO strategies for improving content visibility within social media platforms.
3. In what ways are brands adapting to consumer preferences for authenticity and transparency on social media in 2024?
Showcasing behind-the-scenes content and demonstrating transparency in business practices and values. Prioritizing non-promotional yet authentic content to resonate with consumers. Incorporating authentic voices, from creators to employees, to stand out in the competitive social media landscape.
