The common thread across 2024 trends in social media comes down to a shortage of time and resources. Most social media managers tend to be a team of one, strapped for time and limited by resources and inadequate budgets, and 66% unsurprisingly say they have too much to do (Source: Hootsuite 2023 Social Media Management Career Survey).
On top of the multitude of tasks that exist within each platform for social media marketers is the added pressure and expectation to maintain a pulse on the constantly evolving and changing features and capabilities released to challenge and compete with other platforms for your attention and ad dollars. 58% of marketers say the pace at which networks release new user and advertising features makes it hard to keep up (Source: Hootsuite Social Trends 2024 Consumer Survey).
2024 TREND 1: Authenticity
Brands that are too focused on self-promotion have a negative impact on 34% of consumers’ view of the brand, which is also negatively impacted by low-quality content for 32% of consumers (Source: Hootsuite). And we don’t mean low-quality, as in you shot it on a phone instead of a DLSR–we mean content that doesn’t make sense for the platform.
The disconnect between what brands are posting (product or brand updates) and what consumers really want to see (entertaining and mentally unwinding content) has created a divide that authenticity can help bridge.
UGC
56% of consumers think brands should be more relatable on social media. One of the most effective ways brands have done this is through influencers, creators and user-generated content. While none of these are new, they continue to gain traction, grow in popularity and evolve in execution.
Posting user-generated content to its owned social channels is a more authentic style for brands because it comes from its customers and those who are actually using its products and services. UGC enables consumers to picture themselves more easily in a dress if they can see a model wearing it who actually has the same body type as them. A POV shot can enable consumers to transport themselves and imagine what it would be like to be in a particular moment, or in a particular place. At its core, it takes a brand out of the perfect, polished, posed setting and makes whatever they’re selling to you feel more realistic, attainable, and relevant to you and your life. While UGC is largely social media-based, it has risen in popularity on other owned marketing channels, including email, e-commerce and more.
Influencers and Creators
While these terms are often used interchangeably, there is a distinction that differentiates the two.
Creators’ strength is creating engaging, entertaining content for a particular social platform that leans into its unique features, qualities, content styles/executions and experience.
While influencers have to create engaging and entertaining content as well, they bring even more to the table. They have their own brand that they’ve developed and grown, and an audience they’ve built along the way who trusts their point of view, recommendations and suggestions.
While creators may have a large audience or following, that’s not always the case. Typically, they have a portfolio of content they’ve produced for brands that demonstrates they know how to take creative direction and bring it to life in a way that’s native to the intended platform.
While there are similarities and differences, they all sort of ladder up to the overarching Creator Economy and support a variety of business goals and objectives like Brand Awareness, Consideration, Conversion, Loyalty and Advocacy.
Creator content has proved more cost-effective for brands as 40% say they continue to see YoY increases in costs associated with traditional advertising (Source: CreatorIQ 2024 Influencer Marketing Trends Report).
Sponsored digital ads featuring creators proved the most impactful marketing strategy for marketers at both brands and agencies, edging out other creator-led strategies like affiliate marketing and user-generated content (UGC) (Source: CreatorIQ).
As these strategies evolve, so do the demands, expectations and importance factors when creators are determining whether to work with a brand. 82% of creators considered creative control “very important” in paid partnerships, and 56% of respondents reported Brand Values are increasingly important (such as inclusivity, sustainability or social justice causes) and factored into whether they partnered with a brand.
The power of authenticity between a brand and consumer can also have some unexpected but welcomed results. In 2023, 51% of creators were inspired to post unpaid content about a brand when they experienced genuine enthusiasm for the brand’s offerings. The demand for authenticity has risen in the creator and influencer space, as well as trends around de-influencing, in addition to brands loosening the creative restrictions and allowing themselves to be featured alongside competitors to champion a particular product.
In 2024, Hootsuite predicts that AI will force the most successful brands to redefine authenticity, focusing less on who (or what) creates content and more on the brand experience the content creates for the customer (Source: Hootsuite).
2024 TREND 2: AI
While AI has made quite the splash in 2023, projections expect the adoption to grow more rapidly in 2024. 61% of respondents say the #1 reason they use AI for social media is to reduce staff workload, as most social media managers are typically a team of one and strapped for time (Source: Hootsuite).
In 2024, the biggest increases in AI use within organizations are expected to include revising text, editing images and providing customer service (Source: Hootsuite). Additionally, creators commonly use AI for social media captions, general brainstorming and email and blog writing (Source: CreatorIQ).
However, it’s important to be aware of the consumer perception and adoption of AI as well. Different generations vary in their ability to know if something is created by an AI application, their trust in something written by AI and their likelihood to engage with content created by AI. It’s important for brands to consider their audience and how they feel about AI beyond demographic information–behavioral, interests, feelings, challenges, patterns and buying habits, stages of life, etc. Gathering insights on whether other factors such as culture, geography, or interests influence their perception of AI is crucial and will support all marketing efforts, not just those related to AI.
At the end of the day, AI has created the opportunity to streamline, automate and simplify tasks. Therefore, it’s important to determine which tasks can be delegated to AI, and which should maintain the human element.
2024 TREND 3: Shifts in Success Measurement (Platform Prioritization, Investment, Performance)
Platform Prioritization
As social is a channel constantly reinventing itself, evolving and changing, so comes the opportunity to capture new audiences and attention spans. While it can be tempting to jump into a new platform before your competitors, or maintain a presence on every platform you’ve identified that your target audience uses, the juice isn’t always worth the squeeze.
For example, did you know the average social media user logs into about seven platforms each month (Source: DemandSage)? This is to say that if you focus and maintain a presence on 3 priority channels, rather than trying to support 6+ channels, you’re likely to still reach the same audience of existing and potential customers.
One of the biggest factors that a multi-platform strategy can be difficult to not only maintain but grow and thrive is the importance of tailoring social content to each network (even while some brands continue to copy, paste and post the same content everywhere).
Different channels have different audiences, mindsets, lingo, trends and hashtags, not to mention limitations on character counts, image spec variance and more.
Brands that mimic and follow the content styles and elements of a platform tend to be more well-received by users, more welcomed and more successful (see: Authenticity). Meeting a customer where they’re at, in the channel of their choosing and in the style of content they’re seeking is a much more natural touchpoint than an ad interrupting something they actually wanted to watch.
Brands are determining which platforms drive the most ROI for their organization, prioritizing accordingly and not determining strategy simply on monthly active users (MAUs), platform growth or other factors historically influencing platform prioritization.
In 2024, strategic organizations will push back against unjustified expectations to do everything on every platform. They’ll unlock their top-performing channels based on ROI, and focus their attention on those—and only those. If they’re really confident (and brave), they might even abandon one or two altogether.
It comes down to quality over quantity. Don’t be on a channel just to be there–ask yourself first why your brand should (or shouldn’t) be present on a channel, and define its purpose for doing (or not doing) so. It’s expected that having more intention and focus on a few key platforms will prove to be more valuable than simply maintaining a presence on many.
Investment
As we continue to see shifts in the industry towards UGC, Influencer and Creator content, we also see the marketing budgets and allocations shift to meet those demands. In 2024, 1 in 4 brands will invest $1M or more in influencer marketing, with 55% of organizations increasing YoY budgets. While 54% of survey respondents allocated up to ¼ of their marketing budget toward influencer marketing, 21% of respondents allocated 50% or more of their total marketing budget toward influencer marketing (Source: CreatorIQ).
In addition to marketing spend and budget, there’s growth in team resources to help support these growing strategies and efforts. 47% of respondents reported that the number of team members who focus wholly on influencer marketing has grown YoY. 95% of organizations have at least one dedicated influencer marketing professional, while 63% have three or more.
Performance
Social is for sharing, not selling. The true strength of social media is all about building brand awareness and affinity. It has enabled brands to create long-term relationships with their audience through social content that engages and entertains them. Measuring ROI against other objectives is asking the channel to do something it’s not intended for.
That being said, social media can and does have a significant impact on other business metrics–they’re just difficult to measure (attribute) back to social, meaning the channel never gets the credit it deserves for the multiple touchpoints it has and role it plays in the customer journey, or how it fosters advocacy and loyalty.
When measuring/determining ROI, be sure it ladders up to the objectives you have for each platform. Your paid social strategy may be Consideration, while your organic strategy is Awareness. Measuring these against an ROI for revenue or new customers is not only unfair, but an inaccurate way to determine success. Your strategy could also vary by platform, depending on audience behaviors, size, content format and more. According to CreatorIQ, 60% of organizations said Instagram delivers the greatest ROI, while 22% of organizations said TikTok and 11% said YouTube. Conversely, Facebook, Twitch, Twitter/X and Snapchat all fall at 5% or less of organization respondents.
It’s important to keep in mind the platforms that drive the most ROI confidence aren’t necessarily the most widely used, and vice versa. For example, of only 14% of organizations that have a presence on WhatsApp, almost 2/3 of them feel strongly that it benefits their business. Historically, the majority of brands have been active on Twitter/X, but only 30% think it drives value (a 23% decrease from last year, in addition to a 7% drop in brand use of the platform) (Source: Hootsuite).
Summary
- Social is best for the long game: building brand equity, which takes time.
- When you unavoidably talk about yourself as a brand, approach it with warmth, authenticity and relatability. Lead with a human experience, and what was once a promotion becomes more personal and meaningful.
- Embrace the inevitability of AI and work with others in your organization to determine the best ways for it to support you and your team.
- Spend time figuring out what’s working: the styles and types of content, the platforms you’re active on and any other tactics (such as creators) that are helping you achieve your goals and objectives.
- Look for correlations between events on social media and business results to better determine causation. Did you sell out of a product within 24 hours of an influencer posting about it?