Are you ready to revolutionize your brand strategy? Join us as we delve into the 2024 social media trends that will elevate your digital presence and foster significant connections with your target audience. The social media realm continues to evolve rapidly, presenting challenges and exciting new brand opportunities. This era is all about staying on top of the latest trends, making it an option and a key component in delivering the best strategies for your brand to strive for. Explore the 2024 social media trends shaping how we engage, connect, and build brand narratives.
Navigating 2024: Building Trust, Sparking Curiosity & Imagination, and Embracing Vulnerability
2024 is the year of stepping back from polished posts and hard-sells and leaning into the audience’s interests and relatability. Navigating these new trends will help build a sense of community with your audience and create relationships.
Engagement is a huge part of the 2024 social media trends that are key for your brand in the social media realm. Algorithms for Instagram and TikTok prioritize content that stimulates conversation and triggers reaction. Here are some ways to capitalize on the 2024 social media trends to build your brand’s presence:
- Videos > Static Posts: Instagram favors video content in their algorithm over static posts. Videos/Reels on Instagram often generate more engagement through likes, comments, shares, and saves. Create meaningful connections by responding to comments with the audience and increase your levels of engagement even further.
- Interactive Posts: Consider the likeliness of your audience interacting with your content before you post. Is this likely to be liked/commented on? Would someone save this post and come back to it later on? Increase your chances by adding interactive measures like polls, questions, contests, etc., to invite your audience to participate in conversation.
- CTA: A Call to Action featured in your post or caption of the post is a great way to drive traffic to your profile. An example of this could be saying, “Click the link in my bio.” Ensure your brand’s website content can be easily shared on social media platforms. That way, others can easily share the content through quick links and increase your website’s visibility.
SEO on social media will take over social media more than hashtags itself. Search Engine Optimization is vital to discovering your content on social media. Research has shown that roughly 40% of young adults ages 18-24 use social media as a search engine compared to Google. Whether looking to discover popular restaurants to try or looking up information about a new product, people are turning to social media platforms for instant and personalized results.
- Keyword Research: Improve the discoverability of your brand’s profile and posts by incorporating keywords for more reach with relevant searches. Include primary keywords pertinent to your brand in your name and username. Further, describe your brand in your bio with your keyword and secondary keywords that represent your business. Along with that, the Instagram Explore page uses an embedded framework account to identify accounts similar to one another, making it essential to include the keywords throughout
your account and in the captions and hashtags of your posts to improve your odds of getting onto the Explore page.
- Alt Text: Instagram’s alt-text feature allows you to write out alternative text in your photo that will read out the image description using a screen reader for users with visual impairments to hear out what the picture contains. This feature also benefits Instagram SEO by using keywords in your alt text to help the algorithm better understand your post and its relevance to specific users. Click “Advanced Settings” before sharing an image, and tap “Write alt text” to write a more descriptive text with your particular keywords.
- Tagging: Another way to boost your account’s discoverability is to encourage tagging with your audience. This could be done by having your audience tag the account in their posts featuring your products/services, reposting their posts, or running promotions/giveaways that require tagging your account.
Videos/Reels will continue to be the best way to engage with your audience and enhance SEO for your business. As mentioned earlier, Instagram is now prioritizing video content over static posts. Additionally, TikTok is experimenting with longer videos (15 minutes) on FYP. Here are some strategies to increase the reach and visibility of your video content:
- Instagram announced a few new updates to offer more expressive ways to share content, such as making memes by adding clips with audio to your Reels, text-to-speech voices, updated fonts, text styles, and photo filters, and turning any photo/video into a custom sticker.
- Adding subtitles to videos/reels can increase engagement since the number of social media users who watch videos without sound will continue to grow in 2024, so it’s vital to begin the habit of adding captions to all of your videos on all platforms. Another factor is for those who have hearing impairments.
- Optimize video titles with keywords: The goal is to immediately attract and engage the audience from the start of the video. Try this title formula: A descriptive number + the nature of the content + a corresponding detail (like an event) or audience.
- Location tagging for visibility: To improve SEO, tagging the location in your video can help your content appear in those specific location-based searches.
UGC > High Production is necessary to build your brand image for 2024 social media trends. The significance of User-Generated Content (UGC) has surpassed that of carefully crafted brand marketing materials. Recent social media trends are increasingly emphasizing authenticity more than ever. This shift is a response to consumers’ diminishing trust in brands from the past use of traditional advertising efforts, which can be perceived as insincere and lacking credibility.
- Social Proof & Credibility: UGC serves as the social proof needed for a brand’s authenticity and value. Potential new customers are more likely to be influenced by seeing others’ positive experiences with the brand’s product or service.
- Authenticity & Relatability: Consumers no longer want to see brands continue to push their products with polished marketing techniques. Consumers want to see unfiltered, genuine opinions and content that shares the real experiences of other consumers or Micro-influencers.
- Engagement & Interactivity: UGC motivates active participation from the audience. Users who contribute their content become actively engaged with the brand, giving them a
sense of ownership. This strengthens the relationship between the brand and its consumers while also increasing the overall reach of the content.
How to leverage UGC in your 2024 social media strategy:
- Encourage User-Driven Content by showcasing consumer stories and testimonials on social media platforms. Feature user stories, tips, or experiences to add a human touch to your brand and provide social proof of your offerings. Implement branded hashtags for consumers to use when sharing to track the UGC content and promote community engagement.
- Create UGC galleries on your brand’s social media platforms or website to display a collection of user-generated photos, videos, and reviews. This not only highlights user content but encourages others to contribute.
- Run UGC campaigns with clear guidelines on specific themes, challenges, contests, or trends. Motivate the consumers by offering rewards or exclusive deals to motivate their participation. Remember to engage with the contributors by acknowledging those participating in the campaign.
- Micro-influencers, individuals with a moderate yet highly engaged following on social media platforms, can be a great way to connect your brand with a niche audience. Most of these influencers tend to specialize in a particular niche: fitness, fashion, beauty, travel, technology, etc. Their expertise makes their content more targeted and appealing to a specific audience. Collaborate with micro-influencers that best correlate with your brand and be the voice of authenticity. The 2024 Artlist Trend Report mentions that working with these niche influencers with loyal audiences will help your brand tap into a global reach and offer diversity in your customer base and perspectives.
- Participate in storytelling in your brand. Tiktok’s What’s Next 2024 Report describes the switch in storytelling. Creativity and intriguing narratives drive users’ curiosity as opposed to traditional storytelling. Capture the audience’s attention with a hook that stops them from their continuous scroll; think unpredictably, think unexpected. Brands should participate in conversations and invite feedback to create co-creation by involving the audience in the content creation process. Let the audience inspire your content by allowing them to tailor the content to feel more personified.
Embracing these 2024 social media trends is not just an option; it’s crucial in delivering strategies needed to propel your brand to new heights. From building trust and sparking curiosity to embracing vulnerability, the trends in 2024 focus on authenticity, engagement, and creativity.