Social media platforms are evolving rapidly. New trends and habits are changing the social media landscape every year. This has a huge influence on how people use and react to social media marketing and how they consume the content.
Are you keeping up with the new social media changes?
Many companies and influencers today have a task to find a perfect balance between making sense of their social data and finding new ways to engage with users and customers.
In this blog post, we will go through five golden social media trends in 2024 you should keep up with.
Nano-influencers
In the last few years, mega, macro, and micro-influencers promoted different products and services, but this year the focus will be on nano-influencers.
Nano-influencers are not so overwhelmed by sponsor offers. It means they can create more personalized content.
It’s easier to trust influencers who seem to be like your friends. Nano-influencers are those with less than 20,000 followers (usually between 1,000 and 5,000 followers). They run their profiles more as their archive and album than as an influencer account. Many brands have turned to nano-influencers and this trend will continue until the end of 2024.
Despite a smaller number of followers, they focus on specific categories and niches. They are honest and approachable, achieve a better engagement rate than popular influencers, and build better quality relationships based on trust with their followers.
They are affordable and cost significantly less. Many nano-influencers will share a post in exchange for a free product or service.
Instagram is hiding likes
Instagram is gradually introducing new changes. The insight into the total number of likes on a post will be visible only to content creators.
The reason for introducing this novelty is that people have started to value themselves by the number of likes they receive, which adversely affects mental health.
Although it is a common belief that the hormone dopamine is responsible for creating feelings of happiness in our brains, over time, it has become more apparent that dopamine doesn’t generate happiness.
Dopamine only gives us the impetus to seek pleasure continually. Social media activates the reward cycle, in which likes and reviews bring you the hormones of joy. The more likes you get, the more you want them.
The question is whether this is the real reason for this change, or whether Instagram wants to prevent further development of influencer marketing from increasing the profit from classic advertising within the platform itself.
Although the change is on its way, it is essential to stay connected and engaged with users and consumers. Maybe likes won’t be visible anymore, but they will continue to stream anyway!
Combine social media and Email marketing
Although social media effectively expands reach, builds trust, and generates traffic opportunities, email still converts much better. Here lies an opportunity to build a stronger brand by combining email and social media.
Email is still the main channel of communication. Billions of people worldwide continue to use it for personal, commercial, industrial, legal, scientific, and academic purposes. In other words, email marketing is still essential.
Social media is helpful if you want to get specific people to sign up for your email list, so think about making them work together.
Remind users and followers on social media platforms about your email list as well. For example, you can do this on Instagram and put a link into your bio or promote your email list via Stories. This way, followers will be able to swipe up and directly visit your landing page.
Customers and users nowadays prefer personalization. They love it when you talk to them or at least make them feel unique. Personalization is the key to gaining new customers or users.
Video as a dominant content format
Video content is the most appealing to users and is considered to achieve the best engagement. It has been one of the most significant trends for years and will continue to be so in the future.
The video content wins in captivating and retaining the audience. It can be in the form of short TikTok videos, Instagram Stories, or longer content like IGTV, Facebook Live, or YouTube.
Because of too much available information and disrupted dopamine receptors, human attention is declining.
This is the reason why short-term content is enormously popular. According to statistics, in January 2017, 150 million people used Instagram Stories daily, while in January 2019, that number climbed to 500 million.
Video is considered the most popular way for consumers to learn about new products. So, if you haven’t already, you should include it in your business.
Social commerce
Social commerce, also known as social media shopping, refers to companies selling products directly within social media platforms. The entire shopping experience occurs within the social media platform.
Since more and more companies are using social networks such as Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook, it is predicted that social networks could become the primary source for direct sales.
For example, last year, Instagram launched Checkout, an easy way to buy without leaving the Instagram app. Instagram allows customers to purchase products directly from Instagram without switching to another app, making shopping much easier.
Personalization is the key. The content you post on social media must be accessible and appealing to the audience you are targeting. Tailoring your content to your audience will significantly increase your social media traffic.
Other trends for 2024 include more effective implementation of technologies such as AR and VR in social networks, influencer marketing development, and regulations concerning the privacy and security of social network users’ data.
Suppose you want to be successful in a very dynamic and very competitive environment represented by social networks. In that case, you must keep up with the changes and implement innovations into your strategy on time.
About the author
Monika is a passionately curious and perpetually inspired Copywriter and Content Creator. She is responsible for creating and writing the content in a digital agency Async Labs, for a few in-house and external projects for clients. Ten years of journalistic adventure helped her hone her craft and launched her into the world of copywriting. Found in translation, never lost a word.
