“The only constant thing in life is change.” – who would have thought that the words uttered by Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus several hundred years B.C. would still be relevant in the age of airplanes, smartphones and social media. However, they apply perfectly especially to the latter phenomenon, i.e. widely used instant messaging, where we are constantly seeing more changes. After a year in which Barbie has become a global phenomenon (not just in social media), a new Threads platform from Meta has emerged, and Twitter has evolved to just one letter and is now known as X (and that’s just the beginning of the numerous changes that have taken place in the medium in recent months), one can definitely only be even more curious about what’s to come.

If you, too, are curious about what social media and marketing trends will play the biggest role in 2024, check out our latest article – we’ll try to predict what will matter most!

In the first place: authenticity

The BeReal app was created in 2019, and while it is far from being as popular as Facebook, Instagram or Tik-Tok are today, it is definitely trying to find and bite its piece of the social media market pie – it has been downloaded more than 100 million times and is used by more than 25 million users daily. What sets BeReal apart from other social media platforms? The emphasis it places on authenticity. This app stands in opposition to the world’s giants, focusing on honest and realistic portrayals of users’ lives – and this approach is increasingly popular at a time when the pressure of “perfect images shared online” is very much alive and often harmful.

The approach of BeReal’s creators dovetails perfectly with a trend that we believe will play one of the most important roles in 2024 – namely, authenticity. After all, we can already see that there is a strong demand for a more realistic and honest view of the online world, something that influencers or personal brands are increasingly vocal about. It will be interesting to see if this approach will revolutionize the way people communicate and share content with each other on social platforms, right? We’ll certainly be watching it closely!

UGC – but what is the point of the content?

Inherent in authenticity is the user-generated content (UGC) trend, which has been evident for several years (but is growing more and more rapidly). Social media users, especially those categorized as Generation Z, publish posts, testimonials or reels on all sorts of topics, but there is definitely no shortage of mentions of brands they like and products that have worked for them (or not). Sharing experiences is a way for them to express themselves and show their individual style (interests, values, etc.) – and at the same time it opens new doors for brands to turn those experiences to their advantage.

After all, user-generated content provides what a brand’s potential customers need – that is, social proof, an essential part of any sales funnel. We won’t discover America when we point out that people often make decisions based on what others are doing, and are willing to choose proven and recommended products. This type of content – in the form of reviews, opinions, photos or videos – is simply credible and authentic.  

How can brands take advantage of this trend? For example, by implementing campaigns that will encourage users to share their stories related to the product or service. Contests, online events, dedicated hashtags – all this will make the consumer an active participant in the brand, not just a passive observer. What’s more, thanks to UGC, brands can also better understand their community, adapting their marketing strategy to the actual needs and expectations of consumers. So this marketing and social media trend for 2024 definitely cannot be ignored!

And tracking UGC, or mentions of your company or products, is one of the functions that SentiOne can perform for you. Maybe together we can find user-generated content (your audience) that has the potential to be used or expanded in the New Year?

Back to… longer content?

First there was YouTube with its videos and creators’ channels, then Instagram and reels, and in 2024… We are likely to see the great return of longer forms of video. What does longer mean? No, I don’t mean videos lasting tens of minutes, but materials taking up 2 to 5 minutes – which is definitely a change from the reigning rolls or Tik-Tok videos counted in seconds in recent times.

Why this change? We can suspect that it stems from the fact that social media users are increasingly turning to it to find answers to all sorts of questions, tips or solutions to problems in video form – and this is sometimes hard to convey in short form. Most likely for this reason, Tik-Tok is currently testing a program whereby creators will only be able to make money on videos longer than a minute, Instagram is treating all videos up to 15 minutes as reels, and X (which is formerly Twitter) has introduced a premium subscription whereby videos up to 3 hours long can be uploaded to the platform! So this trend is already apparent – and we’ll certainly be keeping an eye on what happens next in this area.

Within videos, it will also be necessary to add subtitles to any uploaded material – as more and more people are watching videos without sound. Why? Because we use social media, for example, on the way to work on public transportation or in public places, which is often when we don’t have headphones or don’t want to reach for them. You wouldn’t want such a user to scroll through your video just because it didn’t have subtitles, would you? So remember to add them every time. What’s more, such an action is bound to be positively perceived in terms of making your social media materials more accessible to deaf people – which means you’ll get double the credit.

AI this, AI that… – artificial intelligence in marketing

It’s hard to say artificial intelligence is still a trend – but it will definitely be even more widely used in 2024, influenced both by the development of the very tools that are already on the market (and their integrations with others), as well as by emerging new solutions. Indeed, it is no longer the case that marketers are wondering whether they should use AI and whether they will lose their jobs because of it – but are looking for ways to best use it to support their daily work in content creation, graphic design or data analysis. After all, automating routine tasks allows employees to focus on more creative tasks, which ultimately leads to greater value for the company.

So in 2024, we can expect the development of AI-based tools to continue, and integrations between different solutions to become more advanced. We will certainly be working on this ourselves as part of our integration of SentiOne with ChatGPT last year. Are you looking forward to the improvements we are planning, responding to this 2024 trend?

Keywords in social media instead of #?

The last trend described may seem the most surprising, but we can already see that more and more creators on Instagram, for example, are abandoning the use of hashtags at the end of posts in favor of using keywords that are most relevant to the content they create. What is the result of this? The growing role of SEO – previously known only from Google search – in social media. Content creators are increasingly turning to SEO strategies to increase the visibility of their content.

Why is this happening? This trend also related to what we’ve already mentioned – that users are increasingly looking for answers to their questions on social media instead of a search engine, and expect the most targeted search results possible. For brands (corporate and personal), keyword matching is therefore a way to better position their content and reach new customers in this way. And it’s fair to say that this strategy works, because, as a study by Hootsuite showed, posts where keyword matching was taken care of had a higher engagement rate – and by as much as 30%. So if you’re active in social media, you should definitely take note of this trend!

Social media trends for 2024 – summary

Is this all we can expect? Of course not – certainly Tik-Tok will continue to develop, from which we will probably take video trends and transfer them to other platforms. We will keep an eye on Threads developments, wondering if this new social medium will become a second X.  Perhaps more niche social media will emerge, standing in opposition to the current giants. Finally, we’ll be watching the development of those trends that have been with us for a couple of years now – including the ever-growing role of video, stronger use of AR (augmented reality) in social media, and sustainable marketing efforts.

Even if the above trends are not a closed catalog, it’s definitely worth being aware of them and keeping up to date with what’s going on – in line with the idea from the beginning that the only constant thing in life (in social media) is change. Will you be doing it along with us?

If you’d like to learn more, schedule a demo call here.