Top 5 Social Media Marketing Strategy Trends for 2024

The digital marketing ecosystem is full of trends that come and go faster than Instagram Stories. Tell your Gen Z colleagues about Vine and see what happens.

It takes discerning marketers to know where brands should invest their time and resources. Here, we round up the key social media opportunities that brands can use to gain confidence in his 2024 momentum.

1. Artificial intelligence as a collaborator

2023 was billed as the year of AI, but few marketers did more than experiment with early versions of the tools. 2024 will be the year that AI is put to good use, especially in social media.

behind the scenes

More brands will leverage AI to streamline operations and enhance analytics. Machine learning algorithms can analyze large amounts of first-party data and uncover actionable insights to enhance segmentation and personalization. This is especially important given the final phase-out of third-party cookies in 2024.

Predictive behavioral analysis, sentiment analysis, and influencer discovery are ways marketers can leverage AI to develop social media strategies that prioritize highly customized and relevant audience experiences.

creative collaboration

With these insights, creative teams can embrace generative AI to save time and money and benefit from:

• Suggest attractive captions.
• Generate custom brand visuals.
• Reuse high-performing posts.
• Identify new materials based on trending topics and competitor activity.

The key word here is “suggestion.” Content teams aren't going anywhere. Audiences can still smell the difference between real human communication and bot-generated prose.

From digital greeting cards to a major acquisition in the Las Vegas Sphere, Coca-Cola led the early adoption of generative AI in public marketing in 2023. As the first brand to partner directly with OpenAI, the beverage giant collaborated with Bain and his WPP to demonstrate. How great work is incorporating AI technology into integrated team approaches.

new customer service agent

Finally, chatbots are expected to proliferate on the messaging side of social platforms as brands look to provide personalized, real-time interactions to customers who need assistance.

While AI can certainly make social marketing more efficient, there are things to consider if you want to maintain trust with your audience. Authenticity and privacy are top concerns across all demographics, not to mention complications with plagiarism, misinformation, and bias. Understand how your audience perceives AI. Work with your general counsel and possibly your diversity committee before making your AI solution public.

Dig deeper: 6 ways to use generative AI for marketing

2. Social commerce is taking the retail industry by storm

With features like in-app purchases, shopping tags, and integrated payment options, social media platforms are taking over the role as the primary shopping destination.

This makes sense, as social shopping encapsulates the entire consumer decision-making process within a closed circuit.

full funnel solution

Social commerce eliminates the browsing stage and clicks to checkout, ultimately reducing friction points.Advances in augmented reality and virtual reality will allow users to evaluate products on sitereducing purchasing uncertainty.

Brands can receive real-time feedback on their products and buy experiences directly from targeted users without spending on surveys or focus groups. You can also increase stickiness by involving your loyal customers in product development. Within this loop, a purchase can be more than a transaction. They can promote relationships.

According to HubSpot's Marketing Trends Report, the Meta platform delivers the highest ROI. However, choose the right platform based on your target cohort. Zara, for example, launched the TikTop Shop late last year, knowing that TikTok is where Gen Z customers are looking for the latest fashion trends.

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3. Leave it on the reel

Short-form videos and ephemeral content will survive

Interestingly, short-form videos and ephemeral content are the primary focus for branded content creators, not to grab attention, but to keep users interacting with their devices.

Our goal for 2024 is to seamlessly integrate brands into the digital lives of our audiences in an informal and human way. We use behind-the-scenes, testimonials, Ask Me Anything (AMA), and customer and internal surveys to deliver concise content that's real and relatable.

Microbrand ambassadors reign supreme

In case you haven't noticed yet, in 2024, authenticity, connection, and human engagement will emerge as key audience requirements for brand interactions. Who better to recommend a product than a trusted friend or neighbor? Celebrity endorsements have lost traction. This means working with “nano-influencers” and leveraging user-generated content to promote your brand.

Kraft Heinz wins by leveraging user-generated content (UGC) and nano-influencers to promote existing staples and new product launches. CPG brands have successfully placed their products in real home situations across the continent, building trust and relevance with key buyers.

Dig deeper: Navigating the creator economy: Strategies for brand and marketing teams

4. Social search optimization

TikTok and Instagram have dethroned Google as Gen Z's search engine of choice. So if you want to reach new demographics in the 18-34 age group, you need to optimize your brand to be discoverable on social platforms.

While it wasn't so common before, in 2024, look to include high-traffic keywords and descriptive metadata in your social posts to increase brand awareness.

Swipe left to start engaging

Engagement also influences social search results. Plan your posts for times when your audience is most likely to be interested.

Ask questions: Stickers and polls make it easy for your audience to interact with your posts, increasing engagement. But the easiest question is a simple swipe. Use carousel posts to showcase engaging new AI- or user-generated content and improve engagement statistics.

humor and heartstrings

This is not new information. Reposts are worth their weight in gold. The more pages that link to your content, the higher your brand will rank within search results. Timely lists, infographics, how-tos, videos, and memes are all shareable formats you can incorporate into your plans, but what's even more important in 2024 is tone.

Appeal to your audience's humanity through humor and tugging at their heartstrings (again, with nostalgia in the air). And always use a compelling call to action that encourages your audience to share.

Learn more: 5 reasons why marketers should consider TikTok for B2B

5. High and proud corporate values

In the age of AI and VR, where misinformation and privacy concerns exist, trust is the word of the day. Audiences expect their favorite brands to publicize their values ​​and demonstrate consistent adherence to those values.

If you haven't already done so, focus on your brand's core concerns and make sure they permeate your internal culture and social media strategy. Inside-out authenticity fosters credibility, trust, and positive reviews among consumers and prospective talent alike.

Buffer, a social media marketing platform, has built a reputation for transparency by openly sharing salaries and company milestones and advocating for transparency in social media marketing. We don't need to be everything to every marketer, but we want to lead the way in technology transparency.

Technology advances, but it cannot replace the human desire for authentic connection. Simplify your social media approach. Use AI to prioritize meaningful personal interactions and harness the intelligence and influence of your target audience for success in 2024.

Digging Deeper: The B2B Social Media “Sweet Spot”: What’s Working and What’s Not