Social Media Moves Faster Than a TikTok Dance - Here's How Your Brand Can Keep Up in 2024
As a digital marketing strategist and founder of Vertis Media I recently hosted a webinar with Enterprise Nation for UK-based SME and startup founders to help them navigate the ever-evolving social media landscape in 2024. With transformative trends arising, it’s crucial for businesses to understand the opportunities these shifts present and implement data-driven social strategies that get results.
In this article, I’ll elaborate on several standout trends covered in the Enterprise Nation session as well as a few that unfortunately didn’t make the tight time slot. My aim is to provide actionable insights you can actually incorporate to boost real growth and engagement this year.
Key Social Media Opportunities for Business Growth
Video Marketing Continues to Accelerate
It's no secret that video dominates social media engagement as users increasingly favour visually dynamic content. But in 2024, we’re seeing even more expansive growth opportunities through both short-form and long-form video formats.
Platforms like TikTok and YouTube Shorts should be central pillars for bite-sized videos showcasing products, behind-the-scenes footage, employee spotlights and more. The key is crafting authentic and fun videos under 2-3 minutes using trends, audios and effects tailored to your niche.
Surprisingly however, long-form video is making an equally important comeback. As audience attention spans expand across networks like YouTube and TikTok, creators incorporating videos between 2-10 minutes long are actually seeing their channels and subscriber counts grow at 5X the rates of solely short-form posters.
The lesson? Aim to diversify your video content throughout 2024 for the widest impact.
Social Commerce Set to Revolutionise Business Models
Another of the most seismic digital shifts underway is the rise of social commerce. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram are rapidly building in-stream shopping functionalities through innovations like shoppable live videos and integrated stores.
This means users can instantly click to explore or purchase tags products —no more disruptive redirections or app switching. And for businesses, that unprecedented frictionless path from discovery to conversion presents game-changing sales potential.
Forward-looking SMEs must focus on optimising social commerce features this year by creatively showcasing goods through shoppable posts, AR try-ons and seamless checkouts while collaborating with influencers to drive authentic promotions. Meet audiences where they’re most active, and transactions will follow.
Harness the Power of Communities and UGC
If recent years have taught us anything, it’s that fostering brand connections grounded in transparency and shared values is non-negotiable. The brands winning mind and heart share in 2024 are those embracing user-generated content and building inclusive communities across social channels.
The aim should be engaging followers as real brand advocates through reactive feedback cycles and spotlighting UGC like reviews, tagged images and videos. The collective impact of thousands of micro-influencers organically championing your company based on positive real-life impressions is unmatched.
And proactively cultivating spaces for niche audiences to interact through networks like Reddit, Facebook Groups and Slack channels strengthens that community identity. Lean into what makes your brand authentic and conversations will flourish.
Leverage LinkedIn’s Expanding Potential
While historically skewing towards business networking and lead generation, 2024 presents a new era for LinkedIn as demographics diversify and content mediums evolve. With the professional platform now counting over 1 billion members including a majority Gen Z presence, keeping your brand visibility and network healthy is non-negotiable.
Posting regular long-form articles and content highlighting unique expertise helps position your credibility as an industry leader. Similarly, daily engagement within LinkedIn’s powerful Groups and messaging functionalities expands reachable audiences exponentially compared to isolated posts.
And with LinkedIn expanding their analytics capabilities this year, expect even more intricate tracking of content performance and audience segmentation for tailored paid boosting. Stay active and opportunity abounds.
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Additional Noteworthy Marketing Trends This Year
Alongside those 4 dominant opportunities, a multitude of adjacent social platforms and functionalities warrant attention for SME marketers in 2024. The key is remaining agile and willing to test innovative formats aligning to your audience interests.
Consider the following emerging tactics:
Leveraging generative writing tools like ChatGPT to inform more tailored content is a trend to tap into. While AI should complement rather than replace human social media managers, its ability to analyse data like user demographics and past engagement signals then propose personalised content ideas could be a competitive advantage. Think dynamic segments and precision messaging.
Understanding what happens after an asset gets shared matters, yet shares happening privately via DMs and texts are nearly impossible to trace. Still, crafty marketers should explore adding campaign tags to links frequently shared privately by audiences or surveying users on associated actions taken. However fuzzy, determining indicators tied to dark social is crucial.
As engagement shifts from one-way public broadcasts toward private conversations, experimenting with formats built for dialogue matters more. Features like Twitter’s new Notes functionality for status updates only visible for 24 hours in DMs or IG’s interactive polls and questions stickers can deliver those relational moments to drive affinity. Meet audiences where conversations occur.
Dovetailing the interactive trend, recognise that messaging channels like WhatsApp and Telegram are increasingly favoured avenues for personal sharing and recommendations. Rather than ignore the migration, brands attuned to convenience should consider customer service bots providing helpful resources or even nurturing micro-communities through broadcast lists of loyalists. Go direct with care.
Opportunity Abounds in 2024!
To wrap things up, it’s clear that 2024 represents a banner year for marketers embracing the constant state of social flux. As consumer behaviours evolve amidst tech disruption from AI to VR and new platforms launch seemingly monthly, agility and constant learning are non-negotiables.
Yet rather than shrink from change, savvy SMEs have much to gain when it comes to supercharged video formats primed for creativity and profit, frictionless in-app shopping functionalities and an ethos anchored in community.
I hope this recap offers valuable and actionable guidance whether you caught my recent webinar or are just diving into social media marketing for the first time.
Feel free to get in touch with myself or my team at Vertis Media should you have any outstanding questions!
Remember, there’s no better time than now to start building smarter social strategies for the many opportunities 2024 has to offer.
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