Social Media Trends for 2024

2024 is a year where we can expect a lot of changes in the social landscape- from new regulations to emerging platforms, and from the rise of misinformation to the importance of trust and authenticity online. Within this, it’s crucial to keep sight of your ultimate communications objectives- what do you want to say, who is your audience, and where can you reach them? With firm objectives, navigating the social media landscape can become a little easier. Here are some of the key trends for 2024.

C-Suite and Leadership Voices???

Senior members of an organisation have the power to positively influence reputation and build trust. From employee engagement to stakeholder communications, it’s vital that leaders have an online presence. In 2023, across all of our clients, we saw a huge rise in active LinkedIn followers across all demographics. Now is the time for a leadership LinkedIn strategy, tailored to your goals and audience, if you don’t already have one. ?

Employee Advocacy

Harnessing the power of your workforce to speak authentically about your business is a vital tool. Data shows that when employees speak about their workplace authentically and positively it improves the employer brand, as well as increasing the reach of your campaigns and messages. We’ve also seen a rise in EGC – Employee Generated Content, where employees are now advocating for the brand they work for with 'day in the life’ content, product reviews etc. ?

Strategically Using Social Platforms

The average social media user logs into about seven platforms each month. Maintaining a presence on multiple platforms is hard for brands. It requires a lot of time and effort to create diverse content for each platform that is tailored to the unique audiences, tone, trends, hashtags, word counts, and visual specs of each ever-changing platform. Instead of being on every social media app, brands should focus on platforms that are the most effective for their audience. Whether it’s a stakeholder on LinkedIn or a consumer on TikTok, be targeted with how you use your energy. ?

Authenticity Remains Crucial

Authenticity will continue to be an important factor for brands on social media. Consumers are choosy when it comes to the content they interact with. Responsiveness from brand accounts boosts trust among consumers. Audiences are looking to engage with a real person, a familiar voice. Make sure your organisation has a clear strategy when it comes to community management.

Knowing How to Work With Creators and Influencers

As influencer marketing matures, brands are moving away from one off campaigns, and embracing long-term relationships with creators.?One of the best ways to find creators is to find them within your audience. Influencer marketing campaigns that consist of creators that already use the product is a strong way to ensure authenticity.

Retention Rate is Emerging as a Key Metric

Factors like content quality, time of day, and device contribute to engagement rates. But the focus is shifting from engagement to retention in 2024. Attention is the social media world’s most valuable commodity and marketers will be reporting on retention more than ever before. While this feature already existed on YouTube, Instagram has also introduced this analytics option for Reels, where you can look at your audience’s retention rates, watch time and content replay.

Video Sharing Sites Will Come Under Increased Safety Rules

Coimisiún na Meán is putting an online safety framework in place in Ireland. This framework will make digital services accountable for how they protect people, especially children, from harm online.?Aimed at online companies based in Ireland, a forthcoming code will carry potential fines of up to €20 million and tackle harmful content, particularly that affecting children. Facebook, Instagram and X are among 10 video-sharing services that will come under strict online safety rules enforced by the new Irish regulator.

Can Threads Replace X?

This question is being asked a lot, but in reality they are not like-for-like platforms. Threads finally launched in the EU in December, giving it access to a market of nearly 450m potential users. Many Irish Instagram users have activated Threads accounts, though the user figure is unknown at present. For now, there’s no sign of the app moving into the news-breaking space that X still dominates. Our view is that corporate communications will continue to migrate to LinkedIn, niche genres and conversations will continue to thrive on Reddit, and consumer brands will continue to focus on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. What happens with Threads and X – only time will tell!

Deepfakes and Disinformation

In the huge global election year of 2024, it’s more challenging than ever to maintain the integrity of democratic campaigns and election results.??Deepfakes will be maliciously deployed to spread disinformation. Governments, media, and tech companies will be grappling with this in 2024. In the era of misinformation, trusted news sources will never be more important.