5 Social Media Trends to Watch Out For in 2024
2023 saw an explosion in new features across our most favoured social media platforms. From the introduction of AI tools to the popularity of private spaces and communities, the social media landscape is shifting at a higher rate than ever. So, in order to ensure you’re across the key changes and upcoming updates in 2024, take a look at the 5 trends we at Pixel8 believe to be the most influential in the next 12 months.
Private Spaces Continue to Grow
Back in 2019 founder and CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, proclaimed: “the future of communication will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services where people can be confident that what they say to each other stays secure and their messages and content won’t stick around forever”. Five years later, it’s pretty clear that social media platforms are increasingly offering spaces for friends, groups and communities to interact away from their public newsfeeds.
Most recently, Instgram’s DM Notes feature continued to evolve, to offer more dynamic engagement that teens have experienced in other apps. For example, adding ‘looping video’ as a way to send video messages as a DM.
But it’s not just growing for youngsters. Wherever you look, we can see growth in private and communal social media spaces. Whether it’s Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger or X Communities, it’s certainly a place for users and marketers to keep a close eye on in 2024.
Increased Platform Exposure for Content Creators
The last 12 months has seen a real upscaling from social media platforms in opening new doors to content creators, influencers and brands to monetize their content.
One recent addition to Instagram has been the broadcast channel, with brands being able to reach followers in an entirely different space, which caused some confusion and frustration from users based on new notifications.
Even a platform such as BeReal, which initially launched with an ‘anti-Instagram’ modus operandi with the hook of giving users a unique way to create ‘authentic’ content, has now created new channels of access to celebrities and brands to join in with the concept. Fundamentally, this is great news, giving creators and marketeers the opportunity to reach new audiences in interesting, unexplored spaces.
Greater Uptake in AI tools on Social Platforms
2023 felt like a big first step for AI in becoming part of many people’s social media experience. Whether you’ve really engaged with it yet or not, expect more tools to become available in the coming months.
A great example which launched last year and has gained some recent updates is Collaborative Articles on LinkedIn. This feature uses AI prompts as a jumping off point in creating helpful articles for users. These then call upon specific experts in the given subject to contribute and offer their advice.
With over 1 million contributions last year, it’s certainly working well for the platform, who have introduced some updates to improve the concept in 2024.
Meta has implemented a helpful tool for their ads platform, which generates variant content depending on your ad campaign. For Example, their new text valiant feature creates a number of alternate copy suggestions based on your initial description, which is a great way to keep your text refreshed and limit ad fatigue.
Vertical Video Spreading Its Wings Further
Every year vertical video grows in popularity on social media and it appears 2024 won’t be any different. We’ve all known for some time that video is indeed king across our social networks, with brands and content creators creating more Reels and TikToks than ever before.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating too, with Brands earning nearly 40% more engagement with reels compared to other Instagram content formats, for example.
We can see a constant jostling for video access across the less obvious platforms too. Over at X, they have been trialling a new video tab, giving users a fast track to this type of content. They are also looking to expand into Live Streaming content further, with the aim of breaking into the gamer streaming sphere, great for content creators and brands that activate in this space.
Without wishing to sound like a broken record, if you aren’t maximising your video output currently, 2024 seems to be a great time to do so.
X Will Keep Evolving (For Better or Worse)
Forever unpredictable, X (formerly Twitter) has been on a hell of a ride since Elon Musk purchased the platform in October 2022. From charging for verification to welcoming previously banned users back to the platform, many have been pushed away, heading to alternatives such as Telegram or the recently launched competitor Threads. However, a number of additions are attempting to lure content creators back.
To begin with, Premium accounts now have more ways of monetising their content, as X looks to hone in on those who already use the platform to promote content on other platforms and help them integrate it within X. You can learn more about it here.
In their attempt to encourage long-form video content creators to use the platform (as well as Youtube), X has also looked to make monetisation a more attractive prospect. YouTube behemoth Mr Beast recently boosted question marks around this after receiving over £250,000 for a video he shared on the platform, way over the perceived monetisation ratio of cash per click. Discover more about it here.
Approaching X with a positive mindset, marketeers can possibly find greater success on the platform than in the past. With brands moving away, less competition in particular niches offers up opportunity and arguably cheaper costs on ads. Some advertisers have seen this on Facebook, as more move away from the platform to focus spend on Instagram, so the same could be true on X.
If you need some guidance on traversing the occasionally confusing waters of Social Media, perhaps we could help. Whether it’s growing your organic presence or getting more from your paid social, we can work together to make your platforms progress. Just get in touch here.
