Find out how in 2024 AI will cause content tsunamis, nano-influencers will steal the spotlight from the giants, and potentially, a fresh social platform will appear.

These 9 things are what we’re predicting will go down when it comes to social media marketing over the year ahead:

1. Are we transcending trends?

As the trend cycles get shorter and shorter, we might be reaching a point where everything and nothing is trending.

So, brands who’ve successfully ridden the TikTok and social media trend wave have got to get creative again, niche down, and put their own trends out into the world.

They also need to stop underestimating the power of the pop culture that drives social media conversations and start becoming part of those conversations.

2. Understanding culture and social media conversations is more important than ever if you’re going to surface in a meaningful way amongst a crowded social media landscape.

To be able to do this, marketing teams will have to spend just as much time paying attention to their community as they do creating for them.

Community management will be one of the most important things about social media marketing (which is a nice development in our opinion). Scratch that. We’re renaming ‘community management’ as ‘community conversations’ in 2024.

What we mean by this is that instead of brands simply creating and publishing for their community and then ‘managing’ the incoming DMs and comments, they should be actively joining in on conversations that their community are having – in both the form of publishing content that relates to the topics in those conversations, and diving into comments on other accounts.

3. AI, obviously

The field of AI is still a vast, open horizon that’s currently and continuously changing and evolving. When it comes to social media, it will continue influencing the way we work, produce content, and consume content – OK, it changes everything!

AI will especially affect the volume of content being put out there – brace yourself for more AI-powered content tsunamis coming your way.

It will become even more important to learn the balance of how to EXPAND your creativity using AI, while not losing your creative edge because you’ve got AI doing it all for you.

Generative AI will dominate content creation in 2024, but there are also rising concerns about AI diminishing the overall quality of content & spreading disinformation. This will no doubt shift consumer attitudes regarding how they perceive content in late 2024.

4. Everyone is an influencer – the shift toward micro-influencers and niche communities:

With everyone having the potential to go viral, marketers can’t underestimate the value of nano-influencers on socials in 2024.

Your goal in 2024 is to start conversations that make rounds in the condensed niche audiences you’re looking to reach. This makes up-and-coming nano-influencers look like an integral part for any influencer strategy in 2024.

5. Social media platforms are increasingly being used as search engines

With TikTok and Instagram as frontrunners, social media platforms have become a trusted source of info, especially amongst Gen Z and younger millennial generations.

This means marketers must harness the opportunities this presents by improving their content to have it rank higher.

Another fact that makes this even more necessary is that the shift of where people are making their minor to major buying decisions is shifting from search engines to social media platforms.

6. Marketers need to make like gymnasts with their strategies as social media platforms evolve.

The traditional social media channels are ageing and with each new generation comes new online behaviours, plus the inevitable crowning of the new cool social media platform is amongst the youth.

Expect to see at least one new social media platform (that already exists or is yet to be released) emerging as the cool kid in 2024.

One word of wisdom, though: the increasingly crowded social media landscape doesn’t call for crowded digital marketing strategies, but rather the opposite. It calls for simplifying and focusing. These are key ingredients to strategies with real impact in 2024.

7. Video content will continue to evolve

It’s only a matter of time before AR and 3D content become mainstream amongst consumers of content.

We’re not sure if this will happen in 2024, but we don’t doubt at all that you’ll start to see some brilliant stuff happening by the big brands in this field. One thing is for sure that will be widespread – video content will continue to evolve, perhaps becoming shorter, for sure more stimulating, and we might even see video content becoming interactive.

8. Go more local with your content

As people become more overwhelmed with the amount of content that is out there to consume, they will most likely cling to what they know.

This is why content with a local flavour will most likely perform better than content that attempts to engage with a global audience.

9. Things will only get more absurd, or meaningful

The dial will be switched up to another kind of absurd when it comes to the content that will go viral in 2024.

Meanwhile, people will crave content that is extremely meaningful and genuinely adds high value to their lives by consuming it.

These two polar opposites are what brands will have to navigate and find a place to launch from in 2024.

One thing that should guide your ideation when it comes to planning your content for 2024: simplify