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Social Media Marketing: Platforms and Trends to Watch

diksha
June 20, 2024
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With the improvement in technology and AI, the world of social media is changing from the rise of ChatGPT to the rebranding of Twitter as X, the launch of threads, LinkedIn new AI feature making job search easy to Meta’s new feature of unlinking your Instagram, Facebook, and messenger accounts, etc. These changes are bound to happen with time. However, to remain relevant in the race it is necessary to prepare yourself for future trends and act on time. If you want to lead in the market then you must have a forward-thinking mindset and an action plan for it. The digital landscape is becoming more competitive in nature. However, it is not impossible to predict the future trends. All you need is data. By combining the data of customer preferences, the brand’s performance or quality, and technology advancement or latest updates, it is possible to predict some future trends and popular social media platforms.

In this article, we’ll explore such trends and social media platforms to look forward to.

What are the benefits of social media marketing

Social media has become an integral part of our lives and we can see how it influences all spheres of our lives, with over 4.8 billion users of social media worldwide which accounts for 59.9% of the population. Social media has become an excellent space for the exchange of information, the success of business, and connecting with loved ones.

Social media users trust and rely on social media for all kinds of information. Whereas a marketer sees it as a place where everyone is a potential customer. Different social media platforms have different needs and cater to different audiences and goals. Hence it is important to choose a correct social media platform that suits your goal and has more of your potential customers.

If you have the correct resources and social media marketing strategy then your brand will definitely grow on social media. It will increase your visibility, engagement rate, and lead generation. If done right it will further increase your conversion rate and sales, improve your brand, and establish credibility & trust. It also provides you an opportunity to study your competitors and make strategies that make you stand out from them and establish you as a leader. It improves your website traffic, customer service, SERP ranking, and customer satisfaction. In the long term, it can establish you as a global leader and generate a loyal customer base. It is a cost-effective strategy that provides you with useful data, successful partnerships, and wider reach. It is an easy way to highlight your strengths and to further improve your service by working on the feedback given by the audience. Social media creates a loyal customer base wherein once they feel emotionally connected to you, they won’t leave you instead they start promoting your services.

Trends in 2024

These are some of the trends that we can expect in the future in social media marketing

E-commerce on Social Media: E-commerce activities have gained popularity on social media platforms, especially Instagram and Facebook. It is easy to make in-app purchases through tabs like Save Later, Order Now, etc. However many people avoid making in-app purchases due to the lack of legitimacy of the brand, the ability to get a refund, and the quality of the product. To overcome this, platforms use payment integration like PayPal to protect consumers from fraud.
Short-form video format: For the last few years short-form video format has become the audience’s favorite and this year it’s no different. This trend is expected to grow more. It is the most preferred format of millennials and Gen Z for exploring the product and its elements. Other Than being popular it is effective as well. It delivers your messages in a short time without distracting the audience.
Re-sharing content across different social media: Many people cross-post the same content on different platforms. However, this might not be an effective strategy in 2024. It is assumed that you must change the tone of the content for different platforms. Each platform has different needs and audience types so you must edit your content for different platforms.
Power of data: Data analysis can help us in making effective decisions. Data-driven decisions will help you in setting an optimal budget. By studying the data you can predict the customer’s preferences and behavior. Also, you can measure the performance of your products and services.
Relevant, informative, and relative content: Relevant and informative content is the key to 2024. Create humorous, relative, and informative content that engages with your audience. With the advent of AI, many marketers have started using AI for creating content however it is necessary to add a humanistic tone to your content to make it relatable.
Micro-influencers: Influencer marketing is not getting outdated anytime soon. However marketers are preferring micro influencers over celebrities. As working with these influencers help in establishing long term relationships and is more affordable. They have a loyal audience which helps in increasing your brand awareness and attracting new customers.
Social media community: The role of social media in today’s time is not limited to merely sharing content but to establish a community that engages actively with each other. This relationship or community helps in establishing trust and credibility.
DM preferred mode of communication: According to HubSpot, one in five Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X social media users have contracted a brand via DM for customer service. Hence it is important to check your DM and have a team to operate these DMs.
Instagram thread: Meta launched thread on instagram which is a text based app where users can view public conversations. By November 2023 thread had over 141 million users. This number is expected to rise more.
X’s monetization: X’s monetization policy has gone through several changes in the last few years. Initially Musk, banned third party apps from twitter and put platforms API behind expensive paywall, then he announced that users have to pay for the verification mark wherein blue tick represents the paid subscription, rebranding of twitter into X to make it a platform for everything, in philippines and new zealand users were made to pay for making a post otherwise they can access the read only feature and the platform ad’s revenue went down by 55% year over year. Some more changes are expected in X over the years.
AI: Marketers use AI for various activities. There is a 318% increase in how much an organization plans to use AI for customer support in 2024 and 260% increase in how much the organization plans to edit images in 2024. Many marketers are using AI for content creation.
Augmented reality in social media: Gucci, luxury brand has launched a campaign using the AR, wherein they create a virtual sneaker store. This allowed audiences to try out different sneakers before making a purchase and they can do all this from their homes. People will use AR more in 2024 as many brands have not utilized it’s potential to the maximum.

Social Media Platforms to look forward to

Once we have learned about the expected trends of the future. Let us now learn which social media platforms will continue to rule the digital landscape.

YouTube Shorts: YouTube is becoming the favorite social media platform for almost all age groups. It’s the second largest search engine in the world. According to Pew Research, 95% of teens ages 13 to 17 use Youtube as compared to other platforms. YouTube shorts are gaining popularity. Google reported that Youtube shorts generate more than 50 billion views.
Instagram has high ROI: According to HubSpot, many marketers rank instagram #1 for ROI and quality leads. Also it ties with youtube for highest engagement levels. They believe that instagram has the most accurate algorithms.
Whatsapp: WhatsApp is another popular social media platform that has been used for spreading the information fastly. Its new feature lets you create a channel as well to share important information fastly with your followers. According to statista, whatsapp has active 2.78 users. Whatsapp business reported that it had 200 active monthly users in June 2023.
Facebook: According to buffer, Facebook is the most popular social media platform with 3 million monthly active users. Facebook Messenger has 931 million monthly active users. Facebook has features like stories, posts, reels etc. Facebook is also effective for its advertisements created through Facebook Ads Manager.
Tik Tok: According to Search Engine Journal, tik tok has 1.2 billion active monthly users. This app is famous for sharing short- form videos.

The digital landscape is constantly changing due to new advancements in technology and customer’s expectations. Hence it is important for every brand to stay ahead in the race. Lumia 360 can help you in this. We cater to Small and medium enterprises as we understand their special needs. We create a social media marketing strategy wherein your brand’s strengths are highlighted and we guarantee you 20 leads per month with more visibility of your brand. We had followed a similar strategy for our client. To know more about our marketing plans, email us at info@lumia360.com or call us at 514-668-5599.