Highlights:

  • Social media isn’t just a megaphone anymore. It’s a two-way street where businesses can engage with customers, colleagues, and the online community at large, collecting real-time feedback and insights.

Scrolling, liking, sharing – social media platforms now hold a prominent place in daily routines, with individuals readily devoting a considerable portion of their time to their allure.Checking social media feeds has become a morning ritual for many, emphasizing the need to adapt to evolving user behaviors, cater to new-generation needs, and stay abreast of the ever-shifting digital landscape.

To succeed in an evolving environment, individuals and businesses must adapt and leverage the power of social media as a strategic tool for engagement and growth.

Adopting current social media trends establishes a direct channel for communication, enabling businesses to receive feedback from customers, colleagues, competitors, and other voices in the brand’s social ecosystem.

In this article, we delve into the top social media trends for 2024, providing insights and strategies for modern marketing in the dynamic digital landscape.

1: ‘2024 Trend Talk’ of Instagram

Instagram’s recent report, “2024 Trend Talk,” shares insights on important trends from younger audiences. In collaboration with Worth Global Style Network (WGSN), Instagram surveyed to identify these significant trends. The report looks at popular content this year and future preferences.

Key findings:

  • Shift to ‘Meaningful Connections’ in 2024

Instagram anticipates a significant shift toward prioritizing ‘meaningful connections’ in social media for 2024. Gen Z users, in particular, are increasingly inclined to use these platforms to deepen connections with friends and family.

  • Gen Z’s social media patterns

Gen Z increasingly uses social media platforms to maintain connections within their social circles, emphasizing communication and relationship upkeep.

  • Focus on trend awareness

The report underscores a continuous emphasis on staying informed about key trends in the social media sphere. This underlines the evolving nature of social media, with a shift from self-broadcasting to more private and enclosed group interactions.

Advice for marketers and emerging startups

The report looked ahead to 2024 and wanted to inspire marketers and new startups with ideas about the trends in fashion. It indicated trends and indirectly outlined strategies for business growth.

Fashion trends of 2024 will revolve around the following:

  • Modest dressing
  • DIY fashion trends
  • Sustainability by repeating outfits
  • Thrifting, Vintage, Heirloom
  • Sporting clothes

Beyond the insights shared in Instagram’s 2024 social media trend report, Meta holds its vision for artificial intelligence technology.

Future vision of Meta

In 2023, Meta made some important moves in the world of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and the metaverse, which is like a virtual reality space. These efforts led to significant advancements, especially in bringing together AI and the metaverse.

Here’s what happened:

  • Generative AI in everyday apps
  • Mixed reality in a mass-market headset
  • Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses

Meta has a vision for the future where their advanced AI, specifically Meta AI, can understand what you need without asking directly. They want Meta AI to be like a helpful friend, quietly assisting you throughout the day without requiring you to give explicit commands. The goal is to make AI a seamless and natural companion, always ready to lend a hand.

2: ‘Pinterest Predicts’ of Pinterest

Pinterest engages 482 million users in planning their future endeavors—be it their upcoming home, meal, or journey. This grants Pinterest a distinctive perspective on upcoming trends that are poised to become immensely popular in the near future.

From Pinterest’s 2024 social media trends report, we’ll delve into key factors the platform identifies.

  • Beauty

In 2024, expect a bold resurgence of aquamarine makeup as Gen Z and Millennials explore innovative ways to integrate this 60s classic into their modern beauty routines.

  • Entertainment

In entertainment, Millennials and Gen Z are ditching electronic beats for a retro twist with the revival of vintage jazz in 2024. There is a possibility of a surge in jazz-inspired outfits, dimly lit venues, and the popularity of lo-fi aesthetics.

  • Fashion

In 2024, bows will take center stage as Millennials and Gen Z accessorize their outfits, shoes, hair, and jewelry; whether big or small, bows will be the year’s fashion statement.

  • Financial services

In 2024, Gen Z and Millennials are giving their finances a cute makeover. Expect credit cards to get a facelift, personalized piggy banks, and a trend of adding stickers to everything.

Advice for marketers and emerging startups

Apart from providing an enjoyable and transformed shopping experience, Pinterest predicts trends serve as the ultimate reference companion for retailers and marketers aiming to stay ahead of the competition.

“As a marketer, you need to be able to see the next big trend coming, but keeping pace with the speed of culture today is no easy thing. And knowing which trends are actually worth investing in is even harder, especially with new fads seeming to pop up every single day on social media. As an advertiser, you don’t want to know what’s trending now, you want to know what’s going to be trending next.” – Stacy Malone, Pinterest’s VP of Global Business Marketing.

3: ‘What’s Next Report 2024’ of TikTok

This is one of the significant social media trend reports of 2024. The report focuses on actionable and enduring trends identified as Trend Signals. Trend Signals fall into three categories: Curiosity peaked, storytelling unhinged, and bridging the trust gap.

  • Curiosity peaked

On TikTok, people don’t just seek one ‘right answer.’ Every interest leads to new perspectives, discoveries, and real-world actions. Users are 1.8x more likely to discover topics they didn’t know they liked on TikTok.

  • Storytelling unhinged

TikTok’s narrative landscape is shifting. Gone are the familiar plots, replaced by #delulu, a mashup of imagination and desire. Think self-made fictional celebrities and elaborate, fabricated dramas unfolding entirely on the platform.

The stories on TikTok are so attractive that they grab the audience’s attention. People end up watching ads on the platform for 1.4 times longer because of these captivating stories. This shows that TikTok is changing how stories are told, and it’s making the whole storytelling experience more exciting.

  • Bridging the trust gap

The widening trust gap between consumers and brands drives audiences to seek deeper engagement and a commitment beyond one-time transactions. This desire for brands to lead positive societal change and be transparent is evident on TikTok, where brands can establish open lines of communication with consumers.

TikTok ads increase brand trust, loyalty, and alignment with individual identities, translating into real-world actions.

Advice for digital marketers

Every campaign and piece of content is a chance for brands to connect, listen, and learn. By doing this, they can build trust and values, which leads to stronger loyalty from people, both on and off the platform. It’s like using each interaction to deepen the understanding of your audience.

“2023 has seen an audience of over 1 billion people regularly coming to TikTok to find community, surprise and delight. In an era where storytelling has become predictable, TikTok showcases creativity without a typical beginning, middle or end.”- Sofia Hernandez, Global Head of Business Marketing for TikTok

She also mentioned that 2024 would see the TikTok community undergo remarkable expansion fueled by a blend of curiosity, imagination, vulnerability, and courage.

As a user, we may come across the 2024 social media trends with numerous aspects that are yet to be explored.

4: YouTube

In 2023, YouTube became a space where all sorts of interesting and immersive cultural stuff took center stage. People shared everything from quirky topics like talking toilets to cool fashion trends like the Barbie dress. Creator communities played a big part in turning memes, movies, and music into fun and engaging experiences that everyone could enjoyIt was like an extensive showcase of creativity and diversity in different content styles on the platform. The in-depth report is available on the portal named “A Year on YouTube.”

Noteworthy trends include:

Besides the glimpse into the previous year featured in the ‘A Year on YouTube’ report, there is anticipation for the upcoming year to showcase the social media trends of 2024. This will include a focus on the following aspects:

  • Enhanced restrictions on AI-generated content

In a blog post titled “Our Approach to Responsible AI Innovation,” Jennifer Flannery O’Connor and Emily Moxley, Vice Presidents of Product Management at YouTube, highlighted the platform’s initiative to establish guidelines for AI use in 2024. These guidelines include:

  • The introduction of updates to inform viewers about synthetic content.
  • Mandating creators to disclose the use of AI tools when generating realistic altered or synthetic content.
  • Providing new options for creators during content upload to indicate the presence of realistic altered or synthetic material.

This indicates that YouTube is becoming increasingly vigilant regarding content generated through artificial intelligence (AI).

  • Increased focus on community

YouTube has made it easier for creators to make money. Now, if you have 500 subscribers and 3,000 hours of watch time, you can start earning, which is a big drop from the previous requirement of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours.

However, if you have 500 subscribers, you can only earn money through fan-funding options like Super Chats, Stickers, Super Thanks, and Channel Memberships, not video ads.

This change encourages creators to build loyal fanbases for sustainable income, emphasizing quality content and community engagement on YouTube.

  • Explosive growth with YouTube Shorts

Initially introduced in India following the TikTok ban in August 2020, YouTube Shorts went global in June 2021. Accessible through the YouTube app, the feature has now garnered a user base of two billion monthly logged-in users as of July 2023, as per Statista.

While this might not come as a shock to many creators, we’re including it on the list because Shorts consistently contribute to the growth of smaller channels.

Remaining aware of these trends enables content creators to navigate the dynamic landscape and sustain success in the digital realm.

Closing Considerations

While there are countless trends to explore, it’s crucial to tread carefully to avoid getting overwhelmed. We have intentionally emphasized these social media trends for 2024 that can have a substantial impact on your marketing environment.

After familiarizing yourself with these latest social media trends, it’s time to optimize your marketing strategies for greater lead generation and increased ROI.

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