Happy New Year folks! As we begin 2024, it’s time for a quick round-up of the trends to look out for and those that continue to work when it comes to digital marketing.

5 Top Digital Marketing Trends for 2024

1) Short-form Videos will Continue to Dominate

 Video marketing might not be the new kid on the block, but its popularity has exploded with easy-to-use platforms focusing on short-form video content, such as Instagram Reels, TikTok and YouTube Shorts.

In 2023, YouTube Shorts surpassed 1 billion monthly active users (WOW!), which is only expected to grow in 2024. Instagram Reels also boasted a staggering 2.35 billion monthly active users and its growth shows no signs of stopping in 2024.

Our Tip for 2024: Craft interesting content around stories that provide real value to your audience, personalise your content for socials and aim for organic growth. Write captions that complement your videos to help more people find your content.

2) Shares and Saves will Matter More than Likes, Comments, or Followers

On social media, likes, comments, and followers have always been important, and they still are. They show people engage with your content and love what they see. But there’s something else on the horizon – saves (when someone saves your content) and shares (when someone shares your content). In 2024, saves and shares will become even more valuable. Why? People who interact and share your content with their network help your reach grow, spreading your message further than ever before.

Our Tip for 2024: Focus on creating saveable and shareable content that can also bring in more likes and comments.

3) User-generated Content will Increase

Gen Z, known for sharing their lives on social media, are big fans of short video content and often post about their favourite brands. Get ready for a surge of user-generated content from this group in 2024.

Brands love it when Instagram and TikTok users share their experiences with products or services. Brands can leverage these users’ content to grow their followers, build their community, and enhance brand awareness and engagement.

Our Tip for 2024: Don’t just watch user-generated content; start creating and interacting with it! Ask customers and clients to tag you in their stories and posts, drop some comments, share posts on your channels (with permission), and give a shout-out to your clients and customers. It helps you build stronger relationships whilst building authentic content and gets more people talking about your brand. The key is to make your audience feel valued and heard.

4) Use of AI will Continue to Rise

Perhaps you’re sick of hearing about AI (Artificial intelligence) or maybe you’re still unsure about what it can do for your business. AI is a powerful tool that can help with productivity, streamlining tasks, and customer satisfaction. It can even guide you in making smarter decisions. Businesses and brands are staying ahead of the game and using AI to assist with automating repetitive tasks, generating content and even building entire image galleries and websites! The possibilities are almost endless.

Our Tip for 2024: Use AI to personalise the customer experience. Consider using AI for initial content drafting in your digital marketing efforts. You can then add your personal touch and make necessary edits so your content can connect with your audience and their pain points.

5) Hashtags have nothing on social media SEO

SEO is going to have an enormous impact on our online experiences. SEO on social media will be even more effective than hashtags for getting your posts seen and engaged. This shift means businesses and individuals will need to pay more attention to optimising their content for search, using relevant keywords and phrases so that their target audience can easily find them. It’s a shift towards organic growth on social media. The key is having high-quality and relevant content to get people interested and engaged and not just ‘keyword dumping’.

Our Tip for 2024: Research and be smart about the keywords you use in all social media post captions.

Following these trends and tips can help give you the BEST chance of getting your Social Media game on point in 2024.

Staying competitive in today’s digital world means keeping up with digital marketing trends. By adapting your strategy to these trends sooner rather than later, you’ll have a better chance of seeing positive results with a more engaged audience, which means more sales!