Success on Social Media requires a Marketing Strategy that keeps pace with the times. Use our recommendations to gain a competitive advantage. Discover the 7 most exciting Social Media Trends for 2024 and how to fully unlock your digital potential.
1. BeReal: The Hype is Fading 📉
BeReal quickly gained over 73 million users, but its popularity is declining just as rapidly. Statistics show that only one-third of these users are still active on the platform (Ariel, 2023).
The consistent decline in monthly figures indicates that users quickly uninstall the app once the novelty factor wears off. This behavior pattern is predominantly seen among Gen Z.
2. Meta Threads ✍️
Due to the restructuring at X (formerly Twitter) in recent months, many other text-based platforms gained market share in 2023. Meta Threads, launched in July 2023, quickly generated over 44 million daily users in record time.
The Threads app is the fastest-downloaded app of all time. With 30 million downloads just one day after its release, Meta dethroned ChatGPT, which had achieved one million downloads after its first five days.
Meta Threads poses a serious challenge to X. According to a tweet from Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince, the shift from X to Threads led to a drop in X's traffic. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and X CTO Elon Musk even hinted at a cage fight to settle the matter. 🥊
As of December 14, 2023, Threads is now also available in Switzerland and the EU.
3. AI & Text Posts 🧠
X (formerly Twitter) is losing active users (Lohnmeier, 2023), and advertisers are leaving. However, the rising popularity of competitors like Meta Threads and Mastodon shows that users enjoy text-based content. Even on Facebook, simple text posts remain very popular and successful.
This is where AI comes in. Words tell stories and share experiences. But you shouldn't spend hours racking your brain trying to find the right words for your next social media post.
Instead, use AI tools like ChatGPT, which can generate captions, headlines, and other text-based content within seconds. Provide the application with information about your target audience and brand preferences, and it will create context-based texts for you.
Automated text generation by AI saves valuable time. However, the results should always be reviewed and adjusted by a human before publication.
4. The Comeback of Longer Videos 🎬
Longer doesn't mean lengthy. We're talking about videos that are two to five minutes long, a contrast to short videos which typically last less than a minute.
Here are 3 reasons why algorithms are promoting longer videos:
Major platforms are consistently increasing the maximum video length
→ Instagram Reels can now be up to 15 minutes long
→ TikTok is also testing this length
User behavior is changing
→ Social Media as a search engine → Content creators on social media need to answer queries in detail in their videos. This requires more time and, consequently, longer videos.
Social Media as a boredom killer
→ Users increasingly want to be entertained. In 2024, social media will take up even more leisure time than it already does.
→ Streaming service Paramount is uploading full-length movies to TikTok
5. The Rise of Telegram ⏫
Telegram has over 800 million monthly users and records approximately 2.5 million registrations per day. The platform has existed since 2013. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been using Telegram as a communication channel since the war with Russia. Because of this, the platform has established itself as a fully-fledged social media network.
Telegram was originally designed for secure messaging. Today, it already boasts several exciting social features and is rapidly evolving. Currently, Telegram offers the following functions:
✅ Group chats, secret chats, and video chats
✅ Support for media, links, files, music, and voice messages
✅ Story feature
✅ Broadcast channels for messages to large audiences
✅ Payment bots for sending money during purchases
✅ Telegram Passport for secure identity verification
✅ Paid messages via Telegram Ads
6. Shares instead of Likes & Comments ᾑd
Comments, likes, and followers can be faked. This can easily inflate views and impressions, diminishing the true value of reach. Shared content, however, provides an engagement signal that is significantly harder to fake.
When a third party shares content, it's clear they are willing to vouch for that content to their own audience. Don't worry — likes and comments remain valuable engagement signals. However, those who design content to be shared can also expect likes and comments to follow. The reverse is not always true.
7. YouTube Shorts ὄ7
When YouTube Shorts was released in 2021, many dismissed it as just another TikTok copy. According to Google Trends, interest in the platform in the USA has increased by over 500 percent since 2021. More about YouTube Advertising.
In 2022, YouTube Shorts already had 1.5 billion active monthly users. In 2023, that number grew again by half a billion. For those who already have a YouTube channel, Shorts offers the opportunity to reach an entirely new audience. Existing short videos from TikTok or Instagram Reels can also be easily repurposed here.
8. Summary
In the ever-changing landscape of social media, these trends for 2024 are pivotal, offering exciting opportunities to optimize your digital strategy.
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We would be pleased to assist you with the planning and implementation of your Social Media Marketing Strategy.
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