The 16 Most Important Social Media Trends for 2024
But no need to spiral, friends, because we’ve done the digging for you. Take this blog post as permission to stop obsessively checking every app in search of the hottest new social media trends.
Get our 2024 Social Trends report, and dig into the juicy data that’ll help you reach your goals in 2024—which is shaping up to be social’s best year yet.
16 most important social media trends for 2024
1. Text-only posts are the sleeper hit of the year (and X remains on top)
While the shakeup at X seems to have stabilized in recent months, the uncertainty at the platform did give plenty of other text-based apps an opportunity to eat up some market share in 2023.
Mastodon, for example, has 1.7 million monthly active users. The Jack Dorsey-funded Bluesky Social is invite-only (exclusive!) but boasts over 1 million active users.
And then there’s Meta’s Threads app. It exploded out of the gate in July 2023, reaching more than 44 million daily active users in record time.
Source: Inforgram
But don’t give up on X just yet. The platform formerly known as Twitter is still the most-used text-based social media app.
X says its user base exceeded 540 million in 2023 and will grow to over 650 million users over the next five years (though Statista reports slightly lower numbers, as well as a dip in users worldwide in 2023).
X platform usage remains high, even if those users aren’t quite sure what to call it:
But the popularity of these new competitors has made one thing clear: the people are hungry for text, and not just on text-based platforms.
Over on Facebook, old-school text posts are still doing big numbers. Auntie Anne’s has been repurposing top-performing Tweets as Facebook posts for years now, and the engagement those posts earn is eye-popping.
Plus, we all know text-only posts on LinkedIn can take off:
The success of these posts, especially among marketers, makes a ton of sense. They require less time to create (especially if you use a tool like OwlyWriter AI) and are way less likely to get stuck in your approval process.
What are we getting at? No matter what happens at X, text-based social apps aren’t going anywhere. And text-only posts, even on platforms that aren’t considered text-forward, are far from over.
To-do list:
* Secure your usernames on Mastodon, Bluesky and Threads, even if you don’t have time to invest in them yet.
* Look for opportunities to repurpose your text-only content on other platforms (i.e., reposting your Tweets on Instagram).
* Don’t delete your X account yet or reduce the number of times you tweet each week (if you’re feeling fatigued, you can speed up Tweet writing with AI).
* Polish your X marketing strategy and keep a close eye on whether your audience continues to engage on the platform with Hootsuite Analytics.
2. Social platforms will become the hottest new search engines
If you want real insights from real people, Google search results don’t always do the trick.
But you know where you can reliably find a wealth of advice from actual humans?
That’s right: social media. In 2024 and beyond, social media channels represent the biggest threat to traditional search engines.
TikTok is now integrating Google search results into its in-app results, and the platform has added robust search tools like Keyword Insights to its Creative Center.
Plus, recent surveys suggest that social media platforms are the second most popular way for Gen Z to research their shopping decisions. It looks like Google is right to worry about TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram encroaching on its territory.
In 2024, if you’re not answering your audience’s questions on social, chances are someone else will (and it might be your competitors).
We talked about social SEO as an important trend in 2022 — and tested our theories in our own experiments — but it’s an even bigger deal now.
Last year, the social SEO tactics we suggested focused mainly on keyword optimization in captions and profiles. Now, social strategies are evolving to address search intent while still producing content that entertains as it educates (edutainment, if you will).
As long as it’s still relevant, evergreen content can show up in social search basically forever. And the more engagement those posts have, the more likely they are to rise to the top of social search results pages.
Here’s an example of an SEO-optimized post created by the Hootsuite social team.
@hootsuite
Ranking the captions our new AI instagram caption generator wrote to announce its own launch #copywriting #aiwritingassistant #instagramcaption #aiinstagramcaption
♬ I Think I Like When It Rains – WILLIS
Social search is still new, but as the platforms continue to improve and expand their search functions, we can see this particular social media trend continuing far into the future.
To-do list:
* Continue to use social SEO and keyword research to build out your content calendars. We’ve got tips for Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and X.
* Start creating content that answers common questions in your niche. Educational content is far more likely to show in search results, even months after posting.
* Incorporate social SEO as a component of your strategy, but don’t make it your primary focus.
* If you haven’t tried social SEO yet, watch the video below to get started.
3. Longer videos will make a big comeback
Since we’re still recovering from the whiplash of the short-form video takeover, it feels crazy to say this, but here goes: longer videos are about to be hot again.
When we say longer videos, we don’t mean long videos. Unless you’re in a long-form niche (YouTube video essays, for example), we’re talking a length of two to five minutes per video instead of less than a minute.
There are a few reasons why we expect the algos to reward meatier videos this year.
First, the big platforms keep increasing their max video lengths. Instagram Reels can now be as long as 15 minutes, and TikTok is reportedly testing that length as well. Plus, X (Twitter) rolled out its premium subscription, which allows paid users to upload videos of up to two hours long.
Post by @mattnavarra
View on Threads
Second, user behavior is changing. As we mentioned in trend #2, users now frequently turn to social networks to answer questions they might normally pose to Google or other web search engines. Content creators on social need to be able to answer questions in-depth in their videos, which takes more time.
Finally, people are heading to social media to kill time and be entertained more than ever before. (We’re guessing that’s why Paramount recently uploaded the entirety of Mean Girls to TikTok).
In short, social media is poised to earn an even bigger chunk of the Free Time Pie this year, if you can imagine that. And our brains love getting sucked into stuff, so bank on it: long(er) is the new short.
To-do list:
* Experiment with posting two- to three-minute Instagram Reels and TikToks (and download them without watermarks so you can easily cross-post them).
* Lean into your evergreen video strategy (more timeless, in-depth videos that feature original audio and answer your audience’s questions).
* Keep videos to one part unless absolutely necessary (i.e., don’t divide them into Part 1, Part 2, etc.).
* When posting longer videos, include timestamps in your captions or the video description so viewers can easily navigate through the content.
* Don’t post long videos just for the sake of it. Make sure they’re entertaining and valuable to your followers.
4. Engagement will move from feeds to DMs
These days, social media feeds are busy with news, memes, creator content, ads, organic marketing from brands — and arguments about whether the dress is black and blue or white and gold (Just kidding! 2015 called and asked if you were paying attention!).
The one thing you don’t see much of on social feeds anymore is organic, uncurated posts from friends and family.
There are many reasons for this shift. But the fact that personal updates don’t live in plain sight doesn’t mean they’ve completely disappeared from the social media landscape.
In August 2023, Business Insider interviewed a handful of Gen Z Instagram users for an article ominously titled “Social media is dead.” 22-year-old content creator Tati Bruening said:
“There’s this very weird, unspoken social standard of what’s allowed on Instagram. I know that for my age group, it’s like you give up on it entirely, and then you just post only to your Close Friends or alternate accounts. There’s this sublayer of Instagram that’s much more true to what the app once was, but it is just not viewable to the general public.”
But Close Friends stories and finstas aren’t the only private places Instagram users share personal updates with friends. Even more engagement happens in DMs.
Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri said in a recent episode of the 20VC podcast: “Most of Instagram’s growth has been in stories and DMs.” He also admitted Meta was aware of messaging app Telegram growing into a potentially significant competitor, even though Instagram is “not a messaging app.”
Maybe this is why the team at Instagram has developed many new DM-centered features recently, including:
* Notes, the text-only status updates that live and can be answered in DMs
* Broadcast channels, a one-to-many messaging system inspired by Telegram
* Improved guardrails against unsolicited messages
So, what does this mean for social marketers?
First, tracking brand-related engagement is more difficult when it happens in the privacy of DMs — off-limits territory for social listening tools and traditional analytics. But that doesn’t mean it can’t yield significant business results (see our tips for tracking this type of dark social below).
Second, brands and organizations need to get comfortable with the fact that DMs are the preferred communication method for most social media users. This goes for B2C conversations too, which means that social media will become even more of a customer service channel in coming years.
To-do list:
* Encourage your audience to DM you with questions and feedback.
* Get your social team ready to handle customer service inquiries. Give them tools (like Hootsuite Inbox) that will help them keep track of and easily answer social messages from all your accounts across networks.
* Set up automated responses for simple, frequently asked questions and the times of day when your team is offline.
* Use UTMs to track (at least some of) the traffic you get from DM shares.
* If your organization uses social media to share timely content, news, or important PSAs, consider starting an Instagram Broadcast Channel. (Note: At the moment, the feature is only available to users with Creator accounts. Keep an eye on Adam Mosseri’s own Broadcast Channel for updates.)
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Bonus: Here’s a bunch of free tools that will help you get started with AI.
16. You won’t ignore YouTube Shorts anymore
Remember when YouTube Shorts first launched in 2021? Many dismissed it as another “TikTok clone” and went back to creating content for the networks they were familiar with.
If we could, we’d go back to those not-too-distant days and give ourselves a good shake. Because YouTube Shorts is more than just a flash in the pan.
According to Google Trends, American interest in YouTube Shorts (generally a reliable indicator of business interest in the platform) has increased by more than 500% since 2021.
Source: Google Trends
This isn’t just a stateside phenomenon, either. In 2022, there were 1.5 billion monthly active users on YouTube Shorts. In 2023, that number rose another half billion.
Find more statistics at Statista
Users who’ve stuck with the platform are seeing big gains. But if you’re not using Shorts yet, there’s still time to get on board.
On our own Hootsuite Labs channel, we only started posting Shorts regularly back in April 2023. We now earn thousands of views, hundreds of likes, and a respectable stream of new channel subscribers each week.
If you already have a YouTube channel, Shorts could be a huge opportunity to connect with a new audience. (And if you’re already making TikToks or Instagram Reels, you’ve got a library of short-form video content just waiting to be repurposed.)
Say hello to content links!
Edit any Short in Studio Desktop
Add a link to any related video, long, Short, or Live, public or private
Get a one-click, Remix-style button right on the Short
Use it to bridge Shorts to long-form, link multi-part Shorts, drive to live,… pic.twitter.com/tjmYqEWEdZ
— YouTube Liaison (@YouTubeLiaison) August 10, 2023
You can even link your Shorts to any related YouTube video: long, Short, public or private. It’s a great tactic to drive up subscribers on the platform that’s already considered one of the most creator-friendly around.
In Short (sorry), if you’ve been waiting for a push to get on YouTube Shorts, consider this your official friendly shove.
To-do list:
* If you don’t already have one, secure your YouTube channel.
* Start watching YouTube Shorts so you can get a sense of what’s popular on the platform.
* Sketch out the basics of your Shorts marketing strategy.
* Repurpose your existing short-form videos (TikToks, Reels) that have performed well on other platforms.
* Use Hootsuite to schedule your Shorts in advance and analyze their performance.
Research
We’ve compiled research from several different sources to bring you the most data-backed predictions:
* Hootsuite’s 2024 Social Trends Report, plus these industry breakdowns:
* Social Trends in Government
* Social Trends in Healthcare
* Social Trends in Higher Education
* Social Trends in Financial Services
* Social Trends for Nonprofits
* Pew Research
* eMarketer
* Google Trends
* Statista
* And more!
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The post The 16 Most Important Social Media Trends for 2024 appeared first on Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard.
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