What will be social media trends in 2024? The latest statistics show that at the end of 2023, there were 4.95 billion social media users around the world, and the number of social media users increased by 4.5%.
Facebook is the top social media platform, reaching nearly 60% of all social media users. It has 2.74 billion daily active users.
Instagram is another popular social media platform with over 1 billion monthly active users. 70% of US businesses use Instagram.
X reports that it has 666 million potential advertising users, even if the ad reach data is subject to significant fluctuations.
Thus, any business needs to employ popular social media platforms and understand their users’ behavior. In this article, we’ll explore social media trends in 2024, and how to prepare for your business reach and advertisement. Let’s read a platform-by-platform breakdown of the main trends in 2024.
More generative AI content
Social media trends predict that Generative AI will continue to play a significant role in speeding up the development of brand creatives. Facebook will integrate more AI tools and AI recommendations into its platform to re-align itself with rising engagement trends.
Meta was influenced by TikTok and started utilizing recommendations based on a much broader range of content, which has helped it to increase engagement.
Facebook will continue to experiment with AI tools like video creation tools, generative AI backgrounds for posts, and generative AI stickers. Expect to see more AI-generated post prompts and quizzes to increase engagement.
More entertainment
Link posts have continued to decline in 2023, as Meta continues to go away from news content. The new trend is entertainment. AI-based recommendations were implemented largely by inserting more Reel clips into user feeds. The prediction of topics of interest of Reels will become even more precise.
Reels will continue to dominate user feeds, creating more entertaining and engaging content, that will be shown to a wider audience of non-followers.
Increase in the usage of avatars
The Z generation is already engaging with digital characters in game worlds such as Fortnite, Minecraft, and Roblox. Meta is also trying to integrate more avatar options within its apps. Currently, Meta is experimenting, developing more realistic-looking avatar models, including 3D avatars. 3D avatars will become more popular for your online identity.
Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) glasses
Meta is working on VR technologies. The AR-enabled device should enable users to live-stream to Meta’s apps. Even if fully integrated AR glasses will not be commercially available in 2024 (AR glasses are currently scheduled for public release in 2027), there will be real-world testing, and early testers will start showing how AR glasses will work.
Messaging tools for business
Private messaging is the new trend in social media, with more and more people switching to private messaging groups instead of public ones to share their latest news and brand advertising campaigns. As a result, Meta will propose new tools for private messaging. The “Click To Message Ads” option has already become a choice for many businesses. This will likely include Meta’s custom AI chatbot features, that’ll enable businesses to build their own conversational AI bots using Meta’s tools.
More generative AI content
Like Facebook, Instagram will also use more generative AI content. More AI recommendations will be used to align the platform with rising engagement trends.
Instagram is already testing various forms of AI stickers, image editing tools, message summaries, and AI suggestions for replies. New generative AI creation tools will become more popular to boost your Instagram experience.
Instagram is expected to allow generative AI image editing, allowing AI-generated elements added to your photos. Another trend could be collaborative AI images when friends on the platform can contribute to creating and editing new kinds of digital photos and collages.
More entertainment
Instagram also observes new social media trends in entertainment. Instagram Reels allow users to film and upload video clips for up to 60 seconds that they can edit and add effects to before sharing on the app. Reels are already popular and will continue to dominate user feeds, creating more entertaining and engaging content.
More avatars
Like Facebook, Instagram will also continue experimenting with avatars. Instagram is already testing new forms of avatar stickers, it is testing the ability to use avatars as reactions in Live videos.
Users should expect to see new generative AI-based avatar animations that create response stickers based on your text content.
Evolution of Threads
Threads is an Instagram app that allows you to view and share public conversations. With Threads, you can also post threads, reply to others, and follow profiles you’re interested in. It’s not a new feature, but at the moment it doesn’t have a significant role.
In recent times, Threads have started to become more widely used, triggered by the Israel-Hamas conflict, which has also highlighted the need for moderation, authentication, and other means for managing Threads.
It seems that Threads are becoming an increasingly popular X alternative for the spread of news. It is expected that Threads will continue to grow in 2024.
Social commerce will increase
There are another social media trends that are supposed to rise. Users already got used to social platforms’ shopping features. Instagram and other platforms allow users to evaluate the product, directly ask questions, and see reviews from other buyers.
It’s not very popular at the moment. To attract more buyers, you can offer discounts, or easy refunds and returns.
AR shopping
Meta is already developing a range of 3D product display tools, that could be integrated into real-life displays for more attractive and engaging user options. AR displays in-store could let you see what an item looks like on you. You could also virtually collect and use in-app 3D versions of real-world products that you are interested in.
AR shopping activation would align well with Meta’s own AR glasses development with mutual benefits.
X (formerly Twitter)
Subscriptions to X
According to Elon Musk, subscriptions will be the future of all popular social media platforms for augmenting platforms’ revenue and combating bots. So, X wants to be ahead of the game.
X could start with small payments for subscriptions. But analytics predict that X is pushing too hard and too fast. Paid plans could allow users to post longer content, more images, and videos. But as 80% of X users don’t post at all, these features would not give much value to the pricing plan. For subscriptions to work, X would need to offer an essential service, which is not currently available. In addition, other rivals offer freely accessible apps.
“Everything app”
Elon Musk has a vision for X as the “everything app”, concentrating on in-app payments, and enabling different forms of shopping, banking, fund transfers at low cost. But it’ll take time to get all the required approvals and licensing, and it’s not going to work at the full scale in 2024. It is expected payments to start being integrated with X by the end of 2024.
News re-focus
X is the leader in presenting news. It is expected that X continue to focus on news, and direct users to trending conversations at the same time. X will add more trending news links in the main “For You” feed.
X should also focus more on live streams and Spaces, which are difficult to find for users.
Sports integration
Another option to boost engagement is sports integration. It was an attempt to do it before, and it is expected that X will revisit this concept in 2024.
Creator ad revenue share program
One of X’s most important innovations has been its Creator ad revenue share program, which allows creators to earn money for their most engaging content in the app. Getting creators paid keeps them loyal, increasing engagement for the platform.
However, creators are paid only for ads shown to X Premium subscribers. Since recently ad revenue share payments declined significantly due to the impacts of updates to the process, creators would turn on the platform due to perceived inequities in the revenue share program.
How To Prepare for Your Business Social Media Presence In 2024?
Empower generative AI content
Know your audience. Hootsuite Social Media Consumer 2024 Survey revealed that the younger generation, the more they like, engage, and trust AI-generated content. Generation Z in particular sees no conflict between AI-generated content and content, generated by people, while older generations prefer human-generated content. Thus, before creating posts on social media, define your audience by knowing factors such as age, culture, geography, and their perception of AI.
Decide which tasks to delegate. Social media bots could be great assistants, but it can’t perform all tasks. Depending on your audience, decide which tasks to delegate to AI, and which you should still perform yourself.
Create AI policies and best practices for social media. There are privacy laws like GDPR ir Europe, CCPA in the US, and others, so make sure you have AI policies in place. You should also create best practices and social media management skills for posting strategy.
Choose the right platforms
Evaluate your social media performance. Master social media posting by evaluating each of the social media platforms you use and calculating the ROI of every platform, the number of users, engagement, and other factors. Even if it generates a positive ROI, you may not continue with this platform if other platforms are performing much better.
Use cross-posting. Posting on multiple platforms at once could increase your followers and save time. However, don’t post the same content on all platforms. Align your posts with the best practices and formats of each platform.
Use social media automation tools
No one has enough time for all tasks in social media marketing, especially if you have multiple platforms. Use AI-based social media automation tools like AI-based post generators and scheduling tools. By automating repetitive tasks such as creating and posting content, scheduling posts, engaging with followers, and performing social media listening, you can increase your business reach and number of customers.
Use Postus, an AI-powered social media post generator that helps you to create, schedule, publish, and manage creative and engaging social media posts and create eye-catching images.
Frequently Asked Questions
It is expected that in 2024 Facebook and Instagram will have more generative AI content, more entertainment, and more virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies. Users more often use avatars. Instagram will continue the evolution of Threads and increase social commerce. X is expected to re-focus on news and could proceed with the idea of “Everything app” and subscriptions, as well as sports integration.
The top 15 social media platforms based on the number of users are the following: Facebook (3.03 billion monthly active users), YouTube (2.49 billion), WhatsApp (2 billion), Instagram (2 billion), TikTok (1.21 billion), Facebook Messenger (1.03 billion), Telegram (800 million), Snapchat (750 million), Douyin (743 million), Kuaishou (673 million), and X (666 million). Use Postus to post on multiple social media platforms at once.
Facebook is still the most popular social media app with 3.03 billion monthly active users, and is expected to be in 2024. Use Postus, an AI-powered social media post generator to create, schedule, publish, and manage creative and engaging social media content on Facebook.