Social media has seen interesting changes recently.
The dramatic changes at Twitter – now rebranded as ‘X’ – saw many SEO professionals looking for new social media platforms to maintain their community connections.
We saw the rise of BlueSky, Mastodon, and Threads, and renewed interest in LinkedIn and Reddit as marketing channels for brands.
As big shifts happen in SEO and search following the introduction of generative AI, this could be a time when social media evolves.
As marketers experiment with AI, it’s going to be important to understand how to leverage these tools whilst maintaining authenticity and trust.
With exciting times to come this year during this evolution of online marketing, there is much anticipation for how this will impact social media.
The overriding sentiments in the industry appear to be building relationships and meaningful connections alongside leveraging AI tools for better analytics and understanding how to create a social media strategy with impact.
Where Should Social Media Marketers Focus Their Attention In 2024?
We reached out to a variety of social media experts and thought leaders to get their input on what might happen in the coming year, and to ask where social media marketers should focus in 2024.
Build More Sustainable Relationships
Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs
If you haven’t shifted your social strategy lately, you’re doing it wrong. For most of us, it’s not a traffic accelerator; it’s a relationship builder.
Walk with me back to the dawn of social… Then, we were using it to amass massive audiences quickly and easily, then using it to boost traffic or conversions (however we defined “conversion”).
Those days are over. Done. Cooked. Toast.
Instead, in 2024, it’s all about recognizing that social media’s superpower is its ability to help us build more sustainable relationships more slowly.
Social in 2024 and beyond requires a shift in strategy. But also (importantly) an evolution of your mindset.
Executive Thought Leadership Social Strategy
Purna Virji, Principal Consultant, Content Solutions, LinkedIn
One core area I’d encourage social media marketers to focus their attention on in 2024 is to supplement their regular demand generation activities with an executive thought leadership social strategy.
As a result of the continuing economic worries, businesses increasingly cut budgets throughout 2023.
According to Edelman’s research, “44% of decision-makers also claim they will be less receptive to sales calls or marketing outreach, making it harder for businesses to attract new clients.”
Marketers have realized, often the hard way, that nurture- and bottom-funnel campaigns alone aren’t sufficient. After all, it’s increasingly futile to promote, say, a free demo when people might not have the budget to buy what you’re demo-ing.
How, then, to stand out? That’s where thought leadership comes in.
Thought leadership campaigns (both paid and organic) help increase market consideration and build trust with prospects to support demand generation efforts that drive ROI and can attract talent.
According to the Edelman study, “More than half of decision-makers say that during an economic downturn, it’s essential that non-critical suppliers produce high-quality thought leadership if they want to earn business.”
Five top tips:
- Thought leadership content doesn’t need to be long; in fact, snackable content can often work best.
- It doesn’t all need to come from the C-Suite. If they’re busy/unable to lean in to help, start with your sales representatives or other subject matter experts. People respond best to their peers, so if your end audience tends to be very technical, for example, then starting with the more technical subject matter experts in your organization can be helpful.
- You don’t need a separate strategy for thought leadership. Rather, weave it in as part of your existing strategy for effectiveness and efficiency.
- You don’t need a massive budget for it, either. Start with organic posts, try different approaches and formats, and then amplify what’s working with paid promotion.
- Thought leadership content does best when it’s authentic to the creator, on a topic they’re passionate about and have expertise in. Focus on offering value and building trust and rapport.
A Fun Year For AI-Powered Social Media Marketing Data Analysis
Andy Crestodina, Co-Founder/Chief Marketing Officer, Orbit Media Studios
Social media is a data-rich environment. This is a huge advantage for marketers who analyze this data and then iterate their social strategies – which is more fun than ever if you use AI.
So, in the new year, smart social media marketers will focus on getting data out of social media and getting it into an AI-friendly structure.
Give ChatGPT nicely organized CSV files, and it will give you charts that may cause you to immediately rethink what you post.
Here’s a chart that AI made for me based on one year of top posts on LinkedIn, categorized manually before uploading. Interesting, right? 2024 will be a fun year for AI-powered social media marketing data analysis.
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