11 Social Media Trends for 2024: Latest Predictions You Should Be Thinking About

A new version of this article, featuring the latest data and statistics is available. Check out our report on Social Media Software Trends for 2022/2023.

Social media is perhaps the ultimate equalizer among businesses in the modern age. For starters, it serves as a platform through which large enterprises can make themselves more approachable to customers. At the same time, it has leveled the playing field for small businesses when it comes to marketing. Furthermore, as the COVID-19 pandemic has forced enterprises big and small to turn to the internet to reach their customers and do business in general, social media marketing proved to be even more helpful if not vital. This is why it pays to have access to the latest social media trends.

By having this information at your fingertips, it is easier for you to understand the pulse of the consumers as well as to adapt to their changing demands. Moreover, knowledge of these trends allows you to determine exactly what you can do to maximize your use of social media and top social media management software for your business.

So, to help you out, we’ll be detailing the 11 critical social media trends that are reshaping how businesses operate today. We’ve also included some tips on how you can take advantage of each trend.

Social media has deeply embedded itself into our culture. In fact, a study revealed that 86% of the United States population uses social media daily (The Manifest, 2018).

This just goes to show that having a solid social media presence is increasingly important for businesses. After all, with 4.2 billion active social media users (We Are Social, 2021) across the globe, it makes sense for companies to leverage social networking platforms to tap their target audience.

However, taking advantage of social media is not easy. Simply creating a Facebook page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account doesn’t mean customers will come flocking to you instantly. Moreover, these platforms and how they are used are continually evolving, making it difficult for businesses to keep up.

As you’ll see on the chart, businesses face plenty of social media challenges (Hootsuite, 2019). Sometimes, it involves factors you can’t control such as the decline in organic reach as well as the frequent changes to Facebook’s algorithms. Meanwhile, there are also challenges that you can easily address such as the need to improve video creation skills or content personalization.

Furthermore, businesses can opt to take a proactive approach to curate social media accounts by relying on social media management systems. These will allow you to intelligently plan and automate your posting efforts. Moreover, these will help you map out what kind of content you should publish.

In addition, you should keep yourself updated on what’s new in the industry to know how you can wield these platforms to your advantage. So, without further ado, here are the most critical social media trends of today:

1. Social Selling Will Increase

Social media is used by practically everybody, everywhere. This makes it a prime spot for businesses to look for leads. It’s no wonder why the majority of top sales representatives rely on these platforms for their strategies.

With this, you can say goodbye to cold calling random contacts and cookie-cutter processes. It allows you to leverage social insights and online intelligence so you can zero in on strong leads before you even interact with them. What’s more, you can develop a two-way street between sales reps and consumers through social media.

According to some studies, many businesses also leverage social selling for lead development, account research, and call preparation. However, executing this can be quite tricky if you don’t have the right tools.

Furthermore, as modern buyers are now more knowledgeable than ever, traditional sales pitches, and cold calls and cold messages might not cut it for you (Top Dog Social Media, 2021). Nowadays, it’s not simply about closing a sale but building a relationship. After all, 76% of customers are willing to have a social media conversion with a potential provider and 53% of customer loyalty has been found to be driven by the salesperson’s ability to offer unique insights (OptinMaster, 2021).

To start, you should use your sales tools in conjunction with social media management software features. This will allow you to formulate sales workflows in line with your social media efforts. By doing so, it is much more effortless to gather data on your prospects as well as tap them when need be.

Social Selling Statistics to Consider:

• 90% of top sales representatives leverage social media as part of their strategies (LinkedIn, 2016). Meanwhile, 89% of top-performing sales professionals say networking platforms, such as LinkedIn are important in closing their deals (LinkedIn, 2018).
• The benefits of using social media for selling and marketing include increased exposure (86%), increased traffic (78%), and higher lead generation (67%). (Social Media Examiner, 2020).
• 40% of businesses have adopted or are planning to adopt social selling strategies (Hootsuite, 2019).

2. Influencers Will Continue to Influence

2018 was a pivotal year for social media. Facebook was scrutinized for its data practices due to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Meanwhile, Twitter suspended over 70 million accounts due to bots and trolls that were shown to influence the previous US presidential election. As a result, people have come to be more skeptical of social media. In fact, recent studies show that 95% of internet users don’t trust social media (Malwarebytes, 2019). A more recent report stated that only 12% of Facebook users strongly agree that their privacy and data are protected by social networks, making it the least trusted digital platform (eMarketer, 2020).

In addition to these issues, many shoppers nowadays don’t respond well to impersonal and overtly promotional advertising campaigns. Simply put, celebrity endorsements, TV ads, and aggressive sales pitches have lost their appeal.

Despite the controversies, people are still on social media. For one, Facebook’s user base continued to grow. It helped that the network made some efforts to somewhat curb privacy concerns. Facebook began to regulate ads better and improve transparency for users (Awario, 2019).

Furthermore, businesses also found influence marketing as an effective way to tap into their audience. Social media influencers, particularly micro-influencers, have the uncanny ability to interact with shoppers on a more personal level. This can be attributed to the fact that they appear more approachable and authentic compared to prominent figures.

Moreover, COVID-19 community quarantine restrictions had people stay at home. As such, there was a significant increase in the number of people tuning into live-streams and stories of celebrities and influencers. Facebook live-stream views spiked 50% while Instagram numbers spiked 70%. TikTok also boomed in 2020 (Social Media Today, 2021).

Recent studies even show that teenagers can relate more to YouTube creators than celebrities. In a similar light, a good chunk of internet users relies heavily on influencer recommendations for their purchases. That said, it’s easy to see how lucrative these influencer partnerships can be.

As we move further into 2021, we can expect more brands to leverage this type of strategy for their campaigns to expand their customer bases and yield more targeted leads.

Social Media Influencer Statistics to Consider:

• Influencer marketing has a return on investment of up to $18 for every dollar spent (Influencer Marketing, 2021).
• 70% of teenagers say they can relate more to YouTube creators than celebrities (Google, 2016).
• 49% of internet users rely on influencer recommendations they see on Twitter (Twitter, 2016).

YouTuber PewDiePie featured Maingear, an American computer manufacturer on his channel after they sent him a package.

3. Leveraging User-Generated Content

Responding to comments on your business’ social media account is a great way to engage potential clients. However, this isn’t enough to gain their trust. If you truly want to capture the attention of your target audience and convert them, you should also explore and leverage user-generated content (UGC) besides influencer marketing. Brands should watch out for consumers who are organically promoting their products or services and leverage such opportunities (PR Daily, 2021).

Just as consumers trust influencers more than celebrities, there’s a higher chance that online shoppers will listen to fellow consumers than pay attention to your promotional content. They trust that other consumers will be truthful about whether or not a particular product or service is worth their money. So, by showing them what your existing customers have to say about your brand, you’ll be able to capture the attention of prospects and improve the odds of converting new leads.

However, while social media is a treasure trove of UGC, finding content about your company won’t be easy. After all, not all shoppers post about their purchases. So, you should encourage your customers to share their experiences with your brand. You can even ask them to use your official hashtag so you can find them easier on social media. This way, you can react to their post and even share their posts through your Instagram and Snapchat stories or Facebook Messenger “My Day” to show your followers.

As a plus, asking customers to post about your brand will expose your company to the social media followers of your customers. Thus, expanding your reach further.

Social Media User-Generated Content (UGC) Statistics to Consider:

• 85% of consumers respond better to visual UGC compared to brand-provided photos and videos (Business Wire, 2016).
• Majority of customers (71%) post about brands on social media to inform fellow consumers about their experience with the company (Lyfe Marketing, 2019).
• Consumers are 2.4 times more likely to see UGC as more authentic than brand-created content (Stackla, 2019).
• Meanwhile, 79% of consumers say UGC highly impacts their purchasing decisions (Stackla, 2019).
• The types of digital content that social media users would most likely share are photos (78%) and simple status updates (64%). They are also fine with posting news articles (45%), product recommendations (44%), status updates on personal opinion (41%), video clips (32%), and GIFs (20%) (Crowdtap, 2015).

Beauty brand Glossier leverages user-generated content by sharing the photos they were tagged in.

4. Live Streaming for Customer Engagement

Many businesses have jumped to live streaming to engage with their clients and for good reason.

For starters, live streaming is a fast and accessible way to provide existing and potential customers with information on what your brand has to offer. More importantly, many consumers prefer live videos over written content as it gives them a raw and unfiltered look of a particular brand in real-time.

Just think of it this way–live streaming is a lot like video chatting. It allows your followers to react as you share your content. This allows you to foster a more intimate relationship with your consumers.

Say, for example, you sell soaps from home. You can use live streaming to give them a sneak peek as to how you make your bath bombs, handmade soaps, and other products.

Perhaps you own a buffet restaurant. In this case, you can live stream your menu for the day. This way, your customers know exactly what to expect when they visit you on the same day. It might even persuade some customers to change their dinner plans if they see something they like on your live stream.

The point here is, through live stream, you can connect with your audience instead of simply providing them with information about your brand. It also allows you to create a sense of community among clients, thereby, strengthening customer loyalty.

Live Streaming Statistics to Consider:

• Live streaming is expected to make up 17% of all internet traffic by 2022 (Cisco, 2020).
• 80% of shoppers prefer watching live videos to reading blogs from a brand (Livestream, 2020).
• Instagram videos can yield roughly 21.2% more customer interactions compared to images (quintly, 2018).
• Live content gets 27% more minutes of watch time per view compared to video on demand (Conviva, 2020).

5. Utilizing Ephemeral Content

FOMO, or the fear of missing out, is real. What’s more, your business can take advantage of it through ephemeral content.

If you don’t know what ephemeral content is, it simply refers to social media posts that are only accessible for a short period of time. Some examples of these are the Facebook My Days and Instagram Stories we were talking about earlier.

A social media trends research shows that millions of social media users publish all sorts of photos, videos, and animated posts through this format. One reason for this is that it allows them to provide short bursts of updates minus the risk of annoying their followers by flooding their feeds.

However, for businesses, there’s a more important perk that it has to offer. Ephemeral content prompts your followers to check what you post instantly because it’s not available for long. Consequently, these kinds of content have the power to elicit immediate responses from your leads. Studies even show that 20% of Stories can result in a direct interaction with followers.

Say, for example, you have an ongoing sale. If you post the available products on ephemeral slideshows instead of through the feed, there’s a higher chance that they would inquire about it or even purchase it within the day.

In addition, using ephemeral content allows you to test out how your followers react to different types of media. This will help you get a pulse as to what kinds of posts they are most likely to look at so you can produce more of the same type of content later on.

Ephemeral Content Statistics to Consider:

• Stories are now growing 15 times faster compared to feed-based sharing (Block Party, 2018).
• 20% of stories result in a direct interaction with the user (Instagramers, 2018).
• 4 out of 5 major companies are using the ‘Stories’ format for marketing (Block Party, 2018).
• 64% of brands have integrated or are planning to integrate Instagram Stories as part of their social media strategy (Hootsuite, 2019).
• There are around 500 million daily active users of Instagram Stories (TechCrunch, 2019)
• There are plenty of social media users who upload ephemeral content every day. For example, 450 million people use WhatsApp stories on a daily basis. Similarly, Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook stories are used daily by 300 million, 191 million, and 150 million people respectively (Social Media Today, 2019).

Converse used Instagram stories to promote the launch of their newest line of sneakers.

6. Strategic Social Media Posting

People have short attention spans. In fact, we can lose focus after 8 seconds (Time, 2015). That said, if you want to retain the attention of your social media followers, you have to give them a variety of content that they’d actually enjoy seeing.

One of the tricks that companies use to ensure this is the 5:3:2 rule. In a nutshell, this means that for every 10 posts you publish, 5 should come from other sources, 3 should be official posts related to your brand, and 2 should be more personal and fun. With this, you can make sure that you are curating a balanced social media feed that your followers won’t grow tired of.

In addition to this rule, you should also make it a point to understand what type of content is best for a given platform. This allows you to maximize each social media site accordingly. For example, if you use Instagram, you should focus on creating beautiful photos and carefully planned photo grids. Meanwhile, if you’re using Facebook, you might want to aim for a more multimedia approach.

Lastly, you might want to consider collaborating with like-minded brands on social media. Nowadays, it’s common for companies to post a photo of their products alongside another company’s offerings. This allows them to give their followers an idea of what lifestyle they’re trying to sell.

To help you improve how you manage your social media posts, we highly recommend that you try using any of the leading content management systems. These should allow you to organize all of your social media assets in one place as well as map out and schedule your posts for a more strategic approach to social media management.

Social Media Content Statistics to Consider:

• 59% of shoppers want to see posts that will educate them (Sprout Social, 2019).
• 30% of consumers want content with links to more information while 18% want to see more images or some form of graphic. There’s also 17% who prefer seeing videos, 11% who like seeing text, or 7% edited photos (Sprout Social, 2019).
• During the COVID-19 pandemic, video content increased across all three platforms, and it reached its peak on Facebook (15.8%) and Instagram (14.2%) in April 2020 (Socialbakers, 2020).
• In general, the types of social media content that are more likely to get more engagement are images (68%), videos (50%), text-based posts (30%), stories (26%), polls (26%), live video (22%), and GIFs (17%). (Sprout Social, 2020).
• On average, the best time to post on Facebook is from 12 pm to 4 pm. Meanwhile, the best days to post are on Thursdays and Fridays (Falcon, 2020).

Most Popular Social Media Management Software

1. TweetDeck is the most powerful Twitter tool for real-time tracking, organizing, and engagement. Learn more when you read our full review.
2. Sprout Social is a social media interaction software that lets your organization communicate and build trust with your audience. Discover its capabilities when you check out our thoughts on the solution.
3. Agorapulse is a social community and moderation manager that can act as a hub for all your social networking profiles.
4. Sendible can schedule messages, engage your audiences, and measure ROI right from one, easy-to-use dashboard.
5. Salesforce Social Studio is a social media solution that leads you to business growth opportunities in this channel.

7. Social Shopping Will Keep on Growing

eCommerce is perhaps one of the biggest things to have happened to retail in the 21st century. However, with the advent of social media, the prevalence of the “on-demand culture,” and the disruption caused by the pandemic, social commerce is set to make bigger waves moving forward.

In fact, 87% of online shoppers think social media helps them make a buying decision (Smart Insights, 2019). It’s where they first encounter certain brands and it’s where they start inquiring about particular products and services. That said, it makes sense that most social media users now want to have the option to purchase directly from their favorite social networking platforms.

In China, most Gen Zers now buy directly from retailers on social media. Meanwhile, millions of people across the world use Facebook Marketplace to sell all sorts of products. Consequently, an increasing number of businesses nowadays are starting to implement social commerce by rolling out shoppable galleries on their social media pages.

Now, you might be thinking, “why should I go through the trouble of creating a separate social commerce page if I can just provide a link to my existing eCommerce page?” The simplest answer to that would be that social shopping accelerates the buying process. It allows consumers to shop without having to be redirected to a separate website. Thus, you can ensure faster conversions.

So, even if implementing social commerce will require you to make several adjustments to your current workflows, you should know that it’s well worth it in the long run.

Social Commerce Statistics to Consider:

• 87% of online shoppers think social media helps them make a buying decision (Smart Insights, 2019).
• 30% of online consumers say they are more likely to shop on social media networks such as Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or Twitter (BigCommerce, 2020).
• In China, 70% of Gen Zers are opting to buy directly from social media platforms (IMA, 2019).
• As of 2018, Facebook Marketplace is currently being used by over 800 million people across 70 countries (CNET, 2018).
• The percentage of US retailers utilizing social media for ecommerce increased from 17% in 2017 to 33% in 2018 (eMarketer, 2019).
• 17% of retailers have implemented or are planning to implement shoppable galleries over the course of this year (Hootsuite, 2019).
• The social media platforms with the highest average paid order values are Pinterest ($154), Instagram ($103), Facebook ($69), and Snapchat ($57) (Mobile Marketing Magazine, 2019).

Millions of social media users across the globe utilize Facebook Marketplace to sell all kinds of products.

8. Social Ads for Lead Generation

Over the years, ads have had a bad reputation. There’s either too much of them or they’re too intrusive.

However, it seems that this isn’t the case for social media. In fact, statistics show that millennials believe social ads are becoming more and more important. This is because many social networks often leverage user information such as browsing habits so that they can provide relevant advertisements.

In addition, another reason why you should start investing in social advertising is that social platforms are changing their algorithms. They now prioritize posts from family and friends rather than posts from brands. This has resulted in a decline in organic reach on social media for companies. Thus, you’ll have no choice but to pay for social ads if you want your brand to be noticed.

Looking on the bright side, leveraging social media ads allows businesses to tap into more targeted customer pools. This means higher quality leads. So, it comes as no surprise that many companies nowadays are paying for ads on Facebook, Twitter, and other prominent social media networks.

Social Advertising Statistics to Consider:

• More than half of the millennials (57%) today believe that ads are becoming important (Adobe, 2018).
• As of 2020 Q3, there are 10 million active advertisers on Facebook (Facebook, 2021).
• Fortunately for Facebook advertisers, Facebook ad impressions increased by 37% while ad prices decreased by 6% as of Q4 2019 (AdvertiseMint, 2020).
• 70% of businesses say that Facebook ads are one of the most useful tools for achieving sales goals (Sprout Social, 2018).
• Twitter earned $665 million in revenue in 2018. $575 million of this comes from ads (Martech, 2018).
• 64% of marketers say the most challenging social media problem today is the decline in organic reach (Hootsuite, 2019).

Here’s an example of a sponsored ad from the New York Times on Facebook.

9. 1:1 Social Media Experiences

A study revealed that 90% of online shoppers say authenticity is important for brands (Stackla, 2019). They want brands that have passion for their craft and have a genuine concern for their customers. It’s impossible for customers to connect with brands that they deem insincere or ‘shady’ (Social Media Today, 2021). Suffice it to say, online shoppers want to do business with brands that can provide them with high-quality products and great customer service.

Because of this shift in customer expectations, we will notice that the dynamic between companies and customers has also changed. While brands still roll out 1:many interactions through their public posts, many companies are now focusing more on 1:1 social media experiences through messaging apps.

This is because many shoppers expect brands to respond to them on all possible online channels from comments to private messages. Moreover, they feel more comfortable purchasing from businesses that offer a more hands-on approach when it comes to customer service and sales.

As a result, almost half of modern businesses now leverage instant messaging for their social media campaigns. If you aren’t doing this yet, a good place to start would be by simply enabling the messenger feature for your Facebook page or by adding a messaging plugin to your website.

Social Media Messaging Statistics to Consider:

• 46% of businesses use messaging apps for their social media campaigns (Hootsuite, 2019).
• 9 out of 10 shoppers want to option to communicate with businesses through instant messaging  (Twilio, 2016).
• 71% of customers expect brands to offer customer support through online messaging platforms (Conversocial, 2020).
• 69% of shoppers say that interacting with a company through messaging apps makes them feel more at ease with the brand (Facebook, 2018).
• Furthermore, 94% of customers are also likely to buy again from brands that deliver a satisfying customer experience over messaging platforms (Conversocial, 2020).

10. Mobile-Optimized Content

Phones are no longer just for calling and texting. Nowadays, these devices are powerful enough to be used as mini computers where you can access documents, browse the web, and play games. Moreover, individuals often turn to their smartphones instead of their desktops when they want to check their social media accounts.

With that said, companies should pay more attention to the format of their social media marketing content. After all, posts that are published for desktops don’t always fit on smartphone screens.

Don’t let your good social media content go to waste by making them as portable as possible. For example, post photos with dimensions that are optimized for phones. Furthermore, you can opt to produce vertical videos instead of horizontal ones for easier viewing on mobile devices. Lastly, keep captions to multimedia posts short and sweet so that both the photo/video and the caption are seen on the screen at the same time.

By doing these, you can capture the attention of mobile social media users as well as ensure that they’ll have a great time browsing through your page.

Mobile Social Media Statistics to Consider:

• 92% of internet users connect via mobile devices. Of which, 89% access social media apps. (We Are Social, 2020).
• The mobile social media population worldwide as of January 2021 is 4.15 billion or 98.8% of all users (We Are Social, 2021).
• 99% of social media users access websites or apps through their mobile devices (Backlinko, 2021).
• 51% of smartphone users check their phones a few times in an hour. 23% report they only check a few times in a day while 22% say they check their phone every few minutes.

11. Using Exclusivity to Drive Sales

The power of the velvet rope is something that should never be underestimated. After all, the allure of exclusivity has quite an impact on consumers. People simply want what they can’t have.

As a result, many businesses use scarcity marketing to drive sales. In the case of social media, the best way to do this is by setting up secret pages on Facebook. These are social media pages that are by-invitation-only.

You can set certain criteria that will get a particular shopper an invite to your secret group. It could be the number of purchases they made in a year or the amount of money they spent on your products. This way, customers will have an incentive to buy more from your company.

The point here is you should invite your most loyal customers to have access to these groups. Here, they can be notified of exclusive discounts and deals. Moreover, companies can use this to give advanced announcements on product launches or even sales. This allows you to create a more intimate relationship between your brand and your frequent customers. What’s more, by making filtering the people you add to your secret community, you can drive better engagement.

Of course, if you’re not comfortable with making your pages completely exclusive, you can always opt for closed groups. With these, you can balance exclusivity and accessibility for your clients.

Facebook Page Statistics to Consider:

• 40% of social media marketers say that private groups will grow in importance in the coming years (Social Media Today, 2019).
• Facebook Pages with less than 10,000 followers have a higher engagement rate at 0.45% compared to those with 10,000 to 100,000 that only get an average of 0.25% engagement rate. Meanwhile, pages with more than 100,000 fans only have a 0.08% engagement rate (We Are Social, 2021).

American exercise equipment brand Peloton has an exclusive Facebook group for official members of their community.

Make the Most Out of Social Media

Social media is undoubtedly a tool that businesses can’t afford not to use, especially now that businesses affected by COVID-19 are putting their best foot forward to capture the attention of their target market who are in social media. It delivers invaluable benefits, ranging from expanding customer bases to improving overall company reputation. However, as you can see from the trends we’ve discussed, there is an art and a science to using these social networking platforms for business.

In the following months, we can expect businesses to be more strategic with their use of social media. Posts will be published with intent and social media pages will be carefully curated. Moreover, businesses will be more proactive in building relationships with their customers through social media.

So, if you want to remain competitive in whatever industry you might be in, now is the time to start investing in social media management. By doing so, you can break down the barriers between you and your customers. In addition, it will be easier to draw in leads and create a solid reputation for your company.

To sum up, we hope that this post has helped you stay in-the-know about what are the latest social media trends of today. For more data on the industry, we suggest you check out our compilation of social media statistics. This should give you more in-depth insights as to where the industry is headed.

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By Astrid Eira

Astrid Eira is a resident B2B expert of FinancesOnline, focusing on the SaaS niche. She specializes in accounting and human resource management software, writing honest and straightforward reviews of some of the most popular systems around. Being a small business owner herself, Astrid uses her expertise to help educate business owners and entrepreneurs on how new technology can help them run their operations. She's an avid fan of the outdoors, where you'll find her when she's not crunching numbers or testing out new software.