Best Social Media Marketing Strategies You Just Can’t Ignore in 2024

2022 is on its way and is ready to roll over in just a few days. By now it’s completely safe to say that traditional marketing has been overwhelmingly wrapped by the social media marketing hype. It makes us realize how fastly and dynamically the world of social media is growing and still there is a long way to go when it reaches its peak of popularity.

Social media marketing has time and again proved it’s worth in promoting and marketing small businesses to new levels of success. It is an ever-changing field and it becomes really important for marketers to keep themselves up to date with the latest trends of social media marketing to be ahead in the game.

Here is a guide to help you create the most effective social media marketing strategy by analyzing the latest trends of 2024. Let’s get started.

1. Engagement Is Now More Important Than Ever

As Social Media moves forward in rightfully proving itself as the next marketing stop for all businesses, big or small, driving a potential user engagement on social media about your brand is vital for your business to grow.

Now when organic reach has become harder than ever, it is really important to understand that engaging, relevant and interesting content is the only key to survival out there in the cut-throat competition.

Algorithms are constantly updated and they become smarter day by day, so there is no shortcut to drive genuine engagement. Encouraging people to like, comment and share your content is not enough anymore.

Here are some tips to drive meaningful engagement through your content on social media platforms-

a). Don’t just keep talking about your brand. Talk about your topic too. Don’t be the big-headed brand that just talks about itself. Rather, let others lead the discussion and join in by providing valuable information regarding the latest trends in the industry. Make your customers the voice of your brand and collect as much User-Generated Content as you can. This presents you as a valuable entity and a useful one too.

b). Share other people’s content too. If someone else has a better solution to a query, don’t be shy to share it on your social feed. This presents you as a brand who are more dedicated to present their customers with a definite solution, whether it comes from you or someone else. This also allows you to keep your content diversified and prevent it from becoming boring. This keeps the customers interested in your brand.

c). Interact with influencers like bloggers and social media influencers. Let your content roll into the feed of these influencers as the more people read your content, the more likely is the engagement. You could offer benefits or freebies to the influencers in return for the collaboration. You could also set a guest posting target which is also a great way to increase social media engagement.

d). Make your customers feel valued and engaged by actively replying on their posts and queries. This also increases their loyalty towards your brand. Use social media listening tools to find who is mentioning your brand and where. Respond accordingly.

2. User-Generated Content – The Ace of All Cards

User-Generated Content is the most authentic and valuable content created directly by the genuine users of the brand. It is the best form of social media marketing as 92 % of people believe in recommendations from friends and family over all forms of advertising.

Now, the popularity of UGC is higher than ever because people post exciting content on social media all the time. So, it is free content for brands waiting to be used.

Word-of-mouth marketing, stories, and images shared by existing customers about your brand on their social media account play an important role in the buying decisions of your potential customers. Incorporating UGC into your social media marketing strategy adds a personal touch to your brand and humanize your brands so that customers relate to that. Many big and small businesses have been using UGC in their marketing tactics to ripe the benefits associated.

UGC is the vital component of the reputation management system of your brand and helps to enhance your brand’s image and hence the trust factor for your business. Customers are smart. They know who is faking it out and who is authentic. UGC helps you establish that authenticity because it provides any potential customer with social proof of your product’s quality given by the people already using it. This gives them the extra push required to convert from an aspiring customer to an existing one.

3. Social Walls – The Ideal Platform to Showcase UGC

A social wall is an aggregator and a display tool for social media feeds. These feeds are extracted from social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. It enables you to bring everything at one place and interact with people engaged with your content in real-time be it at any event or on your website even.

Social media walls are the new generation superstars of marketing tactics that can skyrocket your business with just a blink. They allow you to showcase user-generated content to a wide audience range at any event or website. 

It is like the wall of fame for the audience at an event where everyone likes to be featured on hence driving the user engagement to an insanely new level.  It is the best tool to accelerate your word of mouth marketing and make your event something that people talk about for days.

Besides events, a social wall embedded on a website is a great idea to drive user engagement, escalate dwell time, increase click-through rates, and conversion rates. Social walls can be created using various means for example hashtags, Instagram-tagged posts, Instagram stories, Facebook albums, Facebook posts, Facebook mentions, Twitter mentions, accounts, etc. Now it’s easier than ever to display live hashtag feeds or any Hashtag Campaign on any type of screen using a social aggregator tool like Taggbox.

See also: What is a Social Wall?

Best UGC Platform

4. Enthusiasm of your loyal customers as an asset

The fact is that no one can advocate for your brand in a way your loyal customers do. They make your brand ubiquitous by spreading awareness about your brand. 

Social media channels provide these loyal customers the perfect platform to become brand ambassadors which helps the brands to gain organic followers.

To get more from these customers, you can as them to share their reviews and feedback on your social profile so that it can be used massively in your marketing campaigns.

Also, to boost their enthusiasm, you can offer them sober discounts and coupon codes which would motivate them to spread the word about your brand on diverse platforms.

5. Vogue of Live Streaming

Almost 80% of the audience prefer live videos to blog posts or social posts. The popularity of live streaming through Facebook and Instagram has given the marketers a key opportunity to explore it in their favor.

Also, live streaming helps you earn the “Authenticity” factor as it helps in building trust and loyalty with the brand. Risks like technical issues may arise so they must be taken care of earlier itself, but even the audience understands that only an authentic content leaves room for genuine mistakes. Live streaming is one of the most effective social media video marketing strategy used by businesses these days!

The upsurge of live streaming indicates the inclination of people towards videos and also the feel of being “part of the moment”. Live Streaming makes that possible. It is more engaging and interactive. They add a new dimension to the personalization of the content. Also, a single click connects you live with a broader audience base.

6. Vertical Videos and Social TV

The most recent developments in the field of social media are social TVs and vertical videos. The most famous one in this category is Instagram TV (IGTV) which allows you to make channels and post longer videos there. Youtube TV and Snap Originals are also the same kinds of social TVs.

It encourages more brands to transform into a broadcaster because as you know pictures and videos speak louder than words. This has established social TVs as a platform to advertise and create customer base just like traditional TVs. with exclusive channels of your interests.

Apart from social TV’s, the newly launched feature of Instagram known as “Instagram Reels” is growing its network rapidly among all the social media users. This small video sharing feature of Instagram is an exciting way to connect with the customers and thereby increasing customer engagement towards the brand,

7. Visual-First Marketing & 360 Degree Images

2022 was all about visuals and so 2024 is expected to be. Be it a live video or a story (vertical videos/ images lasting 24 hours), videos continue to dominate social media and are undoubtedly the next trending visual marketing tactics of 2024.

With Youtube already being a platform for creators to create and post video content for the audience, now social media platforms like Instagram have also started trending and encouraging video contents through IGTV. Having a presence on these platforms can really benefit a social media marketer as it provides immense opportunity and audience base for brand promotion.

Other trending feature of social media these days is the 24 hour Story (video/ image) feature. Stories are easy to create, fun, engaging, spontaneous and authentic. They are literally everywhere. The trend started with Snapchat stories and has spread like a wildfire to Instagram, Facebook, and even Whatsapp. And the best part is that brands can even integrate these Instagram Stories into their website to attract website visitors.

Apart from this, there are many platforms such as Facebook, Vimeo, Youtube endorsing 360-degree images. It is a great tool to drum up the interests and engagement of users on your social media platforms.

Besides using it on social media, 360° images can also be embedded on your website to give an experience of virtual reality to the visitors of your website. 

Hence, it’s high time now that social media marketers understand the effectiveness of visuals in their marketing strategies. The trend has clearly shifted from “text-first” to “visual-first” and that’s how the marketing strategies should be planned now for better results.

8. Social Commerce Will Go Mainstream

One of the most trending social media marketing strategies is Shoppable Feeds. Believe me, there is nothing better than providing your customers the shortcut to shop and that too in their comfort zones.

Be it Shoppable Instagram, Facebook Shop, or Pinterest Buyable pins, it offers the best shopping experience to the customers by allowing them to shop without even leaving the page they are scrolling.

The most effective way of converting customers’ inspiration into sales, this shoppable social media feed curtails the purchase journey of the customers and boosts sales and conversion rates for your brand.

9. Artificial Intelligence And Chatbots

Chatbots have made their way in marketing strategies over the years and have become one of the fastest-growing use cases of AI technology. In the present time, they are capable of catering to customers’ needs by providing initial services to them, enhancing user experience, and automating the work and help.

According to a survey, 47% of respondents buy items from a chatbot. This demographic clearly defines the widespread adoption of chatbots by social media platforms.

These chatbots can be synchronized with various platforms such as Facebook messenger, direct messages on Twitter, WhatsApp Chatbot etc. it will ensure your consistent presence on all your social media platforms.

10. Promotional Posts v/s Storytelling 

Features tell, but benefits sell!

Promotions just convey the features of the products but when you want to sell the products, educating your customers about the entire qualities and usages of the product is necessary.

Therefore, to break the ice, it is important to tell the entire story instead of portraying a single image of it.

With storytelling, you can showcase the relevant information about the product which will invoke the emotions of potential customers. Social media, along with all the inbuilt filters and themes, is a great platform to showcase the story of the product in an exquisite way.

11. Augmented Reality Will Steal The Show

Fast-forward to 2022, one of the most trending marketing technology would be Augmented Reality (AR). Defined as the enhanced and improvised version of the real or physical world, where the real world is incorporated with digital elements and other sensory stimuli.

Some of the Snapchat filters and lenses are probably the best examples of AR we come across in our daily life. 

AR combined with social media is yet to make a spark but continuous efforts will definitely let AR win the game. In fact, you might have heard about Facebook’s AR Studio, designed to make interactive experiences for the Facebook camera.

The best ways in which marketers can use AR in their social media marketing strategy is by incorporating it in their social commerce stores, by creating stunning AR videos to help the customers understand the product, by integrating it with live videos, and much more. 

Summary

So, overall it was a gist of all the trending social media marketing strategies that had started sparkling in the past couple of years and have now grown into a whole wildfire. It is the right time for those who want to employ these tactics to make their marketing strategies more engaging, interactive and fun for their audience.