The social media landscape is constantly changing. Our social media team leader Maria Karttunen and her team selected six key trends that will determine the direction of social media in 2024.

1. Sustainability – A trend that cannot be ignored

Companies are under increasing pressure to show what and how they give back to society and which ideologies they adhere to. Customers will demand absolute transparency and authenticity from companies in 2024. At the same time, public backlash against misnews and greenwashing will only intensify, and social media will play a major role in this.

Brands must stand firmly behind their values on social media and actively participate in the conversation. It’s important to create an environment on social media where everyone feels valued and respected. This may mean, for example, that the company responds actively and respectfully to all comments and feedback.

Content should reflect different voices, perspectives and experiences. Diversity and Inclusion and Equity (DEI) considerations are important. The accessibility of content is also essential, and in the comment fields, young people are even seen demanding subtitles for videos if they are missing.

2. Community – The customer is part of the story

Social media communities are often user-oriented, such as Facebook’s Animal Video Club and Women’s Room, as well as various hashtags/fan groups found on TikTok and Instagram, such as #instacat and #booktok. Users also establish fan communities for products and brands.

For companies, this offers a wide range of opportunities. Communities can be used, for example, to conduct surveys and studies, design new products or test advertising. Social media provides companies with a direct channel to communicate with their customers openly and in real time. Loyal customers are happy to be part of the brand’s story instead of just passive consumption, which provides a good starting point for creating a community.

Community is strongly linked to other trends, such as user-generated content, sustainability and brand humanization. A company that creates its own community on social media can act responsibly and transparently, encouraging and encouraging its members to participate in the conversation and even in content production. This makes the company more approachable and humane, which can increase its appeal to customers.

3. Artificial intelligence – social media’s new superweapon

AI plays a significant role in social media. It has revolutionized the way we produce, consume and share information. AI can be used to personalize the user experience, optimize content production and enhance advertising.

Algorithms collect information about user activity, such as likes, shares and comments, to provide personalized content. With them, every social media user gets a unique and customized user experience.

AI also plays a key role in content production and advertising. Features that facilitate these, such as automatic text production and tools for creating and processing images, will increase on social media platforms.

At the same time, artificial intelligence also poses challenges to the use of social media. Content produced and recommended by algorithms can amplify the bubble effect, where users only see the opinions of like-minded people. AI also offers scammers new ways to take advantage of e.g. audio and video. For audio manipulations, only three seconds of audio sampling is enough, and videos can be used to cheat convincingly.

4. Social media as a search engine – Google, are you ready?

Young people, especially Gen Z, are increasingly looking for information on social media instead of Google.

People want to consume more and more authentic and quickly browsable content, to which social media responds better than traditional search engines. When searching for information on social media, the user receives the search results in a visual and easy-to-browse format. Social media is also a more interactive environment than traditional search engines. For example, on TikTok, a user can quickly scroll through several related videos, ask, comment, and read other users’ comments on the topic as well.

As many people have moved to social media to find information about products and services, the importance of social media SEO has become more pronounced. Brands can improve their discoverability on social media by, for example, adding relevant keywords to their posts and keeping usernames easy to find and consistent across channels.

Changes can also be seen in paid advertising. For example, TikTok has already introduced “Search Ads Toggle” to its shopping platform, which can also be used to display advertising in TikTok’s search results in connection with relevant searches. The feature is currently only available in the United States, but testing has also been carried out in other markets.

5. Making the brand more human – People, not rigid corporations

A brand personality can stand out from the rest of the brand identity in social media channels by being bolder and joking, for example. Tone-of-voice can even differ between different social media channels when the choice has been made consciously based on strategy.

Creating an emotional connection with consumers and customers is very important in a world where media use is fragmented across channels. TikTok, in particular, sees a lot of interaction between competing brands. People often prefer to trust other people rather than faceless companies, so it is good to highlight the people behind the brand and thus make the company more approachable.

Brand humanization brings out the brand’s values and personality, which can be achieved, for example, through high-quality customer service. At its best, effective customer service can be used to build a brand community and highlight the company’s own expertise. However, customer service doesn’t just mean answering messages, it requires active communication with the community.

6. User-generated content – Authenticity wins

User generated content (UGC) is, as the name implies, genuine and honest content created by social media users themselves. Generation Z digital natives in particular are heavy consumers of social media. Many of them also actively post on social media themselves – and because they are used to sharing so much about life, product, service and brand recommendations are also a natural part of the content.

​User-generated content is more approachable and credible than branded content. What would be a greater commitment to the brand than producing content from it, and what would be a greater tribute from the brand to the creator of the content than acknowledging it. In this way, brands can show that they listen to their customers.​

User-generated content can be organic recommendations from influencers, but also reviews or tips published by ordinary social media users. All of them offer well-deserved visibility, but they have also been increasingly used in companies’ social media advertising. User-created or imitating content as advertising content looks much more organic and suitable for the channel.