Social Media Marketing Trends

Explore the top social media marketing trends that matter for business, including the growth of influencer marketing, social shopping, dynamic ads, and embracing TikTok.

New This Week

• Identifying effective generative AI tools for social media

Introduction

• What's trending in social media marketing?
• The value of micro vs. macro social media trends

1. Format- and Feature-Related Social Media Trends

• Incorporating music on social media
• Offering subscription-based content
• Creating original GIFs
• Advertising with existing organic content
• Adding a social layer to product
• Video content continues to be a key investment
• Visual search becomes more prominent
• Developing sub-brands with collab features
• Hosting podcasts on social media
• Experimenting with augmented reality on social media
• Original social media content gets priority
• Adding sonic branding to social media content
• Text-heavy content still a social media must-have
• Releasing an educational series on social media
• Improving the speed of the social media approval process

2. Channel-Specific Trends in Social Media Marketing

• Revisiting niche networks
• Advertising on social media adjacent services
• Unbundling of Reddit into other services
• Experimenting with crypto social networks
• Fostering superfans on Discord
• Brand activations on Roblox
• The ongoing cultural impact of TikTok
• Superapps dominate the market
• Embracing the Reddit community
• Optimize for TikTok SEO
• Sponsoring TikTok livestreams
• Revisiting the value of Facebook
• Connecting with Pinterest's audience
• Threads has long-term viability
• Boosting search visibility with Google Perspectives

3. Influencer Marketing Trends in Social Media

• Repositioning products for influencer collaborations
• Pros and cons of influencer marketplaces
• Out-of-the-box sponsorships
• Tipping creators for more simplistic partnerships
• Creative uses of social media paywalls
• Sponsoring up-and-coming creators
• Working with Amazon influencers
• Micro-influencers come out on top
• Collaborating with influencers as a nonprofit
• Creators as brand consultants
• Live streaming in China evolves
• Hiring creators as social media managers
• Partner with LinkedIn creators
• Working with creators of viral sounds
• Building your own creator program
• Leveraging the relationships between creators

4. Trending Engagement Strategies in Social Media

• Audience building with shows and series
• Launching reimagined social media contests
• The opportunity of localized social media marketing
• Integrating social media in other forms of advertising
• Reframing the narrative in your favor
• Partnerships thrive on social media
• Reconsidering shock value
• First-mover advantage
• Humanizing your messaging
• Cultivating shared social experiences in the metaverse
• Producing NFTs for your audience
• Leaders develop a social media strategy
• Social customer care increases in value
• Revisiting humor on social media
• Revisiting hashtag usage for discovery
• How to develop a social strategy for Web3
• Prioritize authenticity on social media
• Tighter social media budgets for brands
• Prioritize storytelling instead of viral trends
• Benefiting from TikTok-esque video feeds
• Thoughtfully taking a social media break as a brand
• Focusing your social strategy on depth and width
• Refining your social media mix as the referral model falters
• Treating social media like TV by committing to entertainment

5. Social Causes and Demographic Trends on Social Media

• Encouraging healthier social media usage
• Addressing systemic racism
• Counteracting misinformation on social media
• Navigating change and uncertainty
• Connecting with LGBTQ+ customers year-round
• Portraying women in ads accurately
• Gen Z impacts the industry
• Adapting to generational preferences
• Improving the accessibility of marketing
• Prioritizing future job skills in social media
• Build a positive platform with community moderation
• Video dubbing and audio captioning support accessibility
• Strategizing in a fragmented social media landscape
• Engaging Generation Alpha across social media
• Focusing on regional and topic-specific communities

6. Social Media Ecommerce Trends

• China leads next ecommerce wave
• Product drops become the norm
• One-click social commerce reaches an inflection point
• Why social commerce for brands has stalled
• First-party data improves social media attribution
• Assessing the viability of TikTok Shop

7. Privacy, Safety, and Regulatory Trends in Social Media

• The impact of regulatory scrutiny
• Increased brand safety measures
• Opportunities as third-party identifiers fade away
• Navigating encryption across private social media
• Government regulations due to anticompetitive behaviors
• The aftermath of privacy changes at Apple
• Addressing structural and acute harms on social media
• Adapt to shifts in digital trust
• Regulations and bans of TikTok threaten growth
• Reducing the risks of social media on youth mental health
• Adapting to the FTC creator sponsorship guidelines

8. AI Trends in Social Media Marketing

• AI social media tools drive content creation
• Conversational AI on social media
• Mitigating risk when using generative AI for social media
• Aligning your social strategy with reasoning engines
• Crafting a point of view to offset the impact of AI
• Protect against disinformation with watermarked social posts
• Producing creative briefs to inform your social strategy