5 TAKEOUTS FROM SOCIAL TRENDS REPORT FOR 2024: WHAT MARKETERS MUST WATCH CLOSELY.

Hootsuite is out with social media Trends 2024 report, in which some startling revelations about expectations and permutation for social media and marketers in the coming year, have been made. Such reports are critical for marketers, as technology have served to complicate our work, amidst skyrocketing expectations on professionals to demonstrate Return on Investments. In this piece, I will share some of my key take outs, as a complement to some of the major issues highlighted in the report.

TECHNOLOGY AND AUTHENTICITY:

As technological advancement has had no limiting, so has the opportunities that exist for marketers have. In recent months, generative technologies, AI, have served to revolutionized most aspects of our works as marketers. These tools have provided both cutting edge support to marketers, enhancing the speed, and efficiency of some roles including, content generation, editing, image and video creation.

These opportunities, notwithstanding, AI, have equally brought its own complications to the marketing, as it continually raises questions about authenticity and verifiability of content. While generative technology has brought speed and limited dependence on human capacity, audiences are growing sceptical about some of the claims that our marketers make. The need to therefore balance the efficiency of technology with the authenticity of human involvement is something that marketers will need to pay attention to, especially in 2024. It is recalled that effective this month, the US is making it mandatory for full disclosure of all political marketing contents generated with AI. I have no doubt that this policy will find its way into other markets and industries, especially in 2024 where elections will be a common place, the world over.

POLICY

There is a need for clear cut policy on the extent to which AI should be included in the marketing processing in an organization. Leaving the generative technologies in the realm of the marketer's discretion will not serve the interest of organization, who seek to maintain their trade secret and privacy. Marketers must therefore engineer the conversation on policy framework for the use of AI in the organization. This must be done with due collaboration with legal and IT departments. Recent board room issues with OPEN AI, that have seen the exist of its CEO, Sam Altman and the fallouts from this development, should give all marketers and organizations enough to want to develop policy framework on the use of AI. Once employees are threatening mass exit, the potential for privacy breaches and compromises may be imminent. This justifies the need for more organizational control on the information their marketers or employees feed generative technologies, AI.

AUDIENCE IS KING

Most marketers approach their work as though their ROI is the most important part of their strategy. From Hootsuite's report, it is obvious that there is a clear chasm between what marketers deem as important and what their audiences consider as important. This difference, perhaps, explains why marketing is fast becoming the black sheep in the organization, as senior executives are becoming pessimistic about the impact of their marketing efforts on the overall balance sheet. From all indication, the audience is king in content creation and any marketing that devalues the needs and expectations of the audience risk failure. May be in the coming year, we marketers need to be very consistent about understanding the uses and gratification our audiences derive from the content we create. We can use polls and surveys to gauge our audience's sentiments about the content we create for them and not just assume that information that Analytics provide is enough.

ENGAGEMENT IS THE MASTER METRIC

More than before, the need for engagement and interaction have been emphasized by Hootsuite's report. Engagement, by way of content liking, sharing, interaction, is considered the most important of all ROI metric. Marketers must invest in content that excites engagements and interaction, as bland and generic contents have proven incapable of cutting through the clutter of information overload across channel. The report has emphasized the need for more entertaining content, as the biggest tool to achieving engagement and interaction. This is particularly challenging for organizations whose industry are highly regulated or appear pretty inpersonable. This calls for more and breaking out of the metaphoric box.

MULTIPLE CHANNELS HAVE NO MULTIPLIER EFFECT

The days when being on all social media platform was considered strategic is numbered. Today, the most effective deal breaker is being on few one and gaining tractions on these selected ones. Having multiple social media pages does not mean an organization has a towering social media presence. What this does is to put marketers at the risk of cross sharing their content, a strategy which has proven to be incapable of helping organizations to cut through the marketing clutter. Today, the real deal is specializing on one or two, where the brand's tone, voice and essence can be reinforced. If there is a time to question why your organizations have so many social media accounts, then may be this is the best time. This is because aside from the huge cost, time and efforts this approach comes with, it equally fails provide the needed multiplier impact.

Samuel Boateng Osarfo

Writer, Trainer, Researcher

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