Community Question: 2024 Predictions

The core of social media marketing won't change, but the techniques and strategies will need to evolve as platforms and technology progress. SMMs who stay agile and embrace new approaches will thrive in 2024 and beyond.
I think SMMs will need to focus on creating content that's engaging and relevant to their audience, and that helps them connect with the brand in a meaningful way.

Social Media tools will help take content and redesign it to fit other social channels, so you only need to design once, and maybe do a couple tweaks, but AI will know how to reorganize content to look good in different layout sizes.

It will also continue to develop suggested headlines, blog post titles, etc.

Social content will be created from text prompts, including video and animated posts, 

Finally, scheduling social posts will be automated and optimized as well.

I’ve noticed customers using social media increasingly for customer service. We currently have one person who oversees our social media and more and more of their time is being used to handle customer services issues vs. content creation and strategy.

• I think Threads would establish itself as the new Twitter. 
• AI tools to help enhance social content - copy, images and video - will be the norm. The winners will be the ones that actually look/sound fresh and get nuance.
• Conversely, there will be sizeable niche of influencers who will pride themselves on authenticity, using “real images” almost aggressively untouched.
• Aggregators like Poe.AI will also become popular. Ones with guardrails around data privacy will earn trust and get ahead.
• AI partnerships within social platforms - such as Microsoft Designer integrated in LinkedIn, or say, a  Canva joining hands with Threads will start to happen.

I think many SMM’s will be quick to adopt, but will need to be clear on how to explain to clients why they still need an actual person to be utilizing the ai tools vs. thinking they can hand all their content creation over to ai. 

With the prominent usage of AI in the marketer’s toolbox, viewers will likely be inundated with AI-generated text, graphics, and video on all fronts of their social media feeds. This may lead to many tuning out content that they don’t trust and run the risk of social media content looking samey.
It’s important to know our audiences and customize AI-generated content to fit our company voice. We should use AI to increase efficiency and utilize new features on each platforms in creative ways to stay ahead of the curve.

1. Teams will gain a virtual teammate that is resourced by Generative AI to help with social demand. SMMs will have to determine what can be handed off to Generative AI that doesn’t impact the relationships they’ve manually built overtime across social platforms. 
2. Content Creators will start to go client side. Content Creators and SMMS will become a dynamic duo. SMMs will need to make sure they hire someone they can work closely with and has strong video skills across various platforms. 

Definitely more utilization of AI for social media content, whether that’s messaging, video or image creation, and more company leadership getting involved in rules and regulations around how employees in the content development space use AI. For example, my company just created a brand new position, SVP, AI Optimization, who’s going to lead a company-wide initiative focused on generative AI/LLMs. Along that same path, I would imagine companies adding in more requirements around AI competency/knowledge/skills to their job responsibilities for content creators--whether social media or otherwise--or even creating new positions specifically for AI work.

Three things -

1. More integration of AI into tools and platforms - Sprout has already done this with captions, Canva with removing objects/generating things in photos, etc.
2. Balancing out of different content types, more differentiation of content made specifically for each platform - Threads and other Twitter alternatives are taking some of the focus that’s been on video the last few years and bringing emphasis back to text. Brands need to be able to do it all - video, graphics, text-only posts - and well. They can’t put all of their eggs in one basket.
3. After AI has well saturated social, the pendulum will swing back to more unique, human elements and stories - With so much AI-generated content out there, how will you stand out? By creating things that are authentic and real and have a human touch.

Kind of sounds like the “why do I need to hire a professional who wants to be paid real money, when my teenage niece could do it” argument all over again LOL.