Are these social media marketing trends part of your strategy?

Although predicting trends is hard, Enterprise Nation’s advisers always have a good idea of a few things businesses should look out for.

Learn how social SEO, micro-moments and nano influencers will transform your posts this year.

1. Optimising social media posts (social SEO)

While search engine optimisation (SEO) has become a common practice for getting your website seen, it is now becoming a key component of social media marketing.

As audiences move away from hashtag use, research from Hootsuite shows that this approach is effective for increasing engagement rates. Posts with good SEO have an increased engagement rate of 30%.

Rachael Dines, a chartered marketer and the founder of Shake It Up Creative, seconds this:

“Social media is becoming the hottest place to search. We've seen TikTok rise to be the second most popular way for Gen Z to research products to buy and the platform has integrated a keyword insights tool for users to learn the average click-through-rate (CTR) of TikTok ads using certain words, amongst other helpful keyword data.

“To take advantage of this trend in 2024, you need to have evergreen content in mind when planning your social media posts and specific content that answers your potential customer's questions. Videos with optimised descriptions can be perfect for this.

“Keywords can be used in profile bios, post captions, video transcripts, image alt tags and more. It's essentially about taking a user's search intent more seriously within your social media content and not just thinking about it within SEO.”

Komal Khedkar, social media account director at R&Co Communications, has the following tips to incorporate social SEO:

• Find relevant keywords via free tools:
  Ahrefs Keyword Generator
  Answer the Public
  Google Ads Keyword Planner

• Optimise the titles and captions of your post by including these keywords in your copy

• Include an image alt tag. This is a written description of what an image depicts, which is picked up by screen readers for the visually impaired. It is also crawled by search engines, so try to include your keyword

2. Video content is top of the list

In 2024, small business owners should not overlook the boom in short-form video content. Short-form video is anything up to about a minute long – think TikTok and Instagram reels.

• Last year 1.6 billion people used short-form videos and that's predicted to grow to 2.5 billion by 2025

• Video content earns 12 times more shares than text and images combined

• 93% of marketers reported securing a new customer thanks to social media videos

Enterprise Nation adviser and video marketer, Jeremy Mason, advises:

“As a business owner, embrace this trend by starting your video-creating journey. Think along the lines of simple videos that tell your business story, showcase your offerings or provide valuable tutorials to your audience.

“The best part? No fancy equipment or big budget is needed! Grab your phone, find some natural light and start filming.

“And don't worry if you mess up. The audience loves bloopers. It makes you look human and adds charm and authenticity. So, make 2024 the time you take (lights, camera,) ACTION!

In this webinar, Jeremy Mason guides you through the basic steps to create compelling videos that can amplify your business's presence online:

3. Micro-moments for the win!

If you’re looking to increase your social following, along with the engagement your organic posts get, focus on micro-moments.

What is a micro-moment?

It’s when someone turns to their mobile phone with a need for something. For example, it could be to learn or to purchase something. So, how do we incorporate this into social media content?

Anna Morrish, founder and MD of Quibble explains:

“Create a social media content strategy that provides short and snappy answers to these micro-moments. Content should include videos with detailed descriptions, SlideShares and bullet point lists.

“You should also make the content easily searchable within each platform. Carefully consider the searches people are using and include these within the descriptions, as well as relevant keywords in the hashtags. For example, if you want to target specific locations, include these in the content, descriptions and/or hashtags, so people can find you in their area or when they search ‘near me’.

“To help find micro-moments you can use tools, such as AlsoAsked or Answer the Public. These tools use Google’s search data to provide you with search queries based on your keywords.

Watch this webinar to discover what the different kinds of micro-moments are and why you should care about them:

4. AI is more than a buzzword

This list would not be complete without artificial intelligence being mentioned. Emma Goode, founder of 24 fingers, predicts:

“There’s going to be no getting away from the phenomenon of artificial intelligence in 2024. AI will be everywhere, whether it’s in the form of optimised content creation or increasingly sophisticated chatbots.

“Businesses that have invested a lot of time and effort in their social media marketing should be keeping a very close eye on AI. As it develops and improves, they can see how it could help boost engagement by ensuring both their potential and existing customers feel seen and heard.

“The sky is almost the limit when it comes to the AI chatbot’s potential to enhance the customer experience. It's a great thing for consumers for sure.”

E-commerce expert and founder of Purpose Digital, Nick Binza, focuses on AI’s visual content generation abilities. He says:

“AI applications such as Midjourney for static images, and video generation tools like HeyGen or Repurpose.io, are changing the way we create content. This is particularly significant in a digital environment where visual content greatly impacts user engagement and paid social media platforms are launching AI-driven campaign types whose performance is enhanced by content diversity.”

While it makes good business sense to integrate these tools into current processes, content creators and marketers need not be worried about being replaced. Depending on the social media marketing needs, these tools may not always be a good fit. Although they do offer an incredibly powerful alternative or complementary way to produce a wider variety of engaging content.

“It’s essential to not only understand how these tools function but also to integrate AI-generated content effectively into marketing strategies. The rapid evolution of digital marketing technologies means that staying updated and skilled in these tools is difficult, but the rewards for those who can leverage them effectively will be significant,” continues Nick.

5. The rise of the B2B nano, micro and local influencers

While consumer-facing brands have always embraced the influencer, B2B brands have not been so quick on the mark. However, Katherine George, founder of the multi-award-winning social media agency, Oh So Social, advises you to stick to micro-influencers if you want bang for your buck:

“Partnering with local smaller, niche and micro-influencers is bringing in great results. Although these influencers tend to have a smaller following, it is much more genuine, which can help bring in fantastic results for your business on a much smaller budget.”

Amy Anzel, founder of the award-winning beauty tool brand, Hollywood Browzer Beauty, was an early adopter of influencer marketing but has since refined her strategy to focus on the micro-influencer.

In a recent interview with Enterprise Nation, she explains:

“People got very greedy. I will never forget this influencer from Love Island, who wanted £5,000 or £6,000 for a 24-hour Insta story and she had millions of followers, but she sold 111 units. For me, this was the end of influencer collabs.

“We have now switched to micro-influencers and TikTok affiliates. We have our ambassador programme, where you don’t have to shell out so much and it works on commission. We recently had a micro-influencer who sold £100,000 worth of product and overnight made £5,000, which justifies the spend.”

To identify relevant B2B influencers Komal of R&Co Communications recommends:

• LinkedIn to search for vocal people in your target sectors

• Checking keynote speakers at conferences

• Viewing webinars from industry experts

Final thoughts

Whatever you experiment with and incorporate into your social media strategy, a constant that needs to always ring true is authenticity.

“People no longer want to see all the glitz and glamour of what we call our Instagram lives. They want to see real people, which means user-generated content, social proof and using your LinkedIn account wisely, especially if you're a B2B business,” advises Katherine.

Relevant resources

• Lunch and Learn: Why authenticity is the answer to your business's success

• SEO myths: What is fact and what is fiction?

• Lunch and Learn: New trends in social media to boost engagement