Key Digital Marketing Trends for 2024

As marketers, we’ve been focusing on increasing engagement rate across social media platforms for both ourselves and our clients. But in 2024, retention rate is due to be far more crucial than engagement rate. It’s funny, you devote your life to marketing trends, finally get the hang of one aspect of it, and then boom, algorithms change, marketing trends change, features change and you’re back to square one! But that’s the beauty of marketing, it’s fun, fast-paced and ever-evolving.

So, the reason why retention rate is going to become one of the most important aspects of your marketing efforts on social media, is because engagement rate is on the decline. Social media used to be all about the number of likes, comments and shares you gain from your audience, yet these days, many users don’t really want to engage, swiping is much easier, and so it’s favoured to just scroll! Which is totally fine, but, if you really want to boost your socials in 2024, creating hooking content that retains users’ attention is your best bet.

At the moment, TikTok has a 10 minute video feature, and sources suggest that they are bringing in 15 minute videos in 2024. Long form content is a marketing trend due to become more and more popular this year, as they have the ability to retain users for an extended period of time. If your 10 minute clip grabs attention in the first 5 seconds (do this by using a wicked hook, we have some examples for you here), you’re more likely to have a user watch your entire video. We’ve even seen some users uploading full SpongeBob SquarePants episodes to a 10 minute TikTok video, and be assured we watched the entire thing (maybe even more than one)! So, what should you take away from this? Focus less on engagement and more on retention this year, and do this by creating long form content across all social platforms!

The likes of ChatGPT and other AI platforms are used widely across the globe since their introduction back in November 2022. Now, social media platforms want a slice, and there has been talks on their plans to integrate AI into their apps in 2024:

• TikTok will enable you to customise your feed based on AI.
• Instagram is experimenting with AI-generated stickers (sounds fun!).
• LinkedIn will offer premium users AI features such as AI-powered profile writing assistance and ‘Top Choice Jobs’ signals.
• YouTube is experimenting with “Dream Track” (an AI music generator) for Shorts and Music AI tools

I mean it’s pretty daunting, but we’re honestly excited, and we especially can’t wait to try these features out ourselves when they finally hit our screens! However, it’s important to note that there are risks with AI, just as there are great benefits. We know that AI can help with productivity, helping marketers craft attention-grabbing captions and graphics, but this could also lead to the spreading of misinformation., AI isn’t always right, so don’t rely on it solely.

Just as we’re excited for the introduction of new AI technologies within our most loved social media platforms, it’s crucial to use AI in an ethical way. Be transparent, don’t rely on AI to perform all of your tasks, use it as a supportive tool, just as we all did with many tools and platforms before AI came along!

One of the biggest marketing trends to hit our screens in 2024 is Google planning to roll out further generative AI tools into Google Ads. The thing many PPC ad experts might be dealing with at the minute is the fact that AI will use design engineering and create biases in things like algorithms and ad layouts.

Google ads is a money-maker for many businesses across the globe, and biases within the algorithm won’t always be a good thing. Not only this, but AI could end up taking over some of the control that PPC experts would usually deal with over their ads. The level of control AI is due to have within Google ads could limit your business’ visibility too (no thank you AI, stay in your lane).

We all know that some of the responses or results you get from an AI tool don’t always make sense or sound human-like. It’s definitely a good idea to keep a close eye on all things AI, and treat it as a supportive tool, rather than as the sole responsibility for your PPC ads and beyond.

Remember, AI is still in its learning and maturing phase, it was only really brought into marketers daily use about a year ago, and it has a long way to go. AI doesn’t respond like we do as humans, it lacks soft skills and other areas that come naturally to humans, and it’s never a good idea to rely on AI.

AI can be a fantastic resource, helping you to think of subject lines for your newsletter, or a monthly theme for your blog, but relying on AI to write an essay for you at University, or write a social media caption, might not be a smart move. As marketers become more aware of AI, it will be easy to note what has been written by a human and by AI soon enough, and you don’t want to be caught out as being “lazy”.

Not that we think that, we think AI is an incredible and life changing tool that has been dropped at our feet by the experts, but it’s crucial to take a little extra care with AI, don’t depend on it, and don’t expect instant results if you’re for instance using AI to create an ad for you.