A majority of digital media experts say that social media will be their top priority in 2024. According to a report by IAS, that is about 67% of digital media experts. Is your client one of them? 

Let’s talk best uses of social media in 2024.

Best Uses of Social Media Means Capitalizing on New Opportunities

Users Want More from Social Media

Social media is not only one of the top priorities for digital media marketers. These platforms are also expected to be the ad format that:

• Marketers will face serious challenges with: 47% of digital media professionals expect this
• Will experience the most innovation in 2024: 50%

One challenge marketers are already facing when it comes to social media is engagement saturation. The average time consumers spend on social media platforms has been growing steadily over the years. However, IAS expects that the average time will quickly plateau.

Between 2022 and 2023, the average time U.S. consumers spent per day on social networks only increased by 2.2 minutes. The total average time per day a U.S. consumer spent on social media was 107.4 minutes total. IAS estimates that growth between 2023 and 2024 will only be 0.7 minutes. 

Where will we go from here? IAS predicts it will grow 0.5 minutes between 2024 and 2025.

Why aren’t consumers steadily increasing their time on social media like in the past? It may be because brands aren’t being as innovative with the platforms as before. “Without the continued promise of growth in time spent or new users, marketers are turning to video ads, social shopping, … prioritizing media quality to capture consumer attention and build effective social ad campaigns,” says IAS.

Your client needs to heed the following best uses of social media in order to capture more consumer attention. They need to be competitive as more brands fight for the same limited amount of consumers' time on these platforms.

Media Quality

Your client’s ads need to focus on quality first to even warrant consumer attention. According to IAS, three staples of media quality are:

• Viewability: 82% of digital media experts agree that viewability is one of the most important aspects of social campaigns. If consumers can’t see an ad properly on devices they choose to access social media from, the message is lost.
• Ad Placement: 69% of professionals say there’s an increased risk in 2024 of ads running adjacent to fake news/​misinformation. When that happens, consumers are less likely to think that your client’s brand is trustworthy. So, controlling social media ad placement is critical.
• Attention: As always, your client’s ads need to be attention-​grabbing. 77% of experts say that measuring attention on proprietary platform ads will be important in campaign evaluation.

Social Shopping

One of the latest innovative uses of social media is social shopping. Gone are the days when consumers used social ads to get to a brand’s website and make purchases from there. They want the shopping experience to be easy and immediate. 

Hence, social shopping’s rise to prevalence.

According to IAS, 86% of media experts say that social shopping traffic will continue to increase in 2024. Make sure your client is prepared to give consumers the social shopping experience they’ve come to expect from all brands.

For best practices and uses of social media videos, check out this SalesFuel blog post based on data from Vidyard.

Video Ads

Maybe TikTok’s sudden rise to popularity attributed to the success of online videos. Perhaps consumers grew bored of stagnant ads because they LOVE watching online videos now. And that trend isn’t going anywhere. 

“Social video viewing is expected to account for 59% of social network activities in 2024,” says IAS.

Discover more details about the uses of social media your client should be looking into. Check out their target audience’s profile on AudienceSCAN on AdMall by SalesFuel.

Photo by: Aejaz Memon