Stay Up to Date on the Latest Trends, Platform Updates, and Social Media Holidays
A new year in the creator marketing world brings new challenges, new opportunities, and, as always, new features and tools from the social platforms where content is consumed.
A few of those platforms looked back at what they learned in 2023 and shared those learnings to help marketers craft their strategies for 2024.
Social Media Holidays to Mark on Your Calendar
- Jan. 1: New Year’s Day
- Jan. 3: International Mind-Body Wellness Day
- Jan. 15: Martin Luther King Jr. Day
- Jan. 25: Opposite Day
Social Media Platform Updates
TikTok
Going Big
TikTok optimized and upgraded its experience for larger devices, such as foldable gadgets and tablets, providing a seamless experience regardless of the device being used to consume content.
Improvements include a clearer, more refined video feed; navigation bars at the top and bottom for easy access to users’ favorite features and tabs; and support for landscape or portrait.
Find That Tune
TikTok introduced Artist Account, aimed at helping artists and musicians boost discoverability of their tracks.
Artist Account, available to all artists or musicians who have released music, provides features and tools to brings artists and their fans (and potential fans) closer together, including:
- Artist Tag: Located under the account name, it enables artists to identify themselves as such on the platform. At least four songs must be uploaded for eligibility.
- New Release: Artists can highlight new tracks for up to 14 days prior to release and 30 days afterward, and those tracks are spotlighted on discovery pages.
- Music Tab: Artists’ catalogs are curated for easy access and discovery by fans, with new tracks automatically added.
- By Artist: Artists can pin a preferred post to the top of their discovery page to drive awareness of new content.
- Behind the Song: The inspiration and stories behind songs can be shared with fans to deepen connections.
That’s the Ticket
Ticketmaster and TikTok joined forces in 2022 on a beta initiative enabling artists to sell tickets to fans without leaving the TikTok application.
The two companies expanded the partnership throughout the U.S. and to over 20 countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the U.K.
The platform said more than 75,000 artists have access to the option.
Year on TikTok 2023
TikTok wrote in the introduction to its Year on TikTok 2023 list, “2023 on TikTok was the year we embraced the culinary delicacies known as girl dinners, shared know-before-you-go tips from the biggest concert tours of the year, asked ourselves “what can’t we make with cottage cheese?,” and couldn’t stop thinking about the Roman Empire. From foolproof recipes to funny skits, throwback tracks and thriving small businesses, the global community continued creating, connecting,. and celebrating on TikTok, influencing culture and impacting lives.”
Highlights include:
- Top U.S. video: @dollievision, a simple and stunning makeup routine.
- Top global video: @seanthesheepman, #FarmTok lives on with Sean the Sheep man and his dogs Kate, Storm, Echo ,and Monty.
- Most popular song, U.S.: “Collide (more sped up),” Justine Skye.
- Most popular song, worldwide: “Cupid – Twin Ver – Sped Up Version,” FIFTY FIFTY.
- Breakthrough star, U.S.: @keith_lee125, Keith Lee, a creator based in Las Vegas who uses his platform to highlight small owned and family restaurants that have amazing food and customer service but are not well known.
- Breakthrough star, globally: @sabrinabahsoon, the iconic Tube Girl, aka Sabrina Bahsoon, transcended the globe with her London Underground-inspired aesthetic.
- Most popular artist, U.S.: Selena Gomez (@selenagomez).
- Most popular artist, worldwide: Kim Loaiza (@kimberly.loaiza).
- Most beloved small business, U.S.: San Diego-based Lazy Butt Club (@lazy_butt_club) is run by father-son duo Michael and Daniel Jay. With the help of TikTok Shop and a few viral videos, they’ve grown their business and sold thousands of T-shirts featuring their iconic lounging, lazy characters.
- Most beloved small business, globally: Pluck and Plant (@pluck_and_plant), a bistro in the Ikejiri-Ohashi area of Tokyo, was losing ¥1 million (roughly $7,022) every month, but it quadrupled its sales in just three months after using TikTok.
- Most popular hack, how-to, or trick, U.S.: @rescuerestore, how pencils have been sharpened through the years.
- Most popular hack, how-to, or trick, globally: @mrbeandamatematica, a Brazilian Mr. Bean lookalike teaches us a trick to make division easier.
- Most popular trend, U.S.: Girl dinner.
- Most popular global trend: Red, green, and beige flags.
TikTok What’s Next 2024 Trend Report
TikTok’s fourth-annual trend forecast focuses on a transformative mindset the company calls creative bravery, with Global Head of Business Marketing Sofia Hernandez explaining in a blog post, “2023 has seen an audience of over 1 billion people regularly coming to TikTok to find community, surprise, and delight. In an era where storytelling has become predictable, TikTok showcases creativity without a typical beginning, middle or end. In 2024, we’re going to see the TikTok community build on this in ways we’ve never seen before. Fueled by a blend of curiosity, imagination, vulnerability, and courage, creative bravery will be infused into our daily lives.”
The platform’s trends for 2024 were broken down into three categories:
- Curiosity peaked: TikTok said people come to its platform looking for more than a “single right answer,” and its users are 1.8 times more likely to agree that TikTok introduces them to new topics that they never realized they liked. Brands should respond by “creating hyper-relevant, delightful, and useful content that piques every curiosity, even the ones communities didn’t know they had.”
- Storytelling unhinged: TikTok wrote, “Ends of stories are starting first. Multiple story arcs can happen at once. Communities are making up fictional celebrities and narratives.” The platform said this has resulted in a shared community centered around #delulu, or delusional comfort, a blend of fantasy and manifestation rooted in fandom culture. The company singled out IGG’s campaign backing the launch of new game title Viking Rise, saying that it showcased several “let’s play” creatives, along with a “spin the wheel” branded effect, reaching some 400 million users in total.
- Bridging the trust gap: The platform said the trust gap continues to grow between consumers and brands igniting audiences to seek engagement beyond a one-time sale, stressing that it is key for brands to consider each campaign and each single organic piece of content “as an opportunity to share, listen, and learn, building brand trust and values together to generate deeper loyalty on and off-platform.”
Other TikTok News
- According to a new analysis by app intelligence provider data.ai, TikTok became the first non-game mobile app to generate $10 billion in consumer spending across the Apple App Store and Google Play combined.
- TikTok parent ByteDance pulled the plug on Pico 5, the next version of its virtual reality headset from its Pico subsidiary.
Safety First
Instagram began rolling out a suite of safety tools for creators, aimed at helping them avoid unwanted interactions and focus their attention on their true fans and followers.
The platform boosted its automatic detection capabilities to proactively identify spam in comments, Story views, and tags, as well as fake followers. Creators can now moderate fake followers and spammy tags in bulk.
Instagram will send creators in-app notifications when they post non-recommendable or potentially violating content, so issues can quickly be remedied.
The platform is experimenting with hiding Story views that may be spam so that those users lose the ability to directly interact with the creator.
Instagram’s Advanced Comment Filtering was updated to filter out suspected spam.
Add Yours
A new feature from Instagram allows for the creation of customized “Add Yours” templates with GIFs, images, and text, in order to develop meme-able Stories for followers to participate in.
To use the new feature, creators can begin uploading a Story, add elements (GIF, image, or text) from the gallery, and tap the Add Yours Templates sticker.
2024 Instagram Trend Talk
Instagram shared its take on trends that Generation Z will drive on its platform in 2024.
The platform teamed up with WGSN on an extensive survey of Gen-Z users across Brazil, India, South Korea, the U.K., and the U.S., and highlights include:
- Top sustainable fashion practice: Buying fewer new clothes
- Top fashion trend: Modest dressing
- Top use for social media: Keeping up with family and friends
- Top relationship priority: Strengthening current relationships
- Top “ick”: People chewing with their mouth open
- Top growth area to focus on: Self-improvement and self-development
- Top fandoms globally: television shows or anime franchises
Other Instagram News
- The platform’s new artificial intelligence media editing tool backdrop is available in the U.S., letting creators reimagine their image’s background with a few taps.
- Instagram updated its Notes experience with the ability to post a looping two-second video visible to Close Friends or mutual followers in their Notes tray for 24 hours, as well as the option of responding to Notes with audio, GIFs, photos, stickers, or videos.
- Stand-alone app Threads was released in countries across Europe.
- Keyword search was extended to all Threads users in all languages.
- Threads users can now tag a topic in a post via the new # button in the app’s composer.
YouTube
Creators as Hitmakers
YouTube said 68% of Gen-Z users cited creators as the main reason why they visit the platform.
The platform highlighted the 73,000 likes tallied by Reese’s creator partnerships, the 14,000 comments on Sugar Cosmetics’ makeup tutorial, 30 million views for Brevitē’s product demonstration, and 82,000 likes for a behind-the-scenes effort by Old Spice.
Hold That Thought
Creators now have a new optional comment moderation setting, Pause, which allows them to preserve already published comments on videos but prevent any more from being posted.
YouTube said creators who have tested the feature found that it gives them more flexibility over how they manage comments, along with the ability to take a break from managing comments without shutting them off completely.
Grand Theft Auto VI
The first trailer for Rockstar Games’ upcoming Grand Theft Auto VI title tallied over 93 million views in 24 hours, setting a new record for non-music-video debuts.
YouTube wrote in a blog post, “Since the earliest days of the platform, the Grand Theft Auto series has cultivated a massive gaming community on YouTube. From let’s plays to machinima to mods, YouTube Creators have found endless ways to bring the GTA games to life, creating a world of content from San Andreas, Vice City, Liberty City, and so much more.”
2023 Trending Topics
YouTube shared its list of the trending topics that defined 2023, writing in its blog post, “In 2023, you turned talking toilets into a global hit, took regional Mexican music to the top of the charts, and found your place in a Barbie world.”
Highlights include:
- Top trending topic, U.S.: Skibidi Toilet
- Greatest U.S.-based subscriber growth for creators: MrBeast
- Breakout creator in terms of U.S.-based subscriber growth: Pink Shirt Couple
- Top song: Toosii, Favorite Song
Meta
Messaging Updates
Meta began rolling out end-to-end encryption as the default option for all personal calls and messages on Facebook and Messenger.
Users have had the option of toggling on end-to-end encryption since 2016.
Messages can now be edited for up to 15 minutes after they are sent, but Meta can still see previous versions of edited messages in cases where abuse is reported.
The interface for Messenger’s disappearing messages feature, which removes those messages 24 hours after sending, was improved to make it easier for people to see when the feature is activated.
Users also gained the ability to decide whether they want others to see if they have read their messages.
Meta upgraded the quality for photos and videos shared via Messenger, made them easier to access, added layouts and introduced more controls for reacting or replying to images or videos in a collection, and the company is testing HD file and media sharing with a small group of users.
Voice messages can now be played at 1.5x or 2x speeds.
Finally, Meta quietly removed the ability for Instagram users to message their contacts on Facebook, reversing a cross-messaging feature that debuted in 2020.
AI Updates
Meta detailed updates to virtual assistant Meta AI resulting in more accurate summaries of search results, more detailed responses on mobile, and behind-the-scenes improvements outside of chat to sharpen the product experience on Facebook and Instagram.
The new reimagine feature lets friends manipulate initial images created via Meta AI.
Reels are being added to Meta AI chats.
Meta is testing ways for people to use Meta AI in tasks such as creating birthday greetings, editing Feed posts, drafting introductions for Facebook Dating profiles, or establishing groups.
Testing is also ongoing on ways to create and share AI-generated images on Facebook, such as by using Meta AI to convert images from landscape to portrait.
In groups, Meta AI is being used to surface relevant information, and in ecommerce destination Marketplace, the use of Meta AI is being tested to deliver more detailed product information.
For creators, suggested replies in direct messages generated by Meta AI are being tested, as well.
Access to Imagine, Meta AI’s text-to-image-generation feature, is being expanded outside of chats, enabling creative hobbyists to create images via image foundation model Emu. This is initially available here in the U.S.
More of the AI characters Meta began introducing in beta in September are gaining search functionality, and experiments with long-term memory are being conducted with some of them.
Finally, invisible watermarking will be added to images created with Imagine for increased transparency and traceability.
Election Protection
Meta detailed safeguards it is putting in place for elections throughout 2024, including the presidential election in the U.S. Nov. 5.
As has been the case since 2018, advertisers running ads about elections, politics, or social issues must complete an authorization process before those ads are approved and include a “paid for by” disclaimer. Those ads are stored in the company’s publicly accessible Ad Library for seven years.
Advertisers must now also disclose the use of AI or other digital techniques to create or alter ads in these categories.
As it has done in the past, Meta will block new electoral, political, and social issue ads during the final week prior to Election Day in the U.S.
Snapchat
Snap Promote
Snap Inc. Introduced new advertising tool Snap Promote, which lets Snapchatters easily promote content from their public profiles as ads.
Spotlight, public Stories, or saved content from public profiles can be promoted by tapping the megaphone button in the top-right corner, enabling users to reach more people, raise awareness of their public profile, and guide people to their website.
When creating Snap Promote ads, Snapchatters can choose between two objectives: More Profile Visits and More Website Visits. The target audience can be default or custom based on the user’s choice of age, gender, and location.
A daily budget for Snap Promote must be set, starting as low as $10 per day, and ads can be reviewed prior to being published.
Metrics available via Snapchat’s Ads tab include amount spent, clicks, followers gained, and views, over the past seven days or 28 days.
2023 Recap
Snap shared a look back at some trends on its platform in 2023. Highlights include:
- The top lenses of the year were Baby Cheeks, Anime AI, AI Universe, Sibling, and Goofy Gaze.
- And the top places captured in Snaps were Dubai Mall, Magic Kingdom Park, Eiffel Tower, Times Square, and Fenway Park.
Other Snapchat News
- The 7 million-plus users of subscription service Snapchat+ have new ways to use AI to capture, create, and edit images. Snapchat’s AI-powered extend tool on the app’s camera lets users who zoomed in too close on an image broaden the lens to capture the full picture.
Inclusivity Efforts
Pinterest began testing a new consumer-facing tool that allows users to filter select searches by different body types, starting with women’s fashion and wedding ideas.
The platform introduced its body type technology in September.
Pinterest Predicts
The company shared its Pinterest Predicts “cheat sheet” at what it believes will emerge as trends in 2024. Highlights include:
- Grandfathers will become the new fashion icons as Gen-Z and baby boomers gravitate toward chic cardigans, customized clothing, and retro streetwear.
- Jellyfish are in, with Gen-Z and boomers searching for jellyfish haircut, jellyfish hat, and jellyfish lamp.
- Kitchens will go kitschy with “eye-dazzling colors like retro pink,” thrifted finds, and vintage appliances.
- Why go to the coffee shop when you can bring the coffee shop to your home? Pinterest sees heavy search activity for cafe chalkboard and coffee station décor.
- “Beauty and baubles will get bigger, bolder, and puffier in 2024.”
- Aquamarine makeup, a 1960s staple, is making a comeback, with more searches for blue glam makeup and pastel blue eyeshadow.
- Bow stacking is also back, as searches for bow necklace, bow outfit, and heels with bows indicate a move toward adorning hair, jewelry, outfits, and shoes with the accessory.
- Pickleball is so 2023, and badminton is back for 2024, with more searches for badminton outfit, badminton trash talk, and playing badminton.
- Nuptials are returning to the 1970s with a surge in 1970s-inspired weddings, bohemian bachelorettes, and disco décor.
- People are repurposing fabrics to make clothing unique to them and boosting awareness of food sustainability.
- Speaking of food, mashups are trending up, such as burger quesadillas and pizza pot pies.
- A spike in searches for coconut aesthetic and pineapple mocktails indicates a move toward tropical-themed drinks, fashion, and home décor.
- Facial care is becoming entire body care, with searches for body skin care routine skyrocketing by 1,025%.
- Vacations are slowing down, with Gen-Z and millennials opting for more laid-back locales and searching for slow life and staycation hotel.
- People are seeking deeper offline connections, searching for deep questions to ask friends, emotional intimacy, and questions for couples to reconnect.
- Milestones are becoming “inchstones” with searches up for monthly milestone ideas, my first tooth party, and potty-training rewards ideas.
- “A mix of vintage Americana chic with a deep, moody hue is on the horizon,” with Pinners searching for country room ideas, Western bedding ideas, and Western gothic.
- Jazz is making a comeback, with Gen-Z and millennials searching for dimly lit venues, jazz-inspired outfits, and lo-fi looks.
- Gen-Z and millennials are bypassing simple fish tanks and becoming underwater gardeners with searches for small aquarium designs and turtle terrariums.
- Workouts will pack more of a punch in 2024, with Gen-Z and millennials searching for jiu jitsu, karate kumite, and shadow boxing workouts and delving more into combat sports like jiu jitus, karate, and kickboxing.
- Credit cards will get cuter in 2024, and piggy banks will be customized.
- Roads? Who needs them? Boomers and generation X are hitting the gas on searches for off-road camping, off-road car, and off-road wheels.
- Shiny: Bold chromes and silver tones are seeing a resurgence, along with searches including aluminum door design, aluminum furniture, and nail art metallic.
The professional network teamed up with Persona to extend identity verification to members in Argentina, Bangladesh, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Peru, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
LinkedIn also emerged victorious in a lawsuit against websites SocialBD24 and TopSocial, which built a business on creating fake LinkedIn profiles to generate inauthentic engagement.
X
More Grok
Conversational chatbot Grok, which debuted in November, is now available to all X Premium subscribers in the U.S.
English-language users were the first to be onboarded, followed by Japanese, with the goal of extending it to all languages by early 2024.
Other X News
- IOS users who post to a community can now “share the post with your followers,” and this feature will be extended to Android and the web soon.
- An anonymous listening mode was added to audio feature Spaces for iOS and web.
Platform Updates
Reddit added an experience that enables users to discover and explore communities with the same topic as the subreddit they are currently viewing on its mobile app. Some communities will display a relevant topic and its ranking in the homepage header, and Redditors can tap on the topic and ranking to see the list of more communities.
The live chat post option has been sunset for new and existing communities, and existing live chat posts will be converted to standard posts with comments.
Branding Refresh
Reddit introduced an overhaul of its branding, amid continuous rumors of a pending initial public offering.
Snoo, Reddit’s iconic mascot, has gone 3D and gained an open-mouthed smile and opposable thumbs.
The platform introduced new open-source font Reddit Sans, meant to make Redditors think of chat bubbles.
And the platform is expanding beyond its OrangeRed color scheme with new colors BananaYellow, GuavaPink, JuniperBlue, and LimeGreen being incorporated.
Reddit Recap 2023
The company shared its Reddit Recap 2023, and highlights included:
- Reddit now hosts more than 100,000 active communities worldwide, with over 70 million daily active unique users as of October, up 20% compared with the same month in 2022.
- r/amitheasshole was the platform’s most-viewed community for the third-consecutive year.
- AI discussion surged on Reddit, with views of r/ArtificialInteligence up 579% year over year, views of r/MachineLearning up 24%, and views of r/midjourney skyrocketing by 1,887%. The most-viewed AI community was r/ChatGPT, with 331 million views to date and more than 3.5 million subscribers.
- The most popular post of 2023 was r/MadeMeSmile: This woman was so nervous about flying, so the flight attendant explained every sound and bump, with 230,531 upvotes.
- The most upvoted Ask Me Anything session was r/movies: Hi, I’m Keanu Reeves, AMA, with 322,293 upvotes.
- r/rupaulsdragrace was the most-viewed community related to a television show.
- The most-viewed music-related community was r/kpop.
- The most-viewed community in the men’s fashion and lifestyle category was r/askmen.
- The most-viewed community in the women’s fashion and lifestyle category was r/skincareaddiction.
- r/nba is the most-viewed community in the sports category.
- The top National Basketball Association team community by engagement is r/lakers.
- The top National Football League team community by engagement is r/nyjets.
- The top soccer team community by engagement is r/gunners.
- The top Major League Baseball team community by engagement is r/nyyankees.
Reddit also shared predictions for 2024:
- Pop culture franchise to be meme-mined: Grand Theft Auto 6
- Surprise cameo at Super Bowl LVIII: Snoo
- Retro fashion trend: The early 000s
- Best Picture at the Oscars: Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour Movie
- Most popular food flavor: Ube
- New music trend: Afrobeat
- Pantone color of the year: BananaYellow
- Insect of the year (sorry Weevil): The Mantis
- Confirmed UFO sighting?: You bet!
Discord
Discord unveiled a refresh of its mobile app with a focus on its social features.
Its reorganized navigation buttons, in a vertical left-hand column, direct users to messages, notifications, servers, and their own profiles. DMs and group DMs are now in a single location.
When users click through to a channel or message thread, information such as files, links, media, and members is organized into a cleaner, larger design.
The app’s search functionality now returns results for attachments, files, messages, and pinned messages.
A revamped profile page highlights the platform’s recent focus on custom profiles. Larger file sizes are supported for sharing photos and videos. Video and voice calls now have a new, mobile-friendly user interface.
Finally, dark mode has finally come to Discord in the form of the Midnight theme.
The Meta-owned messaging app added view once voice messages, which disappear once they are listened to, and are protected with end-to-end encryption by default.
WhatsApp added a secret code option to its Chat Lock feature, which lets users set a password different from the one they use to unlock their phone, for an extra layer of privacy for locked chats.
Finally, chats can now be pinned within one-on-one and group conversations. Only one chat can be pinned at a time.
Tumblr
Tumblr introduced Communities, a new way for users with similar interests to connect with each other.
Each Community is its own semi-private space, separate from the main Tumblr dashboard, complete with moderators, privacy settings, and rules.
Communities have their own feeds, separate from Tumblr’s Following and For You feeds.
BeReal
BeReal, the social media flavor of the day for quite some time in 2022, is still alive and kicking, introducing two major updates.
Opt-in feature Behind the Scenes mirrors the functionality of Live Photos on iOS. When a BeReal user clicks the symbol in the upper corner of images with BTS enabled, they can view a few seconds of video leading up to the image.
And the new RealGroup option lets administrators choose the time for the daily notification “requiring” users to share images is sent out. BeReal users can only be in two RealGroups at once.
Jagat
Location-based social network Jagat topped 10 million worldwide users after launching in March.
The app functions as a social map aimed at helping users learn which friends are nearby and what activities are available to them.
Users can record places where they have been, as well as tap on their friends’ avatars to share messages, stickers, or updates.
Jagat is developing a feature like Facebook groups for people to organize local events and find others with similar interests.
Brands That Stay on Trend
The 2024 models are occupying the showroom floors at automobile dealerships, as well as social media users’ feeds. Here’s how three automakers showed off their new vehicles, along with one service for those who are too young to drive themselves.
Hyundai
Kurt Benkert fills out the roster of his “fantasy team” with features from the all-electric IONIQ 6.
@kurtbenkert My #1 fantasy pick of the season? #IONIQ6, obviously. #HyundaiPartner @Hyundai USA #ItsYourJourney ♬ original sound – Kurt Benkert
Subaru
Professional climber Alex Puccio takes to the hills with the 2024 Subaru Crosstrek Wilderness, putting it to the test in some challenging driving conditions.
View this post on Instagram
Uber
Kristen Duke entrusts her teen daughter to Uber through the ride-sharing service’s new accounts for teens.
@kristenduke #ad Uber teen accounts are a great way to get your teenager where they need to be. Add your teen today! @Uber #Uberteenaccounts ♬ Chill out, relaxed, cafe, coffee(885489) – TAKACHAN
Open Influence’s team stays on top of the latest trends and is here to help you maximize your creator campaigns. Open Influence is a leading global creator marketing agency dedicated to creating engaging campaigns.
