So much has changed when it comes to best practices in the world of social media and digital marketing.
The changes this year truly have shown the importance of taking a relationship marketing approach if we want to build thriving brands that drive repeat and referral business.
That’s why we had some of our favorite digital and social media marketing experts weigh in on what they think the future of marketing looks like and what it takes to build a craveable brand in 2024.
Here’s what they had to say:
Jeff Howell
Jeff Howell has transitioned his marketing experience and predisposition to authenticity into a successful e-commerce career. His career mission these days is to evangelize the necessity of having a well-executed e-commerce solution integrated into existing marketing strategies while equipping his clients with the knowledge to be successful. Being active on TikTok, Jeff shares his life, and nerdy thoughts and encourages others to just be themselves.
Follow him on Instagram and TikTok.
What are your top 2-3 tips, predictions, and or advice for what brands/marketers should focus on in 2024 or things they should start doing and what should they stop doing?
Consumers want something real. Highly polished images and lack of authentic content can be more of a turn-off than anything else. There is a balance between professionalism and authenticity. As an individual, being yourself is enough to gain followers and attention. When working with or acting as a brand, be professional, yes. However, also produce authentic content that creates an environment that connects with the intended audience. Be funny, be real, be aware of cultural changes, and connect with people on an authentic level. Don’t be afraid to try new things and make mistakes!
Dorien Morin-van Dam
Dorien Morin-van Dam is a leading expert in the field of organic social media marketing. With over 12 years of experience, she has worked with a wide range of clients in many industries. As a Certified Social Media Manager and Agile Marketer, she is well-versed in the latest techniques and best practices for driving engagement and results through organic social media. Dorien is an accomplished international speaker, and hosts her own livestream show and podcast, “Strategy Talks.” You’ll recognize her on stage and online by her always-present orange glasses, a nod to her Dutch heritage.
Follow her on LinkedIn and Instagram.
What are your top 2-3 tips, predictions, and or advice for what brands/marketers should focus on in 2024 or things they should start doing and what should they stop doing?
1. Embrace Private Messaging for Customer Engagement: Brands should start prioritizing private messaging platforms like WhatsApp for direct customer engagement. This approach not only fosters a more personalized interaction but also streamlines customer service. It’s time to move away from one-size-fits-all communication strategies and embrace the intimacy and effectiveness of direct messaging.
2. Leverage AI for Hyper-Personalized Content: In 2024, brands must focus on utilizing AI to create highly personalized content. This means not just tailoring ads but also crafting organic content that resonates deeply with individual users. Brands should start investing in AI-driven analytics and content creation tools, and move away from generic, broad-stroke content strategies.
3. Capitalize on In-Stream Purchasing and Short-Form Video Content: Brands should focus on integrating in-stream purchasing options within their social media strategies to capitalize on user engagement directly in their feeds. Additionally, the power of short-form video content cannot be overstated. Brands should start producing more concise, engaging video content, leveraging AI tools to efficiently edit and optimize these videos. It’s time to reduce reliance on traditional, long-form content that may not hold the audience’s attention in the fast-paced digital landscape.
By focusing on these areas, brands can build a resilient and ‘Craveable’ presence, rooted in strong relationships and engaging content, ensuring their audience keeps coming back for more.
Bernie Fussenegger
Senior Director, Consumer Media Group at Confluent Health – Growth marketing focus on brand awareness, interest, and new patient acquisition to our 44+ partner brands and 630+ locations across the US. Also Chief Cheese – Strategy & Engagement at B2The7 working with brands on their Marketing & Digital Strategies.
Follow him on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Threads.
What are your top 2-3 tips, predictions, and or advice for what brands/marketers should focus on in 2024 or things they should start doing and what should they stop doing?
Some of what I’m doing with my clients is stepping back to really understand and build a story that is unique to that brand. Identifying what helps them stand apart, what their story is, why it is unique, and how the brand can help solve the problems for others building a stronger, more emotional connection while also building on current or new relationships.
Some areas in which brands need to focus is to have a solid strategy along with measurable KPIs, tactics that support the strategy, data & insights to support business decisions, solid testing, audience identification along with preferred messages/content, and the ability to be flexible. It seems easy, but many brands struggle with this aspect of their marketing.
Viveka Von Rosen
Viveka von Rosen, a renowned LinkedIn expert, bestselling author, and transformational speaker, is on a mission to empower successful business women aged 50+ globally. With over 18 years of LinkedIn marketing expertise, she is a recognized authority in the field. As an accomplished author and international speaker, Viv inspires women through her keynotes on transition and transformation, fostering their empowerment to create transformative ventures.
Beyond her professional life, Viv thrives on adventure, be it hang gliding, scuba diving, or hiking in the captivating landscapes of Colorado and Costa Rica. Viv’s core mission is to empower clients to realize their legacy dreams. Her upcoming podcast, “Beyond the Dream Board,” and newest book, “101 Ways to Rock Your Pivot: From Executive to Entrepreneur,” will further inspire and guide individuals on their transformational journeys. Her message to the world: “Women’s Words Change the World.” Through her own Lifestyle Legacy business, she intends to do just that.
Follow her on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
What are your top 2-3 tips, predictions, and or advice for what brands/marketers should focus on in 2024 or things they should start doing and what should they stop doing?
I love this question – especially as I am in the midst of my big pivot!
So my first prediction for 2024 will be that I won’t be alone. I think there are many men and women who have been preparing for a big pivot since the Covid years, but for whatever reason, have put it off until now.
So, that being said, here’s my answer, focused on my new audience of Women Entrepreneurs (of a certain age).
Authenticity and Storytelling in Our Journeys
In 2024, as more of us step into entrepreneurial roles, OUR STORIES will become our business and our brand.
For women pivoting into new ventures, authenticity in storytelling isn’t just sharing a business journey; it’s about the holistic narrative – the challenges, triumphs, and real-life experiences that led them to this point. This authenticity will create deeper, more meaningful connections with audiences.
We will leverage our unique perspectives and experiences, showcasing our journey not just as a business endeavor but as a personal evolution.
With luck, this approach will resonate deeply with audiences seeking genuine connections and inspiration.
Utilizing Emerging Technologies
For women making the entrepreneurial pivot, embracing technology will be crucial in 2024.
I know there is a perception that women 50+ may be tech UNsavvy, but that’s just not true. We know we have to leverage all the amazing tech out there including AI. That being said, the key will be integrating technology in a way that complements the human element of our businesses.
Staying abreast of technological trends and finding creative ways to incorporate them will give us a competitive edge.
Community Building as a Growth Strategy
Women in their 50’s, 60’s and 70’s are pretty danged good at community building. It’s what we grew up doing, whether we wanted to or not, really!
The focus on creating engaging, supportive communities around our brands offer more than just a customer base; they provide a platform for feedback, innovation, and advocacy.
We will need to focus on nurturing these communities, offering value, support, and engagement that goes beyond transactions. This approach not only fosters loyalty but also turns customers into brand ambassadors.
Prioritizing Holistic Wellness
Finally, a significant trend for women entrepreneurs will be the emphasis on mental, physical, and emotional wellness – both in our business practices and as part of our brand offerings.
Acknowledging and addressing the holistic health aspects of entrepreneurship, and offering products or services that support holistic wellness, will resonate deeply with our audiences.
This focus will not only help in building a relatable brand but also contribute to a healthier, more sustainable entrepreneurial journey.
Judi Fox #FoxRocks
Judi Fox is a LinkedIn Top Voice for Sales, Marketing, and Social Media. Plus she is listed as a Top 10 LinkedIn Coach in Yahoo Finance. Judi is featured in Inc Magazine, CEO Magazine, Vidsummit, Social Media Marketing World, Social Media Examiner, Video Marketing World, People of Video, and on several Top 100 Marketing Podcasts. With over 18 years of experience in business development and sales, Judi Fox developed the LinkedIn Business Accelerator Method. Clients are implementing this LinkedIn method to achieve more business and over 1 million content views in 90 days.
Follow her on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.
What are your top 2-3 tips, predictions, and or advice for what brands/marketers should focus on in 2024 or things they should start doing and what should they stop doing?
Building a Craveable brand in 2024 will require businesses to lean into storytelling with real-life examples. As Artificial Intelligence (AI) and social media automation tools take over many online marketing touchpoints, audiences will crave and respond more to authentic stories that build trust.
In addition to storytelling, here are several exciting #FoxRocks predictions for 2024:
Expand to New Social Media Channels
Audiences will want brands to show up where they spend time. That may result in adding a new social media channel like Threads or creating more content for TikTok because the 2024 audience will want to use the tools they love to then find the brands they crave. Brands that listen first to where their audience is spending time will be successful in 2024.
AI Tactics
Businesses will need to stay on top of how to leverage AI to ensure that audiences can still find their products or services as a solution to their problems.
Personalization will win in 2024
The more you personalize your ideal client experience you will be empowering your clients to share their experiences. When brands show how they treat one client it will translate to reflect how they will treat all their clients. Personalization can show up as exclusive content, rewards, and custom unique offers.
As we head into 2024, the key to being resilient will be a combination of listening and connecting. The main focus this year will be centered around standing out as a relatable brand amid the rise of AI-generated touchpoints. In 2024, this may look like prioritizing commenting over pushing out more content or it could look like creating a new unique personalized offer that is only available to current clients.
Let’s celebrate the 2024 New Year together and wishing you lots of Craveable success! ❤️🦊 #FoxRocks
Phil Mershon
Phil Mershon, director of experience for Social Media Examiner, crafts unforgettable moments based on years of unique event design. A multifaceted dynamo, he enjoys playing jazz saxophone, partakes in pickleball, and has written the inspiring ‘Unforgettable: the Art and Science of Creating Memorable Experiences.
Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and Instagram.
What are your top 2-3 tips, predictions, and or advice for what brands/marketers should focus on in 2024 or things they should start doing and what should they stop doing?
2024 will be the year of the unexpected. Don’t be like everyone else. Figure out who you are and then figure out how to showcase your uniqueness to the world in ways people will love and remember. The days of copycatting are over. You’ll never win the game if you try to be like someone else, but if you lean into what makes you one-of-a-kind, you’ll find your ideal audience and they will challenge you to keep serving them with flair and fervor.
Tony Christensen
Tony Christensen is an international speaker and the co-founder of Brick Social. He’s created and scaled advertising campaigns for e-commerce business owners around the world with budgets as high as the millions a month in Facebook and Google advertising spend.
Follow him on X and Instagram.
What are your top 2-3 tips, predictions, and or advice for what brands/marketers should focus on in 2024 or things they should start doing and what should they stop doing?
My advice for brands/marketers in 2024 is to post more openly about how things are going. Keep people in the loop with wins, losses, learnings, and growth your brand is having. Share what you’re thinking, and what you’ve got coming next, and ask questions to help bring in your audience more. I’d recommend either doing this through video (vertical videos with TikTok, Instagram Reels, and/or YouTube Shorts), so you can show your emotion on updates and visual updates well. Or through longer form posts where you can dive further into metrics and happenings with your business (on Facebook, LinkedIn, and/or Twitter). This openness will make people want to come back more to see how your business progress is coming along.
George Whitcher
George is the Lead Developer for NOW Marketing Group with a passion for development and customer care.
Follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
What are your top 2-3 tips, predictions, and or advice for what brands/marketers should focus on in 2024 or things they should start doing and what should they stop doing?
1) Video and personal branding becoming more popular.
2) Stop focusing so much on AI. Write your own content and be authentic. AI is not the solution to everything contrary to what some people out there may want you to believe.
3) Software development over SaaS. Why pour hundreds possibly thousands into software monthly when you can own? More businesses are noticing this and saving themselves money
Brian Fanzo
Digital Futurist Keynote Speaker
Follow him on LinkedIn.
What are your top 2-3 tips, predictions, and or advice for what brands/marketers should focus on in 2024 or things they should start doing and what should they stop doing?
AI, no question, will dominate the conversation, but our focus must be working WITH Artificial Intelligence, not trying to make AI do our work or replace humans doing the work. Aligned with Ai we will see a return to the importance of both transparency and authenticity but not just iPhone-style videos but the way we market and sell must shift to prioritize customer experience and connect the customer with our brand and mission. Beyond AI we are reaching a point where AR/VR/blockchain will continue to be integrated into our lives both customer-facing and internally with the improvement of the employee experience and with these shifts we must return to embracing employee advocacy and how we empower our employees and customer thru training them on emerging technology and the mindset shift required to embrace all things including AI/AR/VR and the blockchain.
Mark Suter
High School Technology Teacher, Director of Grit9, a student-run business
Follow him on LinkedIn.
What are your top 2-3 tips, predictions, and or advice for what brands/marketers should focus on in 2024 or things they should start doing and what should they stop doing?
Ai is filled with land mines and buried treasure.
Landmine: a reckless transition and dependency on the accuracy and workflow efficiency without guarantees of both.
1. Over reliance, or moving too quickly on hype… dispensing of key people to do a job, from programming to data analytics to creative storytelling and even visual design (image editing, video, 3d modeling)
2. Lack of a human element can be seen as inauthentic or cheating (see Sports Illustrated fires manager over ai written content) as well as contextual sensitivity and accuracy of information.
Buried Treasure: The very same as the landmine except it occurs in phases with built in checks and balances that ensure a few critical elements:
1. Humans are not disposed of without considering severance and up skill opportunities…think training an expert computer programmer or web developer to shift to a hybrid role of ai-assisted work by testing top tools thoroughly in prototype fashion using production deadlines, quality checks, accuracy checks, and “what if this tool shuts down” backup tool vetting.
2. “Is this human made?” is a phrase you’ll hear soon, much like the advertising of “Handmade Amish furniture” is a thing in Ohio…paying premium for wood furnishings made by hand. When the product is something the consumer has a reasonable expectation that a human made it, wrote it, designed it, etc. The exception to this is CLEARLY stating at the forefront that the work is AI assisted and even that will likely adopt a “how much of the work was done by AI” model such as, “This article was outlined by AI, then filled in by a human”, or rough percentage of AI vs Human balance.
Jessika Phillips
Jessika Phillips is on a mission to make relationships the forefront of business marketing. She’s known for her outspoken dedication to Relationship Marketing. She lives by her statement that “Relationships will always be more powerful than marketing,” and she believes in being a magnet vs a Bullhorn to truly connect with your tribe.
As a social media strategist, Jessika founded NOW Marketing Group in 2010. The company works with more than 100 clients across the United States and beyond, choosing to serve – not sell. NOW is also a Forbes-recognized Agency Partner and a certified inbound partner with Hubspot.
Follow her on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and X.
What are your top 2-3 tips, predictions, and or advice for what brands/marketers should focus on in 2024 or things they should start doing and what should they stop doing?
Experience is the New Marketing – It’s About Being Present
When we think about experiences it’s not necessarily needing to document the moment, it’s creating that emotion, that feeling, and the memorable experience that people want to talk about later. Whether it’s published online or not doesn’t matter, it’s how you make them feel. You have to think differently about social media and really focus on the SOCIAL part. Who do you want to stay social with? Who do you want to have conversations with behind public channels because of how they made us feel? Where do we feel comfortable going back to for advice for business and for experiences? It’s about how they made us feel in the moment, not about what they wanted us to capture, filter, and throw a hashtag on while it’s happening. Some of the best experiences I’ve had aren’t even documented on my phone; they are ones that I’ll remember forever but will have a picture in my mind that I will talk about and share with more people later and longer for years to come.
Marketing isn’t just a pitch but an immersive experience.
AI and AR take the stage, not just appealing but engaging all our senses. It’s not just about what we see; it’s about what we feel, hear, and touch in this immersive era of Self Utility experiences. Your marketing campaigns are no longer just content.
Let’s talk about Personalization
Not just a buzzword, but the roots of your brand’s success. Your brand becomes an extension of your audience, tailored to their unique tastes and preferences.
ChatGPT isn’t just a tool; it’s your sidekick, your confidant. Imagine a world where you and your AI collaborator create magic together. It’s not just about commands; it’s about crafting creativity together. The key is in crafting a more personalized, human outcome not relying on ChatGPT to give you a final piece but it’s a research tool and idea generator. ChatGPT is only able to output from everything that’s already available online- it’s up to us to make it our own unique art. In 2024, there will be more regulations and rules to disclose when ChatGPT and its competitors are used in marketing without adding in our own human touch. More on that here.
UGC and personalized content, are the dynamic duo of the content world. Your audience isn’t just a passive consumer; they’re co-creators of your brand. It’s the era of “we” instead of “me.” When we think about marketing, the belonging should be the first thing to think about before the buying.
Speaking of psychological safety, let’s create spaces where your audience feels not just seen but heard, where vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness. Because in the noisy world of marketing, authenticity is the secret. Studies show that creativity and innovation are the result of psychological safety.
In fact, psychological safety is the secret company differentiator that leads to:
25% Reduction in Turnover
50% MORE Productivity in teams
57% MORE Likely to Collaborate
(2024 study here)
Last but not least, Trust and Innovation. Trust is the currency of the future, and innovation is the roadmap. Break the mold, defy expectations, and watch your brand soar.
We’d love to hear from you.
What are your top predictions in marketing in 2024? What are you going to take advantage of? What are you going to stop doing?
We would love to hear your feedback. Until then, enjoy the rest of your year and we look forward to connecting with you in 2024!
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