6 Marketing Trends to Watch in 2024

The most constant thing about Digital Marketing is the fact that it’s never constant for too long. New trends & technologies are constantly emerging in the market creating a new wave. AI being the most recent & the biggest change that this & other industries have seen in a while recently.

There are a plethora of new things that you can do in digital marketing to make yourself standout. Especially since there is no right formula for it & the unpredictability is off the charts. Thus, this article will talk about 6 such digital marketing trends that you need to watch out for in 2024.

1. Generative AI & Automation in Marketing
2. Short form Video Content
3. Social Media Influencer Collaborations.
4. User-generated content for Brand Awareness
5. Podcasts
6. Forums gaining traction for problem solving.

Generative AI, ever since its emergence, has taken the digital marketing industry by storm. With its ability to automate work, we are now able to assign menial tasks to it, saving

us a significant amount of time for more pressing tasks. AI tools like Chatgpt & Gemini have made the process of idea generation completely seamless, so much so that majority of the marketers or content creators say that Gen AI has boosted their creativity as a whole.

Data analysis & research fields have also been deeply impacted by the emergence of AI tools. Due to its ability to gather & present a large amount of data in a matter of seconds, researchers & people involved in the data fields have had their work significantly reduced & boosted in efficiency.

Times have changed & so have the content preferences of the audiences. The days where people would sit & watch videos longer than 30 minutes on a regular basis are now gone. Since the emergence of Tik-Toks, Reels & Shorts, people have started preferring short form video content over longer forms. SFVCs enable users to consume large quantities of data over a shorter time span & the short length makes it easier to remember as well.

SFVCs are here to stay & are not going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, the social media & search engine algorithms have now started to prioritise short videos for user search queries. Surveys have also shown that the majority of the users nowadays prefer SFVCs for non-in depth information gathering or when casually browsing social media platforms.

I don’t know if many are aware of it, but 2024 has already been dubbed as “The Year of Unexpected Collaborations” by audiences due to the amount of unexpected collaborations that have emerged in this year alone throughout various social media platforms & content creators. Even some big brands like Mcdonald’s have had many unexpected collaborations this year.

Fans & audiences love to see their favourite brands or two brands of good reputation in the market collaborate with each other. It arouses a sense of excitement & something to look forward to. Keeping on a lookout for different opportunities to collaborate with a different brand for your product/service promotion can improve the brand image & awareness in the market. Taking part in different collaborations shows the audience that your brand is not afraid of new adventures & risks.

Instead, the brands have now turned to using user-generated content for their brand awareness strategies. Things like product reviews, queries on forums, criticisms etc. serve the purpose of brand marketing for them. Brands usually use such contents & repost them with their own message or respond to them to show how involved they are with their customer base. Some brands go as far as offering discounts, giftcards, or other incentives to the users.

Any kind of action that can send the message that a brand is active in listening & working alongside their audience is always well received in the market. Especially in the current one where the users are so aware towards customer centricity.

As of 2024, there are around 4.5 million active podcast channels, with over 30 million episodes being published last year alone. Podcasts have grown significantly in the last 5 years to the point of becoming one of the primary sources of hosting interviews with influential figures. This form of entertainment is mostly preferred by Millennials & Gen Zs, who make up about 61% of the current audience.

The reason behind podcasts gaining popularity is quite simple when put in words. People enjoy & want to learn more about influential figures they like. And with the recent aversion towards usual interviews & talk shows, podcasts, where the setting is much more casual & free flowing are found more enjoyable.

With the emergence of Short form video content as discussed above, people have also started using small tid-bits from the whole podcast & uploading them in the form of SFVCs on Youtube & Instagram. Which then gains traction & entices more audience towards it.

One of the key advantages of forums is their ability to address a wide range of issues. Users benefit from a diverse pool of contributors, including experts, enthusiasts, and others who have encountered similar challenges. The open, collaborative nature of forums allows for solutions to be refined through multiple viewpoints, often providing answers that are more innovative or thorough than official channels.

This dynamic problem-solving environment makes forums an indispensable resource for anyone looking to find answers quickly and efficiently.

Digital marketing trends are always shifting and can be pretty unpredictable. To stay ahead of the game, it’s important to keep up with what’s hot and make the most of it. By jumping on the latest trends, you can give your brand an edge and stay ahead of the competition in a fast-moving market.