One thing you can always count on in key digital marketing strategies in 2024 is that digital spaces are constantly changing, and of course, at a fast pace!
One of the clear examples is the amazing increase in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) that we saw in 2023. This phenomenon will continue to evolve and affect all areas of marketing in 2024.
Marketing also changes due to consumer behavior and the external environment. While global growth is subdued and inflation is likely to moderate, consumers remain cost-conscious. Also, most people are more likely to look for brands that show they are doing something for the good of society, and not just for themselves.
There is a lot to do to succeed in 2024, but if you know the trends going forward, it will be easier to plan, strategize and stay ahead of the competition.
In this article, we will examine the key digital marketing strategies that we should employ in 2024:
- In social media, we explore Instagram topics, why you should take LinkedIn seriously, and how AI is playing a bigger role in social media platforms.
- We examine the use of artificial intelligence in marketing, the role of the marketer in strategy, the nature of self-learning technology, the need for new skills, and the importance of co-creation.
- SEO trends are geared toward creating a Google Search Generative Experience (SGE) , with an emphasis on valuable and shareable content, EEAT , and user experience value.
- , Google Ads in PPC campaigns asks us to look at artificial intelligence as an assistant and avoid the pressure of Google representatives to change campaigns.
- In digital marketing strategy, we explore the importance of increasing data privacy and stability.
- 2024 will be an employer’s market when it comes to digital marketing jobs, but keep in mind that AI won’t take your job, but someone who has the skills to use AI will be a tough competitor.
1. Social media in digital marketing
It’s going to be an interesting new year for social media! In 2024, social media platforms will continue to fight for consumer attention and will update and optimize the way they measure success.
There may also be a shift in social platform dominance as the ongoing problems of X Network (formerly Twitter) create space for new platforms like Instagram Threads and Bluesky to grow in popularity and have the potential to drive new traffic. Get organic.
Meta Threads launched in July 2023 and now claims to have 100 million monthly users, which will no doubt grow. Threads is a serious competitor and alternative to X and is primarily used for sharing, text updates, and general conversations.
Pro tip: Brands should have a presence on Threads, even if it’s just a username, because the number of users will increase in 2024. So do your research today and see how other brands like Canva , TedTalks , and Channel 4 are using it.
I think a lot of people are turning to this network to build their profiles on this platform and prepare for the coming year. Recently, I see that many brands are trying to create interest and interaction with users through conversation or asking questions or discussing in this network.
Pro Tip: Don’t spend too much effort driving traffic to a Threads website, as the purpose of this thread right now is to have conversations and discussions that people can participate in. Brands that understand this are asking questions and creating expert discussions on this network, which is what Threads users want right now.
In the following, we discuss three influential issues in the field of social media marketing in 2024 and examine them.
Maintain engagement rates
In recent years, marketers have seen declining engagement rates on organic social media activity. While there are many reasons for this – quality of content, time of day, device – people may stop interacting in 2024 and focus solely on staying connected.
To combat this, various brands have created amazing social media campaigns built around entertaining, educating and informing their audience. The key is that you can increase engagement with fun and creativity.
Social media platforms are looking to increase engagement rates by experimenting with longer videos. For example, TikTok is introducing 15-minute uploads to increase the way brands engage not only with their audience, but also to retain their viewers.
Pro tip: TikTok has added a new Reels analytics option, where you can check audience retention rate, watch time, and replay count of content.
Organic reach
LinkedIn recently reached one billion members worldwide. It’s a far cry from the days when it was just a place to upload your resume and search for a job!
In 2024, I expect to see a significant increase in organic engagement on LinkedIn, which is currently rare in social networks.
People are constantly updating their LinkedIn profiles, not just on work topics, but on life skills, advice, support, mental health issues, tips and leadership, and more.
Expert Tip: A lot of interactions between creators happen on LinkedIn. You can also change your personal profile to creator mode, which will improve your profile and give you access to more tools. For paid media, video ads seem to generate the most engagement on LinkedIn.
Artificial intelligence
It’s no surprise that social media marketers are using artificial intelligence to increase productivity. AI tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney help marketers generate the text and images they want, and conceptualize campaigns and social posts well.
In the same vein, social media are integrating artificial intelligence into their platforms. For example:
- TikTok enables you to personalize your feed based on artificial intelligence.
- Instagram is testing stickers generated by artificial intelligence.
- LinkedIn offers its premium users AI features such as AI-powered profile writing assistance and “top job pick” signals.
- YouTube is testing Dream Track for YouTube shorts and Music with AI tools.
But you should note that the use of artificial intelligence also brings risks, including violations of privacy and ethics. So before anything else consider your audience’s attitude towards AI and see how they feel about AI? Do they like to see AI-generated content? Or don’t like?
Here comes a question, if you produce something using artificial intelligence, are you going to own it or label it as created by artificial intelligence? I think there will be a law for this in the future. Anyway, I would be happy to know your opinion on this matter.
Pro tip: Keep an eye out for new features on each social platform and check out how other brands are using them to good effect.
2. Artificial intelligence in digital marketing
There is no doubt that artificial intelligence has become the talk of the day in the tech world, and of course it has confused many digital marketers. In 2024, I predict continued exponential growth in the use of AI capabilities that will require businesses to embrace the technology and keep pace with a rapidly evolving landscape.
49% of NASDAQ’s value and 25% of the US stock market is made up of just six companies, all of which are AI companies, says Brian Corish, founder of the AI-centric consulting firm Elemental Intelligence and DMI Global Champion .
So what does this mean for marketers? In my opinion, marketers should adopt a strategy of using the unique features of artificial intelligence. What is your opinion about this?
In the following, we discuss 3 influential issues of artificial intelligence in digital marketing in 2024.
Artificial intelligence strategy
There is a lot of confusion about what to do with AI. But in my opinion, since marketing-related departments are the closest to consumers, marketers can be active in this area and move forward with an artificial intelligence strategy. They can use the knowledge gained in the customer journey to identify opportunities and, with the help of artificial intelligence, promote and improve the performance of businesses in different areas.
Marketers now have the opportunity to own AI because no one owns AI right now. A marketing manager who recognizes this opportunity and says to himself, “I’m going to be the person who trusts AI to set strategy, and I’m going to decide how best to use AI,” has created a great opportunity for himself. .
The first step is to understand what kind of company you are working for and what resistance to change is facing. You can then strategically identify and prioritize AI projects.
When choosing an AI project, marketers must decide whether they want to optimize processes, accelerate production, or change the business model :
- Optimization: Make your internal processes more efficient (such as using ChatGPT to write content summaries).
- Acceleration: How can you use artificial intelligence to improve your existing products or services? Look at the metrics you can use and ask yourself if AI adds enough business value to the customer to justify increasing the price of the product.
- Conversion: Can you use AI to create a new product strategy , service or business model? This is a great opportunity to tour the organization and talk about the problems that people in the organization are facing and how AI can solve these problems.
Expert tip: Be aware of your company’s position when choosing your approach to AI. For example, if 80% of an organization’s tasks are browser-based, there’s a good chance you can automate many of them. Jumping into the conversion model won’t do you any good if you haven’t explored the internal processes.
The speed of improvement of artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence has been around for a long time, but what’s unique about this technology is that it’s the first technology that can improve on its own.
Previous technologies required someone to develop or deploy the code or improve the product to increase its functionality. The difference between the technologies before artificial intelligence and the current one is that artificial intelligence can learn on its own or optimize itself.
Pro tip: When it comes to AI capabilities, don’t discount a platform’s ability based on its current maturity. Remember that the speed at which the platform is improving means you’ll need to revisit your AI technology and strategy every few weeks or months.
The skill of using artificial intelligence
It cannot be denied that AI excels in technical skills and is accessible to all. But what is not good at?
Artificial intelligence is now at its worst! In your roles as a marketer, you need to pay more attention to your soft skills and reasoning skills because AI does very poorly on these topics.
It’s important to ask ourselves how we lead the organization to do things because these things will be very important in the next two to three years. Also, we need to consider how we interact with AI.
As a result, we come to the point that artificial intelligence will not take your job. But someone who knows AI will do it.
3. SEO trends in digital marketing
SEO is changing and the future seems to be more user-centric and technology-centric. In 2024, these changes could be many as artificial intelligence and machine learning help search engines deliver results based on user intent.
So what is the SEO trend we are witnessing in 2024?
Google’s Generative Search Engine (SGE) is likely to grow rapidly, and Google’s SGE will transform the search experience with artificial intelligence that aims to provide users with more relevant and comprehensive information based on the questions they ask. SGE also provides related links and has a conversation mode where users can follow up with more questions, essentially saying you’ll be talking to Google in the future.
This experience is scheduled to be released in 2024. From a traffic perspective, I predict that this could potentially reduce the click-through rate for websites below this snapshot, which is pretty scary for us in SEO.
Pro Tip: When appearing in an AI snapshot, your data should be able to actively convey the concept. SGE is likely to be fully launched in early 2024 and you will have access to specific tools to start analyzing , don’t forget that it’s very important that your data and information speaks to your concept and purpose.
In the following, we discuss 3 important topics regarding the SEO trend and its impact on digital marketing in 2024.
Producing valuable and quality content
It’s always been important to create great content, but in 2024, if you want to appear in search results, what you produce needs to be much better. In the near future, your success will depend on whether or not you can create content that is much better than AI-generated content.
In recent months, there have been rumors about the loss of backlinks. In fact, interviews with Google employees have shown that backlinks are not the top three ranking factors. However, I believe that backlinks are still a sign of popularity for Google, especially when it tries to validate its AI snapshots with various sources around the web.
Expert tip: Google displays videos with high-quality images directly in the SGE cycle. Although the data is not yet complete, you should expect playable videos to become an important part of your content strategy.
Creating content within the framework of EEAT
Google’s EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Credibility and Trust) framework is not a ranking factor, but part of its search quality assessment guidelines . While this framework has been around for a decade, this year Google added an extra E for “experience.”
This is important because AI cannot create real-world experience like humans can. This gives the content producers a special advantage and reinforces the importance of having experts to produce or inform all kinds of content.
As you develop your content strategy, think about how you can demonstrate that the writer or person running your website has the expertise, first-hand experience, credibility, and credibility that make him or her worth being heard and seen.
Expert Tip: Make a checklist of all the EEAT signals that are important to your business and network it like a scorecard. Look at what your competitors are doing to build trust and authority. Then benchmark yourself against everything your competitors are doing and figure out how to improve.
Focus on conversion rate and UX
Google is always making changes that affect your ability to get people directly on the search engine results page (SERP). Unfortunately, this is out of your control. But you can control and optimize the user experience (UX).
If you want to make sure you maximize your chances of conversion for every user who visits your site, you shouldn’t have a slow page speed and a poor user experience.
Pro tip: When Mozilla took a second or two off its load speed, it was able to improve conversions for Firefox by about 14 percent. Small changes to UX and page speed, and a focus on conversion rates, can pay off big.
4. The effect of PPC in digital marketing
With the fierce competition for customers on search engines, paid advertising offers a way for companies to target their core audience with relevant messages. What makes the pay-per-click (PPC) model so attractive is that marketers can control their spending and stick to a budget.
Google’s global revenue reached $76.7 billion in the third quarter of 2023, of which $59.6 billion was from Google ads. This 9.5% increase compared to last year shows a strong desire for paid advertising among businesses.
In 2024, this growth shows no signs of abating, but there will certainly be developments specifically in the field of artificial intelligence.
In the following, we discuss 2 influential cases in digital marketing related to advertising in 2024.
Artificial intelligence in Google ads
In 2024, Google is going to release more productive AI tools in Google Ads. While this can be useful, we still need to approach this with caution because Google Ads is ultimately a monetization platform. One of the risks regarding this topic is that due to the use of artificial intelligence in engineering design, it will create certain biases in things like algorithms and advertising layout .
Systematically, Google is reducing its control and doing many activities with artificial intelligence. This use of artificial intelligence limits your control over what Google Ad looks like and how it works, and is over-optimized by not using language in the same way a human would.
Therefore, in 2024, you should consider AI as an assistant that helps you in your strategy, not as the only way forward.
Pro Tip: There is an optimization feature in the Google Ads interface where you can add a display network, let Google write your ads, match everything to broad match, or remove keywords. However, keep in mind that Google Ads are designed to make you do certain things that you may or may not want to do. But in the end, you have to make sure that whatever you do is in your best interest.
Decision making based on data
Don’t accept Google’s word! No matter how long you’ve been working in PPC or search engine marketing, make sure you use your own (data-driven) judgment when it comes to Google ad campaigns.
For the past few years, Google representatives have been reviewing accounts and suggesting changes to ad campaigns. But there is an increasingly aggressive pattern that they follow which may make you think that you have chosen the wrong strategy or are not using the right features in the tools, but I advise you never to make a spur of the moment decision. .
Special tip: To get more information about this, I recommend you check the article ” Are you being manipulated by Google Ads “.
5. Marketing strategy in digital marketing
The start of a new year is a great time to review your digital marketing strategy . It’s important to understand what worked, and more importantly, what didn’t.
A coherent strategy for both growth and building brand awareness can help you achieve your business goals. This strategy also guides your team so they understand where to focus their efforts and what they are aiming for.
According to Mesh-AI research , in 2024, a coherent AI strategy will be essential, especially since only 15% of organizations have a well-defined and well-understood strategy. But the question is, what are the other priorities?
In the following, we discuss 2 influential issues in determining the marketing strategy in the field of digital marketing in 2024.
Data privacy protection
Data breaches and data misuse cost brands, and not just financially. Data breaches cause customers to lose trust and become reluctant to share personal information, affecting your engagement and data collection.
According to the survey, 86 percent of Americans say data privacy is a growing concern for them, while 68 percent are concerned about the level of data collected by businesses.
Ultimately, you must decide how you want to use customer data. If you can be honest with your customers about this and explain what you are doing with the data and why you are doing it, you have a special opportunity to build trust with your customers.
Expert Tip: Be honest about how you use customer data and give customers more control over their data. Consider the amount of value you’re giving your customers for their data and see if that’s enough value. And of course stay up to date with what’s happening in data privacy regulations.
Managing customer expectations
According to surveys, more than 70% of customers are willing to pay more for goods that are produced with high quality. This enables consumers to use their purchasing power to align with their social concerns, giving companies that address these concerns pricing power for their product or service.
Quality is increasingly prominent in people’s decision-making. Customers do not want to patronize a company that provides poor quality products and services.
Expert Tip: Examine the life cycle of your product or service to determine its sustainability and quality, and focus on areas where you can improve. Contact your customers to see what you can do better. and review and optimize your corporate social responsibility strategy.
5. career trend in digital marketing
Despite the fact that many businesses have undergone digital transformation and are using digital technologies, there is still a shortage of skilled professionals in the field of digital marketing .
In a cross-sectional survey, many reported being unsuccessful in their efforts to find the talent they needed to grow and change, particularly in areas focused on enhancing the customer experience or engaging them.
So, what does 2024 hold for improving the digital marketing job market and people’s careers?
In the following, we will discuss 3 influential issues regarding career trends in digital marketing in 2024.
Employers’ market
In 2023, the tech industry saw a 50% job loss compared to 2022, and the trend hasn’t stopped yet, with toy company Hasbro and streaming giant Spotify making significant layoffs in December 2023, for example.
This means that many people are looking for jobs, which puts more power in the hands of employers.
Expert Tip: Reset your understanding of communication. Be prepared to ask the person you’re connecting with a simple question, such as “I’m a little stuck in my career and want to transition from my Marketing Manager role to Digital Marketing Manager. “I’d love to learn how you did it.”
Cultivating expertise
There has always been a debate about being general versus being specialized in digital marketing . Is it better to be versatile or to specialize in a particular area for career advancement? In 2024, expertise may win.
It depends on identifying the area in which you enjoy working the most. If you are in a job, try to get more projects in this field. Or if you’re unemployed, just keep learning about it.
Along with developing a specialty, you can focus on three main areas:
- Know the channels of market distribution: about having a strategy that determines which channels to use to deliver the product to your target customers. Gaining experience in economies and regions larger than your own will help you gain valuable skills.
- Understanding Marketing Effectiveness: Digital marketing can be measured down to the last penny, but for now the goal is to identify channels to measure effectiveness.
- Identifying your strengths: By knowing your strengths, you improve and you can communicate with others and show them your passion.
Invest in learning
A thirst for learning will not only show employers that you are motivated and passionate, but will also help you develop your skills or enable you to transition into a new role.
Every time I talk to someone who has invested in self-improvement, I get something good out of it, whether it’s about a skill-building course, life skills, or learning a new language.
Learning doesn’t have to be a strenuous activity and can often be fun. There are many options available to you, from online learning to a course at a local institution or an internship, depending on which format is right for you and your lifestyle.
There’s also a form of self-study where you listen to podcasts about your opinions or read blogs about topics you’re interested in.
Expert Tip: When it comes to artificial intelligence, use platforms! Don’t just be a digital marketer for a while and use them for everything. If they have problems and don’t work properly, it doesn’t matter at all. It’s about gaining experience that you can talk about.
Conclusion:
2024 will be an exciting and challenging year for digital marketers. Artificial intelligence is changing everything from the way customers behave and buy to the way businesses and sectors operate.
The one thing I’ve learned from talking to various experts is that marketers need to use AI to be effective in their jobs. Even if your role isn’t affected by AI right now, it will be in the near future. So start learning about technology and using some digital platforms. Otherwise, you risk being left behind!
Think about which paths are important to you and focus on what you can use them for in 2024. In the end, I will be happy to talk and share your opinions with us about the paths that are more important to you and what you intend to focus on.
