With the New Year comes new social media trends – what does that mean for radio stations in 2024?
Keep It Real
Stations should get personal – your audience doesn’t want a marketing post, they want content that makes them laugh or evokes an emotion. Give them content they can relate to and share with their social followers.
Takeaway: Consider sharing quote graphics, stories, staff pictures and slice of life excerpts (“today in the studio . . .”).
The Place(s) to Be
Facebook is the largest social networking site, with over 3 billion people using it monthly, according to Statista. This means roughly 37 percent of the world’s population are Facebook users. Facebook’s direct messaging spin-off app, Facebook Messenger, boasts 931 million monthly active users.
The popularity of TikTok and Instagram will continue to grow in 2024. Data indicates that Instagram is predicted to increase its users by 50 million in 2024, to 1.4 billion. While TikTok is expected to increase its user base by 8%, to 900 million.
(And if your mind isn’t swirling yet considering what may be ahead on the social media front, check out the Monthly Active Users (MAUs) of the top 23 social media apps and platforms for 2024!)
Takeaway: Your station doesn’t have to be everywhere. Check your station audience demo against the demos for each platform and focus your attention and energy on those platforms.
Community Over Followers
Social media is a great place to connect with your target audience, grow station awareness and drive listeners to your website and station frequency.
With so many people active on various platforms, you might think that the more followers your station has, the better. In reality, you’re going to get better results from having quality followers than having a large quantity of followers.
It’s more important to build a community than a following.
The difference between “following” and “community?” A following consists of the people who follow your social media accounts. A community consists of people who are passionate about your brand, industry or a certain topic that aligns with your brand.
Instead of thinking of social media as a way to promote, re-imagine it as a way to develop relationships with your listeners.
Takeaway: Tips on building a social community can include:
- Reply to comments.
- Tag followers and/or influential content creators.
- Lean on employees: prioritize employee advocacy, proactive engagement and team spotlights.
- Engage on social posts where your target audience lives.
- UGC (user-generated content) is a great way to invite station listener testimonials, and key content into your strategy.
Social Media SEO – The New Frontier
Social media is the new search engine. According to a new report, 82% of consumers prefer to search on social media over traditional search engines, and two in five would rather use TikTok than Google or Bing.
The trend toward using social media to search for information is growing, even as tech giants like Google and Microsoft continue to fight for dominance in generative AI. In a survey of 1,000 Americans, 55% cited Instagram as their top preferred platform for social media searches, followed by YouTube (54%), Facebook (51%) and Twitter (44%). While TikTok came in last place for popularity as a search engine (42%), its core user base of young, affluent consumers is exactly the demographic marketers are after.
Takeaway: Make your radio station’s content easily discoverable on social by using keywords, optimizing titles/captions and using relevant hashtags.
AI-generated Content
As the demand for high-quality, engaging and personalized content rises with the proliferation of social media platforms, efficiency becomes even more key in a social media strategy Enter AI-generated content.
Takeaway: Three of the AI tools your social team can use to create content for social media are:
- Chat GPT is a natural language processing tool that can be used to generate social media copy.
- Synthesia is a video creation tool that uses AI to create personalized videos at scale.
- Lexica is a tool that can be used to generate images using natural language descriptions.
Word to the wise: consider creating an AI use policy to protect your station, and the people on your team. And, when using AI-generated copy, be sure to adjust and edit content to match your station voice and, to make it human.
These trends are the proverbial tip of the iceberg when it comes to social media in 2024 – a constant in social media is indeed change.
