Throughout our 30th anniversary year, we’ve done plenty of reflection on how the marketing industry and Overit as a company have evolved over the years. As we head into 2024, it’s time to look to the future! We’ve gathered some predictions from some of Overit’s marketing experts.
First up, our CEO and Founder Dan Dinsmore shared some bite-sized trends to consider for 2024… ‘
Voice and visual searches will increase in 2024. Learn about optimizing your website for voice search.
Video content will continue to reign supreme. “If your content doesn’t move, it doesn’t move people.” Interactive content like polls, quizzes, and 360 videos will also engage your audience.
For those considering influencer marketing, working with micro-influencers will help deliver ROI.
Our Senior Brand & Content Strategist Caitlin Nicholson noted the world of social media marketing is constantly changing, but there are a few predictions worth mentioning…
AI can be a powerful tool for social media marketing as long as marketers learn how to use it to work smarter. There will always be a need for human intelligence when it comes to authentic content creation that resonates. However, savvy marketers should find a way to use AI as an assistant and use the tools available to delegate tasks.
So many platforms, so little time! With the average consumer using more platforms than ever, brands will start to consider the ROI of being on all these platforms. I think we’ll see brands doing more auditing of their social media strategies and deciding where to best allocate time, resources, and budget.
Brands will need to revisit their social media customer service strategy. It’s definitely a challenge for social media teams to maintain a customer care strategy, but modern consumers have expectations. Marketing teams should (and hopefully will) look at investing in social media resources, tools, and partnerships to help develop a modern social media customer service strategy in 2024.
VP of Brand Lisa Barone also warns against using AI to replace human strategy…
As the wave of AI-generated content rises, so will our aversion to what lacks a human touch. In 2024, brands will pump out more content and feel less human than ever before. Resist the urge to join the overproduction race. In an era where everything starts to sound like it rolled off the same robotic assembly line, the true differentiator is our ability to be genuinely human. Authentic storytelling–where we strengthen and hone our ideas to create a connection–is the real marketing game-changer.
Principal Michelle Dinsmore also emphasizes the need for human connection in the form of community…
After starving for it during COVID, there is a growing emphasis on brands fostering community. Brand managers are more likely to continue developing strategies that build community engagement and often serve as facilitators, creating spaces (both real and virtual), and communities where customers can engage, share experiences, and build meaningful relationships.
Brands need to build genuine trust and connect meaningfully and thoughtfully with their community. This shift will mean creating a mix of content and focusing more on brand engagement and less on vanity metrics, providing deeper insights into customer behavior and giving a more accurate representation of the health of their business. For example, time spent within the community, lifetime value, the frequency of user contributions, and the depth of interactions can be more meaningful than the number of likes or comments.
Finally, Senior SEO Strategist Dan O’Leary brings us some predictions from the world of Search…
My predictions for 2024 are nearly seismic-level shifts in Google Search, some coming from within, but others coming from outside, particularly federal regulatory bodies and Attorney Generals. 2023 saw Google roll out not just one or two but FOUR different core algorithm updates in a single year, an unprecedented pace of activity for Google’s historically slower update schedules. Based on recent comments from Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan, website owners should expect to “buckle up” for some more changes coming in 2024.
And, if you haven’t seen the news, Google is the defendant in an antitrust trial brought forth by the Justice Department for its backdoor payments to phone manufacturers to lock in Google as the default search engine on mobile devices. With additional lawsuits from TWO different groups of State Attorney Generals and an entirely different antitrust trial by the Justice Department for Google’s outsized role and share of the digital ad market, Google’s modus operandi can no longer exist as it has in the past. We’ll have to wait and see what actions regulators take, whether that be extensive fines, forcing Google to sell off specific aspects of its business, or a court-imposed reorganization of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, from the top down. But expect some large and meaningful changes for Google Search in 2024.
Learn more about this topic in our recent SEO Brief!
Which trends do you foresee as your biggest opportunity or challenge for 2024? Connect with us on social to keep the conversation going and to follow along.
Need help navigating the ever-changing marketing landscape? You can always book a complimentary consultation.
