Five social keywords will lead the marketing trends in 2024

An interpretation of new social trends in the first half of 2024 will help brands grasp consumer behavior trends and is recommended for in-depth reading by marketing professionals and brand strategists.

From the culture of finding a partner for everything, to the anti-spiritual consumption of growing hydroponic bananas to "reject banana green", this generation of netizens is constantly seeking themselves on social networks, exploring the infinite possibilities of life while pursuing individual expression.

To capture this new generation of consumers, brands need to work hard to attract users' attention and establish closer interactions. Understanding new social trends related to consumer behavior has become a "compulsory course" for brands. This article summarizes the social keywords for the first half of 2024, hoping to be helpful to everyone.

1. Human-computer interaction: AIGC

With the development of technological products such as ChatGPT, Sora, and AIGC, and their gradual entry into consumers' lives, more people have broadened their social dimensions, and digital language has become a tool for users to interact with the digital world. It has also become an important bridge for the natives who grew up in the Internet world to connect the real world and the virtual world. The development of digital language and technology has made products more and more intelligent. Smart homes, watches, mobile phones, cars, audio equipment, etc. have the ability to communicate with people, making human-computer interaction a new lifestyle.

At the same time, AI-generated content has brought new productivity, innovation in creativity, and changes and upgrades in conversation scenarios. For brands, AI can be used to accurately grasp user portraits, reserve data for more refined marketing, and gain insight into users' potential needs and predict market trends to develop more forward-looking marketing strategies, catch competitors off guard, and seize the most advantageous position.

2. Social avoidance: not replying to messages you have read/replying to messages you have read

With the development of science and technology, contemporary society has gradually become highly interconnected, and a huge amount of information has emerged in social software. It is impossible to avoid it, but we don’t want to face it. In addition, the influence of big data has gradually eroded the privacy boundaries of the public, and users have repeatedly jumped between the states of social phobia, social cow, and social laziness. In the contradiction between maintaining social relationships and maintaining a sense of social boundaries, whether users are passive chatterboxes or choose social avoidance is determined by their state of mind.

Compared with the focus-blurring method, cleverly changing the topic is called a high-level random reply after reading. Those young people use magic to defeat magic in language Tai Chi, playing a calm madness. The seemingly cold treatment of reading but not replying, or the high-level random reply after reading, are actually to maintain their freedom of choice. And the nonsensical reply method can, to a certain extent, bring some sense of humor to your life, to avoid negative encouragement or release your repressed emotions. The personalized and humorous expression method not only reflects the way users filter information in the massive amount of information, but also reveals the sense of relaxation that contemporary people seek.

3. Anti-mental internal consumption: National meme creation and angled youth

When talking about relaxation, we have to talk about the public's call for anti-spiritual internal consumption. The workers in the corner use online buzzwords, emoticons, jokes and other methods to express their views and attitudes, which has also formed a phenomenon of national meme creation. To a certain extent, it is the self-mockery and resistance of contemporary youth in the face of spiritual internal consumption, and it is also a new way for netizens to relieve pressure and find resonance through humorous expressions.

For example, the popular fruit and vegetable puns "banana greens are prohibited", "dynamic light waves", and "let the green pine go" have become popular among young people, reflecting consumers' desire to find "small happiness" and achieve psychological comfort and spiritual healing. At the same time, chasing, creating, and playing puns can help people get rid of negative emotions and give themselves more positive psychological hints. This interesting and personalized way of playing can also help people get rid of mental exhaustion and achieve a happy life and work.

4. Stress relief worship: rustic skits, short escapes

The same is true for relieving stress. As a new social and lifestyle trend chosen by young people, the worship of relieving stress provides spiritual sustenance and balance for people living in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment. One notable manifestation is that people have begun to choose "short escapes" to temporarily get rid of the pressure of daily life and find inner peace and satisfaction. For example, the earthy short dramas that have exploded this year, especially "I was a stepmother in the 1980s" and various bloody short dramas about overbearing bosses, have received extremely high attention and discussion. The short dramas are also short and concise, allowing people to easily watch them in fragmented time such as waiting for the elevator, taking the bus, and having lunch.

The "short, frequent and fast" viewing mode does not consume too much energy and improves people's viewing experience when watching dramas, which undoubtedly increases the spreadability of the content. The reason why they are called rustic short dramas is often because of the melodramatic and exaggerated plots, and the story content close to real life/dream, which can quickly mobilize the audience's sense of pleasure and produce unprecedented pleasure, providing emotional value for the public.

5. Redefining the neighborhood: Wildeat, CityWalk

Stress relief worship is ever-changing and changeable, and redefining the concept of nearby is like providing a place for the soul to rest in a familiar place, diverting attention and giving the soul a sense of gain by getting close to nature, the human environment, and feeling the fireworks of the world. Both Wildeat and CityWalk have redefined the concept of attachment. In the past, nearby was just a place close to oneself, but from the perspective of Wildeat, attachment is a place that can help oneself achieve a short escape, a place to soothe and massage the soul.

The "nearby" of CityWalk, that is, the place that can be measured by footsteps, may be considered nearby for people who choose CityWalk. From this perspective, the concept of "nearby" has been updated, and it is necessary for brand marketing to re-examine its marketing methods and content.

Final Thoughts

The social gameplay and changes of contemporary young people provide a basic user portrait for brands to accurately "snipe" users, and point out the direction for brand marketing:

• Refusing to imitate, continuing to innovate, and maintaining the ability to think independently are important tools for brands to win traffic and users.
• If you can’t beat them, join them. According to user preferences, guide consumers to participate in the brand’s content co-creation. This is an important way to increase influence and extend the communication cycle.
• To be successful in social marketing, you must be fun, interesting and fashionable. By doing a good job of cultural research to ensure the positive values ​​of the content, you will have the opportunity to know yourself and the enemy, and thus win every battle.
• Users don’t hate advertisements. If you want to conquer consumers, perhaps malicious Amway (reverse operation) implanting soft advertisements is a good choice.

Author: Mr. Bingfa; Source public account: Marketing Bingfa (ID: 1075056)