TL;DR
- The social commerce landscape has evolved from prioritizing follower counts to valuing the intrinsic quality of content, necessitating a strategic overhaul in social media approaches.
- Dash Hudson’s 2024 social media trends report, “The Next Phase of Creator, Organic and Paid,” categorizes content into Creator, Organic, and Paid, each excelling in specific areas — Creator for engagement, Organic for community building, and Paid for extending reach.
- Strategically boosting content, especially Reels for impressions and static posts for engagement, significantly enhances brand visibility and audience engagement.
- The integration of generative AI across platforms like TikTok, Meta, and YouTube is transforming brand engagement strategies, offering personalized and interactive user experiences.
- TikTok Shop is redefining social commerce, combining sales potential with social engagement in a democratized marketplace, underscored by its rapid growth as a major e-commerce player.
READ MORE: The Next Phase of Creator, Organic and Paid (Dash Hudson)
A seismic shift has occurred in the ever-evolving landscape of social media, moving us from a world where follower counts reign supreme to one where the content’s intrinsic value dictates its success. This transformation is a complete overhaul of how brands, creators, and marketers approach social media strategy.
Social media management platform Dash Hudson examines this shift in its 2024 social media trends report, “The Next Phase of Creator, Organic and Paid.” The report dissects current trends and offers a roadmap for leveraging the unique strengths of Creator, Organic and Paid content to forge a path to increased engagement and brand growth.
“In recent years, a new set of rules have emerged,” the report notes. “Short-form video has taken over, and there’s been a significant shift from socially-driven to content-driven feeds, as platforms deemphasize follower counts in favor of the popularity of posts.”
At the same time, audiences are becoming increasingly niche in the pursuit of their personal interests. This means that the traditional one-size-fits-all approach content creation is fading into obsolescence, replaced by content that speaks directly to highly specific demographics, maximizing engagement and ROI in the process.
Creator, Organic and Paid Each Excel
The report divides content into three distinct pillars — Creator, Organic, and Paid — and explains how each pillar excels in its domain. Creator content, with its authentic voice, drives engagement; Organic content builds community through genuine interaction; and Paid, or boosted, content extends reach beyond traditional boundaries, ensuring that messages penetrate the noise of crowded feeds.
Creators reach niche audiences through existing community relationships while generating more engagement than both paid and organic. On average, brands had seven creators partnerships in 2023, with most creators posting roughly eight pieces of content for each brand partner, the report found. But, most importantly, content posted by creators generated 16 times more engagement than content posted by brands themselves.
Organic content provides a regular cadence of fresh content to build brand loyalty and maintain an engaged community, serving as a good indicator of what resonates with a given audience. Nearly 40% of organic content is static, while 23% are carousels and 38% are Reels, and brands tend to post an average number of 11 pieces of organic content each week.
Paid, or boosted, content enables brands to get already high-performing content in front of highly targeted audiences. Boosted posts earn significantly more impressions than creator and organic content, highlighting its vital role in building brand awareness. Reels are the most common format of boosted content, at 50%, followed by Static (32%) and Carousel (18%). Around 9% of brands boost an average of one in every five posts, the report found. Some brands are even boosting up to 70% of their posts, but the brands that boost the highest percentage of content tend to have smaller followings.
Each of these pillars, Dash Hudson argues, “is even more impactful when working in concert with the others as part of a holistic social media strategy.”
This cross-pollination, the report finds, can drive meaningful results. “IAB tracked over 1,000 consumer purchase journeys, finding that advertising alongside creator content can accelerate the purchase funnel, showing a greater impact on building brand loyalty and a 1.3x greater impact on inspiring brand advocacy.”
A Synergistic Approach
More than ever, a siloed approach to content strategy is a recipe for mediocrity. The Dash Hudson report advocates for a synergistic model where “the interplay between Creator, Organic, and Paid content is not just encouraged but essential.” This holistic strategy amplifies brand presence, weaving a narrative that resonates across all platforms and demographics.
Dash Hudson conducted an analysis on the performance of creator, organic, and paid content across a variety of metrics to discern each content type’s strengths and their most effective roles within the content lifecycle.
Creator content shines in engaging niche audiences and boosting interaction rates, achieving a +34% higher engagement rate than organic content and a staggering +316% higher rate than paid content. This underscores its potency in fostering deep connections and stimulating audience participation.
Organic content, on the other hand, is pivotal in cultivating brand loyalty and nurturing a vibrant community. It outperforms paid content with +358% more comments and +104% more likes, and also surpasses creator content with +53% more comments and +18% more likes, highlighting its value in sustaining active and engaged user interactions.
Paid content is instrumental in expanding brand visibility, delivering three times more impressions and six times more video views than organic content, irrespective of the investment size. When compared to creator content, paid content generates seven times more impressions and video views, showcasing its unparalleled capacity to broaden reach and attract new audiences.
Boosting Organic Content Supercharges Brand Awareness
The power of paid content cannot be overstated. The report highlights how “strategically boosting content — particularly Reels for impressions and static posts for engagement — can significantly elevate a brand’s visibility.” Moreover, “entertaining content, when boosted, sees exponential gains,” underscoring the importance of not just what you share, but how it captivates your audience.
Overall, boosting content builds brand awareness, “breaking through the algorithms to place your brand directly in front of the eyes that matter most.”
Boosting Reels grows impressions, and boosting static content grows engagement rate — “the metrics each format craves, tailored to maximize the inherent strengths of each content type.”
Boosting entertaining content drives much higher performance across the board, proving that “entertainment is not just king but the ace in the deck for social media strategy.”
Leveraging AI for Content Optimization
Dash Hudson outlines significant trends and developments in social media platforms themselves driven by new technologies and changing user behaviors. The report highlights three key shifts: the integration of generative AI into platform experiences, the resurgence of social commerce with a focus on TikTok, and the growth of direct messaging as a crucial engagement tool. It notes that 64% of marketers currently utilize AI, recognizing its value and planning continued investment.
Specific AI enhancements across platforms are transforming how brands engage with audiences, Dash Hudson finds. TikTok has introduced an AI-powered “Creative Assistant” designed to aid in campaign creation, complemented by custom AI Chatbot Creation tools developed by its owner, Bytedance.
Meanwhile, Meta is unveiling generative AI tools that facilitate video and photo creation/editing from text prompts, alongside expanding AI chat personas to include celebrities like Kendall Jenner and Tom Brady, and is exploring new chatbot creation tools. This is part of Meta’s broader strategy to integrate AI across its advertising products.
Instagram is in the process of testing generative AI features, including custom sticker creation and visual editing tools for uploaded content. YouTube has launched “Dream Track,” an experimental generative AI tool that enables users to create music in the style of various famous artists.
These advancements underscore a significant shift towards more interactive and personalized user experiences, offering brands novel ways to capture attention and stay ahead in the ever-evolving social media landscape.
TikTok Shop: Winner Takes All and Anyone Can Win
In the dynamic realm of social commerce, TikTok Shop emerges as a groundbreaking platform, blending the immense potential for sales with the power of social engagement. The Dash Hudson report illuminates this platform as “a democratized marketplace where authenticity and entertainment are paramount for direct sales success.”
A standout revelation from the report is TikTok Shop’s meteoric rise in the e-commerce domain, “ranking as the 12th largest e-commerce retailer in the US market and the 5th largest in the UK market in 2023.” This rapid ascent highlights TikTok Shop’s substantial impact and its capability to captivate both users and brands, solidifying its position as a formidable force in e-commerce.
Insights into consumer behavior reveal how TikTok Shop’s unique integration of shoppable videos and livestreams significantly influences purchasing decisions. The platform’s innovative approach to social commerce sales, supported by detailed audience buying behaviors and sales metrics, offers brands a clear blueprint for engaging potential customers effectively.
Technological innovations within TikTok Shop, such as AI-driven personalization and AR features for virtual try-ons, are enhancing the shopping experience, making it more interactive and personalized. These advancements are pivotal in attracting and retaining users, offering them a seamless and engaging shopping journey.
Looking ahead, the report provides a glimpse into the future of TikTok Shop and the broader landscape of social commerce. As we navigate this new era of social media, the fusion of creativity, strategy, and technology becomes increasingly crucial. This report not only sheds light on the current trends and strategies but also offers a glimpse into the future of social media marketing — a future where engaging content, powered by sophisticated AI tools and platforms like TikTok, leads the way.
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