Predict at your peril; why social media forecasts are impossible

Well, it's that time of year again, when marketers start scouring the web for 2024 social media or influencer marketing predictions to base their next year of content on. 

As a creative though, every time I see a '2024 social trends/predictions' article, I can't help but sigh a little... Will we never learn? As an industry we're terrible at going back and checking if our predictions were correct. Very often (if not always), they weren't.

As an industry we're terrible at going back and checking if our predictions were correct. 

In fact, if you look back at social media over the last few years, almost every big, viral moment has been completely and utterly unpredictable — from TikTok’s 'Corn Kid' to Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars; from the M&S vs Aldi Colin/Cuthbert the Caterpillar debacle, to the Barbenheimer meme. Clearly, predicting next year's big social media moments is virtually impossible.

Above: The Colin versus Cuthbert the Caterpillar cake-gate was one of the unpredictable viral moments of the last few years. 

We've also just fully emerged from a global pandemic; something that nobody saw coming and which transformed the world. Surprising things have come out of that, from the comeback of QR codes to the explosion of live content and streaming. None of those things were especially popular before Covid-19 created a need for them. Now, both are a massive part of what we do as an agency. Again, the catalyst behind that was utterly unexpected.

Nine times out of 10, you can trace these predictions back to some agenda from the writer.

Then there are those predictions that aren't predictions at all, just incredibly outdated information. So far this year, I've seen 'predictions' about the rise of micro-influencers in 2024, TikTok being one to watch, and that video content will dominate. All of these things have been the case for years and, frankly, if you’re not aware of them by now you never will be.

Nine times out of 10, you can trace these predictions back to some agenda from the writer. Of course, a micro-influencer agency will tell you that micro-influencers are next year's Holy Grail for social media marketers — it wants to sell you something.

Above: The comeback of QR codes was a surprising development that came out of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

It's not that there's no way of predicting anything that will happen next year. There are some things we can be sure of. For example, I can confidently argue that live streaming will become increasingly influential within e-commerce. Coresight Research expects global live commerce sales to reach $171bn in 2023, up from $60bn in 2019. And AI use cases will continue to develop, from planning to content generation.

AI is a massive technological development area that won't suddenly drop off in 2024.

But there's no guesswork or foresight involved in knowing that. It's just confidence that trends which evolved over this year will continue into the next. AI is a massive technological development area that won't suddenly drop off in 2024.

I believe that influencer marketing is becoming increasingly omni-channel, with influencer content being used in everything from out of home to programmatic. Whilst I guess this could be considered a 'prediction', it’s based on what we know is already happening within the world of social, influencer and marketing, and we know this because we’re working on it with clients.

So, brands can plan to an extent. But the giant social moments, the most popular influencers, and the content people will choose to watch? There's no way of knowing how that will play out next year.

Above: As much as brands can plan, there's no way of knowing what social moments, influencers and content will catch fire in 2024.

Be reactive, not predictive

The funny thing is, the brands who are most obsessed with planning ahead are often those which are several years behind. And, when a critical opportunity unexpectedly arrives, they're the least willing or ready to react.

It's the brands who react quickest who get the most out of social media. Viral moments are their biggest opportunity to be the first, the funniest, the most talked about and the most culturally relevant.

It's the brands who react quickest who get the most out of social media.

Like this year, when Twitter rebranded to X. Xbox was one of the first brands to post a witty reaction, reaching over 100,000 likes. Sesame Street did even better, accumulating over 170,000 likes and 31,000 reposts.

But most brands are still terrified of reactivity. They prefer the comfortable bubble of predictions, even if it means being left behind. And the thing is, that fear is totally unnecessary. The great thing about social media is that it moves extremely fast. That means there's a different opportunity every day, and any reactive post that doesn't land as well as hoped is forgotten very quickly.

The rewards entirely outweigh the risks. You can do something fast and funny; if it's a success, great. If it's a failure, it's gone the next day. But the last thing you want is to be a laggard when reactive moments come.