The age of blindly chasing trends and hastily jumping on social media bandwagons is fading fast. Social marketers are now shifting their focus towards performance, with little to no interest in frivolous fads.

In anticipation of shaping their social media marketing strategies for 2024, businesses are sifting through the noise of passing tech trends and witnessing the emergence of innovative technologies. As the year progresses, brands are expected to leverage transformative tools like AI, entertainment, and high-performing platforms to stay ahead in the shifting landscape of digital marketing.

In an exclusive interview with Edward Rivers, co-founder and CEO of Comb Insights, and James Webb, co-founder and CTO of Comb Insights, we delve into the driving forces behind this shift and explore how 2024 could be the most pivotal year in the world of social media.

Overcoming the Challenge of a Multi-Platform Presence

Meeting your audience where they are is essential. However, when your audience is seemingly located across all social media platforms—the average user engaging with approximately seven platforms each month—the challenge becomes substantial. For brands, the difficulty lies not only in establishing a presence on one social network but across multiple platforms.

Maintaining a presence is difficult enough, but doing it well adds another layer of complexity. According to Rivers, "This struggle has become one of the top concerns for brands in terms of social media return on investment, surpassing even issues related to measuring success, which is often discussed as some of the most prominent challenges in the world of social media."

Fortunately, Rivers and Webb have been working on a new, innovative tool that makes monitoring your social media presence much easier. Coined Comb Insights, Rivers explains that this app revolutionizes audience insights by offering users a simple yet powerful experience, eliminating the need for perplexing graphs that are challenging to analyze.

Analyzing the Surge of Interest in AI Tools

It's no secret that the AI trend is creating a seismic shift not just in technology but in virtually every industry. When the tool first broke into the mainstream in 2022, it elicited a range of emotions typically reserved for interactions with fellow humans.

The level of interest peaked between 2022 and 2023, leading to a remarkable 550% surge in topics related to AI learning, according to a Hootsuite Social Trends 2024 Survey. Social media marketers have since joined the movement, with businesses expressing intentions to significantly increase their reliance on AI, doubling or even tripling its utilization across a spectrum of activities.

Webb elaborates on their vision for incorporating AI into the co-founders' new app.

"Once users link their Business Facebook or Instagram Professional Account to Comb, our proprietary AI assumes a central role. It diligently assigns a positive or negative sentiment score to each comment, delivering a swift overview of audience reactions. The free app encompasses various features, including an AI sentiment score that reveals the percentage of positive comments on every post."

Through this AI feature, Webb explains that users can attain entirely new and more profound insights into the performance of their social media approach—identifying weaknesses or areas for improvement and subsequently making the necessary adjustments.

Harnessing Entertainment for a More Memorable Brand Presence

The area of entertainment is also emerging as a powerful force that captivates and engages audiences. Brands are recognizing that capturing attention in a world with shrinking attention spans requires innovative approaches.

Rivers sheds light on how brands can leverage entertainment to enhance their presence and connect with their audience in meaningful ways. "Entertainment is not just about grabbing attention—it's about holding it. In the competitive landscape of social media, brands need to be more than just present. They need to be engaging and memorable. Entertainment provides a unique avenue to achieve that."

Looking ahead to 2024, brands are expected to incorporate more entertaining content, ranging from engaging videos to interactive experiences, to stand out in the crowded digital space.

In this context, Rivers further delves into how Comb Insights is integrating entertainment metrics, enabling businesses to assess the effectiveness of their entertaining content and fine-tune their strategies for optimal impact.

"The app includes a feature called the Post Detail View, where users can seamlessly navigate through post comments, color-coded based on each comment's sentiment score, which is accompanied by a clickable word cloud, offering a visual representation of the most prevalent terms in the comments. Users can then strategically sort comments by positive sentiment scores to identify and engage with their most enthusiastic followers. Conversely, sorting by negative scores allows users to address and manage interactions with followers who may require further dialogue."

Expanding on the tool's functionality, Rivers emphasizes that the platform facilitates comment searches for specific terms, enabling businesses to determine the entertainment value of their content accurately.

Navigating Social Media Transformation in 2024

As we step into 2024, it's clear that social media marketing is undergoing a transformative journey. With tools like Comb Insights leading the way, brands have the opportunity to navigate this changing landscape strategically, make data-driven decisions, and create memorable connections with their audience.

The era of purposeful and performance-driven social media marketing has arrived, and 2024 promises to be a critical year for those ready to take on the shift.