Rachel Karten, a social media consultant and author of the newsletter Link in Bio, knows a thing or two about what works online.
Prior to becoming a consultant for brands like Cava and West Elm, she managed social media at Bon Appétit and Epicurious. She’s also built an audience on her own social accounts, where she has 70k followers on Instagram and 8.5k on X, in addition to 52k newsletter subscribers.
We spoke with Karten about some of the social trends she’s watching going into 2024 and the things she hopes stay firmly rooted in the past.
What’s in?
- Being relatable and funny…when appropriate: “The ‘unhinged’ brand really took off [in 2023], but I don’t think that makes sense for every brand,” Karten said. “It’s about finding those, like, universal truths, those relatable moments, to connect with your audience.” Duolingo joking about language-learning or the National Park Service joking about camping work because they relate back to what they can offer people and don’t focus on a specific product, she said.
- Treating TikTok like TV: Having a slate of characters that people enjoy and can relate to—like they do at NPR’s Planet Money or the Washington Post—is one way to draw people back to a TikTok channel, Karten said. “Brands that are creating episodic content and creating recurring formats [are] creating a really ownable strategy that’s theirs,” she added. But Karten recommends making sure that any new characters for brands are compensated appropriately, and that it’s not just someone on the social team’s second job.
- Unexpected influencer deals: “I would love to challenge a brand to be an influencer’s first brand deal…see if you can find somebody who no other brand has worked with,” Karten said. While influencers need to make money, she said working with the same 20 or so big names who have multiple brand deals could lead to questions around how influential those deals actually are on their audiences.
- Being strategic about platforms: While it can be tempting to join every BeReal, Lemon8, or Lapse that gets released, Karten said to exercise restraint: “Especially if you’re a one- to two-person social team, really choose the platforms that make sense for your audience and go deep there. That, to me, is a better strategy than spreading yourself too thin and showing up mediocre across every platform.”
- Simplicity is key: As shown with McDonald’s Grimace campaign last year, Karten said sometimes coming up with something simple and letting the audience take it from there—even if the trend ends up being as weird as “dying” after drinking a purple shake—can work. It can also give the brand the ability to react and keep the engagement wheels turning.
- Comments = content: Karten expects to see more community comment managers hired this year, particularly for TikTok comment sections. “I think that more brands are going to adopt that as a discovery tool [for] getting in front of people,” she said.
- Private communities: “Bringing your community over to owned spaces will be a big thing,” Karten predicted, citing platforms like Geneva for brands or newsletters and chat communities for influencers looking to speak directly to loyal audiences.
- Snap back? While it may seem like a thing of the past for some millennial brands, Karten noted the “huge Gen Z audience” on Snapchat and expects that “some brands that were on Snapchat back in 2014 [and] 2015 might join Snapchat again.”
What’s out?
- Posting what you don’t know: Consumer backlash to Netflix’s inappropriately thirsty post about May December, which deals with heavy topics like child sexual abuse, illustrates the importance of “act[ing] like a fan of your own brand,” Karten said. She finds inspiration from Lionsgate’s social media marketing strategy, which includes posting fan edits on social.
- Being buttoned-up on LinkedIn: Posts on LinkedIn don’t have to be a drawn-out story on something serious like “What this taught me,” Karten said. “You can put up something that’s a little bit more silly and fun,” like posting memes and asking audience questions, similar to companies like Hubspot, she suggested.
- Selling without entertaining: As people get inundated with ads from new sources like TikTok Shop, Karten said influencers “are going to have to get more creative with the way they do sponsored posts.” She also expects to see more deals with comedians and people willing to create skits instead of more standard posts that highlight a product.
- One strategy across platforms: It’s worth making the case for platform-specific strategies. A TikTok that tells one story about a brand could lead someone to its Instagram page, where they can get a fuller picture of what that brand offers, Karten said, so showing up in a similar way on every platform “can actually be pretty detrimental to the brand health of those accounts,” she said. Karten suggested using TikTok as a discovery platform and Instagram as a loyalty platform for its most ardent fans.
- FOOH done wrong: If you’re not working with artist Ian Padgham, Karten said she doesn’t want to see your brand’s fake out-of-home content. “It’s just getting a little bit out of hand with this sort of surrealism,” she said. “I’d love to see brands not do that anymore.”
- X alternatives: Bad news for Threads enthusiasts: Karten said her sense is that “Twitter replacement platforms would have worked by now,” adding that unless some mass-exodus event happens this year, she expects the OG to remain relevant.
- AI…as it currently stands: While brands using an image generator to announce they’re entering Nicki Minaj’s Gag City can be fun, Karten said she has yet to feel like AI is one of those trends that is worth tuning into from a social standpoint. “The thing that I’ve learned from working in social media for 10 years is that you shouldn’t care about everything that’s new because there’s always going to be something new,” she said. “Maybe that’s naive of me, but I’ve got too many other platform changes to worry about that are more immediate [than AI].”