10 Vital Facebook Trends for Marketers to Watch in 2024

In light of the ever-growing landscape of social media platforms, including the rise of TikTok, Thread, and Instagram, it is evident that Facebook still reigns supreme as the go-to platform for sharing product decisions and facilitating communication between brands and consumers.

As we’ve come across the third quarter of 2024, there are exciting updates and emerging Facebook trends that demand our attention. These trends hold big impacts in shaping your business’s social media strategy on the platform.

Stay tuned till the end to discover the hottest Facebook trends today, accompanied by actionable insights that you can immediately incorporate into your Facebook strategy this 2024.

#1 Shoppable Paid Advertising More Popular

Fact: The average conversion rate on Facebook spans an impressive 9.21% across all industries, highlighting the trends in Facebook influencing purchase decisions and its efficacy in driving sales for businesses.

With the latest updates of Facebook Ads in 2023, brands now have more diverse options for adopting paid advertising to boost sales. These options include traffic campaigns, conversion campaigns, Messenger ads, and various call-to-action buttons such as “shop now,” “learn more,” “get offer,” and “book now.” Each of these campaigns and formats holds its unique strengths in different objectives.

Additionally, brands can leverage Advantage+ shopping campaigns and opt for CPAS campaigns (Collaborative Performance Advertising Solution), either through collective ads or Catalog Sales, to further enhance their sales performance.

However, optimizing your Facebook shopping presence goes beyond just running ads; Facebook Shop should be placed in audiences’ hands to ensure a seamless shopping experience. So, that’s the next point. 

#2 Big Converted Opportunities with Facebook Shop 

While Facebook bid farewell to the Shopping LIVE feature in October last year, it continues to provide brands with powerful tools ––Facebook Shop––allowing brands to engage their highly active audience with fast and direct sales.

With Facebook Shop, brands have the opportunity to create a captivating shopping experience directly on their Facebook page. They can showcase their products, tell their brand story, customize their product catalogs, or even tag products in their content, driving traffic to explore their online shops.

What’s more? For brands that already have an established e-commerce platform, they can easily sync their integrated data on product information. This opens up a world of possibilities, including the ability to run Catalog Sales and collection ads or explore other options for shoppable paid advertising.

Also note that social commerce is on the rise, with a staggering 30.8% growth this year, and Facebook still takes the lead accounting for most transactions.

#3 Facebook Reels Still Kill

Reels on Facebook have skyrocketed to a staggering 140 billion plays per day, leaving no doubt as to why “Facebook LIVE Shopping” took a backseat. Meta’s strategic shift towards Reels this year played a significant role in this shift. 

Although the Reels Play Bonus program faced some hiccups with its monetization feature, leading to its end in March 2023, the power of short-form video content on Facebook remains unmatched in terms of reach and impressions.

While Reels currently account for only 3.3% of total Facebook ad impressions, their potential must be considered, especially when considering their placement within Stories. This placement provides access to a vast pool of potential audiences, making it an ideal avenue for advertising Reels content.

So, it’s high time to incorporate Reels into your content strategy. Whether it’s user-generated content, Key Opinion Leader (KOL) content, visually stunning animations, or tapping into the latest trending topics, Reels can help you boost your reach and engagement. It’s a win-win situation that combines the power of Reels with the effectiveness of Story placement.

#4 Top-Up Your Brand’s Values with Meta Verification 

Have you noticed a ‘blue tick’ badge on some brands, content creators, or even Facebook users lately? It’s called Meta Verified––a subscription feature that helps boost their credibility in the digital space and provides vital protection for their original content.

With a cost of $11.99 per month, Meta Verified packs a plentiful punch of benefits on the brand’s digital presence. These include account verification, indicated by the prestigious blue check badge, as well as proactive monitoring to guard against impersonation––which is particularly important for individuals or brands with growing online audiences who impersonators may target.

At the same time, subscribers also gain access to exclusive features that allow them to express their brand in more creative and unique ways, expanding their reach and captivating their audience. Your inquiries and issues can be more visible through Meta’s lenses as well with granted access to human support agents. 

So, if your brand prioritizes fostering brand community on Meta’s platforms, consider the ‘blue tick’ subscription things today for the long-run safeguard with the value-adding credibility from the audiences.

#5 AI Simplifying Facebook’s Inbox

The rapid advancements of ChatGPT have shined great benefits of AI when adopting it intelligently. Especially in customer service, where 14.5% of customers view interactions with a company’s chatbot as a significant catalyst for their online purchases, the demand for round-the-clock support from consumers is growing, further emphasizing the importance of leveraging AI to meet these demands.

In response, many savvy brands began to embrace AI through Messaging bots as third-party assistants to elevate their chatbox capabilities and deliver lightning-fast responses to customers. By configuring a set of frequently asked questions along with their answers, customers can now engage in more nuanced conversations beyond basic inquiries. As these AI bots “learn” from each interaction, they evolve into finely tuned conversationalists, raising the bar for customer engagement.

But here’s the thing: transparency is key. Customers need to know when they’re chatting with a chatbot and when they’ll be connected with a real person. This balance between automation and personal attention ensures exceptional customer experiences while making things more efficient for businesses.

#6 Monetize Your Content with a Fan Subscription Model

Based on the NeoReach survey, over 23% of content creators worldwide are making a sweet annual income of $25,000 to $100,000. There is some serious cash in the entertainment world, and Facebook is jumping on the bandwagon too.

Like YouTube and Twitch, Facebook has launched a subscription model that lets content creators–brands, organizations, or individuals–make money from their content. Fans can get exclusive, customized experiences by becoming supporters.

There are some requirements for creators to join the fan subscription model. You’ll need at least 10,000 followers or 250+ returning viewers. Plus, you have to have either 50,000 post engagements or 180,000 watch minutes within the last 60 days, including some below requirements:

1. It must be compliant with Facebook’s Monetization Standards

2. Must meet Facebook’s Fan Funding Creator Terms

3. Must abide by all Apple’s App Store Guidelines and Subscriptions

Being a content creator with a monthly membership means you gotta bring your A-game in crafting awesome content that’s worth paying for. Whether it’s your unique style that your fans love or jumping on the latest trends, it’s all about giving your supporters something special. And, if you need help finding those hot trends, check out Mandala Cosmos.

#7 Digitalize Mouth-to-Mouth Marketing with User-Generated Content

The world of marketing has shifted gears, moving away from old-school “mouth-to-mouth” strategies and embracing the power of user-generated content (UGC). Even though UGC is super effective and relatable, some brands forget to make it a top priority in their social media strategy. If you’re one of them, check out these eye-opening facts:

• When consumers can watch a mix of user-generated product videos and official brand content, engagement goes up by 28%.
• Social campaigns that include UGC see a massive 50% boost in engagement. (Salesforce)
• 70% of savvy shoppers rely on UGC reviews or ratings before pulling the trigger on a purchase. And get this, 41% of them read four to seven UGC reviews to get the real scoop on a product.

UGC content has taken off like wildfire on Facebook with various options to optimize your boosted content. You can throw together a carousel of your product pics or even run A/B tests to see which ads work best. 

To explore UGC content for your brand, try interacting with your followers, and offer some rewards for their content or reviews as returns. For some killer examples of UGC content execution, check out this article.

#8 Facebook Group Becomes New Marketing Tool

Creating a Facebook Group for your business is a great way to build a community without spending a dime, a fact proved by 74% of creators using Facebook Groups as part of their marketing strategy.

So, why are Facebook Groups more effective and popular this year? As Mark boasted that Facebook now adopts an AI algorithm as a base to help personalize users’ feeds, showing you content and news that aligns with their interests, Facebook Group recommendations now can also pop up in various areas of the interface, giving users plenty of opportunities to connect with specific groups and engage with them easily.

The beauty of Facebook Groups also lies in their ability to bring together people who share common interests. As a brand, we now have a better chance of connecting with individuals who are genuinely interested in what your brand has to offer.

Facebook Groups also provide an additional space where you can nurture relationships with your audience, fostering long-term brand loyalty. Not to mention, these groups give you valuable insights into your customer base, allowing you to fine-tune your marketing efforts for maximum impact. See some tips for Facebook Group Marketing that we recommend:

• Establishing KOLs of the group for seeding
• Garner feedback for improvements
• Sharing posts to the group to drive page traffic
• Exclusive giveaways or online competitions
• Adapt Group’s conversation to branded content

#9 Being Interactive Like Pro-developer on Facebook with Instant Experiences

In 2023, 81.8% of Facebook users prefer accessing the app through their trusty mobile phones, while only a tiny 1.5% still stick to their desktop PCs. It’s clear that people are all about convenience and mobility these days. Online consumers are craving more than just convenience, and they want their brand communication to be interactive, seamless, and visually stunning too. That’s where Facebook instant experiences swoop in like a superhero for your ads.

The instant experience is a ready-to-go user interface for your Facebook ads but with a twist with mind-blowing 15 times faster than normal landing pages. You can choose from pre-made templates like product catalogs, storytelling, or lead generation. Or, if you’re feeling adventurous, you can create your own customized instant experience that perfectly matches your advertising goals. 

The heads up here is that every click within the instant experience will count and eat into your precious ad budget. So, make sure you do your homework and run some A/B tests to figure out which objectives work best for your instant experiences.

Pro tip: another perk from Facebook instant experiences is that you can create a whole new custom audience by targeting people who opened your instant experience but didn’t click, as well as those curious souls who opened the experience and couldn’t resist clicking away. 

#10 New Pages Experience: the Sudden Makeover of Facebook Pages

You might have already heard about Facebook’s fresh page format, known as the New Pages Experience, introduced back in 2021, giving pages a whole new look, packed with cool content creation features and powerful insights behind the scenes. 

But here’s the kicker: since the start of 2023, many pages are getting a surprise makeover, transitioning from the Classic Page format to the New Pages Experience without any warning. Despite many cool features added to the New Page, this sudden change has caused single-image posts and album posts a bit messy, whereas some important features have mysteriously gone missing too. Plus, to add to the mix, the implementation of Layered Languages has been canceled for many pages, leaving brands with diverse target audiences struggling to adapt.

Now, we don’t have solid numbers on how these different types of pages are performing with Facebook audiences, but this unexpected and unprepared change means brands need to dive deep into understanding the new page layout and make some crucial adjustments. Here are a few things you’ll need to consider in your Facebook strategy:

• Revamping the layout of your album or multi-image posts
• Considering language usage in captions (for Multinational brands)
• Adapting to the new performance metrics available in the backend Meta suites

It’s not a bad option as well to transform your page into the New Experience by yourselves and get a head start before Facebook forces the change upon you. Just head over to Settings > New Page Experience, then follow the prompts: Get Started > Next > Update, and voila! 

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We’ve got a whole bunch of Facebook trends and updates; kind of like a mix of the old classics and some fresh new hits. There are the ones Facebook’s been hinting at forever, and then there are these new players on the block. All of these changes aren’t just surface-level; they’re making a real dent in how marketing goes down on this platform. 

If you’re one of those marketing champs who want to keep an eye on Facebook trends, consider adopting Mandala Cosmos. It’s all about making social media things smooth and simple like managing trends and hashtags from different platforms and seeing insights of your brands and competitors, which all lined up neatly in one dashboard. Click here to get a free trial.