September Social Media Trends Recap & October Predictions
Howdy, homies! 🤠👋 It’s that time again — we’re back with your monthly social media trends recap!
Let’s dive right into what was hot in September and what we predict will take over in October.
SOCIAL MEDIA TREND #1: HOLIDAY PROMOTIONS
Q4 holiday prep was on defrost all 👏 September 👏 long. 👏 As more and more consumers begin their holiday shopping earlier in the year, it has become crucial for brands to get ahead of the marketing overwhelm that inevitably comes around every Q4. Let’s face it — who isn’t holding some kind of sale or promotion during the holiday season? To truly stand out, it's all about getting creative, connecting with your audience early, and ensuring your holiday strategy is on point before the rush hits.
This is exactly why we’ve seen people teasing Q4 content earlier in the year. This year, we even saw brands launching their holiday gifting sets in late August! This month, we saw Sephora teaming up with Laneige to begin promoting their holiday-themed products in early September and Summer Fridays launched their limited edition Hot Cocoa flavored Lip Balm — talk about prepared and strategic! 💁♀️
SOCIAL MEDIA TREND #2: THE RISE OF BROADCAST CHANNELS
Next on our trending radar is a new way to enrich your social media community and interact with your most loyal followers. Broadcast Channels were introduced in the Spring of 2023 and have slowly but surely taken off.
Earlier this September, Instagram gave creators the option to open their broadcast channels to replies, unlocking a new level to relationship-building in community management. By nature, broadcast channels typically attract your brand’s biggest fans, who will likely promote your brand for free and will support your latest drops. Allowing them to interact with their favorite brands in a more intimate way strengthens this connection, making them even more likely to spread the word about your brand!
Since this update, we’ve seen dozens of brands leverage broadcast channels in their strategy. Not only does it reward a brand's most loyal followers, but it also entices other followers to join for exclusive access to discounts, teasers, and more! This is a great feature to keep in mind for Q4 promotions and teasers.
Stitch Fix has been absolutely killing it with their broadcast channel, growing it to 1.2K members and counting. They’ve used it as a new way to interact with their audience by using polls, and question boxes, and giving them the inside scoop into their upcoming promotions through BTS content. Good Girl Snacks has also been leveraging its broadcast channels to invite its most loyal audience members to events and share drops early.
SOCIAL MEDIA TREND #3: EARLY LAUNCH TEASERS
We LOVE when our favorite brands drop a new product and we can go back to their content and pick out clues they’ve been dropping. Recently, brands have been taking this up a notch by making their hints more obvious and teasing weeks — sometimes months — in advance! This is a genius strategy because it circles back to building loyalty in your audience. Your followers will feel more connected to the product when they see the process all the way through, and therefore, are more invested in it. They’ll want to share content related to it, pick apart the clues, and (of course) purchase the product once it’s officially launched.
This month, Sol de Janeiro dropped a highly-requested body cream (hello, social listening!). While they’ve long teased the possibility of launching a body cream with their iconic Cheirosa 71 scent, they finally announced on September 17 that it would be released. A week prior, they dropped a not-so-subtle hint, prompting their audience to stay tuned for an upcoming release. A month before, Sol de Janeiro posted a promotion for their Cheirosa 71 body spray, and their audience flooded the comments with requests for a body cream version. Knowing it would be dropping soon, they replied to their followers with hints that it would be coming soon — fast forward to its official release and the drop was a major success!
OCTOBER PREDICTIONS
Your October forecast just dropped! 🚨 This month, we can expect to see brands leveraging the new Reels features in content, the continuation of Q4 promotions, and more brands utilizing in-platform shopping features on social media.
The rest of our 2024 social media trend predictions can be found here. 💗Need help planning for Q4? Our Q4 Planning Guide has you covered with templates, tips, and the cure for your “I Work In Marketing” Q4 holiday headache. For more digital marketing tips (+ a monthly content calendar), be sure to follow us on Instagram and subscribe to our digital marketing newsletter.
xx,
The Homies
