The Current State of Social in 2024: What Has Happened So Far? 

Tubular Labs has officially published its latest H2 2024 State of Social Report, and we have been dying to sink out teeth into it. 

Each year, Tubular releases its State of Social report, in which the company shares immensely valuable insights into the world of social media and where it is headed. This year, the report shines a light on how gaming content is growing, the ability of AI to redefine trends, the impact of the Paris Olympics/Paralympics, and more. 

To save you some time – it is quite the hefty report – we have trawled through and found the best insights you simply must know heading into 2025. 

Read on to find out the tastiest tidbits from the State of Social 2024. 

VIDEO DURATION 

The State of Social lifts a lid on the domination of short form content over the past years. As we know, short form content has run the game on social media, with users turning away from traditional television in favour of quick, snappy content on platforms such as TikTok. 

However, the report reveals that longer content is steadily regaining popularity, likely due to users’ leaving TV behind. In fact, over YouTube, shorter videos (defined as 0-30 seconds long) saw an upload increase of 10%, whereas longer video uploads (30-60 seconds) increased by 39%. 

This trend stands true for TikTok as well, which saw no increase in the uploads of shorter videos, but a 39% increase in longer. It is important to note, however, that shorter videos saw the most uploads, most engagements, and most views on TikTok in 2024. 

GAMING CONTENT AND THE STATE OF SOCIAL VIDEO 

@cozyretro

this game looks so fun and will be PERFECT to play during the fall 🍂🌻🍄‍🟫🍁 on another note, can you guys believe how many amazing games are releasing this fall?! absolute insanity, im going to go broke 🫠 #cozygames #witch #cozygame #cozy #autumn #witchy #reka #steam #pc #gaming

♬ Fall Season – Kaiokev & Schäffter

2024 was the year of gaming, with gameplay content hitting an all time high at 6 billion monthly views in June on YouTube. It is no surprise that gaming is dominating video content trends on social media this year. 

For gamers, YouTube is the place to be. Consumers are most fond of gameplay, a kind of content that shows footage sourced in-game. Viewership for gameplay content on YouTube increased from 4 billion monthly in 2022 to the aforementioned 6 billion in June of 2024; an amazing leap. 

Creators who produce gaming content are some of the biggest influencers on social media. These mega-influencers mainly hail from the United states, with India and the United Kingdom close behind. Major names in the industry on YouTube include Animal Mace, PrestonGamez, and Brandon B. The most popular games are, unsurprisingly, Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto V, and Grand Theft Auto. 

AI 

@max_tornow_business

Influencer marketing is OFFICIALLY over! An agency has created an AI model that earns up to $11,000 a month. But why would companies even want to sponsor an AI model? ✅ Well, this AI model is prettier than you. ✅ She doesn’t complain. ✅ She does whatever the company wants her to do. If you don’t know how to sell, if you don’t know how to build a business that provides REAL value to people, you’re going to be replaced. And it’s going to happen much sooner than you think.

♬ original sound – Max_tornow_business

Artificial intelligence grew leaps and bounds in 2024, changing the influencer marketing and social media industries forever. Yet, what changes were the most significant? 

AI has been a prominent topic of discussion on TikTok over the past year, with entertainment, science and technology, and people and blogs being the most predominant categories of creators speaking about AI. Entertainment based content that touches on AI saw an incredible 12.7 billion views over the year. 

AI has taken root on social media platforms such as TikTok in a myriad of surprising ways, greatly shaping the state of social. One such example is AI cats. The internet continues to prove the one topic they will never tire of is cute cats. Yunus Duygulu, an AI artist, created the profile Tales of AI Cats where he posts funny and heartfelt stories using AI images of cats. Cross-platform views for the videos reached 9 billion by August 14 2024, with more than 50% of these coming from YouTube. 

NEWS AND POLITICS 

@kamalaharris

We are not going back @Megan Thee Stallion

♬ original sound – Kamala Harris

The 2024 election season was truly chaotic to say the least, with many politicians turning to social media to gain the young vote. 

Standouts include Kamala Harris, who used her Brat persona to win over the majority of Gen-Z users on TikTok and create a new state of social. News and politics videos garnered an incredible 74.7 billion views over the course of 2024, with the sub genre of entertainment gaining 28.3 billion views. In terms of most views per video, animal and pet related news content is by far the winner with a massive 516,000 averages views per video. 

Interestingly, creators who posted entertainment news earned 1.5 more views on average per video than news and politics creators. This follows in line with the broad trend on TikTok of a love of humorous, lighthearted content. Even when it comes to news, users still desire a certain levity when consuming this content. 

MUSIC 

@sabrinacarpenter

😏

♬ Bed Chem – Sabrina Carpenter

Social media has become a key part of the music industry, with platforms such as TikTok determining which musicians top the charts. 

Over on TikTok, users love to remix songs by either slowing them down, speeding them up, or creating alt-genre mixes. For many musicians, this has become a sore point, as they do not gain streaming credit for these incredibly popular tracks. 

Sabrina Carpenter found a way around this hurdle when she released her hit single “Espresso”. Quickly after releasing the track, Carpenter also released several alternate versions of the song, including slower, fasta, acappella, and vacation versions onto TikTok. In doing so, she allowed users to pick and choose which version of the song was their favourite, without them having to do the typical work of remixing it. As a result, her fans were happy, and Carpenter kept all the streaming credit. The tactic was a resounding success, with Carpenter earning 13.1 billion views as a sound author on the platform in the first seven months of 2024 alone; almost twice the amount of views regular fan-crafted sounds earn. 

2024 PARIS OLYMPICS AND PARALYMPICS 

@simonebilesowens

attitude checkkkk💁🏾‍♀️ #usagymnastics #olympics #paris

♬ original sound – Princeton Cheer

The Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games brought in a whole new era of sports on social media. In stark contrast to the last Tokyo Olympics, social media viewership of the event skyrocketed, dominating platforms such as TikTok whilst the games occurred. 

Viewers were treated to a variety of fun, engaging, and most importantly new ways to engage with the games. For example, the NBC hired influencers to cover the event, acting as press stand ins. This fresh perspective drew in young viewers to the event. 

Peacock went one step further, collaborating with Alex Cooper of “Call Her Daddy” fame to host a watch party. Cooper hosted a live “Watch with Alex Cooper”, where viewers could tune in and watch the games in a more relaxed, less sport-heavy environment. Viewers loved the casual nature of the activation, which allowed them inside access to Cooper, and made the games far more accessible to those new to the event. 

STATE OF SOCIAL MEDIA 2024

Ultimately, 2024 has shaped up to be a mega year for the state of social media. 

From rising TikTok stats to AI influencers slowly encroaching on real-life creators, the state of social media is an ever evolving space. There may only be a few months left, but there are sure to be plenty of trends, crazy happenings, and major events before 2024 officially wraps up. 

One thing is for sure, Socially Powerful will be here to keep you up-to-date on every important happening.

Our influencer marketing agency and social agency are located worldwide, with our agency network based in the USA, UK, UAE and China.

If you want to find industry insights, visit our influencer marketing and social media blogs.

@sociallypowerful