Current impacts and new trends wrap in audience building

If you’re looking to dip your toe back into audience growth, now is a great time to play around with new concepts.

But be warned, the game has changed significantly!

Before you plan major campaigns and ideas, it’s always a good idea to scan the next 12 months of predicted happenings. Things like checking for advancements and changes such as platforms, in AI, trends from North America and Europe, local creative trends, and emerging software and social media platforms make a great start.

Here are some of the current impacts and new trends in audience building for you to consider

Social media legislation

The ban on under 16s using social media will have a big impact on youth brands and projects. Start connecting young consumers to newsletters now and build contingency plans. And begin researching where the under 16 set is headed for their information and connection.

Prepare for:

• Audience fragmentation
• Disruption if you don’t plan ahead of the December 2025 deadline
• Issues with socially vulnerable youth who rely on online communities

Zoomer marketing impacts

Zoomers consume online content in quick snippets compared to previous generations.  They also don’t showboat as much as our generations, and think critically about their usage and data trails.

Prepare for:

• Continued shorter, sharper content (e.g. 7 second or below videos and reels, micro-copy, chatbot enabled interactions and research surveys)
• Clear cut data management policies – and their visibility – on your platforms, newsletters, and websites that exceed the current legislated data standards
• Less talking head content, more creativity and absurdity

AI is here to stay

AI will continue to influence major apps and platforms. Even if you don’t want to use AI or use it sparingly, you will need to increase your literacy about generative AI technology.

Australia lags in our legislative approach to AI. Places like the USA, Europe, and UK are tightening their lugs while we make recipe plans. We need to be across things like the Denmark’s decision to allow people to copyright their features to protect against deepfakes , the EU AI Act, and things like ChatGPT conversations and Instagram posts showing up in Google searches.

And we need to have a proper understanding of conversations happening in Australia already related to AI ethics, environmental impact, emotional harm, and privacy impacts before we advocate for it’s usage to anyone.

Prepare for:

• Best practice in way more AI risk-averse countries becoming the future gold standard for Australia, possibly leading to bigger implementation headaches later if overseas trends are ignored
• An increased chance of backlash once issues such as ethics, environmental impact, emotional harm, and privacy issues become more prevalent
• Potential user addiction to generative AI, impacting how some individuals relate to, attach, and use AI in all facets of life

Meeting in person is cool again

In-person events are back in style, as long as you can focus on unique experiences, personalization, streamline the sign up process, and bring a little whimsy.

Anecdotally, people are securing tickets at the last minute due to weather impacts, so five- or six-week marketing cycles work well. Promotion is tough, but Facebook events with direct ad campaigns to the event listing are cheap and effective.

Sustainability and accessibility are massive drawcards (finally!). Hybrid events are an expectation over a novelty.

And smaller, boutique experiences are on trend (e.g. 12-person long table dining and learn from the chef experiences, unusual and unexpected locations, retreats, etc), with a strong focus on meet-the-maker.

Prepare for:

• Experimental marketing tests on promotion cycles and formats to get events over the line
• Mixing your online and offline experiences
• Minimising event risk through smaller, more curated, higher customer service touch experiences over large-scale events that tug on the FOMO through limited runs

Facilitation is hot right now

Instead of straight up networking or bringing people together in a room to learn from talking heads, audiences want to be a part of the action in a guided format. Whether you’re introducing people, teaching and learning, creating social justice movements, or creating opportunities for people to allay their fears, guiding people through the process and creating cultural and creative safety is the new vogue. A great example of this is Wollongong’s Dinners with a Difference.

Prepare for:

• A big focus on individual attention, rapport building, and guided connection
• Openly setting the scope or agenda ensures consistency and gets people on board, including collaboration, agreed outcomes, and running to plan
• A strong focus on physical, cultural, and psychological safety embedded into the events themselves by design

Need help with your audience building?

Stay ahead of the audience building curve with this blog. Or get in touch if you need a hand!