The Latest Social Media Trends

This week social media management platform Hootsuite released its 2023 Social Trends report that addresses the future of Social Marketing Trends.

I have pulled together some of the key takeaways I believe are important for business owners to be aware of so you can have some confidence around where to put your social marketing efforts in 2023.

Social Marketing Trends 

1. Small businesses to cozy up to Creators

What has been seen largely as a marketing tactic for big brands is looking more and more available and affordable to small business.  With less Big Business spending with social creators, there is an opportunity for small business to work with Creators on campaigns at potentially lower rates.  Think brand collaborations.

Here’s one example with Instagram Influencer Brooke Iseppi where she is working in collaboration with Jack and Jill Kids to promote their products:

#paidcollaboration 

2. Budgets on the line as bosses demand social receipts

After literally years of having to prove itself as a justifiable marketing channel, the research is now showing that Social Media is delivering an acceptable ROI (although still only allocated around 10% of the marketing budget).   In fact, the Hootsuite report shows a 15% increase in marketers level of confidence in the return on investment of social media. However, the report does acknowledge that without robust metrics and really knowing your numbers, you could be unclear on what additional value it is adding to your business and how it helps to deliver on your business goals.  

#metricsmatters

3. Social innovators crack the cross-posting code

In short, marketers stop chasing new features and start getting more strategic instead.  Research is showing that users (and marketers) are sick of the social platforms copying each others features in the hope to attract and keep more users.  Instead, Marketers are not chasing trends and instead being more strategic in channel & content selection, and users are using the different platforms for different purposes.  

Hootsuite provides the following examples:

"More than 84% of TikTok users are also on Facebook and almost 88% of Twitter users are also on Instagram. People don’t only get different types of value from different networks, they explicitly use different social networks for different purposes. On Facebook, they might catch up with a friend overseas. On Twitter, they might skim over the day’s breaking news. And on TikTok, they might look for a laugh while searching for the latest viral trends."

#strategicmarketing 

4. Social Commerce hits the trust gap

Networks pull back on social commerce plans as consumers haven’t shown much interest in the technology. The #1 reason - trust.  Consumers have a lack of trust in both social networks and vendors.

I think this will be a key area to watch over the coming years as there has been some enormous success with the likes of Instagram shopping for e-comm businesses.  Will the social networks be able to build the trust to be able to sway the consumer to use this advances in e-commerce/social shopping?

#watchthisspace

5. All eyes turn to social search

Social search optimisation emerges as a make-or-break skill for marketers.  Look out Google, you may finally have some real competition!  

Younger generations, in particular, are going to platforms like TikTok and Instagram to search for things like dinner, where to buy that sweater and travel Inspo.  40% of 18- to 24-year-olds are now using social media as their primary search engine, according to an internal study by Google. 

#socialsearch

6. The great reopening blows a hole in digital service

A rapid return to in-person shopping makes businesses lose focus on digital customer service, and the overall quality of customer satisfaction has dropped to its lowest level in 17 years!

It’s a hard pill to swallow as many businesses are still rebuilding after the pandemic. Team recruitment and supply chain issues contributing as challenges to rebuilding a great business and these are obviously impacting on the ability to deliver customer service to expectations. 

In 2023, businesses of all sizes will have to strike a better balance between online and offline customer experience to keep customers satisfied.    And perhaps a great time to review your customer journey, identify what could be done better and if you can apply automation to steps of the journey that will ensure consistency and efficiencies.

#customerexperience 

Use these insights and trend forecasts to create a robust and strategic social media plan. If you need help with your plan, get in touch today!

You can view the full Hootsuite report here.