Watch these grow in 2023 and ride the wave
The way both individuals and businesses use social media is constantly in flux. With another year comes new trends to watch for and react to. Consumer and business behavior are both exposed to changing technology and market preferences. Here, we’ll be having a look at 9 trends that we predict to be hugely influential in the way businesses operate in 2023.
Take in mind some of these trends to help your business make it on the social web. A business must stay on its toes with the latest activities of their competitors. Otherwise it’s open to the threat of being left behind and unnoticed by consumers.
9 trends in social media and the net to watch for:
Diving into the metaverse
These past two years, we’ve seen a lot of waves in “the metaverse”. There was, of course, the Facebook mother company’s rebranding to Meta and creating “the metaverse”, and then its subsequent stock plunge.
But there’s also been a lot of companies buying into the notion. While companies like Microsoft, Epic Games, and Binance all found their footholds into the metaverse, other companies have had a broader reach, like Adidas and Nike making virtual gear to be used in various metaverses. NVIDIA in the meantime has the Omniverse, its own “evolutionary new platform for virtual collaboration and stimulation.”
As Meta’s metaverse and its analogues become more relevant to the larger (and smaller) corporations, it will de facto become more relevant in our own lives. Since Facebook’s Meta is in the lead, expect even further social media integration in the time to come, especially since Zuckerberg is not likely to back off. Other, newer social media, like Uhive, are entirely based off the metaverse concept. It’s only a matter of time before others follow.
Changing of the Social Media Guard
A couple of years ago the social media landscape seemed to be set in stone. Give or take a few scandals, and now everything is in flux. The giants are creaking their knees while newcomers like Mastodon or the previously mentioned Uhive are rising up.
That doesn’t mean the titans are out of the picture though. TikTok has past Snapchap in quarterly installs, making it the most downloaded app of last year, while Facebook is still the world’s third most downloaded app. It’s estimated that 70% of all American adults use Facebook every day, while the same percentage of all users view local business pages at least once per week. Instagram and YouTube have both had clear growth (a push from Shorts for the latter), claiming the spots of 2nd and 4th most downloaded social media apps at start of 2023.
The entry of TikTok already made it a necessity for businesses to broaden their net, but as we see even more social media come onto the scene, it might behoove some to target which ones cater to their largest market segments. Some niches will naturally be attracted to certain social media, like the cooking niche is concentrated in Pinterest, for example. If you can cast your net to cover all the big ones, that’s great, but if not, study your niches, see where their community hangs out the most, and focus your efforts there.
More short form
Companies that haven’t started an honest foray into short form media like Stories and Shorts to advertise their wares aren’t too late. But by the end of 2023, it will probably be, so get moving. By the start of 2022, 500 million people were using IG Stories, while 300 million were using FB Stories, while YouTube Shorts receives 15 billion views daily. That’s a lot of traffic to be missing out on.
Brands in 2023 need to start integrating shorts into their advertising campaigns, or they risk becoming completely irrelevant as less people watch long form media. Placements are especially important, but organic posts need to be prioritized as an important funnel back to the main pages.
More Edutainment
Edutainment is educational entertainment. People don’t just want new gadgets and apps, they want to know how it’s going to improve their productivity. The best example that comes to mind for me is Cableguys, who use Shorts/Stories and Reels for this very purpose. They post 30 second tips on how to use their products to do one trick or another—or they just simply share a tip about sound design, without even mentioning their product.
Provide edutainment, and you’ll see that your audience will grow beyond your core. Maybe not that many people will actually buy your product, but by adding value to your shorts—even if that value is about using your product—it will increase the likelihood your stuff will get shared.
The awakening of AI
The presence of Artificial Intelligence is starting to shine through everywhere, especially with the advent of graphics AIs like MidJourney and Dall-E-2, along with writing tools like ChatGPT. It’s been stealing the scene by the way it can write posts and create pictures (quite controversially too, as it’s been accused literally of stealing art and text). AI also has been at work behind the scenes in social media. Facebook and Instagram (Meta) have been utilizing their MultiRay AI, which helps their other AIs and human teams do a variety of things, from patrolling for harassment, personalizing your feed, and so on. TikTok uses it on their For You page, setting up the feed based on learned preferences, and helps the user edit videos. So feel good that when scrolling those feeds, there’s an artificial intelligence catering personally to your needs!
Though there’s still some vagaries on the ethics and legalities of using AI output, it’s still great to use it as a prompt or starting off point. And this is where businesses can excel. Workers can utilize them to help them with their choice of words or phrases, find new subjects to write about (ChatGPT is great for this), or take various creative directions that weren’t thought of before. Just as it’s mining us for inspiration, we can mine it.
Being even more authentic
Brands need to be able to show their human sides, need to be transparent in their actions and connections, and their leadership need to be able to speak up. According to Sprout Social, 86% of Americans believe transparency is more important than ever and 9 in 10 are likely to give a second chance even after a bad experience. People also want CEOs to be more vocal. 1/3 of consumers said they would purchase more from brands whose CEOs are open and communicative. Leadership means a lot to people.
Social media should be used in crisis control – admit an issue before anyone else reports it. The CEO also needs their own social media outlets that are closely connected to the brand’s, so that they can release their own thoughts and ideas. People want to really know their brands and who they’re supporting with their money and custom, not just a false, polished front.
Go niche, hyper-niche
It’s okay to not appeal to everyone. And really, when you appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one. In 2022, niche marketing was making huge waves, with lower competition it meant larger returns. This might not seem like common sense, but when people are appealing more personally to their consumer group, they’re more likely to get that group to try their product/service and to capture their loyalty. Fast growing niches in 2023 were conscious consumers, health and wellness, pet owners, travelers, gamers, and more.
Figure out your niche and go all the way with it. Figure out the right hashtags for the right communities. When you’re defining your “target market”, don’t define a Plain Jane, but rather someone more typical of the community that would buy your product. What are their everyday interests, needs, and preferences?
With the marketing integration offered by Facebook and other social media apps, we’re able to almost completely define that market. You can save a lot of money using those tools by not advertising to the people who wouldn’t be interested.
Social media for shopping
Offering products for sales on social media was a trend that started back in 2022 that met with exponential growth in 2023: There was nearly $1.298 billion dollars in global sales. People have begun to shift away from traditional retailers and accept social media as an appropriate marketplace. In 2023, we’ll likely see that number continue to grow as more businesses learn how to utilize purchase options on social media platforms.
This year, figure out how you can sell your product, service, or app that’s included on a social media app exchange. Anything that will make it easier for your potential customer to buy something means they’ll more likely buy it. And if your competitors have already made it easier, that means those potential customers will be flipped by someone else.
Cookies go crunch
A few years ago, the European Union put some strong regulations on sites using cookies. That means that people have to go through three or four menus every time they look at a new webpage. It’s taxing for the common surfer. Even the United States has implemented a set of privacy controls that people have to comply with.
Most people are opting out of cookies. Though in reality it’s a huge boon to personalization and security, if used by a trustworthy agent. When designing a site, however, you need to assume that the user has opted out of the trackers, and design the experience accordingly. This naturally makes your job harder, but it is what it is. Once you’ve optimized your site to work perfectly without cookies, you might begin to ask why bother having them in the first place? Many retailers were already asking this question in 2022, and this question will only continue to rise in 2023.
Summing it all up
There are many trends in social media and the net that started in 2022 and we’ll see continue to go up in 2023, along with some new ones—we’ll definitely see new forms of edutainment and uses for AI and the metaverse. The biggest trend that brands need to adapt to, I would say, is short form video content, as a lot of these can be addressed through mastering that medium. Market adoption to the metaverse might not be necessary this year. But it’s good to have a strategy that is gearing in that direction, to be ready to take off big time in the near future whether we like it or not.
