Let’s face it: social media has become an essential communication tool in today’s modern world. In fact, over 4.26 billion people worldwide use these platforms to create and share information.
As an entrepreneur or coach, you can use these interactive media technologies to reach your target market. It’s one of the most cost-effective digital marketing tactics, so businesses of all industries and sizes are in on it.
The downside is that it’s a crowded space. Consumers are usually on auto-pilot mode when scrolling through their accounts, ignoring content types that don’t resonate with them. For this reason, it’s essential to learn social media trends to stand out in a sea of competition.
We’ve compiled a list of the top 10 fads for 2023. Read on to keep your strategies on trend!
1. The Rise of Customer Influencers
Using influencer marketing is not a new concept per se, but this field is an ever-adapting one. The way brands work with influencers evolves — and fast.
For example, we’ve seen the rise of macro-influencers or internet celebrities with at least 500,000 followers. The Kardashians are prime examples of people in this category. However, in 2023, digital marketing is all about micro-influencers.
Finally, brands don’t have to break the bank to promote their products and services. Instead, they can embrace the power of word-of-mouth marketing through user-generated content (UGC). The list includes reviews, testimonials, and posts about your brand.
Think about it. You can keep telling potential customers how great your company is — or you can let consumers do it for you.
This trend can be a game-changer for small and mid-sized enterprises. Apart from saving money on influencers, they can also help prospects make informed purchasing decisions with the help of their adoring fans.
2. Using Social Media Platforms for Shopping
Yahoo may not be such a hit nowadays, but it pioneered the rise of social commerce — using social media platforms to sell products and services. The multinational technology company started personalizing searches and recommendations with features like Pick Lists, user ratings, and content tagging.
Luckily, popular social platforms took some notes from Yahoo. Today, they allow users to purchase products and services directly from sellers. Think Facebook Marketplace, Instagram Shopping, and YouTube on-demand videos.
TikTok was late to the party but launched TikTok Shop in August 2021. During that year, social commerce in the country reached a whopping $37 billion. Now that TikTok is on the social commerce map, we can expect other brands to develop more innovations in this field.
In 2022, we witnessed the industry’s rapid expansion. It hasn’t shown any signs of stopping, and experts estimate it to be worth $80 billion by 2025.
3. Creating Bite-Sized Content
Videos have become a game-changer for many brands. Nowadays, people turn to videos for answers to their questions, from how-to videos to testimonial videos and everything in between.
Specialists predict that most online materials in the coming years will be video content. As 86% of businesses now use these tools, the forecast seems pretty spot on.
But while long-form videos are still the rage on other platforms, bite-sized content will continue dominating the social media scene. Here’s why: Modern consumers are not known for their patience. Since the average person’s attention span has dropped to 8.25 seconds, content creators should find ways to capture, engage, and convert audiences as quickly as possible.
Have you added Facebook and Instagram Stories, YouTube Shorts, or TikTok videos to your marketing plan for 2023 yet? If you haven’t, now would be a great time to do it.
However, remember that joining the bite-sized content trend doesn’t mean creating mediocre videos. On the contrary, it’s now more crucial than ever to cut through the noise and develop top-notch materials for your target audience.
4. Social Platforms for Customer Service Purposes
Ultimately, the goal of customer service is to keep clients satisfied. In the past, most of the tasks involved occasional phone calls to unhappy patrons. However, in the modern world, customer service has become more complex.
The pandemic solidified the need for multichannel marketing or being available to the public across various platforms 24/7/365. Whether users want to contact you via mobile, email, or a toll-free number, they should get a response quickly.
And since over four billion people worldwide now use social media, using such channels for customer service should be a no-brainer. If consumers ask questions or post complaints, they expect you to acknowledge their concerns.
A jaw-dropping 76% of consumers expect a response within 24 hours, so you can use auto-replies for easy questions. Afterward, it’s still best to have a representative address any issues left unanswered.
5. Using Keywords for Social Posts
Nowadays, search engine Giant Google processes over 8.5 billion searches daily — or roughly 99,000 per second. However, social platforms are giving it a run for its money.
TechCrunch first reported an alarming figure from Google: Almost 40% of Gen Z users prefer using TikTok and Instagram for internet searches.
So, what does this mean for marketers? Now that more and more people use social platforms to look for answers to their queries, using keywords has become a must for all brands.
It’s not enough to write witty captions anymore. If you want to expand your reach, you should integrate valuable keywords into your posts and content. You can use tools like Google Trends, Semrush, or Ahrefs to help you with your research.
6. Developing a Crisis Management Plan
Once in a while, brands will have to deal with business emergencies. For example, storms may impact your operations, or hackers might breach some of your online defenses. When these scenarios happen, you can turn to your social media sites to deploy your crisis management plan.
Proper crisis management boosts an organization’s ability to identify and respond to threats. Whether you’re dealing with a product recall or gossip from a disgruntled ex-employee, you can use your social platforms to quickly address such issues.
Saying nothing may seem like a good idea, but keeping mum about these situations will only make things worse. Remember Balenciaga’s disturbing ad campaign featuring children holding bears clad in bondage wear? Everything the brand did afterward just seemed too little, too late.
Sure, Balenciaga pulled the ads and apologized for the offensive content. However, the team also decided to wipe out the brand’s Instagram page and put the blame on an outsourced production company for the ads.
Unfortunately, the bare minimum is not enough for such a disaster. The team could have handled the fiasco better and put its social sites to good use.
7. Practicing Social Listening
Have you heard of social listening? It’s the process of monitoring various social media platforms for mentions of your business, competitors, and related keywords.
There’s no doubt that this tool will gain more popularity in 2023. After all, there’s no better information source than going straight to your audience. If you haven’t started your social listening efforts yet, doing it at least once per quarter should be a good start.
With social listening, you gain valuable insight into consumers’ thoughts and feelings toward your brand, helping you make informed decisions in the future. It’s a cost-effective way to understand your market’s needs, tweak your products and services, and build a community of loyal followers.
If you’ve heard of Netflix Socks, you’ve come across one of the greatest inventions born out of social listening. The popular streaming company has one core strength: It knows its audiences inside out.
Thanks to social listening, Netflix discovered that many of their binge-watching subscribers end up falling asleep. Some businesses would shrug that kind of data off, but not Netflix! The brand saw it as an opportunity to develop smart socks that can detect when a user dozes off, prompting the user’s TV to pause the show.
Now, it’s that an inspiring example of social listening?
8. More Ad Options
When it comes to social media ads, there are no one-size-fits-all solutions for all brands. For this reason, you should find campaigns that work for you.
Many marketers still avoid paid campaigns like the plague, but these tools offer distinct advantages other strategies cannot. For instance, you can enjoy instant results, granular control of your budget, and valuable analytics. Even with a limited budget, you can target quality audiences who are more likely to become customers.
Plus, there are now so many ad options available for marketers. You can produce video, carousel, or story ads, depending on your needs. Plus, you don’t have to stick to massive platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Depending on your desired audience, you can also place ads with smaller players like Pinterest and Snapchat.
With these alternatives, companies can run campaigns that meet their goals, budgets, and brand guides.
9. Social Audio Growth
Using audio for marketing is nothing new, but it’s a relatively young field for social media. Some of you might be practicing audio marketing already through platforms like Amazon Music, Deezer, or Podcast ad networks.
In the social media setting, one name that made an impact is Clubhouse. Launched in 2020, this app enabled users to communicate with groups of people through audio chat. The invite-only setup proved challenging for some businesses, but the brand inspired the emergence of a social media segment called social audio.
Today, consumers can enjoy more audio features from add-ons like Soundbites, podcasts, and Rooms on Facebook. Users can log in to enjoy broadcasting, voice messaging, and audio meeting services.
However, the downside of creating audio-only content is its price. It’s not as cost-effective as other strategies. If you run your numbers and discover it won’t be a profitable investment, we suggest going another path for 2023.
Don’t worry; creating audio content may become more affordable when it goes mainstream.
10. The Gaining Popularity of LinkedIn Creators
LinkedIn has been around since 2002 — almost a year ahead of Facebook. So, what’s it doing in this list of social media trends for 2023? The answer lies in one essential digital marketing success factor: engagement.
Remember, this platform boasts an impressive 875 million users from over 200 countries. This number may seem small compared to Facebook’s almost three billion-strong community, but LinkedIn is the largest online professional network in the world.
If LinkedIn is relevant to your target market, it may be time to work with creators from this platform. Nowadays, they use this platform to stand out from the competition and seal their status as experts in their fields.
Entrepreneurs who want to connect with professionals, such as B2B company owners and business coaches, can use this platform to create valuable content for their clientele.
Elevate Your Social Media Efforts
With over four billion active users worldwide, it’s safe to say that social media runs the digital world. Consumers spend an average of 2.5 hours on these platforms daily, making them essential to your success as an entrepreneur or coach.
Remember, the marketing plan that worked for you in 2022 might not be as effective now. Social media trends come and go, and you should always be in the loop to keep connecting with quality audiences.
If you’re not sure how to achieve your goals in the most cost-effective way possible, having experts on your side won’t hurt. Let our specialists at Unlimited VA help you with your social campaigns for 2023. We have the talent, skills, and technologies to take your strategies to new heights.