Social media moves at an unmatched pace. The expectation of users and their online behavior is ever evolving. This changing behavior leads to changes in social media algorithms, which keep marketers searching for new ways to stand out in the overcrowded marketplace – this is where the importance of keeping up with social media trends comes into play.
In July 2022, the number of social media users was more than 4.7 billion. And the average time a user spends on social media is almost 2.5 hours. With so many users spending so much time on social media platforms, it becomes a marketing channel that businesses cannot compromise with.
To engage with more potential customers on social media, it’s essential for brands to take proactive actions and keep up with the trends. As we are getting close to the end of 2022, here are some social media trends for 2023 that’ll help you convert more potential customers.
Let’s jump right into it!
What Are the Social Media Trends for 2023?
While there is no way to gauge how social media will evolve owing to technology advancements, here are seven social media trends for 2023 that you need to follow:
1. Sentiment Analysis
As a business owner, it’s fine to be obsessed with numbers and metrics. But this doesn’t mean that you start treating your customers as data points. If you’re engaging with these customers on social media, you must ensure they feel emotionally connected.
Your content will not be quite effective if your audience cannot relate to it on an emotional level. And to connect with them on an emotional level, you first need to assess what they feel about your brand. This is where sentiment analysis comes in.
Sentiment analysis allows you to determine what your customers feel about your brand and how they perceive your products or services. It gives you the context of people’s conversations on the social space about your business.
Using a sentiment analysis tool like Radarr, you can go beyond just following any popular trend. You can identify the underlying aspects of these trends and understand how your audience engages with them. Then you can pick the trends that actually interest them.
Long story short, with social listening, you get to know what makes your customers happy or angry. And with this knowledge, you can tailor your product or services to serve them better.
Learn more about sentiment analysis in social listening here.
2. Short Form Video Content
Let’s be honest; there’s hardly anyone who doesn’t enjoy watching short-form videos. With the rise of TikTok and then Instagram coming up with the reels option, it’s pretty clear that short-form video is the future of social media platforms.
And it didn’t stop at Instagram, platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Snapchat also identified the potential of short-form videos and developed algorithms that rewarded short videos with more reach. According to a report published by the Search Engine Journal, short videos receive two times more engagement than images.
Moreover, short-form videos grab users’ attention for a more extended period ensuring that they get the whole message out of the content. A HubSpot report ranked short-form video #1 for lead generation and engagement. More than 50% of marketers believe short-form videos are more likely to go viral.
All these stats substantiate that short-form video content is the future of social media!
Additional reads:
- How to build a good video marketing strategy for your brand
- TikTok vs Instagram reels: How to choose the right platform for short videos
- Vimeo vs YouTube: Which marketing channel best suits your business
3. Ads on the Rise
For most businesses, a major share of the marketing budget is spent on social media campaigns. In a survey, half of the marketers agreed that they spend 50% of their marketing budget on social media ads. This number is expected to go higher in the year 2023.
And this investment in social media ads is wholly justified, given the opportunity to engage with an exponentially increasing user base. There has also been a substantial decline in organic reach, making ads necessary for businesses.
But your customer acquisition cost (CAC) will skyrocket if your ads are not optimized. You don’t want your ads to appear in front of users who don’t need your product. With social listening, you can construct detailed buyer personas to create better ads keeping your budget in control.
Social listening tools like Radarr allow you to gather actionable insights from your audience’s online conversions related to your business. It also analyses their interests and current industry trends in real-time, which helps make your ads more effective.
4. Engagement > Likes
As marketers, we spend a lot of time creating valuable and conversion-worthy content but get disappointed when it does not get enough views or likes. Is it worth getting influenced by the number of views/likes?
Think about it. What would you do with thousands of extra views if none of those viewers wanted to know more or take the next step? This is why the engagement your post generates is a far more critical metric than just the number of views or likes.
And not just views. You should prioritize engagement over the number of followers you have. Prioritizing social media engagement over followers means you are going for quality over quantity.
You can have quality followers, maybe fewer in number, but they’ll consistently engage with your content and will buy more from your brand. It’s better than having thousands of dispassionate followers who don’t pay attention to what you’re saying, let alone buy from you. These followers reduce the conversion rate and ROI of your content and campaigns.
Moreover, the current algorithms of almost every social media platform boost content that generates good engagement.
When you engage back with these customers, they find it easy to ask for doubts. This way, you’ll be able to use social media as a customer support channel too, where you can clear basic queries from the users.
Additional reads:
- KPIs to measure social media engagement rate
- Instagram Story ideas to boost engagement on social media
5. Rise of User-Generated Content (UGC)
User-generated content is becoming an increasingly important part of social media content marketing. The rise of UGC has completely changed the dynamics of the conversations brands used to have with their customers.
Over the past five years, the number of searches for “user-generated content” has increased by 58 percent. Moreover, the brands that use user-generated content witnessed a 20% growth in the number of visitors returning to shop.
Your audience is 81% more likely to convert when you share user-generated content.
Now, you might ask, where does this UGC content come from? It can come from anywhere — your customers, brand loyalists, or even employees. Customers who share unboxing videos or praise-filled posts are the most prominent cohort for increasing conversion.
User-generated content also takes your brand authenticity to a whole another level. Customers are very selective about the brands they interact with. And they love to interact with brands that post authentic content, and what’s more authentic than UGC from your customers?
We’ll discuss more on authenticity later in the blog.
Coming back to user-generated content, here’s how La Croix, a sparkling water company, uses it.
When you look at the social media account of La Croix, you’ll see that it’s filled with user-generated content. They repost everything from photos of young adults to fan art.
And though the content comes from people with different backgrounds and tastes, La Croix doesn’t fail to maintain a consistent brand look. On scrolling through their account, you’ll see sunny landscapes, bright colors, and smiling faces.
With Radarr, you can identify accounts that are actively talking about you or something related to you. You can then find content that goes on your social media. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be an appreciation photograph. You can share reviews, testimonials, and anything your audience finds attractive.
6. Crisis Management Becomes a Must-Have
You don’t know what kind of crisis will hit your brand at what time. It’s that unpredictable. Therefore, it is a must to have a social media crisis management strategy in 2023.
So what crisis are we talking about? Sometimes your business lands in a situation where you took an action that offended a lot of people (not just customers). It can affect your brand negatively if you don’t resolve it immediately.
For example, Sephora, a French skincare company, found itself in a crisis when SZA (a famous musician) reported an instance of racial profiling. And when something negative comes from a celebrity, it brings a lot of attention to your brand.
Here’s the tweet:
Twitter users instantly came out to her defense, and many of them reported that they faced something similar.
Sephora was quick to recognize the negative impact this tweet brought to their brand and apologized to SZA publicly. They also mentioned how seriously they took these complaints and promised to address the situation immediately.
From no angle, Sephora looks great in this situation. But because of their crisis management strategy, they were able to not only apologize quickly but also show how they care about their customer’s experience.
Additional read:
7. Brand Authenticity Is What Will Sell
How well you sell on social media is determined by your understanding of your customer’s personal motivation to use social media. Around 57% of people say that they increase their spending with a brand when they feel truly connected with them.
And how do you truly connect with the audience? There are three key elements you need to take care of — transparency, empathy, and authenticity.
90% of customers believe that authenticity is one of the most critical factors they search for in a brand to like and support them. Even marketers (more than 80%) agree that authenticity is crucial for their brand success.
Gone are the days when you could bombard people with promotional content. Anyone could do that. But staying authentic with your content while staying focused on your social and business goals is a different story altogether.
In 2023, your brand authenticity on social media will help you sell more!
8. Social Media Shopping
You’re scrolling Instagram, engaging with the photos of your friends, celebrities, and influencers. While doing so, you come across a sponsored post showcasing a gaming chair that you know is perfect for you. On these posts, there’s a view products button that takes you to the product page where you can buy it. Buying products via social media is called social shopping.
Ever since the pandemic hit us, eCommerce has been on the rise. And social media platforms have figured out a way to help customers find and buy items without having to leave the platform.
According to a report by Accenture, social media shopping is expected to grow at a 3x speed compared to traditional eCommerce in the next four years.
You can treat social media as a secondary channel to complement your website or eCommerce store. Your business can promote the products on social networks, targeting the customers who’d be really interested in the products.
If you want to sell to a younger audience, there’s no better place than social media for it. More than 35% of social media users aged 15-22 used the “buy” button.
Be it Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, you can sell on any of these platforms. And very soon, as social media shopping expands, these platforms will add new features to make it easier for users to shop. The easier it is for your audience to shop, the more sales you can get.
If you want to increase your sales, don’t underestimate social shopping in 2023!
Additional read:
Keep Up to Date With the Latest Social Media Trends in 2023
Keeping yourself up to date with the latest trends will ensure that you keep getting better results on your social media efforts.
However, you need to follow these trends strategically. Otherwise, you’ll end up overspending on social media marketing.
It’s best to first understand your audience and then jump on to follow these trends. You can use Radarr to understand your customers and determine how they feel about your business.
