Trends You Must Know Before Creating Your Social Media Strategy For 2023

Social media trends are influenced by a wide range of factors like technology, user behavior, influencers and celebrities, cultural and societal factors and of course social media algorithms. And staying up-to-date on these trends is an important part of building a successful social media strategy.

What is a Social Media Strategy?

A social media strategy can be defined as a plan that outlines how you will use social media to achieve your objectives. These can include objectives like brand awareness, website traffic, lead generation, lead conversion or building a loyal community. The most common elements of a social media strategy are goals, target audience, content strategy, budget, and performance metrics.

Talking about the content strategy in particular, it highlights what to post, when to post, and how to engage with the followers. That’s where the role of keeping abreast with the latest social media trends comes in.

Top Social Media Trends 2023:

The future of social media is constantly evolving, but there are a few trends that are likely to continue shaping the industry in the coming years:

1. Short-form Video Content:

While listing the predictions for social media, the trend that always tops the list is video marketing. On average, humans have an attention span of 8.25 seconds. ⁽¹⁾ Yes, you read it right! Precisely why, in 2023, the short-form video format is predicted to experience the most significant growth among all trends, and it is expected to generate the highest ROI.

High-quality visuals, sound, and overall production value are the bare minimum requirements of this particular trend, followed by mobile optimization. By mobile optimisation, we mean using vertical formats and ensuring that subtitles are decipherable on smaller screens.

In 2023, your viewers would expect content that is real, with relatable characters and storylines. Further, having quizzes, polls, and interactive hotspots, can help keep your viewers engaged and increase the time they spend watching your video.

2. Diverse Content

By diverse content, we mean two things. First, creating content that reflects diverse perspectives and voices to build trust with viewers. Next, using different types of content, such as images, videos, stories, and live streams to keep your audience engaged in your brand.

Let’s talk about the first aspect! With diversity at forefront, you can create an inclusive brand image! You must feature people from different cultures, religions, and backgrounds and use gender-neutral language.

Additionally, you can share articles, videos, and other content that represent diverse perspectives and post pictures of your organization celebrating diverse cultures.

Coming to the second part! Though we agree video content is ruling the majority of the platforms, your content strategy should have different content types. This will help you cater to different learning styles and preferences and ensure that your content is accessible to a wider range of people.

3. Viral Marketing

Do you remember the 2014 Ice Bucket Challenge? The one where people were dumping a bucket of ice water over their heads? Ever wondered what did it lead to? Well, it helped the ALS Association raise over $115 million.

Viral Marketing is a marketing technique that uses pre-existing social networks to create brand/ campaign awareness. This happens when individuals share a particular content with others through word-of-mouth, social media, or other online platforms and create a viral effect. Some common types include social media challenges, memes, GIFs and videos that are funny, surprising, or emotional.

Here’s what to do! Understand your target audience and come up with a creative, unique idea that resonates with them. You can also use paid promotion or partner with social media influencers who have a large following.

4. Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality

AR involves adding digital elements to the real world, while VR creates a fully immersive digital environment. But how do they work in the context of social media? All those Snapchat and Instagram filters with funky shades, beautiful tiaras and funny ears are nothing but AR!

On the other hand, VR on social media allows users to create customized avatars that can interact with others and participate in group activities and even collaborate on work-related projects. In fact, a few months ago, Facebook’s VR division introduced Horizon Workrooms, a VR application that enables users to collaborate and hold meetings using personalized avatars. Another example of VR is 360-degree videos on Facebook and YouTube.

But what has AR/ VR got to do with your brand promotion? You can begin by creating filters and lenses for your brand. If you are a cosmetic or spectacles brand, these filters can even let users try on your different products before making a purchase. You can leverage 360-degree live streaming for your corporate event and even design AR scavenger hunts. Sounds cool, right?

5. Engaged Community

Building and maintaining a community is one of the most underrated social media marketing trends. But we highly vouch for it! A social media community is a group of people who connect and engage with each other on social media platforms based on shared interests, goals, or experiences. It can help you create brand awareness, engagement, and loyalty.

Here are some steps a business can take to build and maintain a community on social media:

• Define your target audience and understand their interests, values, and pain points
• Choose the platforms that your target audience is most active on
• Create content that is relevant, valuable, and engaging and of course diverse
• Respond to questions, comments, messages, and mentions
• Encourage your community to share their opinions, reviews, testimonials, and other helpful information
• Monitor the mentions of your brand and related keywords
• Host events, webinars, live streams, and contests for them
• Use social media analytics tools to measure your success

6. Creator Marketing

Creator marketing is one of the most important emerging social media trends in the current times and its popularity is only expected to grow. As the name suggests, creator marketing is a type of marketing that focuses on partnering with content creators to reach new audiences and build brand awareness. These could be YouTubers, vloggers, bloggers, and podcasters who have built a loyal following by consistently producing high-quality content.

Look for creators who have a similar audience as your target audience and whose content aligns with your brand values and messaging. When you reach out to the creator, make sure both of you have a clear understanding of what is expected from each party. This includes the type of content, the timeline, the compensation, and any other details.

7. Social Commerce

Social commerce is a growing trend that allows brands to leverage the power of social media to sell products or services to customers. It involves integrating social media platforms with your online store.

This can include adding “buy” buttons to social media posts or creating shoppable posts that allow your customers to purchase products directly from social media.

To make the most of it, encourage more user-generated content on your profile, such as product reviews, ratings, and photos to build brand credibility.

You can also partner with influencers for this purpose. Further, you can show personalized product recommendations or offer discounts and promotions based on a customer’s past purchases.

8. Social Customer Service

In simple terms, it is about offering customer service on social media platforms. It involves responding to customer inquiries, comments, and complaints on social media in a timely and helpful manner.

Since social media is a public platform, your (transparent) responses can help you build trust and credibility. The best part about social customer service is that you can use a friendly and personalized tone when communicating with customers.

The only way you can use social media for customer service is by regularly monitoring your company’s social media accounts and relevant hashtags and mentions. Else you may miss out on an inquiry, comment, message, or complaint!

Conclusion:

They say, no digital marketing plan is complete without social media marketing. And now that we have done the social media trends analysis, it’s safe to say that no social media strategy is complete without trends. With the help of the latest social media trends, you can hit multiple birds with one stone. You can meet customer expectations better, stay ahead of the competition, increase engagement and improve your overall marketing strategy.

Remember, a social media strategy should be flexible enough to meet the changing dynamics of social media platforms, audience preferences, and industry trends.

Channel Technologies, being a leading digital marketing agency in India, can not only help you create an effective social media strategy but leverage all the digital channels to engage with your audience, build brand awareness, and drive business results.

FAQs:

How will social media marketing change in 2023?

• Increased use of augmented and virtual reality
• More focus on privacy and data protection
• The continued growth of video content
• Greater emphasis on personalization
• More Influencer marketing
• Increased focus on social responsibility

How can businesses prepare for the future of social media?

• Stay up-to-date on social media trends
• Focus on increasing engagement
• Be authentic and transparent
• Leverage social media for customer service
• Focus on mobile-first strategies

What role will user-generated content play in social media in 2023?

• It will be a parameter of authenticity
• It will be used as a means of advertising
• Influencers will have a huge role in creating user-generated content
• Video UGC will gain more (popularity reviews, testimonials, product demos)

What impact will new technologies have on social media trends in 2023?

• More social media platforms will integrate AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) technologies
• AI will help with better targeting and personalization
• Social media may also incorporate voice assistant technologies in the near future
• More social media platforms may begin exploring the use of blockchain for data privacy, content ownership, and digital identity

What will be the biggest challenges for social media marketers in 2023?

• With the increasing amount of content being produced on social media, businesses may need to invest more in paid advertising
• Brands may need to be more transparent in their data collection and usage practices
• Social media platforms are constantly updating their algorithms making it difficult for marketers to continuously adjust their strategy
• Competition for audience attention is increasing with every passing day
• Audiences may become fatigued with ads and become less responsive