Social Media Trends 2023 - [63 Key Insights and Stats]

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Social Media Trends 2023 - [63 Key Insights and Stats]:

Future-proof your social media strategy. Tap on your biggest priorities for the NEXT YEAR 2023 with these key insights and clear actions that you can start taking now and stay ahead of the social media business game. It's time to uncover these latest social media trends.

Find social strategies and opportunities so you can exceed new expectations for social ROI. Dive deeper into customer service pain points on social, and how to fix them. Identify customer doubts when shopping on social so you can start building trust.

The key insights and statistics that I personally believe are significant to you are shared here after reading the entire survey-based research report; if you feel the need to do so, you may view the report at the conclusion of this blog post.

About the Hootsuite Survey:

10,643 respondents, 109 countries / 11+ industries.

32% director and above. 56% managers and practitioners.

Research Methods:

Hootsuite conducted a survey in July 2022. It also conducted primary interviews with dozens of social marketing practitioners, leaders, observers, and partners.

[Latest Social Media Trends]

Here are the 63 Key Insights and Stats from Social Media Trends 2023:

A. The Future of Social Marketing: Social Media Trends 2023

Marketing Trend 1:

Small businesses cozy up to creators. Big brands stop competing for creators, leaving the door wide open for small businesses.

1. Creators can help small businesses with their most acute marketing challenges.

Twenty-eight percent [28%] of small business owners expect revenues to decrease over the next year, according to the CNBC Small Business Confidence Index.

2. For small businesses, 2023 promises to be a year of dwindling resources, shrinking headcounts, and leaner budgets that will make their toughest marketing challenges, well, even tougher.

To ease the pressure, small business owners will begin leaning on the very creators being abandoned by larger businesses.

3. 72% of small businesses (those with less than 100 employees) don’t work with creators in any capacity, while nearly 42% of businesses with over 1,000 employees do work with creators.

4. Most organizations don’t go through agencies to find creators. Less than a third (28%) of brands that work with creators do so through agencies or third-party platforms, according to our survey.

For small business owners, this means less overhead and much more control over who you choose to hire and negotiate with.

5. Most creators are paid less than $100 US per post.

Recommendations from this Marketing Trend 1:

6. Once you have an initial set of creators in mind, add them to a stream to track what they share and who they engage with. This will help you understand their relevance to your audience and identify other potential influencers to work with.

7. Go for strategic focus, not reach. Don’t shy away from creators with fewer followers. Large follower sizes don’t necessarily lead to higher conversions.

What’s more important is finding a creator who can collaborate with you to make inspiring content relevant to your product or service.

8. Assign each creator their own unique links with UTM codes and you’ll be able to track the visitors they send to your website, allowing you to calculate their impact on your bottom line.

Marketing Trend 2:

Budgets on the line as bosses demand social receipts. Growing investment in social exposes it to new levels of scrutiny.

9. Confidence in the ROI of social media marketing is at an all-time high. A whopping 96% of marketers reported some level of confidence.

Last year, 83% of marketers in our social media trends survey reported having some level of confidence in the return on investment (ROI) of social media, up from 68% the year before.

10. Spend on social media relative to pre-pandemic levels is going up too—and it’s predicted to increase steadily over the next five years.

11. It should come as no surprise that almost every social media marketing practitioner we surveyed says social media marketing has value.

12. When it comes to social media, seniority has a major impact on how individuals perceive and demonstrate the value of social.

13. Practitioners were 17% more likely than the C-suite to say their organization uses impressions/views to demonstrate ROI.

14. VPs were 7% more likely than practitioners to say they used time spent on their brand’s website/app to demonstrate ROI.

15. C-level executives were 13% more likely than practitioners to say they used sales/ revenue to demonstrate ROI.

16. In 2023, marketing practitioners and leadership have to have a deeper conversation about goals to make sure everyone’s on the same page.

“As a social media professional, you need to get yourself to a place where you’ve educated yourself around attribution and that you look at the numbers really, really critically to build up a case that you feel confident in—one that you can stand up for 30 minutes in front of the CEO and justify it to them. If you can’t do that, I’d say you’ve got a problem” - Chris Thomas, Global Social Intelligence and Optimization, Lead Sage.

Recommendations from this Marketing Trend 2:

17. Track metrics that align with your business objectives. Start with a focus on the few metrics that help you tell the right story and build your business case.

18. Create an ROI report that shows the true impact of social. It’s also the only way to demonstrate the value of your social marketing efforts to your team and your boss.

19. Remember the big picture. Don’t chase short-term ROI to the point that you lose sight of what makes your brand valuable and unique.

Jumping on a trend just to get likes and comments doesn’t provide value if it annoys your audience or muddies your brand voice. It can even damage your brand in the long term.

20. Don’t forget that the big picture of social media ROI includes returns beyond the marketing department.

You can use social media to improve customer service and strengthen employee relationships—both worthwhile and valuable achievements that you should include when you consider ROI.

Marketing Trend 3:

Social innovators crack the cross-posting code. Marketers stop chasing new features and start getting more strategic instead.

21. 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.

22. It’s no surprise that 52% of respondents to our survey said they cross-post content to multiple social platforms with as few changes as possible. Just 18% of marketers create different posts from scratch for each platform.

Recommendations from this Marketing Trend 3:

23. Conduct a social media audit If you’re already using social media, take stock of your efforts so far.

Ask yourself the following questions: What’s working, and what’s not? Which networks does your target audience use? How does your social media presence compare to the competition? Once you collect that information, you’re ready to brainstorm ways to improve.

24. Make your content fit for each platform. By making your content fit for each platform, you can provide experiences that are in line with your audience’s reasons for being there—and that’s a much stronger insight to base your strategy on than demographics alone.

25. Search for inspiration All of the social networks feature success stories that highlight how brands use their tools effectively. You can usually find these on the business section of the social network’s website.

These case studies offer valuable insights you can apply to your own goals for each social network.

[Emerging Social Media Trends]

B. The Future of Social Commerce: Social Media Trends 2023

Social Commerce Trend 1:

Social commerce hits the trust gap. An emerging barrier to social commerce becomes a competitive advantage for marketers who break through it.

26. Networks pull back on social commerce plans. With almost every major network pulling back its social commerce plans, the promising future of social shopping feels farther off than anticipated.

27. Consumers say the biggest barrier to purchasing through social is trust. What’s behind the tepid adoption of social commerce? A lack of trust in both social networks and vendors.

28. The top two concerns for social buyers stem from a lack of trust in vendors, according to an Accenture survey of over 10,000 consumers.

Their biggest concern is that their purchases won’t be protected or refunded.

They’re also worried about the quality and authenticity of products and sellers on social media.

And the third most common concern stems from trust in the social networks themselves; people say they don’t want to share their financial information with the networks.

29. Of the marketers we surveyed, 37% said that concern entering payment information on social platforms was the biggest issue for social buyers—in line with the results of Accenture’s consumer survey.

30. 48% of consumers told Accenture that vendor reputation and product quality was their main concern when shopping on social.

31. To overcome the trust gap and turn skeptical shoppers into buyers, marketers will have to work on the basics: offer easy returns and refunds, display ratings and reviews from other buyers, and keep buyers notified about the status of their purchases throughout the customer journey.

32. The average US social buyer will spend $518 via this channel in 2022, up 27% from last year, according to Insider Intelligence. Annual spend will increase by $419 per buyer over the next three years, reaching $937 in 2025.

33. Social commerce sales growth is also expected to remain above pre-pandemic levels through to 2024.

Recommendations from this Social Commerce Trend 1:

34. Start with the basics. Double down on doing the simple things well across your social stores, like reliable fulfillment, hassle-free purchase protection, and refunds to protect buyers.

35. Play the long game. 2023 will be a watershed moment for early adopters and those who persevere through the trough of disillusionment. Social commerce isn’t going anywhere—but its widespread adoption might take a little longer than we thought.

Social Commerce Trend 2:

All eyes turn to social search. Social search optimization emerges as a make-or-break skill for marketers.

36. Google’s been the go-to in search forever—but that’s changing. Instead of scrolling through Google’s long list of results, they [younger generations] look to social platforms for travel tips, recipes, and news.

37. Forty percent of 18- to 24-year-olds are now using social media as their primary search engine, according to an internal study by Google.

In September 2022, the New York Times even proclaimed that “For Gen Z, TikTok is the New Search Engine.”

38. More internet users aged 16 to 64 visit social networks than search engines on a monthly basis. What’s more, nearly a third of the time that people spend using the internet is spent on social media.

39. Younger people are considerably more likely to use social networks for brand research.

Gen Z uses social media more than search engines to evaluate products, compare prices between competing brands, and make decisions about where to spend their money.

40. When it comes to discovery, search engines and TV are still ahead. TV’s followed by word of mouth. So for the moment, people are more likely to learn about your brand during a commercial break or an old-school conversation with a friend than they are to discover it on TikTok.

41. Social’s search dominance is just beginning. In 2023, social media marketers and small business owners who want to get ahead should start mastering the basics of social search optimization.

Recommendations from this Social Commerce Trend 2:

42. Always use alt text on creative assets. Adding alt text to images is a guiding principle of accessibility on the web and helps search engines index images, which can improve your search engine optimization (SEO).

43. Geotag your posts and make sure your location is accessible.

Whether it’s a regular search or a voice search, you want your business to appear at the top of the search results when someone in your area is seeking your service, so make sure to add a location to your business page and to any content you share whenever possible.

44. “Doing the fundamentals right is what makes you more discoverable across every social network.

Optimize your profile, make it interesting to navigate, have a clear bio, geotag your posts, have a profile photo” - Brayden Cohen, Team Lead, Social Marketing and Employee Advocacy, Hootsuite.

[Newest Trends in Social Media]

C. The Future of Social Customer Service: Social Media Trends 2023

In 2023, we’ll see leading organizations turn to automation to solve their most urgent customer service challenges—and turn a critical eye on who exactly is expected to manage customer service within an organization.

Customer Service Trend 1:

45. The great reopening blows a hole in digital service. A rapid return to in-person shopping makes businesses lose focus on digital customer service.

46. Shoppers think the quality of customer service has dropped massively.

47. The overall quality of customer experience fell for more than 19% of brands, Forrester found in a survey of over 96,000 US consumers.

Meanwhile, overall customer satisfaction has dropped to its lowest level in 17 years—since the inception of Forrester’s Customer Experience Index.

48. With the return of in-person shopping, brands have stopped focusing on digital services.

In 2023, businesses of all sizes will have to strike a better balance between online and offline customer experience to keep customers satisfied.

49. Resource-strapped businesses turn to automation. For businesses looking to keep costs in check while boosting the efficiency of online services, cost-effective automation tools will be key in 2023.

And customer service should be the highest priority place to go about implementing automation.

50. In 2023, these AI tools [Chatbots and simple conversational AI tools] will become indispensable for businesses struggling to balance online and offline customer service.

51. Chatbot adopters are poised to gain a massive first-mover advantage. In our survey, only 26% of organizations that said they use social as a primary customer service channel told us they use chatbots on social and messaging apps.

52. In 2023, the businesses that keep their focus on digital customer service stand to win out against those that don’t.

Cost-effective chatbots are a quick win for those looking to better their online customer experience while shoring up expenses and limiting overhead in the short term.

Recommendations from this Customer Service Trend 1:

53. Dispel the myth that chatbots are impersonal. conversational AI tools like Heyday AI go a step further: With the ability to distinguish between multiple choices, make a decision, and gather insights, they free your support team up to spend more time solving the problems that really require a human touch.

54. Enable your CX experts to focus on sales opps. Conversational AI tools like Heyday AI let you integrate your product catalog with chat to help customers easily navigate your online shelves—and allow you to make sales around the clock.

55. Make your online and offline CX work in tandem. Use your chatbot to bring online traffic in-store. With built-in store locator features, Heyday AI makes it easy for customers to find the nearest store and make an appointment.

According to our internal data, 90% of in-store appointments made by our chatbot lead to a purchase and one in four customers are net new.

Customer Service Trend 2:

Marketers realize it’s time to lean into customer service. As many marketers struggle to take a greater role in customer service, great ones stand out.

56. Social customer service is largely the responsibility of the marketing department. Almost half (49%) of organizations said that social customer service was usually or exclusively the responsibility of the marketing team.

57. Many marketers don’t feel equipped for customer service. Only 21% feel they do a good job servicing customers on social channels, according to a survey by the CMO Council and IBM.

58. Because of this disconnect, many businesses are leaving customers hanging and revenue on the table, says Chris Campbell, CEO of reputation management software ReviewTrackers.

59. Proactive marketers will take the initiative to adapt. Social was never meant to be a customer service channel.

But now it really can’t be ignored. Social media has taken an outsized role in customer service—and businesses, as well as practitioners, are caught dealing with the repercussions.

60. And it’s every marketer’s responsibility to make sure that gut feeling isn’t soured by unanswered DMs.

Recommendations from this Customer Service Trend 2:

61. Give social a seat at the leadership table. In reality, social should be treated as a core function of any modern organization—and that means looping senior members of your social team into high-level strategy and planning.

62. This will get your social strategy fully aligned with your organization’s goals and objectives, and help your social team see how their work fits into the bigger picture for your organization.

63. Invest in better training for your marketers. For social media marketers looking to build critical skills specific to social marketing or take the next step in their careers, Hootsuite offers training and certification.

Finally, it is my hope that these insights might be useful for your future social media and marketing planning in 2023, and in case, if you would like to read the complete report [46 pages] on Hootsuite’s Social Media Trends 2023, you may do so.

P.S: Visit Digital Marketing Forum that answers [most un-answered] questions.

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