How has social media evolved over the last few years and where is it going? Check out social media trends for your business.
Even the smallest company needs to have a social media presence nowadays, meaning effective social media management is essential. It’s one of the best ways to make sure you’re regularly at the forefront of people’s minds, and, when used correctly, can give your brand a consistent and relatable voice.
Social media’s greatest strength can also be its greatest weakness – if every company uses it to be seen, then it’s very possible to blend into the background and miss out on making any kind of impression.
That’s why, instead of using generic methods to present yourself and your brand, you should find ways of making your posts stand out from the crowd. While it’s a good idea to push the envelope yourself and try to think of new ideas, there’s also no shame in looking at some recent trends and integrating them into your own posts.
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11 Most Important Social Media Trends in 2023
Without further ado, here are the 11 social media trends you should be adding to your social media strategy:
- AI generated content
- Baby boomers are turning digital
- Video content is gaining traction on all platforms
- TikTok will continue to rise
- Social platforms are integrating with ecommerce
- VR and AR are changing the way people interact with content
- Increase in the human element
- Content creator/influencer industry grows
- Building a brand community
- Utilizing social SEO will be valuable
- Brands will turn their attention to social audio
In This Guide:
- 11 Key Social Media Trends in 2023
- Important Social Media Trends Before 2023
- Interesting social media statistics per platform
- What should a business do this year?
1. AI-generated content
The advent of generative AI technology has been quite a gamechanger for businesses around the world. And with AI has taking the business world by storm, and the social media landscape is no different.
Platforms like ChatGPT and Google Bard have done a lot to improve productivity when in it comes to content creation, and now you can utilize that same technology to write posts for your business.
The technology goes far beyond that, though. Meta has just announced that it plans to launch AI chatbots across its platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. This will enable you to utilize AI chatbots on your pages, responding to customer requests and problems in real-time without requiring time or resources from your business.
2. Baby boomers are turning digital
While younger generations like to make fun of them for being out of touch, the reality is that a huge amount of baby boomers have taken to social media.
For a long time, boomers were largely ignored in the world of digital marketing, since they were considered to be pretty sparse on the internet. After all, why would you advertise toys on a news channel, or expensive jewelry near a college campus? You just wouldn’t be hitting the right audience.
However, over the years, boomers have trickled into the world of social media and ecommerce. The pandemic accelerated this trend, and now boomers are very much a viable demographic to target when it comes to social media.
They’re an unignorable market now, so it’s time for a lot of companies to expand their marketing to reach boomers, too. For some ideas on how to reach this valuable demographic, take a look at this Woolworth’s Facebook campaign, which makes a point of targeting the boomer demographic.
Remember, no one likes to be stereotyped, so don’t simply target people based on their age group. An entire generation is as broad of a demographic as “women” or “Americans,” so make sure your marketing goes beyond simply appealing to their age. For example, look at this collection of stock photos that feature elderly people engaging in fun, active hobbies.
3. Video content is continuing to gain traction
As attention spans wane, people are finding themselves watching more and more video content as time goes on, since no one wants to scroll down silent feeds of images or read articles that go on for pages (except you, of course – thank you!). In fact, visual content marketing statistics show that video is the most popular means of reaching new customers.
When we say videos, we don’t mean YouTube videos that go on for a couple of minutes – we’re talking about videos that last for as short as a few seconds. This is where the Stories feature can come in handy, found on platforms like Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
Stories are when people post a ten second video to show off whatever they want. Whether it was just them talking about their day, or filming their friend do a ‘sick’ backflip, stories are a very popular addition to social media due to their digestible nature.
Brands have fully jumped on the Stories bandwagon, too, using these short videos to show off or advertise their products. Take a look at Nike’s reels on Instagram, and see how these short videos pack enough information to be worth watching, without being long enough to bore the viewer.
You can use these Stories to show off any number of things, meaning they can suit any brand or company. And while they might take a bit longer to produce than a picture or a paragraph, they can be worth your time – indeed, 84% of people in a study said that they’d bought a company’s product after seeing one of their videos.
If you’re looking to adopt some video content of your own, there are a few easy steps you can take to make your content more enjoyable and engaging. Firstly, before you even start filming, make sure the video you’re looking to create suits your branding well. This could mean making sure the color scheme fits your logo, or that the music suits your business’s tone.
Secondly, make sure you have a good quality camera. These can be expensive, but filming on a cheap camera can make whatever content you produce have a far smaller impact than if the image was crisp and clean.
Finally, try to keep your videos short. Like we mentioned before, people’s attention spans are getting shorter by the day, so make sure you give them all the information you think is absolutely necessary in as short a time as possible.
4. The rise of TikTok
TikTok was founded in 2016 but was exclusive to China (under the name Douyin), only finding its way out into the global market in August of 2018.
Since then, TikTok has experienced a meteoric rise to the top, with a total of two billion downloads, and over one billion videos watched every day, making it one of the leading apps in terms of usage time as well. If you’re looking to get a foothold in the minds of the younger generation, you simply can’t ignore this app.
However, don’t write it off as simply a bunch of kids who’ve deactivated Facebook and moved onto a new app – 60% of users are under 24, but that leaves a massive 40% of users who are fully-fledged adults. Young people are indeed the driving force behind TikTok, though, with nearly 40% of Gen Z turning to TikTok before Google. From a commerce standpoint, it’s quite a valuable tool too, with the hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt hitting 32 billion views at the end of 2022.
TikTok has grabbed hold of the appeal of short, easily digestible videos, and allows you to share them to other platforms like Instagram. These can be comedic, educational, instructional, or fall under any other kind of category, with stars like Gordon Ramsay using it to share recipes and comedic videos.
However, the app has obviously exploded in relevance over the past few years, due in no small part to the COVID pandemic. Since most TikTok content could be made by a single person in their own home, there was an influx of people using it to become influencers.
If you’re looking to start on TikTok, there are already loads of guides out there about how to build a follower base if you really want to devote yourself to it. You could also just upload some repurposed content if you’re pressed for time, as the app does accept videos made elsewhere.
As far as original content goes, small businesses are finding a lot of luck when making videos that go over their manufacturing processes. Watching something being handmade is a great trust signal for your audience, and falls under the banner of interesting, engaging content.
The downside, however, is that a lot of people believe TikTok to be a data-mining app that is financially backed by the Chinese government. This has led a lot of governments to be somewhat cautious about the app, with some government agencies even banning its use on state-owned devices.
We won’t go too far into the validity of these claims – we’d have to go over a lot of data terminology and international relations – but if you’re looking to start on TikTok, it might pay to be aware of what the app does, as well as your country’s relationship with the app. It’d be a shame to build up a following, only to have it taken away from you if your country were to ban the app.
5. Social media platforms are integrating with ecommerce
The global social commerce market is expected to hit $1.6 trillion in 2024, with a forecast to rise to $2.1 trillion the following year. Subsequently, making a push to add social commerce to your strategy is an absolute must.
Fortunately, selling your products through your social media accounts has become incredibly easy due to a growing selection of integrations provided by popular platforms. you can now do it on some of your social media accounts. 55% of shoppers purchased a product through a company’s social media account, with 87% of buyers claiming that social media helped them make a decision on a purchase.
Many social media platforms offer features like this – Facebook and Instagram, for example, have implemented legitimate channels through which you can make sales.
If you boil it down, all you need to worry about is sending the product and making sure it’s listed correctly – user interface and security is all controlled by the social media platform, making this a great choice for a small business.
If you’re looking to take advantage of this trend, you’ll want to stay on top of the ever-growing field of social media commerce. Different platforms are always coming up with new ways to sell, especially with more people being homebound, so by keeping on top of these, you’ll be able to quickly jump on the one that suits you best.
6. VR and AR are changing the way people interact with content
Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are two of the most exciting developments in the realm of technology within the last decade. Firstly, let’s make the distinction between the two.
Augmented Reality
Augmented reality is when something like a Snapchat filter uses reality as a base, but lays something fantastical over that base. Those filters that make you look older, or put a dancing hotdog on your shoulder, are all augmented reality.
Virtual Reality
Virtual reality is the whole nine yards – the user is whisked away into another world entirely, like a zombie invasion or a spaceship. On the less whimsical side, you can also be taken to a virtual house viewing, or a tour of a real life place.
Both of these technologies have begun to be implemented within the past few years, and social media companies are using them to refresh the world of marketing. Here are some examples:
Facebook rebranded the entire company to Meta a few years ago to better encapsulate the metaverse strategy, which was driven by its virtual reality arm. But it started out very differently.
Years ago, Facebook acquired Oculus, a popular and successful VR headset company. The Oculus was originally created as a gaming platform, but Facebook bought them for 2 billion dollars, as they saw potential in VR as more than a game platform. Since then, the Oculus brand has been completely renamed as Meta as a result.
Their idea is to use the headset to provide experiences, like virtual parties or touring far-off countries. This could be used for marketing purposes, like showing firsthand what certain products or experiences would look like. While the Meta product is available on the market — dubbed the Meta Quest — it hasn’t fully taken off as a marketing tool. It’s definitely one to keep your eyes on, though.
If you’re wondering, Facebook is planning on monetizing Meta Quest by collecting data about users, like tracking the way they move their body or mapping out their room. They claim that they won’t use this information in any kind of evil way, but we are talking about Facebook here, so who knows.
YouTube
With a company as big as YouTube, they’d have to be pretty slow to not be dipping their toes in the VR pool. Using a VR headset, you can use YouTube VR to view things like concerts, mountain trails, and a number of other experiences.
However, just like Facebook, you can assume this will also lead to marketing opportunities, like showing off 3D models of products or letting you see things like vehicle interiors from a first-person perspective.
TikTok
TikTok is throwing their hat in the ring with some AR advertising. Videos of people talking to the camera can be layered with things like mascots or products that can be interacted with by the person in the video. They even allow for CTA buttons to be placed on the videos, leading to a lot more conversions.
AR and VR are very much growing fields, with new and more advanced AR and VR technologies coming out constantly. Don’t just jump in without knowing exactly what you’re doing, as these technologies are expensive (especially VR), and might not suit your marketing method or your demographics.
7. The X factor is the human element
One of the hardest trends to grasp is the recent increase in brand personalities. For the longest time, brands presented themselves with a degree of professionalism, doing their best to appear as upstanding organizations with complete control over their product and image.
However, as time marched on and marketing moved from billboards and television to Twitter and Facebook, marketing slowly morphed and became more of a conversation than a one-way street.
After all, with the arrival of comments and replies, people could interact with their favorite drinks or video game companies firsthand – something unimaginable in the 90s. And with this development came the chance for some playful back and forth between customer and company.
The most famous example of this is probably the Wendy’s Twitter account, which is occasionally biting towards its own followers. This leads to retweets and further promotion, as people laugh about how Cooper Franklin got shut down for complaining about their square burgers, or how they made fun of McDonald’s for posting an incomplete tweet.
It’s a fine line to toe, though – it’s very possible to push it too far, or even tweet using an old meme format, which can make you seem a bit out of touch.
The main obstacle with this trend is that there’s no formula behind the perfect post. A lot of the back and forth can be rooted in humor, and there’s no real rule behind humor. But you don’t have to be the next Jerry Seinfeld on your social media – as long as you strike a consistent, friendly tone throughout your posts, people will feel more comfortable engaging with you.
For example, which Tweet would you rather see on your timeline?:
As long as your fun posts are suited to your brand, you’ll almost certainly drive up engagement by adding a human element into the soul of the account.
Here is what Andrus Purde, CEO of Outfunnel, thinks of the new human element of social media:
“Social media started from human to human communication, got sidetracked with “social media gurus” and wrong KPIs for a bit, and is now back where it started. The best way to get your fans and followers to engage is by starting and participating in real conversations.
“Brands that have an authentic, human voice on social media are the ones who will grow their following and business via social media in 2021. One of my favorite examples of this is innocent drinks – just take a look at their Twitter feed and you’ll get what I mean.”
8. Content creator/influencer industry grows
Influencer marketing may feel like it’s been a trend for a long time, but that’s largely because it still works all these years later.
For starters, 87% of consumers are still happy to get their product and software recommendations from family and friends in influencer partnerships with brands. Considering creator and influencer viewership hovers around 10 trillion views per month across all of social media, it’s safe to say this is a lucrative opportunity.
This industry agrees that this is a lucrative avenue for businesses as well, with 89% of marketers agreeing that ROI from influencer marketing is comparable to (41%) or better than (48%) other marketing channels. It’s affordable to get started too, with 70.7% of micro-influencers (1-10k followers) charging less than $100 per post.
As we mentioned earlier, TikTok is a great avenue for this kind of opportunity. In fact, one study found that 46% of people say that TikTok is a place to discover new things, which means they’re ripe for branching out to new brands as well.
Despite that success, businesses have still been slow to jump on the bandwagon. Some research notes that only 1 in 4 businesses are taking advantage of these kinds of partnerships, which means there should be plenty to go around if you’re interested in getting started.
9. Building a brand community
You’ve heard the old saying, “quality is more important than quantity.” Well, it may seem counterintuitive, but this goes for your social media following, too. In fact, an active community of 100,000 followers is infinitely more valuable than an inactive group of a million followers.
Whether it be the trust created by a community or just the fact that they’re generally communicating more about products and services, building a brand community can have a decidedly positive impact on your ability to reach and retain customers. The stats back it up as well, with 66% of branded communities noting that the community aspect of their brand facilitated better customer retention.
So, how do you actually create a community? You’ll want to start by responding to comments and direct messages from your followers. If they feel appreciated, they’ll continue to engage positively with your brand. If negativity does creep up, don’t shy away from it. Responding to criticism could change a customer’s mind, or at least help you retain customers that show you actually care.
10. Utilizing social SEO will be valuable
You may have thought that SEO is just for search engines. After all, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, so it’s not like it could apply to social media platforms, right? Well, the times they are a-changing, and SEO now needs to be considered part of your social media strategy.
The driving force behind this trend is TikTok’s continued popularity. Not only have users flocked to the popular video-sharing app like bees to honey in recent years, but it’s become so universally used that a lot of Gen Z uses TikTok as a search engine. That’s right, younger users head on over to TikTok instead of Google when looking for everything from news to trivia questions.
Subsequently, brands have begun ditching the hashtags and have started using keywords to cater their content to what users are searching for. TikTok has even adopted a “most-searched for” term on popular videos, which directs users to other popular videos with the same keyword. All that to say, you might want to investigate social SEO if you need a bit of help with your strategy.
11. Brands will turn their attention to social audio
The final social media trend watch out for in 2023 is social audio. Social audio simply refers to social media platforms that use audio tools like VoIP systems to connect audiences via voice chat.
Since Clubhouse launched in 2020, interest in social audio has been growing in background. In 2021, Facebook launched podcasts, Soundbites and Rooms to give audio makers more tools to work with, and Twitter’s voice tweets and Spaces alongside LinkedIn’s Audio Events suggest this trend is just getting started.
According to Hootsuite, more than 74% of businesses are planning to invest in audio-only content in 2023, and as an avenue with very little competition, it could be a great move for businesses looking to stand out.
From a business perspective, social audio is a great way to directly communicate with your audience, and to gather feedback from them, too.
Businesses looking to implement a social audio strategy in 2023 should focus on prioritizing user privacy, and sustainable relationships with creators and audience members.
Important Social Media Trends Before 2023
Of course, we’ve been monitoring social media trends since well before 2023. To understand how and why the landscape looks the way it does today, it can be helpful to look to the past. One thing looms larger than the rest in this regard — and that’s the impact of the coronavirus pandemic of our social media habits.
The Impact of COVID on Social Media
At first glance, you might think that the pandemic would have had little impact on social media outside of people using it to check for news or updates. Not only were people checking their social media feeds more frequently, but they also had more time to do so, due to the massive influx of free time.
With companies offering remote working – or in many unfortunate cases, being furloughed or fired – we all had a lot more time to browse social media. Those who had been let go would understandably be using LinkedIn to find new employment, while those who had more time in their day due to not having to commute could often find themselves on social media a lot more than if they were in the office.
It wasn’t just changes in the realm of work, either. Anyone with a hobby that involves leaving the house or interacting with other people soon found themselves with not much to do. Readers and gamers may have rejoiced, but anyone into contact sports or going to conventions would have a lot more time to browse their feeds.
Not to mention, we all missed our friends. If you were a good law-abiding citizen at the pandemic’s peak, you likely had to cancel parties or hangouts, meaning you couldn’t see your buds. If that was the case, you probably made up for this social deficit by using social media.
The surge in social media use during the pandemic is a macro trend that’s still relevant in 2023, as our usage is likely higher than it otherwise would be, due to the habits formed in lockdown.
This perfect storm of increased screen time meant that people were inadvertently viewing more social media campaigns, allowing companies to make more of an impression.
How much has social media usage increased per app?
How much did COVID actually impact our social media consumption? Let’s look at how each social media app grew recently.
Facebook is a tricky one, since most people who were going to make a Facebook account already had one. As such, the platform actually didn’t see a notable increase in users during the pandemic.
Don’t get us wrong – Facebook has definitely seen more people join, with a total of 360 million people jumping on during the pandemic, but this falls into the company’s normal trend – we just didn’t see a massive increase as the pandemic raged on.
Where they have seen increases is in the amount of time people spend on their site. People used to spend around five minutes looking through their Facebook each day, but that number doubled during the pandemic, as people spend an average of over ten minutes, probably arguing with their relatives about politics.
Much like Facebook, Instagram was already a social media titan before the pandemic. However, they did definitely see a jump in users that was a bit more than their projected trend. A total of 19.3 million profiles were added to Instagram in 2020, culminating in a total of 132.8 million accounts.
As far as usage goes, the average ‘grammer spent 30 minutes a day on their platform, which is a 13.8% increase when looking at their figure from 2019 (26 minutes a day).
Keep in mind that, unlike Facebook, not all these accounts are potential customers. Some of these will be brands, blogs, or other accounts that might not be interested in following your brand.
Snapchat
Just like the titular snaps themselves, Snapchat is used for short bursts, with 46% of users opening the app multiple times a day. You don’t really browse Snapchat the same way you’d browse Twitter or Instagram, so usage is always brief.
However, it did see a climb in users throughout 2020 after a plateau/dip in 2018, breaking 240 million users in 2020.
Some people think that Twitter (or X, as it’s now known) peaked back in 2018, as it’s never since quite reached the heights of its 336 million users. That is to say, it hadn’t broken those numbers until 2020, when it pulled out of its dip in usage and broke 340 million users.
Since Twitter’s whole appeal is its brief messages, the average user didn’t spend more than around three and a half minutes scrolling down their feed – but that more than doubled during the pandemic, with users spending nearly 11 minutes looking at their Twitter feed.
YouTube
YouTube saw a steady climb in users – indeed, it has consistently gained 100 million users every year. While it’s not too open about exact usage information, it tends to average a billion hours of content watched a day. You can guess that this number skyrocketed over the course of the pandemic.
When you’re stuck at home, there are few better hobbies to keep you busy than home improvement. Pinterest is a perfect site for people to find cool home projects, and it very much flourished in 2020.
From a user base of 335 million people in 2019, all the way up to 442 million in 2020, Pinterest definitely established itself as a solid social media brand. People only tend to spend around 5 minutes on there, but that’s more than enough time to catch their eye.
TikTok
TikTok exploded during the pandemic. Ever since Vine went down the drain, it left a big hole for a short video service, which TikTok swept in to fill.
There’s not much to compare it to before the pandemic, since it was already so new outside of China, but it’s worth noting that TikTok is home to 689 million monthly active users – with a global average of people spending an unbelievable 52 minutes on the app every day.
Self-proclaimed “front page of the internet,” Reddit is a website that congregates content from across the world wide web. They host a massive amount of content, and the pandemic only helped to strengthen their grip.
Reddit released a mercifully comprehensive rundown on its usage throughout 2020, and it shows how they’ve been raking in the users. Reddit experienced a 44% increase in users throughout the year, reaching 52 million, with over 300 million posts – over double what the site received in 2019.
Finally, we come to LinkedIn, the most professional social network out there. Rather than receiving any major boost, LinkedIn is steadily climbing – a trend which was healthy all the way through 2020.
Finishing up the year with over 720 million users, LinkedIn is a great way to get a campaign out there, as a million hours of content is watched on LinkedIn every week. It didn’t explode during the pandemic, but it’s still on a steady climb and definitely worth your attention, especially if your customer base is other businesses.
Social Media Statistics Per Platform
Before we wrap up, let’s have a look at some interesting stats on our favorite social media platforms, which might help you make your mind up if you’re trying to decide where to start.
What Should Businesses Do This Year?
So, what steps should a business take to take full advantage of these social media channels? Obviously, our first answer will be that if you don’t have any kind of social media presence, you need to get one as soon as possible.
Obviously, there are a lot of social media channels – more than we’ve listed here – but if you jump onto all of them, you’re probably going to stretch yourself too thin, and you won’t do any of them particularly well.
The first thing you’ll want to nail down is the social media platform that suits your business the best. For example, if you’re a brand that focuses more on a teen audience, TikTok would be a good move – however, if you’re more of a more serious B2B brand, then LinkedIn would be a better move. There’s a social network for everyone, so take your time!
If you’re struggling to decide, look around at your competitors’ social media accounts. Don’t think of it as copying, think of it as inspiration – getting an idea for how to put your own spin on their methods.
Outside of social media, if you’re a brick-and-mortar, setting up an online store is a must nowadays. The pandemic accelerated ecommerce spending, and most users still opt for online shopping over heading out to do some errands.
