4 Social Media Marketing Predictions for 2023

Social media, like the internet as a whole, has evolved and continues to evolve rapidly and volatilely. While the social media sector’s trajectory can be unpredictable at times, several current trends are almost certain to affect how businesses use social media marketing in 2023.

The impact of TikTok
TikTok has dramatically changed the game for social media content format, leading other giants such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to change their algorithms. The preference for short-form video content on these platforms continues to be present, with companies of all sizes putting a heavy emphasis on this marketing strategy. TikTok’s format allows businesses to gain exposure to new audiences that don’t necessarily follow their accounts or even associated accounts, enabling new products and companies to be visible, all based on the engagement metrics of viewers.

Success on Tiktok-like platforms
There are two main differentiators to remember about TikTok and similar algorithms: They respond well to content that encourages longer video time retention than its competitors, and they give audiences content from many different creators all at once.

In practice, this means that your content needs to be immediately engaging and digestible to a broad audience and that it is okay to be formulaic as a small account. In other words, find the most visually and audibly interesting aspect of your business and post variations of it repeatedly. Because your posts will appear among the varied content of hundreds of other accounts, nobody will notice if you post repetitive content as a small account. Any one account still only appears as a small part of a feed, even for its followers, so it pays to be formulaic as long as the formula is interesting.

Influencers
Influencer marketing is only increasing. As brand deals and social media monetization become more varied, more and more niche influencers are becoming viable for marketing. Because influencers often provide better audience engagement than traditional advertising, even influencers with relatively small audiences may be worth sponsoring, especially for businesses with niche target audiences.

Paid content
While influencers provide better audience engagement than a brand’s sponsored posts, more people see sponsored posts. A brand’s organic content rarely reaches more than a small fraction of its sponsored reach, so boosting posts is a must to reach the largest audience possible. As social media algorithms better understand what users want, they allow businesses to reach more relevant audiences.

As TikTok and similar algorithms become more prominent in today’s social media, a brand’s success relies more heavily on compelling short-form video content. Influencer marketing and social media advertising are also becoming more effective, so promoting already-compelling promotional content through these channels can make or break a brand’s success in 2023.