This report tells about social media and its trends. What is the most popular platform and how you should use it. Report got my eye immediately, because digital marketing has become very important in business world and this report helps me understand about trends in social media. It’s also related very closely to my studies at the moment.
Brands are building community online and leveraging social media for business growth!
World is changing and so is digital marketing. More often consumers will search for brands and their interests through social media, than search engines. According to social media marketers, social search is important to their overall social strategy.
I can relate to that. In these past few months, I’ve been looking for places to eat in LA and where did I look for them; from YouTube and TikTok. After finding good reviews, the trail has led me to the company’s Instagram page. So, no Googling, just social media search and I got what I was looking for.
According to the social media marketers, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook have the best search capabilities.
Well, that depends on the platform. I have noticed many times, that Facebook pages are often non-active, or they have very little information about the company.
Let’s talk about the influencers then! 8/10 social media marketers believe most companies will have a creator / influencer as the face of their brand in 2023. Over the years this has also changed. When someone might use mega-influencers, others are seeing more value using niche- micro-influencers for targeted campaigns. I belong to that group of people, who don’t like posts with “sponsored by” or “collaborating with”. But who am I to talk. Person who just did a collaboration with Visit Lapland last year. Well, it was a “guest takeover” for their Instagram account. Feedback was good and people liked my stories. I found myself really enjoying doing something like that. So, can I call myself a micro-influencer then?
Woman watching the winter view (Photo: Tanja Hartikainen)
Working with small influencers and creators is not that expensive than with huge celebrities with millions of viewers. This kind of work might lead to long term partnership and offers access to loyal communities.
In this busy and hectic world, the consumer wants everything fast and gets bored very soon. So, you might not want to make long and informative videos and commercials for your brand. Start to use short-form videos. Instagram reels, TikToks and YouTube shorts are the most-used content format. They also generate the highest ROI (return on investment).
If you are thinking about the content connected to the biggest ROI, what comes first in your mind? Yep funny. Also, trendy, and relatable content will stand out. Especially nowadays, when I’m scrolling through social media, I skip every video which is related somehow to the war and keep looking for something what makes me laugh.
So, when funny videos are most popular, Instagram is the highest ROI platform. More than half of marketers (51%) are using Instagram to their brand plan to increase their investment in 2023.
This surprises me, because lot of my Instagram friends have reported that their posts do not get so many likes anymore and they are like banned from people’s feed. Do the regular users and micro-influencers need money to get views and likes? Is that the only way?
If you also as a brand owner use several platforms, you might want to think twice if it is ok to post the exact same content to all your platforms. Audience might think that there is no need to follow your every channel, because the content is the same.
To sum up. Use your marketing budget and platforms wisely. The trends keep changing and you should pay a close attention to them.
Thank you for reading my reaction paper and not scrolling!
References: Global social media trend report 2023. Brandwatch. Hubspot. Referenced 13.1.2024