What are the Top Digital Marketing Trends for 2023 | Digital Hari
That means it’s more important for brands to be transparent and think about their messaging and research or tweak their strategy in the coming year. It also means that marketers need to know the trends coming down the line so they can plan and take advantage of any new developments.
Read on to find out the 2023 trends for
- Within social media and influencer marketing, we look at TikTok and business, the rise of creators, and also of SuperApps.
- In B2B marketing we hear about the value of video content, how to conquer social selling, and curated content.
- Content marketing looks set to see more connections, creator + brand partnerships, and the evergreen needs to create valuable content.
- You'll hear a lot about marketing automation in 2023, not least in available tools and the much-anticipated GPT-4.
1. SOCIAL MEDIA AND INFLUENCER MARKETING TRENDS
There are some really interesting trends down the line in 2023 for social media. In fact, it’s an area of marketing that will see significant change and brands need to keep up to have a presence and use the platforms effectively.
TikTok continues to evolve and dominate
TikTok has become a big player in the social media marketing realm. And that’s not set to change in 2023. TikTok generated $4.6 billion in 2021, a 142% increase year-on-year with 1.8 billion monthly active users predicted by the end of 2022 reported The Business of Apps.
It’s not just for consumers or creators that TikTok is making inroads. The platform is focusing on usability for businesses and improving targeting options for advertising which will make it a bigger and better platform for brands in 2023.
“One of the things that we're gonna see from TikTok next year is the simplicity around business tools. They've already been making waves in improving the usability of businesses around their ads dashboard. I've been looking at some of the new targeting options they've launched for their ads, which are brilliant,” says Hariharan G, a social media consultant with Digital Hari.
Decentralizing social media to create a ‘super app’
The changes at Twitter have shone a lens on the vulnerability of social media platforms. Customers are moving away from wanting to engage with billionaire-led platforms and instead have control over their content and data.
Other apps are in the works like BlueSky, which is being developed by Twitter’s ex-CEO, Jack Dorsey. More an infrastructure than a platform, the company describes it as “a new foundation for social networking which gives creators independence from platforms, developers the freedom to build, and users a choice in their experience."
The ‘creator economy’ will grow and change
As brand awareness becomes more of a focus on social media (as opposed to pure lead generation), marketers need to find creators that have a voice and fan base (small or otherwise).
It can be a challenge for brands to create content that engages customers in a time-starved world. That’s where content creators come in and that doesn’t mean high-level influencers. It can mean employees, customers, or even subject matter experts in a niche area.
The emergence of content creator funds on TikTok, YouTube, and Twitch means there’s an incentive for creators to put time into creating content a brand could take advantage of.
“30% of 18 to 24-year-olds and 40% of 25 to 34-year-olds consider themselves content creators ”HubSpot’s 2022 State of Consumer Trends report
2. B2B MARKETING TRENDS
B2B marketing can be seen as boring or at least less exciting than its B2C counterparts. But that need not be the case. As a B2B company, it’s important to be creative in your marketing and use the channels and tools available to be memorable.
Video, video, and more video
As marketers, we all know the power of a great video campaign as a way to inform and connect. After all, 86% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, and 92% value it as an important part of their strategy (according to Wyzowl research).
The same research showed the variety of reasons businesses use video with the top being explainers followed by social media videos and presentations. The top three channels companies use are YouTube, LinkedIn and Instagram.
For B2B companies, video can play an important role in the sales and marketing cycle. This is particularly true on LinkedIn as a video has become more popular on the platform and offers a way to connect with and influence customers.
Empower teams to use social selling
Social media is an effective way for brands and their sales team to connect with customers. This is particularly true for B2B companies that have longer sales cycles and rely on digital channels to provide useful and relevant information.
But there’s a difference between posting content that pushes a sales message and using content to engage and create connections.
An appetite for curated content
While companies put a huge focus on creating original content, it can also be effective to share curated content.
If the content is relevant, it can drive conversations and demonstrate that your company is interested in solving an issue or sharing information rather than just selling.
Types of useful content you can share include:
- Industry news
- Third-party research
- Press releases or announcements
- Interviews (video and blogs)
- In-depth features
- Podcasts
3. CONTENT MARKETING TRENDS
The Content Marketing Institute found that while 78% of marketers have a strategic approach to managing content, only over half have a documented content strategy in place to reference. That’s a mistake in today’s content-hungry society.
Use content to drive connections
We know as marketers that content can be used at all stages of the marketing and sales funnel to provide information and solutions. But content can do more than that.
In 2023, you should use content to make connections and build communities. As customers become more interested in the value and ethos of brands, it will be companies that foster and seek out connections that will succeed.
Refine and define creator/brand partnerships
There’s a lot of noise online, which equals a lot of content. Some of the content out there is great, but a lot is aligned with the wrong influencer or not targeted at the right audience. That’s where a good content creator/brand partnership can come into play.
Many creators want to grow and expand in 2023. This means they are looking for brand partnerships (rather than just sponsorships) that align with their content so posts feel natural and companies offer guidance and support, not just leave them to it!
For many creators it’s not primarily about the money, other aspects matter too as shown by Deloitte research.
Balance your content to offer value and not just sell
Over half of marketers cite a large increase in the demand for content according to marq’s ‘Content Effectiveness’ report in recent years. But it’s not just about having more content, it’s about having content that provides value to prospects and customers.
“I think you have to create your own content and have your own voice. But you can balance your content marketing budget with more curated content than people realize,” says Stephen Walsh.
“It shows that you're tapped into the world and "our ideas are the only ones," or "it always has to be something coming from us," that you're connected, and paying attention to trends. That sends a good signal to buyers that you're part of a community, and it's not just always me, me, me,” concludes Walsh.
4. MARKETING AUTOMATION TRENDS
As companies collect more data and need to execute more tasks to implement effective marketing campaigns, automation tools offer a way to automate routine and repetitive tasks at scale.
A shift to signal-based marketing
In 2023, there’s going to be a shift in mindset from technical-based marketing to anticipation marketing. This will enable marketers to anticipate what customers want and then feed it into automation processes.
This new mindset will now only make things more efficient but will enable personalization. This applies to platforms like Google Ads and also seems to be where Facebook and other social channels are heading.
“In digital marketing we’ve been collecting data, observing behaviours, and now what we're looking for are signals. They might sound like the same thing, but they're slightly different. Behaviours reflect interests, whereas signals are where the audience is kind of telling you what they want,” says Hariharan G, PPC and eCommerce specialist.
Importance of automation tools
Gartner predicts that by 2024, organizations with IT teams that understand the needs of customers will outperform other organizations’ customer experience metrics by 20%.
This understanding will rely on automation tools for internal processes and to enhance customer experience. These include marketing tools for CRM, social media, advertising, lead management or email.
Artificial Intelligence and the launch of GPT-4
You may not have heard of GPT-4 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4) but it's a cutting-edge tool that can help marketers automate many tasks.
Developed by OpenAI it is a next-generation deep learning model that is trained through content available online. It’s used for questions and answers, text summarization, machine translation, classification, code generation, and conversation AI.
You can listen to our podcast on ‘The Art of Copywriting’ to find out more about the impact of AI on content marketing.
2023 Marketing Trends Wrap-up
2023 is going to be an exciting and challenging year for marketers! External circumstances mean that brands need to think carefully about their messaging to engage their audiences and align with creators and influencers that have the same values.
These developments show the constant evolution of marketing both in terms of technology and strategies.
You have time to think about which trends matter to you and what ones you can take advantage of in 2023. Happy planning!
If you need more insights into 2023 digital marketing trends, check out our fantastic blogs on 2023 Trends.
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