Social Marketing in 2023: do you have a plan?

Much has been said about Social Marketing these days. Slowly it has been gathering more and more hits on the Google keyword search, but do people really know what it means? Or are people confusing it with Social Media Marketing? Because yes there is a difference – and sometimes it can be hard to figure out.

Social Marketing- Social marketing is a process that applies marketing principles and techniques to create, communicate, and deliver value in order to influence target audience behaviours that benefit society (public health, safety, the environment and communities) as well as the target audience. Philip Kotler, Nancy Lee and Michael Rothschild (2020)

Social marketing has the primary goal of achieving the “common good”. Traditional commercial marketing aims are primarily financial, though they can have positive social effects as well. In the context of public health, social marketing would promote general health, raise awareness and induce changes in behaviour.

Examples of this can be anything from an Anti-Smoking Marketing Campaign to improve public health, to making sure that people wear their seat belts in the car. Social Marketing initiatives are mainly undertaken by non-profit organisations.

Social Media Marketing – Combines the different goals of Internet marketing with social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and many others. Social Media Marketing goals tend to be different for every business or organisation, however, most will involve some sort of brand awareness marketing for building an idea or even possibly selling a product or service. Along with this, it includes online reputation management. Social Media Marketing campaigns must be targeted to the community you want to reach and will need to have a specific message for the people you want to engage with.

What are the big Social Marketing trends for 2023?

TikTok will dominate the social media space. TikTok has seen undeniably fast growth. In fact, the term ‘TikTok’ saw a 61% increase in mentions year-over-year during the beginning of 2021 and was the first non-Facebook app to reach 3 million global downloads.
Reaching new audiences will become the number one social media goal for businesses. During the pandemic, most consumers needed to shift to an online-first purchasing experience. As we head into 2022, then, it makes sense that brands are contemplating how they can reach new audiences through social media, foster deeper relationships with existing audiences, and improve customer service to ensure long-term customer loyalty.
Companies will make more dedicated social media hires. Social media is an undeniably powerful strategy for your business. And social media isn’t just for brand awareness, either. It’s also an effective tool for generating revenue. In fact, 79% of people say that user-generated content on social media significantly impacts their purchasing decisions, Which is why you’ll see more companies making dedicated social media hires in 2022, rather than tasking a busy marketing team with social media as a side project.
Augmented Reality will become consumers’ preferred way to try-on products and interact with brands. Carolina Arguelles Navas, Snap Inc.’s Head of AR Product Strategy and Product Marketing, told me she believes augmented reality (AR) will become consumers’ preferred option when trying on products in 2022. As Navas puts it, “For brands, AR is the most personal way to reach people and is more effective at driving results compared to other forms of advertising and marketing.” Navas says, “We’ve seen interest and engagement with AR explode over the last two years, and have over 200 million Snapchatters engaging with augmented reality every day. The trend is here to stay, and it’s only going to continue growing.”
Businesses in the B2B space will increase their investments in Instagram and Twitter. As Twitter and Instagram continue to succeed, we’ll see more marketers invest in both platforms in 2022. In 2022, consider where you might increase your own investments to find more ROI from the platform(s) that are already serving your audiences.
Influencer marketing will mature in 2022. The pandemic undoubtedly sped up the rise of “unfiltered” (or less scripted) content, as well as “everyday influencers” — such as micro-influencers and nano-influencers. As alignment between social media and e-commerce strengthens, we’ll see more influencer partnerships used to increase businesses’ sales.
Social advertising will become more sophisticated. As Google plans to phase out cookie tracking by 2023, you’ll begin to see “the death of the third party cookie” happen in the upcoming year — which means many marketers will need to pivot their existing strategies as social advertising evolves. Fortunately, there are plenty of highly effective advertising options that don’t require third-party cookies. To name a few: User-generated content, targeted and personalized ads across social media platforms, email marketing, and search engine retargeting campaigns. Rather than using third-party cookies to define your advertising playbook, this is a good opportunity to develop a data-driven strategy using metrics to understand your users’ interests and preferences on a deeper and more personal level.
Businesses will invest in more long-form and short-form content, as well as live audio chat rooms. Snackable content has been proven effective, so these short-form videos will likely be brief, engaging, digestible pieces of content that span across social channels. Additionally, roughly half of marketers plan to invest more in live audio chat rooms such as Clubhouse or Twitter Spaces in 2022. Consider how you might leverage alternative forms of content in 2022. Beyond visual elements like videos and posts, test out audio content to see if there’s an interest from your buyer persona.
Social selling demands will grow. As we enter 2022, we’ll see more brands leverage social selling to reach users whenever — and wherever — they’re ready to buy. If your users prefer purchasing your products from Instagram, why not let them?
Consumers will crave snackable content. Through the rise of TikTok and Instagram Reels, continued engagement on Stories content from Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, and brands creating other short-form or “snackable” pieces of content to educate consumers about their brand. As social media attention spans continue to shrink and more people scroll endlessly through feeds while bored at home, don’t expect snackable content to lose steam anytime soon.

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