Key trends of marketing, social media, and branding in 2023— a brief overview of studies
Why it’s worth developing social media, humanizing brands, and stopping relying only on paid advertising. Large technology and marketing studies typically come out at the beginning of the year. This article is based on research by Galactic Fed and Brandwatch.
SEO and Advertising:
It is worth adapting to voice searches. They account for 25% of mobile traffic now, but few pay attention to this fact. First, keywords in paid advertising and the entire CJM should be adapted for those who like to talk on their phones.
The rapid development of Social SEO. This is the search for goods and services through social media rather than search engines. It is recommended to focus on SMM with a proper hashtag and keyword strategy and to prepare profiles for better visibility in social search results.
With Google’s continued fight against AI, the SEO mechanism will likely become more complicated. Link building through guest posts with different formats (infographics, videos, case studies) is recommended.
The trend of native advertising continues due to the general annoyance of intrusive ads. It is also developing alongside the growing trend of influencer ads.
The development of seamless purchases through smart content services will grow. It’s like when you saw a hat in a series and immediately bought it.
Due to the crisis and a decrease in advertising budgets, it is necessary to work hard on landing page conversions.
Soon, there will be serious changes in Google’s policy regarding cookies. It is worth preparing for problems with analytics and a decrease in paid advertising share — it is better to start developing SEO, email marketing, and growing a mature brand earlier. You can also start collecting first-party data through subscriptions and direct customer surveys.
SMM:
The trend of user-generated content continues. Glossy, soulless pictures are out of fashion and it’s important to get closer to the client by being more grounded.
Employee advocacy: content from the perspective of employees. People are trusting companies less, so it’s important to create living faces to create an emotional connection with the customer as if they have a “friend from company X”.
Multichannel Content: It’s important to release different content on different platforms to cater to diverse types of customers (being suitable where it’s comfortable for a specific user and creating a consistent brand experience). For example, articles can be reused to create videos, infographics, books, posts, podcasts, etc. to speed up and simplify work.
With the shortening of trend lifetimes, situational marketing will continue to develop. Planning will now become more difficult as you need to adapt to new trends as quickly as possible (primarily in the context of social media).
There’s a growing trend towards “raw” content without expensive filming and editing, which brings the brand closer to the customer. Note that this includes video advertising and the trend is not only used by companies with a fun tone of voice.
At the same time, users are getting tired of social media and cleaning up their subscriptions. So it is necessary to create high-quality content and strengthen the emotional connection.
Communication and brand:
There is a blurring of the lines between B2B and B2C communication. For example, people no longer separate business and personal accounts on social networks and expect the same level of communication “as with a friend” everywhere.
Global trend on Brand Humanization: understandable human language, emoji, memes, behind-the-scenes, daily routine, photos of employees, etc. In all channels, it is worth talking to the client as a friend, without creating the feeling of a selling pitch.
It is necessary to accelerate all processes of the front office. First of all, this concerns instant responses in chatbots, fast delivery, and error-free operation of platforms. People are less and less tolerant of delays and long waits — they will immediately go to your competitors.
Personalizing everything is a must-have, from emails to landing pages. There is data — use it in personalized communication.
There is an increase in the value of companies with high ethical standards. Also, despite everything, the global trend towards sustainability and ecology continues. It’s offered to openly show such a company’s values in social networks — now it is very much appreciated.
There is also a growing demand for sites where people can be themselves — the trend continues for the community, including closed internal communities of companies.
In conclusion, to be successful in marketing and branding in 2023, it is crucial to focus on the humanization of brands, SMM development, and growth of all the user acquisition channels apart from paid advertising. Wish you luck in the year! Subscribe for more
