5 Key Social Media Trends to Watch in 2023

Social Media Trend #1 – Building a Strong Community of Followers

In 2023, establishing meaningful connections and actively engaging with your user base and followers is crucial, particularly in the realm of social media. You might be thinking why you should be building an engaged online community for your brand? To be fair it does depend on your business but if you’re in e-commerce we recommend making this part of your digital marketing strategy.

90% of social media marketers say building an active online community is crucial to a successful social media strategy in 2023 (Hubspot). 

The competition is tight, and the market is tough, so you need your target market to invest in your business, care about your brand, and want your product. If you have built a good fan base, then these users are already within your community making it easier and more cost-effective for them to convert consistently.

This doesn’t happen overnight, so be patient, intentional with your content strategy and focus on a few key things to build the right engaged community… 

• Stay active and interactive with your community through comments, giveaways, DM’s and tagging. 
• Establish credibility with your social followers.
• Present genuine customer feedback to allow individuals to hear authentic perspectives on your offerings.
• Collaborate with reliable influencers who can endorse the excellence of your products to their followers.
• Ensure your social media platforms don’t solely serve as promotional platforms. Instead, prioritise offering valuable content upfront to keep your followers engaged. 

Let’s look at two brands who’ve done this right… 

Gymshark

Gymshark has emerged as one of the fastest-growing fitness apparel brands worldwide, mainly due to the strong community they have fostered around its brand. They have created a central hub called Gymshark Central blog, which serves as a gateway for new and returning customers to immerse themselves in the community without much effort.

 

Their blog is filled with informative articles, tips, tutorials, and exercise guides, establishing it as their members’ go-to source for health and fitness-related information. This positioning makes it convenient for customers to choose Gymshark products to strengthen their connection with the fitness community.

Gymsharks team of athletes and influencers has helped grow them to a whopping 6 million Instagram followers. Each athlete and influencer is carefully chosen to represent the brand to their followers. This allows them to engage with their dedicated fans personally, reflecting the values of Gymshark.

 

By combining these social interactions with a strong focus on customer intent to make purchases, Gymshark provides numerous opportunities for customers to engage with the brand continuously. Additionally, customers have ample chances to share their Gymshark experiences with their communities.

Princess Polly

Starting in the Gold Coast, Princess Polly has evolved into a prominent retail brand, wholly independent and with a global presence. They have extended their workforce to encompass over 200 individuals, operating from two separate locations: Burleigh Heads, Australia, and Los Angeles, USA.

They strategically utilise popular platforms such as Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, and Meta (Facebook), recognising that young women widely use these channels. By consistently posting content, they introduce new clothing items weekly, featuring a blend of their own Princess Polly employees and influential personalities.

During the 2020 isolation period, they engaged their Instagram followers through live streams featuring renowned influencers and guests who shared expertise on beauty and lifestyle topics.

They skillfully maintain customer engagement and cultivate relationships by employing a consistent approach to social media marketing. Leveraging the power of influencer marketing, they have maximised their reach and impact well as ensured prompt delivery to their customers. 

Social Media Trend #2 – Business Transparency and Behind-the-Scenes (BTS) Insights

Something a lot of consumers are looking out for it authenticity, which is often driven through behind the scenes business insights. The quest for authenticity and accountability has reached unprecedented heights. As consumers become increasingly discerning, they demand open windows into the inner workings of the companies they support. Within this context, brands must harness social media platforms’ power to forge genuine connections, foster trust, and illuminate the once-murky depths of their operations.

Followers enjoy captivating behind-the-scenes glimpses, a revealing look at sourcing practices, factory locations, the fascinating stories behind each product, and even the remarkable acts of kindness performed by companies. 

Do any examples come to your mind? Here are a couple that have caught people’s attention. 

Patagonia 

Patagonia showcases their core values, weaving narratives of activism, sustainable practices, and thrilling outdoor escapades. They actively disseminate thought-provoking stories, articles, and documentaries on these subjects, motivating its followers to join the movement and engage in an ongoing dialogue with their fans.

Patagonia’s social media presence spotlights the authentic tales of its vibrant outdoor enthusiasts, athletes, and change-makers community. They also released a Fair Trade campaign asking people, “How is your clothing made?”. Patagonia aims to get consumers to think about where clothing is made to create a more robust demand for Fair Trade products and disrupt negative patterns around the world. 

Rare Beauty

This unique beauty brand is owned by Selena Gomez and was established with a powerful vision: to dismantle mental health stigma and redefine the concept of beauty by celebrating individuality. 

Katie Welch, the Chief Marketing Officer of Rare Beauty, provides career advice and marketing tips and treats Rare Beauty fans to exclusive behind-the-scenes glimpses on TikTok. This captivating content encompasses mini vlogs that offer a sneak peek into Rare Beauty events, exciting visits to Sephora stores around the globe, such as in France, beautiful moments from days spent in the office, and an authentic depiction of what it’s like to be a part of the company. 

But that’s not all! Welch goes above and beyond by sharing valuable content on breaking into the beauty industry, staying up-to-date with retail trends, exploring sample CMO career paths, recommending insightful podcasts, and even engaging in live TikTok sessions where followers can interact with her in real time, asking questions that she graciously answers.

Social Media Trend #3 – Short-form UGC video

eMarketer projects that 2023 will have slower overall ad spending, but they forecast double-digit growth for short-form video advertising and predict it will be the fastest-growing ad segment in 2023.

UGC (user-generated content) builds on our first two trends of building a solid community and transparency in businesses. Customers now look for other customers’ experiences and opinions about any product before they come to conclusions. Younger generations are even bypassing Google and searching within TikTok for recommendations and honest reviews. 

The nature of user-generated content (UGC) in short-form videos lends itself to effortless consumption, interaction, and sharing. In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, where attention spans are shorter than ever, platforms such as TikTok, Instagram Reels, and Meta Stories reign supreme. Embracing these platforms becomes crucial in prioritising the exposure of your product to a broad audience. Their dynamic and engaging nature compels you to seize the opportunity and ensure your product gains the spotlight it deserves.

Let’s see who’s excelling in this area… 

Glossier 

Glossier, Inc. was founded in 2014 on the belief that beauty isn’t built in a boardroom—it happens when you’re a part of the process. Glossier doesn’t rely on traditional paid advertising. About 80% of Glossier’s growth and sales come from word-of-mouth marketing. How does Glossier get a shopper to spread the word about the brand?

Glossier regularly regrams user-generated content, so people know they could be seen by the brand’s 2.7 million followers if they tag the company or use their hashtags. This can be video trends like #grwm (get ready with me) or other short videos using their products, and even pictures. 

Their sponsored meta ads feature products but mostly UGC short-form videos of their fragrances, people putting on their makeup products, and how-to videos on using their products. 

 

Pillow Cube

Pillow Cube has created the perfect pillow for side sleepers. It aligns your spine & supports your noggin’. They’ve also highlighted short form UGC videos on their Instagram page and then tagged the influencer. This automatically gives a potential customer social proof without them searching for it. 

Their reels are full of real people using a variation of products and their first story highlight is ‘reviews’ featuring video and photo testimonials from various influencers and real customers as well as ‘comment shoutouts’ which are more text-based with a motion sticker creating a short-form video. 

Social Media Trend #4 – Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns

Advantage+ shopping campaigns within Meta Ads offer advertisers an efficient and time-saving approach to reaching valuable audiences while maximising online sales. This is more of a technical social media marketing trend but can be very useful across your paid social advertising. 

Compared to manual shopping ads, Advantage+ shopping campaigns significantly reduce the complexity of campaign creation. Advertisers can achieve remarkable results with minimal effort with simplified audience options and a streamlined creative management process.

 

With Advantage+ shopping campaigns, you can:

• Consolidate new and existing customer audiences in a single campaign, showcasing personalised products from your catalogue.
• Harness the power of machine learning to target your most valuable customers across all of Meta’s apps and services with minimal effort on your part.
• Streamline campaign setup and management by running fewer campaigns and eliminating the need for constant adjustments or updates.
• Deliver the top-performing ad variation to the most valuable shoppers to maximise results.
• Double down your efforts to focus on creative production and iterative testing as opposed to media buying.

For instance, instead of juggling multiple campaigns with varying targeting and creative setups, you can now set up to 8 Advantage+ shopping campaigns per country. This strategic approach provides our system with ample opportunities to connect with individuals who are highly likely to make a purchase.

Due to positive performance, we now invest more in Advantage+ shopping than any other campaign type for our retail accounts. 

Social Media Trend #5 – The use of ChatGPT 

ChatGPT can draft Instagram posts, help define your target market, and repurpose content from other channels. You can also use ChatGPT to create content calendars, draft customer replies, and identify relevant influencers.

ChatGPT can generate high-quality, unique content quickly and easily. With its advanced language understanding capabilities, this can save a lot of time and effort for marketers, who often struggle to come up with fresh, engaging content consistently.

There are, however some formulas and text prompt starters to help you utilise the tool to its maximum potential. 

Write me a (kind of text)

That is (style and tone)

Highlighting/featuring (characteristics)

As an example… 

“Write me an Instagram Ad that is a shocking, trustworthy testimonial and highlight why this pillow is perfect for the user.”

And the result I got was… 

 

Let’s shorten it up and pull in a target audience – type “write another version of this that’s half the length with a target audience of elderly women.” 

ChatGPT can know the format of Instagram, with the use of emojis, bullet points, and short and sweet phrases. Purely incredible and a trend that your marketing team should be taking advantage of to become more efficient.  

Final Thoughts

By staying informed and embracing these trends, you can ensure your business thrives in the ever-evolving social media landscape of 2023 and beyond. Stay ahead of the curve and seize the opportunities these trends present.