As the year comes to an end, brands often try to boost engagement within the festive season and drive promotions for the new year. The conclusion of one year is just as important as the beginning of the next. Your company needs to send out a strong and unified message that it is ready to tackle a new year in its stride - social media has always been instrumental in creating a brand image that delivers just that.
Social media has always been a key element for brands to create a stronger presence and engaging content. To thrive in a social media landscape, companies need to understand specific trends and socio-cultural references.
While social media navigation can be challenging for some companies, it is necessary as the marketing and copywriting industries have quickly evolved into digital playgrounds. In this blog article, we take a look at some of the latest social media trends that your brand can take advantage of in the last quarter of the 2023 year to succeed.
While you might assume that social media is easy to navigate, it can be a minefield if you don’t do it correctly. Your social media presence can both make or break your brand’s image. Before getting into some of the social media trends, let’s take a look at some tips to keep in mind when engaging in social media trends as a brand:
Now, for your social media presence to take off, you will need to keep your brand relevant. Social media trends are the best way to do that.
If 2023 has taught us anything, it’s that we need to stay updated on social media trends to stay updated with consumers. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, social media has boosted sales, brand recognition, and engagement patterns for businesses around the world.
Social media trends are popular topics, ideas, or content that are consumed at a specific point in time. Engaging in these trending forms of content pushes your content higher on algorithms and expands your audience and engagement. Some of the top social media trends that your brand can end 2023 with include:
Consumers have much shorter attention spans with the introduction of short-form video content. As a result, your brand needs to take advantage of this trend. First popularized by TikTok, short-form video marketing has now also been a main source of brand recognition with Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. According to Statista, 75% of US ad buyers get their clients from TikTok while 67% come from Instagram Reels and 43% are from YouTube Shorts.
Sourced from Statista
Reels and TikToks are also great ways to have your brand take part in social media trends within the different apps to build a larger audience and create a shared sense of community – especially amongst a younger audience. For example, Duolingo uses its mascot to take part in several TikTok trends to remain relevant and boost brand recognition.
Try to keep your content engaging by using short-form video formatting and advertising to viewers where they’re most likely to be spending their time. Remember to record engaging content that appeals to a larger audience and always use subtitles in your video content for better accessibility.
A large part of social media is building a community. Try to engage directly with consumers and offer helpful and friendly engagement. According to HubSpot’s 2023 Social Media Marketing Report, around one in five Gen Z, Millennial, and Gen X social media users have contacted a brand through DMs for customer service.
Your brand needs to be synonymous with friendly engagement and quick service on social media. Try to have a team dedicated to resolving issues of disgruntled users in an efficient and friendly manner. Keep your social media accounts accessible and open to messages from anyone. Try to actively engage with consumers to prove that your brand is involved and wants to be part of the conversation.
X – formerly known as Twitter – has also added in its blog about social media for brands that social media platforms are primarily for social networking and that reaching out to your audience is as essential as creating attention-worthy posts. Your interactions with consumers will build loyalty, trust, and an all-round better image for your brand.
Search Engine Optimization on social media focuses on the search queries that will be made on social media platforms about your brand. Around 55% of social media users use social search to look for people, content, brands, inspiration, and products or services. This means that social media is quickly becoming a trusted alternative for consumers to find out more information about products.
The New York Times called TikTok the “new search engine for Gen Z”, citing that younger people are more likely to ask the platform for the best places to eat, shop, or make purchases. Naturally, this is because people generally trust the public opinion of a brand’s product or service and are more likely to consume something more commonly praised on social media.
To optimize your social media SEO, your brand needs to use hashtags and keywords that are relevant in posts, captions, alt text, and more. Ensure that your company has a social media account that is easy to find across all platforms and contains your updated information and contact details.
Now, while social media is a great way for a brand to gain traction with consumers, it is often difficult to control the public’s narrative of a brand. This is where investments in influencer markets come into play. Consumer surveys show that 31% of social media users prefer to discover new products on social media through an influencer they follow over any other social format or channel.
Around 21% of social media users between 18 and 54 years old have made a purchase based on an influencer’s recommendation. While marketing previously relied on celebrity endorsements, the age of influencers has transformed the way brands engage on social media today.
Brands are more likely to create social media buzz by collaborating with influencers who have high followings on social media. However, even smaller collaborations can build a brand within communities and help to give your brand a grounded and more authentic reach.
An often-prickly topic for many copywriters, Artificial Intelligence has made a few waves in most creative crafts. The going concern is that the popularity of AI tools and generators will lead to inauthentic and lifeless content being regurgitated as genuine work. However, the AI revolution is showing no signs of stopping – whether we like it or not.
While AI can pose a direct threat to the integrity and substance of content, AI tools can be used in the right way to amplify and elevate content as well. It is the responsibility of copywriters and creatives to use AI platforms responsibly as a means of research, generating ideas, and enhancing original content.
On social media, AI content is met with a considerable amount of disdain and brands need to be very careful when navigating the use of AI tools to generate content – whether it be AI images or copy. Your team needs to understand the benefits and drawbacks of AI usage before promoting it on a social media platform where it will be scrutinized and draw engagement.
The 2023 year has been a wonderful time for copywriters to expand and uncover new ways to engage with consumers and create riveting content that keeps up with the times. Fortunately, we have rapidly evolving methods and mediums to stay trending with the surge of engagement that social media provides.
However, your social media content can only be truly engaging with the right skills to back it up. This is why TMG Global provides comprehensive, insightful, and SEO-optimized content to amplify your brand’s voice in the best way possible. Contact TMG Global today for a free content audit or to learn more about how we can help your business grow.
