As customers become more demanding about the products and services they buy, there is also a global cost of living crisis that brands need to plan for in 2023, setting the marketing trends for 2023.

That means is more important for brands to be transparent and think about their messaging or fine-tune their strategy this year. It also means that marketers should keep an eye on trends so they can plan for and take advantage of new developments.

To help you kick off 2023 in a big way, we’ve identified the most important trends.

  • In social media and influencer marketing, we looked at TikTok and business, the rise of content creators, and SuperApps.
  • In B2B marketing we talked about video content, how to win the social scale, and curated content (The simple definition of curated content is selecting content from other sources to share on your channels. This includes the operation of researching, discovering, collecting, organizing, and presenting that content to your audience).
  • Content marketing seems ready to see more connections, creator + brand partnerships, and a constant need to create valuable content.
  • We’ll hear much about marketing automation in 2023, especially regarding the available tools and the much-anticipated ChatGPT-4.
  • CRO – Conversion Rate Optimization or CRO will take a new lead. And the metaverse will not go away.

Social Media and Influence Marketing Trends

There are some exciting trends in 2023 for social media. It is the area of marketing where we will see significant changes and brands need to stay up-to-date to have a solid online presence and uses the platforms effectively.

TikTok continues to evolve and dominate

TikTok has become a major player in the social media marketing realm.

According to The Business of Apps, in 2021 alone, TikTok generated $4.6 billion, a 142% increase over the previous year, with 1.8 billion monthly active users expected by the end of 2022.

TikTok is not just breaking into consumers or creators. The platform is focusing on usability for businesses and improving advertising targeting options, which will make it a bigger and better platform for brands in 2023.

Decentralize social media to create a ‘super app’

The changes at Twitter have set off alarm bells about the vulnerability of social media platforms. Customers are moving away from the desire to engage with billionaire-led platforms for fear of losing control over their content and data.

We are moving toward a need for social media decentralization. Some of the exciting new platforms we’re seeing include Mastodon, which is seeing a huge amount of downloads over the last few weeks. And it’s an interesting tool because it’s built by the masses.

Other applications are emerging, such as BlueSky, which is being developed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. More of an infrastructure than a platform, the company describes it as “a new foundation for social networking that gives creators independence from platforms, creators the freedom to build, and users a choice in their experience.”

The creative economy will grow and change

As brand awareness becomes more social media-centric, companies need to find content creators who have a voice and a fan base (small or otherwise).

It can be a challenge for brands to create content that engages customers in a time-starved world. This is 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.

“Since COVID we have seen a new social media culture that focuses not on the number of followers, but on the content itself, in this era of what they call ‘recommended media.’ I believe this drives even more brands to work with influencers and content creators.”

Neal Schaffer, social media leader and author.

The emergence of content creators on TikTok, YouTube and Twitch means that there is an incentive for creators to spend time creating content that a brand could take advantage of.

Marketing Trends for B2B

B2B marketing may be seen as boring or less exciting than its B2C counterparts. But it doesn’t have to be! As a B2B company, it is important to be creative in your marketing and use the channels and tools available to be memorable.

Take advantage of videos

As marketers, we all know the power of a great video campaign as a way to inform and connect. After all, 86% of companies 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 why companies use video, with the top explainers followed by videos and social media presentations. The top three channels that companies use are YouTube, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Created Videos Purpose

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.

Read our Video Marketing article to get some inspiration for your video campaigns!

Empowering 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 is a difference between publishing content that pushes sales messages and using content to engage and create connections.

There will be a clear demarcation between companies that empower and support their teams to effectively use social media to build relationships and those that view social as another channel to push sales messages through.

Investing in curated content

While companies put creating original content on the podium, 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 a problem or sharing information rather than just selling.

If you are reaching out to something informative and insightful, it doesn’t matter much if you created that content. I think it can be an effective way to provide some learning and insight and show that you are a trusted person who can add value. As a B2B strategy, it can be very powerful.

The types of useful content you can share include:

  • Industry news
  • Research by third parties
  • Press releases or announcements
  • Interviews (video and blogs)
  • In-depth features
  • Podcasts

Content Marketing Trends

Using content to drive leads

As marketers, we know 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, content should be used to make connections and build communities. As customers become more interested in the value and community of brands, it will be the companies that foster and seek connections that will succeed.

While social media and email marketing still have their place, it is communities that are driving the majority of sales. People are looking for community. They want to reach out and get support from other humans.

People want to feel that they are buying from brands with similar values that align with their own.

Refine and define creator/brand partnerships

There is a lot, a lot of content out there. Some of the content out there is great, but a lot of it is aligned with the wrong influencer or not targeting the right audience. That’s where a good content creator/brand partnership can make a difference.

Many creators want to grow and expand in 2023. This means they are looking for brand partnerships (not just sponsorships) that align with their content so that the posts are natural and the companies offer guidance and support.

Balance your content to offer value, not just sell

You need to create your own content and have your own voice. But you can balance your content marketing budget with more curated content.

The most important thing is to be relevant and show that the brand is connected to the world, that ideas are unique, and that it pays attention to trends.

Importance of automation tools

Gartner predicts that by 2024, organizations with IT teams that understand customer needs will outperform other organizations’ customer experience metrics by 20%.

This understanding will depend on automation tools for internal processes and to improve the customer experience. These include CRM tools, social media, advertising, lead management or email marketing.

One trend for 2023 is the increasing use of automation and personalization tools at scale. Doing this is difficult unless you understand the data you have, put that data into a tool, and use it to automate your communications with consumers.

Artificial Intelligence and the launch of GPT-4

You may not have heard of GPT-4 (Generative Pre-Trainer 4), but it is a cutting-edge tool that can help marketers automate many tasks.

Developed by OpenAI, it is a deep learning text generation model that is trained using the content available online. It is used for Q&A, text summarization, machine translation, classification, code generation, and conversational AI.

So you could simply put in a little bit of information about your brand and these tools would come up with 50 ideas for your content, and you would just drag and drop the ones that interest you most.

CRO is no longer about experiences

Every company wants to improve its online conversion rates. This means more traffic, more sales and more revenue, right?

Until now, many marketers have experimented with conversion rate optimization (CRO) and used many testing methods. However, this era of just seeing what happens is coming to an end, because it’s not just about chasing the result.

Metaverse growth is slow, but brands will continue to bet

The metaverse caused a stir in 2022 and will continue to do so in the coming years, but growth has been slower than expected as profits fall and costs rise.

However, brands will start thinking about what their strategy is for this new era of immersive virtual communication in 2023.

One of the biggest telltale signs (of a new chapter in social technology) is Meta’s commitment to the metaverse, and how they are going full steam ahead to build these virtual domains and existences. It will take years to change people’s behaviours and get used to this new offering, but that doesn’t mean we won’t see some interesting innovations in the space.

Marketing Trends for 2023 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 like-minded creators and influencers.

These developments show the constant evolution of marketing, both in terms of technology and strategies. Good planning!

You will see many developments and changes in digital marketing in 2023.