5 Social Media Trends in 2023 to Watch Out For

The new year is around the corner. If you work in social media, you’re probably planning for 2023 and strategizing for your biggest year yet. When it comes to building a 2023-friendly social content strategy, here are five predictions for social media trends in 2023: 

Authenticity is king 

According to PR Week, “Consumers need to be able to trust the content they engage with.” In order to do so, brands and companies need to prioritize integrity and authenticity. A sense of humanity needs to touch social media in all its forms. 

What does this look like on social? It means carefully crafted language that offers transparency and knowledge. It also means honesty and clarity over where a brand or company stands on a subject. Social will drive heavier social and political conversations in 2023 than ever before.

Analytics will matter more than ever before  

With more brands and companies investing in social, metric tracking and reporting are more important than ever. If a company has a designated budget for social, hitting benchmarks and keeping up with key performance indicators (KPIs) is critical.

One of the social media trends in 2023 is going to be deep dives into analytics and using the data to determine use of budget, return on investment (ROI), and content performance. Define what matters most to your brand. Is it reach? Is it engagement? Set those benchmarks and use them to build a case that social is important and working (or not working and how adjustments to a social strategy can help change trajectory).

Yes, analytics have always mattered in social before but with more companies allocating money for social media, there will be a major oversight from C-Suite and VP-level employees that hasn’t been seen before. It will be up to social media managers to utilize analytics to tell a story and explain where content and dollar spends merge.

Expect more and more AI social recommendations

AI content is all over Facebook and Instagram. While the goal is to maximize user engagement, AI-recommended posts haven’t always gotten it right for users. I mean, anyone who has seen their Instagram feed recently knows this. I’m lucky to see a single post from anyone I follow most days.

However, in the new year, AI-recommended content is going to become one of the social media trends in 2023 that changes your feed even more. What’s the end goal with AI-recommended content on platforms like Facebook and Instagram? AI-recommended content is supposed to show off the best, premiere content on the platform. 

With the emphasis on more AI-recommended content, expect more algorithm changes to your day-to-day feed (especially on Instagram). 

Look for messaging alignment

One of the social media trends in 2023 is total alignment between e-mail campaigns, landing pages, and social media. Instead of standing alone, marketers will bridge the gap through their messaging and make sure all channels align in tone and key messaging points. 

While marketing channels serve different purposes (for example, e-mail traditionally focuses on conversions and social media helps build brand awareness), messaging alignment will be much more prominent in 2023. A perfect digital marketing game of connecting the dots.  

Advertisers will flock to TikTok  

TikTok will absolutely overtake Facebook and Instagram as the most important social network when it comes to marketing ad-spend. More advertising dollars will make their way to TikTok, leaving platforms like Facebook and Instagram in the dust (and rightfully so with their wonky algorithms).

Since this will be one of the social media trends in 2023 to make a splash, it’s important to note that while advertising dollars will increase on TikTok — competitors like Instagram Reels will ramp up to try and distract from TikTok’s immense popularity.