As businesses enter 2023, they study customer behavior and build marketing strategies based on ever-evolving audience behavior. Customers continue to behave in ways savvy companies are wise to follow. They remain discerning, creating an eager audience to learn about products or services.
Marketing expert Carlos Beirao da Veiga advises his clients to craft their messaging carefully. He operates the Portuguese marketing agency Da Veiga Consulting, and in 2023, he says content should be fully transparent.
“Businesses can create content that pushes a sales message or create content that engages with consumers and creates connections,” Beirao da Veiga says. “In 2023, companies should focus their social media programs on creating brand awareness more than lead generation.”
Beirao da Veiga creates marketing campaigns for companies of all sizes and industries at Da Veigas Consulting. A native of Portugal, Beirao da Veiga provides marketing services to various companies in Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile.
Carlos Beirao da Veiga and Julie Atherton Embrace New Social Media Strategies for 2023
Marketers need to go micro with customers in 2023 by publishing more specific communications that build community. Digital Marketing Institute consulted nine digital marketing experts about the most important marketing trends for 2023, publishing the findings on its website. Experts, including author Julie Atherton, believe social media will drive companies’ success in 2023.
Atherton told the institute, “There will be a clear demarcation between businesses that empower and support their teams to use social media effectively in relationship-building and those who see social as another channel to push sales messaging through.”
TikTok, the social media platform for sharing short videos, continues to evolve and dominate. This trend isn’t likely to change in 2023. TikTok has rapidly saturated the social media landscape. The Business of Apps reported that the app reached a whopping 8 billion monthly active users in 2022.
Carlos Beirao da Veiga is pleased with TikTok’s recent move to offer more user-friendly business tools in 2023. The app’s improvements to its advertising dashboard will improve its usability for businesses.
“Since TikTok offers new targeting options for their ads, it allows companies better to communicate the uniqueness of their services or products,” he says.
Social Media Continues To Evolve and Add New Players
Alison Battisby, the founder of Avocado Social, told Digital Marketing Institute that social networks had been trending toward decentralization, a phenomenon that promises to continue in 2023. This shift delivers marketers the ability to refine their content and micro-target to specific audiences.
Battisby told Digital Marketing Institute, “Some of the new and exciting platforms that we’re seeing include Mastodon, which is seeing a huge amount of downloads … and it’s an interesting tool because it is built by the masses.”
Mastodon bills itself as “social media that’s not for sale.” The platform doesn’t operate on algorithms or display ads.
Other social media outlets will debut in 2023. Twitter founder Jack Dorsey is working on BlueSky, an infrastructure rather than a platform. Dorsey’s company calls it “a new foundation for social networking which gives creators independence from platforms, developers the freedom to build, and users a choice in their experience.”
“It should be interesting to test this platform, and others, in 2023,” Carlos Beirao da Veiga says.
Like Other Experts, Carlos Beirao da Veiga Says Valuable Content is Evergreen
In the Digital Marketing Institute’s report for 2023 trends, the authors consulted Neal Schaffer, a social media expert. He said marketers are shifting toward quality, not quantity, in their web content.
“Since Covid, we’ve 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’re calling ‘recommended media,’” Schaffer said in the report. “I believe this pushes brands even more to work with influencers and content creators.”
Businesses continue to hire content creators and partner with brands to create more connections through content. This move alleviates the challenges companies experience by churning out content in-house. Since there’s an evergreen need to create valuable content, content creators can focus on a brand’s messaging to find audiences in a busy, distraction-filled world.
In 2023, the overarching philosophy among companies is to be surgically strategic in their communications. Still, the Content Marketing Institute found that while 78% of marketers generate strategic content, only slightly more than half keep a documented content strategy to make their brand’s messaging consistent. Businesses would be wise to focus on a clear content strategy above all else.
In 2023, great content can make connections and build communities. Customers are still interested in the value and ethos of brands, so companies should carefully craft their messages to connect successfully to audiences.
Kate Toon, the founder of Stay Tooned, summed up the post-Covid marketing world in Digital Marketing Institute’s report. It’s all about connections.
“While social media and email marketing still have their place, for me, it’s communities that are driving the majority of my sales,” Toon said. “People are seeking community. They want to reach out and get support from other humans.”
