Communities, signals and lots of AI: Digital marketing in 2023

The process is more important than theCRO In the end, the quality of content outweighs the number of followers, and social platforms with much more freedom are born. This is what digital marketing will look like in a year of a challenging economy     

The year 2023 poses a difficult challenge for brands in general and for marketing and advertising professionals in particular. When everything becomes more expensive, when interest rates rise and the monthly repayment on debt and mortgages increases – consumers think twice before spending. Investors are also skeptical, tending to be cautious, which reduces the pie in companies and with it the share of marketing and advertising. All of this requires more effective targeting, attractive and relevant content, a precise strategy and technology that allows you to achieve more with less. Here are some trends that are expected to accompany us at this time:

Not who wrote, but what
In general, it can be said, at least in the context of brand awareness, that the pendulum has swung from generating leads to focusing on social networks. Within this world, alongside the “arming” of influencers with large followings, the demand for quality content is now rising. Leading marketers identified the shift during the Corona pandemic: public interest has shifted from the “who” to the “what”; to the content itself, which, as long as it is of high quality and relevant, matters less whether it is backed by a network star, a professional writer, a partner or an anonymous consumer.

As for social platforms, TikTok is undoubtedly the rising social network. With 750 million active users per month and over 1.5 billion subscribers, organizations and companies can no longer skip it. Certainly not those seeking to reach young audiences. In the coming year, the Chinese platform plans to launch business-oriented features that should improve intuitiveness, usability, and targeting capabilities.

A big question mark hangs over Twitter. After a year of upheaval, it is unclear where the tweeting network is headed. Owner Elon Musk is sending conflicting messages, and there is already a significant exodus of users who are reluctant to entrust sensitive data and personal impact to the billionaire and the rules of the game he dictates. New social platforms are trying to fill the vacuum that promises greater degrees of freedom for users, advertisers, and developers. One of the most intriguing of these is Bluesky, owned by Jack Dorsey, who was one of Twitter’s founders and even served as its CEO.

Time for Communities
Everyone knows that a content management strategy is a must. But many organizations forget an equally important layer – a strategy for organizing archived content. It is important to remember that content today does more than just promote a brand at the various stages of the marketing funnel. Given that customers and potential customers are increasingly interested in the values ​​and ethos that a brand represents, content is becoming a central element in creating connections, expanding circles, and building communities. In 2023, this is more critical than ever.

People need community, support, personal and human attention – and many of them have difficulty finding this amidst the endless noise and FOMO that characterize the social network. They want to know that they are consuming products and services from people “in the same boat”, those who share values ​​with them. And this is perhaps the most important role that leaders of communities built around the brand have.

For the same reason, many organizations are now looking for partners, and not necessarily sponsors. Content producers, for their part, treat brands not only as a means of direct income – they can dedicate a post to them or talk about them on a podcast if it is relevant to their audience, the prestige that the brand connection gives them, some shared value, an opportunity to test the product themselves or simply, the popularity of the brand itself that has become “trendy” to talk about. Brands that are able to become such will do well even without raising the spending ceiling. An effective way to do this is to ensure quality content, not necessarily quantitative, and certainly not just sales-oriented.

Other people’s videos
If you thought B2B marketing was a relatively boring business, less glamorous than B2C, think again. Good evidence of this is the invested videos that are taking the field by storm, whether as a presentation or explanation of the product or service or for distribution on social networks. So if you’ve wondered why you’re seeing more and more videos on LinkedIn, this is why.

There is of course a difference between content designed to promote sales and that aimed to create connections and engagement, and it’s important not to mix up the goals and types of content and to be precise.

But you don’t have to produce everything yourself. On the contrary: sharing content from others (industry news, interesting research, publications and press releases, interesting and inspiring interviews, in-depth articles and podcasts) and participating in lively discussions will present you and your digital assets as having expertise, relevance and a genuine desire to deal with the problems of the moment, not just to sell.

Content on demand
In the coming year, we are expected to see a shift from “technical” marketing, based on one or another target, to a kind of “marketing on demand” or based on expectations. New technological tools help us better understand what content and when audiences expect, and this is even before we have introduced them to the automation processes. In this way, we can maximize personalization capabilities. In fact, it is a complement to collecting data and learning behaviors through signals – signals from end users regarding their desires at any given time. This is certainly true for Google Ads, but social media marketing is also heading in that direction.

The combination of data and advanced tools should put organizations in a completely different place in the next two years, with much more relevant and effective advertising. ChatGPT, the jaw-dropping deep learning-based tool from OpenAI, whose fourth generation is due to be released this year, is expected to play a key role here. With such a tool, instead of conducting market research and hundreds of interviews to get ideas, you can ask the machine for dozens of fluid suggestions for a logo, slogan, and even content, and then narrow down and refine options until you find the one that works.

Marketing technologies and specialized software already play a central role in content creation, distribution, management, and KPI analysis. They make it possible to plan and route customer journeys and customer experiences, and lead multichannel and cross-channel (Omnichannel) campaigns. It costs money, and quite a bit: According to estimates, in 2022, spending on these tools will exceed $20 billion for the first time – about a third of this amount is attributed to B2B marketing.

And if we mentioned KPIs, the indicators will also need to be updated. Leading marketers are thinking less in terms of conversion rate improvement (CRO) – how some change in wording or visibility contributes to reach optimization and sales – and are looking more holistically at processes, wants and needs. And what about the metaverse? The use of virtual reality in the worlds of marketing and advertising is growing at a slower rate than estimated, but that doesn’t mean it has stagnated. It will definitely continue to accompany us in 2023.