Social Media is Changing, Companies Need to Keep Up

Consumer trends and technology are constantly changing, and companies need to continuously adapt to successfully engage their customers with their brands, particularly when it comes to social media.

We have seen in the past few months a lot of changes for some key social media platforms; there has been significant upheaval at Twitter, Facebook has laid off staff, and TikTok is being hammered by bans in multiple countries.

There has also been significant progress in artificial intelligence (AI) and automation that increases the number of tools, media, and analytics that companies can use to engage with their customers more effectively.

Rival IQ published its 2023 Social Media Benchmark report in February and found that overall, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter users were engaging less in 2022. TikTok holds the highest engagement rate, which is measured as the number of user interactions per post per follower. This was the first year TikTok was included in the study, so there were no year-on-year comparisons.

The four social media platforms also saw a decline in the posting frequency across 13 of the industries that were analyzed, which included Fashion, Health & Beauty, Influences, and Sports Teams. Only Tech & Software companies slightly increased their posting frequency.

Despite the decrease in posting and engagement, consumers continue to use social media, which suggests that social media will remain a key component of a successful digital marketing strategy.

Companies need to take a step back and evaluate their digital marketing strategy. They need to assess where their customers are, ensure they are present on those platforms, and diversify their social media presence. There are many AI and automation tools that can help each company analyze the data, derive actionable insights, and develop content to publish to engage successfully with customers.

Companies need to understand each platform’s algorithms and policies to adapt their content, frequency and media to ensure they gain exposure with the audience they are targeting. Companies also need to define which media they want to use to engage with their customers on which topic, potentially varying based on platform and marketing objective.

Social media can and should also be used to engage in a dialogue with customers. For example, through customer service requests, customers are providing information on their needs and pain points. All of this data can be used to generate relevant insights to support a company’s growth strategy.