Executive Brief: Social Media Marketing In 2023
Each month, Firebelly Marketing offers executive briefings to keep our clients and community up to date on social media happenings and industry trends.
I wanted to start the year with a general overview of observations on what to expect in 2023.
Social Media Marketing continues to strive for authenticity and this year will further spotlight the consumer as both influencer and decision maker, openly sharing their content and experiences.
With the end customer in mind, we gathered social insights to give you a peek into what’s happening in the industry this year.
We started our presentation with a few words from our Chief Storyteller Michael Husain as he describes social media marketing through the perspective of storytelling:
“Social Media is a mosaic way of telling a story. You get a little bit through pieces. It might be video content in a traditional form. It might be very user generated and not crafted in the way that it often might be, but it might also just be a simple text post. It might be just a graphic. It could be a meme. It could be lots of different things. But if you curated it all together, it begins to form a picture. It begins to form a narrative.”
Storytelling
Stories always have characters.
My personal favorite is the dynamic between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. We’re following Luke on his hero’s journey, from Tatooine farm boy to powerful Jedi knight. Essentially, the emotional connection between galactic father and son (spoilers!!!), in particular the ties that bind them, is what we want to focus on in regards to social.
As the audience, we always ask who they are.
As marketers, we want to know if they make the brand more relatable.
The key part is to use characters to connect. What makes storytelling different on social media is that the story isn’t linear. There are so many opportunities to build social connections. Because the attention span online is just eight seconds, you only have a small window to deliver your message.
Each story has to be self-sufficient, complete, and able to communicate a tiny piece of this narrative. Keep in mind the human element, relatability, and authenticity in these stories.
*Case Study On Successful Characters In House: Each month, we post 30 pieces of original content daily starring two of our creators, Sarah and Bryce. They tell relatable stories about life in the office, on shoots, and the rigmarole of social campaigns.
Video Will Dominate
Out of all the visual mediums, short-form video will remain the most sought after social media marketing technique. Look at the numbers: Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram all have over 2 billion active monthly users. TikTok has 1.6 billion folks on the platform daily.
From baby boomers to Generation Alpha, everyone’s watching videos. Platforms will continue investing in highly consumable content, coinciding with our rapidly diminishing attention spans. Social video lasting 7-60 seconds gets shared 1,200% more.
In particular, TikTok is the fastest-downloaded app of all time. It also attracts the youngest age demo in comparison to Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.
In Q4 2022, Firebelly embarked on an ambitious project to post an original piece of video content every day for 90 days. I highlighted the results and learnings.
*Case Study On posting 30 original pieces of video per month for 3 months: By posting a short form video daily for three months (October - December 2022), our numbers increased dramatically across the board as follows: organic views increased 613%, Instagram engagements increased 400%, TikTok views increased 386%, and an increase of 850% in website traffic from social.
Some of the learnings included: the high costs to produce this volume, processes and protocols having to evolve, and an always-on content creation approach inside the company can create fatigue.
Influencer Marketing
Because influencer marketing has a higher engagement rate than traditional forms of advertising (average engagement rate of 4.5% ), over half of all brands plan to increase their influencer marketing budgets in the next 12 months. Advocates for your brand benefit audience growth, giving access to a niche of potential consumers with inherent trust, costing a fraction of your budget.
Even more efficient and effective is combining this strategy with UGC.
*Case Study On Niche Marketing: We have partnered with several micro-influencers for our client Bake Believe. By integrating a program of organic and paid influencers working together, we have seen 114,000 engagements, which was a 10% increase from a year before. We also saw an engagement rate increase by 17%.
Organic & Paid
Get both strategies to work together. Paid without organic feels hollow because the savvy consumer can tell that you’re getting a payout to get a product in front of them. It’s a short-term solution, but not optimal for long-term success. Contrastingly, paid allows you to reach specific objectives for your sales or leads, but can feel disingenuous. When working together, organic and paid allow you to build authenticity while reaching new users and driving deeper funnel objectives.
*Case Study On Organic & Paid: Our client Absolute Stone does fantastic work with counters and kitchen renovation. We put a budget behind a pet standing atop one of their slabs. Everyone thinks of their pets as a member of their family. People also appreciate the functionality of their kitchens. As a result, the post received 91 comments and 193 shares.
Ad Testing Framework
How do you roll out ads in the New Year? There are three key elements to ads.
Audience
should reflect the interests and behaviors of your ideal client. With lookalike targeting capabilities, custom audiences are available on most platforms now. Basically, you can find groups that mimic the behaviors of people that love working with you.
Creative
– ad creative should resonate with your audience. To remove cognitive friction or dissonance, make the copy, imagery, and videos function in a cohesive manner.
User experience
– your landing page (which we talk about next) should be easy to navigate and quick to load. Content must be easily digestible.
*Case Study On Ad Testing Framework: Our former client Sunbolt featured dynamic copy with up to five variations with each image, video, or carousel ad.
Landing Page
This piece often gets ignored. After consumers have seen the ad and interacted with the content, they head to the website and it’s a terrible experience. Some may think it's spam and click out. Others pointlessly move their mouse around the screen and are completely lost like an explorer without a compass.
Remove cognitive friction or dissonance by making sure your landing page copy, imagery, and videos all work as a cohesive whole. Basic best practices should be implemented to make sure you’re valid. Present a short form video to watch; present points to confirm what the user is looking for; provide instructions on what to do next.
Assume your potential audience doesn’t know what they’re doing. Revamp the landing page as if it's the most important document in your portfolio, then diligently measure the traffic.
*Case Study On Landing Page: Our landing page was specifically designed for the persona of a marketing director. Launched in fall of last year, the landing page remains our most trafficked bit of content on the website.
Ignore Recession Worries
Stopping marketing in an economic downturn is one of the worst things you can do. People aren’t going to stop e-commerce. Depleting your brand of a marketing budget isn’t going to increase your sales in any way.
Social media marketing is the only format where you can measure every single thing that is happening. Cutting online advertising campaigns is stopping the flow of your revenue. After all, the bigger the marketing share of your brand and voice, the bigger your market share will be.
Watch the original Executive Briefing presentation, here today and receive the presentation completely free of cost. Watch it now!