4 Key Elements of Focus for Social Media Marketers in the Second Half of 2023

We have already made it to the midway point of the year. This means that now it’s time to start planning your holiday campaigns for Christmas! Start planning as soon as possible in order to maximize your efforts in the lead-up to the key spending season. It may feel too soon to start planning but it is very important to note some customers start doing their shopping journeys including their Christmas decorations and gifts very early.

TikTok created its Holiday Planner for 2023, which is one of several guides that are already available including Reddit’s Holiday Planner for 2023 that will help you shape your approach. Below we will have a look at the key tips, pointers, and best practices for your holiday campaign planning.

The first place to start is our 2023 platform-by-platform guide, which includes overviews of key best practices and tips for all the major social platforms. These guides provide a full overview of the collected best practice tips, and while social media is always evolving, these serve as solid starting points for establishing the best approach for your holiday campaign. Also, you may need to establish the core elements that will underpin all of your efforts, and the below infographic provides some good notes on these points. Further, there are available a few growth hacking tips, which will provide inspiration for your promotion and brand awareness.

Also these tips on the best times to post – which will vary by audience, business, etc, but can still help in your initial planning.

Discover the New Trends

Social media are always evolving and changing, and we’re seeing new usage shifts that reflect a significant change in how people are using social platforms to connect. In social media, we’re seeing more people opting to share more privately, via enclosed messaging groups and private connections. That’s an important trend to note, which will have an impact on how you look to market your business – because in line with the shift away from public posting is the re-shaping of social feeds into key entertainment sources, as opposed to connective surfaces.

Like TikTok, every social app is now looking to provide more video content, primarily short-form, vertical video, because that’s what’s keeping users interested. And while post engagement remains a key driving factor in algorithmic amplification, it’s important to recognize why people are now using social apps – to be entertained, much more so than to directly engage and interact.

How this can affect your planning;

Instagram added a range of new elements to tap into the rising popularity of DM connections, including lead forms for business profiles, which prompt users to share their contact info in the app. Also, Instagram launched Channels, a one-to-many broadcast chat feature. And while that’s only available to creators for now, it could soon become a brand consideration, which would add another way to keep in touch with your audience.

In addition to that Instagram in April, also shared some helpful tips on how brands can make use of DMs to maximize customer connection.

Further, on Facebook, Meta’s added Click-to-Messenger Ads to your Facebook Reels promotion options. Also, Facebook added a Lead Gen form for Company Pages, which provides another way to gather contact info via Page visitors.

LinkedIn, for instance, launched DMs for Company Pages, adding another consideration for connection:

Twitter launched new restrictions on who can send DMs in the app, which will force businesses looking to use Twitter messages to subscribe to Twitter Blue or the more expensive Twitter for Organizations.

Thus, what brands need to note is that Twitter is continuing to push brands towards subscriptions, by forcing brands to pay up if they want to advertise in the app, while it’s also restricting the reach of tweets from non-subscribers, ostensibly to combat spam. If you are considering Twitter in your holiday push, you’ll likely need to subscribe to make the most of the app.

Generation of Generative AI

Another huge trend at the moment is of course generative AI, and how marketers can make the best use of AI tools in their process. In previous articles, we mentioned several news for AI use including how to utilize ChatGPT, and similar tools, as idea generators for social posts. For example, Instagram is testing a new AI chatbot option, as Meta looks to bring generative AI into its apps, while it’s also testing new generative AI prompts for ad captions, as well as background generation tools for ad visuals.

This is a key area that Meta’s looking to implement generative AI, in helping advertisers make the most of their campaigns, with a range of tools that could essentially automate the entire ad creation and targeting process for you, based on Meta’s own understanding of what works, and who’s more likely to respond to your campaigns. Also, TikTok launched a new script generator tool, that can map out your entire TikTok campaign creative through the use of generative AI.

And lastly, the final key element to consider in your planning is that with the broader shift towards entertainment, video remains a key focus for all platforms.

Meta says that time spent on Instagram has grown by more than 24% since the company launched Reels, and implemented AI-based content matching, while Facebook usage is also rising, driven by the same.

Both original post creation and user-to-user engagement on Facebook are declining – so while people are spending more time in the app, they’re primarily watching more video content, not posting to their own feeds, as per the aforementioned shifts.

Take TikTok as an example, TikTok has changed its paradigm of social media, and people now turning to these apps as an alternative to traditional entertainment options, as opposed to a supplementary element. That’s important to note from a marketing perspective, as people now want to see more entertaining content, as opposed to engagement bait or similar.

The four key elements that we explained previously are very crucial and you should definitely add them to your planning for the upcoming holiday push.

Source: Social Media Today

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