In the ever-changing world of digital marketing, brands need to stay ahead of the curve. But how do you anticipate what trends will be popular in the future? Discover in this guide how data-driven insights can help you better understand your audience and gain a competitive edge by mapping out your brand social content strategy for 2023 and beyond.
We’ll examine social media and what brands should consider in 2023. Specifically looking at content and media choices, so let’s dive in:
Content types
Marketers should take notice of the 2023 Content Benchmark Report from partner Sprout Social. It provides a comprehensive breakdown of content types and their engagement rates. We know social media is visual, so those taking advantage will likely be rewarded. As expected, short-form videos came out on top with 66% consumer engagement; static images followed closely behind at 61%. However, text posts proved to outperform long-form videos. Audio had the lowest engagement rate, likely due to social networks not prioritising audio content, where music videos or lyric videos are more commonly consumed.
Content Frequency
There is going to be considerable debate in 2023. The 2023 Content Benchmark Report from Sprout Social benchmarked data across more than 523 million messages from 729,000 public social profiles active between January 1, 2022, and September 30, 2022. Data includes Facebook, Google My Business, Instagram, LinkedIn company pages, Pinterest, TripAdvisor, and Twitter posts.
Their results stand in the face of the new conventional wisdom that posting less content produces better results. They have broken their data into industry-specific sections so you can see how you compare to your industry. Over the past few years, many brands have reduced content schedules to posting 2-3 times a week to get better engagement per post. However, according to Hootsuite, even the recommended reduced posting schedules are much more frequent than many brands currently produce. In short, the key insights coming through suggest:
- Daily posts on LinkedIn are building the best engagement.
- If you are engaging in TikTok, you should look to content schedules of 4-5 posts a day – a tricky feat for any brand entering the Tik Tok ecosystem today.
- It would be best to aim for between 1 and a half posts to 4-5 posts on Facebook daily.
- And two posts a day on Instagram has become that accepted norm.
This works out to an average of 11 posts daily, dramatically lower than most African brands produce today. It can go a long way to explain why our consumers are so influenced by global brand content, not local brands.
This data is supported in The 2023 Content Benchmark Report, but there are very specific industry outliers and nuances which should be noted; a few examples I find interesting to note are:
- The Media and Entertainment industry tends to average 21 posts a day and has the second-highest level of inbound engagements at 334
- Sports pages receive the most inbound attention in general across all industries.
- Food and Beverage, Banking, Financial Services, Legal and Non-profits tend to post below the norm at 7-9 posts a day. Which I would assume has more to do with working with fewer channels than producing less content.
Content frequency should always be viewed through a localised lens, an understanding of your audience and, most notably and transparent communication strategy. Creating high volumes of inane content to meet content volume targets is more detrimental to your brand reputation than not meeting the demands of content frequency. It does seem, however, that for many brands and businesses, we can still do a lot to add value to our customers by producing valuable content. The social media algorithms will still reward us.
Content Channels
TikTok has undoubtedly made its presence felt and has generated a huge buzz as the leader of the content creator platforms on the internet. It should certainly be considered part of your media strategy. However, there may be other opportunities in the wider industry to maximise ROI on your investments. Keep up to date with market developments to ensure you’re capturing the best value for your brand.
Social Media remains the most prominent digital asset for building brand awareness and value. Its access to people and targeting capability is vastly superior and opens the door to getting your brand in front of all the right people en masse.
Google is providing better value to content creators with their YouTube shorts by sharing ad revenue. Currently, TikTok offers creators fame, and Youtube provides revenue channels – you may find creators prioritising revenue-driving channels. Additionally, Google’s advertising engines are still superior to TikTok; Meta Business Advertising offers a much broader reach into more extensive demographics and niche audiences. New networks like Mastodon are trying to put the social network back into the hands of the people, which may provide new opportunities for aligned brands.
If you’d like a copy of The 2023 Content Benchmark Report, message me on Linkedin, and I will send it to you.
Article originally posted by conference speaker Mike Saunders
