How will social networks develop in 2023?

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“The takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk was an earthquake that put pressure on the sector.“For digital marketing consultant Xavier Degraux, this is the most important news of the year in the digital landscape. “The Twitter dossier accelerates transformations, reorients players’ strategies, prompts thinking about economic models, content moderation, formats for the future. In short, it changes everything.“

Time on social media certainly moves faster than in real life, but the changes aren’t as drastic. As proof of this: despite repeated defeat, Facebook is still the most used network in the world (2.9 billion active users). YouTube (2.5 billion) and WhatsApp (2 billion) complete the podium. However, the media and pundits have only TikTok on their lips. It is not insignificant that it is a favorite of teenagers. It also has to overtake Facebook within four years. This partly explains why Meta, which also owns WhatsApp and Instagram, is laying off an eighth of its staff. Another reason is their investment in Metaverse, which will not dominate in 2023.

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Maha Karim-Hosselet, founder of social media digital agency MKKM, points to another certainty: “I’m not risking much in saying that 2023 will be the year of wheels.” For the rest, several trends are emerging. “In 2022, everyone copied TikTok by making short vertical videos, “reels” or “shorts”, especially on YouTube.“, notes Xavier Degraux. But now it’s the turn of the Chinese social media to take inspiration from its French competitor, which has the wind in its sails: BeReal. Like its competitor, the concept of TikTok Now is this: post a photo taken simultaneously with the phone’s two cameras at a random time determined by the application. So , the user doesn’t have time to stage himself.”It’s the anti-Instagram surfing on a wave that’s rapidly accelerating: the person fed up with com operations, marketing, personal branding. Here there is less time to influence him because there is less preparation time.“

Marketing, influence and advertising can obviously exist on these platforms. “The world of influence focuses more on communities at the human scale and abandons macro models a bit. We’re less of a One-to-Many model and more of a One-to-One model because the impact is simply greater.” This is also because instant messengers like Messenger and WhatsApp are not getting old, advertising on these platforms will increase.

To click is to buy

Maha Karim-Hosselet evokes a trend that contradicts the previous one, but can coexist with it in the market: social commerce. “From Facebook to TikTok, all platforms integrate sales opportunities directly into social networks. The arrival of new players like Amazon’s Inspire confirms this trend. This is the bet of digital leaders: to encourage users to buy products with a few clicks without going through a third-party site or page. This is the logical continuation of marketing in 2022. Communication between merchants and customers will be strengthened.“In this context, artificial intelligence will reach its peak in 2023. Artificial intelligence allows for the development of more aggressive marketing methods based on consumer data collected in recent years. The goal is to anticipate their needs and influence them more effectively from 2022.

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Maha Karim-Hosselet concludes: “All platforms are multi-functional and multi-purpose. Time will tell which initiatives will work and which will not.” Hard to achieve perhaps, but with a fantasy that is felt both on Twitter with Elon Musk’s “X” project and on the Meta side with the metaverse. The two dream of creating a Western-style WeChat, a kind of super-multifunctional application that allows content sharing, e-commerce, banking management, professional meetings… A monopoly that the most enthusiastic experts don’t think of, but it’s impossible. liberal democracies. At least, not in 2023, despite the best efforts of California billionaires …

Find our 2022 retrospective file