Facebook Trends to Consider Using for Your 2023 Marketing Efforts
Facebook Trends to Consider Using for Your 2023 Marketing Efforts
Facebook has been the dominant social media platform for nearly two decades. And as of January 2021, Facebook became the first social network to register more than one billion accounts with over 2.74 billion monthly active users.
At the October 20th Facebook Communities Summit, Facebook unveiled several upcoming features marketers can use to their advantage through the end of the year and into 2023. In this Business Builders article, we’ll review the most popular features from 2022, provide an overview of the features unveiled at the 2023 Summit and provide definitive marketing tips you can implement into your business’s Facebook strategy in the new year.
What we learned from Facebook in 2022
Facebook continues to evolve as a business tool. Not only can it be used effectively and at minimal cost, but the platform continually adds new features that prove useful to organizations. Here are the features that were added in 2022 that you can begin to leverage if you haven’t already.
Stories
Originally implemented by Facebook’s rival Snapchat, Facebook now dominates the story-sharing world. In fact, over 1 billion Stories are shared on Facebook daily. Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg believes Stories will play a key role in the future of social media because many consider Stories the new newsfeed and it changed the way people share their everyday events. Stories work well on smartphones and are easy to share, making them user-friendly. Lastly, Stories support user privacy, which is also valued by social media users.
Businesses and organizations can utilize Stories to humanize their marketing efforts and share real-time clips of their day-to-day operations. Not to mention, the user-friendly aspect of story sharing adds minimal work to your marketing team’s plate.
Facebook Live
Facebook Live can be used by any user on the platform, and companies are taking full advantage of the feature’s ROI and high engagement rate. If your company has a limited marketing budget, Facebook Live can be an excellent channel to turn to. Facebook users are known to watch over 100 million videos daily and Facebook Live’s engagement clocks in at 178% higher than average post engagement. It’s also worth noting that the time people spend watching Facebook Live has quadrupled and live videos perform better with Facebook’s algorithm compared to pre-recorded videos (SproutSocial, 2020).
Facebook Videos
The rise of Facebook Live’s popularity does not mean that other forms of social sharing are dead. Facebook videos get 135% more organic reach than images on the platform. The popularity of Facebook videos shows no sign of waning, which is why 46% of marketers are highly considering the addition of these videos to their digital marketing efforts in the immediate future.
(P.S. If you’re wanting to learn how you can create engaging video content on Facebook and other social media platforms, consider registering for SWFL Inc.’s Digital Marketing Class on Video Marketing.)
Chatbots
The use of chatbots began on websites and they have now made their way to social media platforms like Facebook with nearly 100,000 monthly active bots on Facebook. Businesses can use chatbots in a number of ways, but customer service remains the chief reason for chatbot implementation. Organizations can use chatbots to answer simple questions in queries, which can then help drive sales by automating customer interaction and proving to be a responsive, customer-centric company.
New features to look forward to in 2023
Now that we know how to utilize the Facebook features that were available to us in 2022, let’s look ahead to 2023.
Facebook is constantly improving its system through updates, new tools and tweaks, which makes it an attractive marketing tool for any organization. At its sixth annual Community Summit in October, Facebook unveiled its new features that are coming to the social sharing platform in 2023. Highlights include Reels for Groups, expanded Group admin features and additional Instagram integrations.
- Reels in Groups – According to Facebook “Reels in Groups let you express your voice in your communities through creative and immersive videos.” Group members will soon be able to upload and share video Reels directly in their Group. Users will also be able to add filters, audio and text overlays to the Reels they post.
- Facebook Event Sharing via Instagram – Group administrators will be able to cross-promote your page’s Facebook Events directly to your Instagram account. According to Facebook, “This feature can help you showcase your community more broadly.” For organizations that host frequent events, this update is huge and allows you to reach an interested audience beyond Facebook.
- Expanded Group Profiles – For organizations that manage Facebook Groups, Group Profiles will soon be able to add even more information in the About Me sections and an “Open to Messaging” tag is also in the works. Additional tools that will help admins effectively manage their group's culture including being able to label individuals as community "contributors" and "socializers".
The latest updates to look forward to in 2023 have a key theme: Facebook Groups. Groups have been a major focus for Facebook lately and remain one of the most active parts of the social media network during a time when engagement numbers are falling.
The new tools are designed to alleviate the main pain points Group administrators have been dealing with for years, address quality-of-life concerns and low user engagement. For marketers trying to build a community via Facebook Groups, these updates should make that task easier. Particularly with additional ways to cross-promote events and encourage user-generated content.
Marketing tips to implement in your 2023 Facebook strategy
Facebook Groups were a driving factor behind Facebook’s improvements in 2023. They don’t have the same rules as regular business pages, Groups don’t have to compete with the algorithm and Groups aren’t as competitive as Facebook Ads. Marketers can achieve success by using a combination of Facebook Groups, regular content scheduling and Facebook Advertisements to interact with people more directly and increase ROI. The additional tips below can also be implemented into your 2023 Facebook strategy.
Put intent behind your posts
No matter what social platform you’re posting on, people like authenticity. It’s one of the main reasons influencer marketing has taken off and why traditional advertising doesn’t work as well on today’s audiences. Random posts will get you nowhere, so always post with intent. Think about the mission of your organization and your brand’s identity before you make a post. If you’re a nonprofit that raises money for homeless youth, should you spend time and effort on a “National Black Cat Day” post? Probably not. However, if you’re an animal shelter, celebrating this holiday on a social platform like Facebook would be worthwhile. Especially if you use the holiday as an opportunity to draw attention to the adoptable black cats under your roof.
Not only will posting with intent strengthen the relationship with your audience and followers, but it will also help you grow your audience in the long term. People spend time and engage with content that is meaningful to them, so if you continue to post with intent and make meaningful content related to your mission and your brand, you will be top of mind the next time they need to make a buying decision.
Encourage and reward engagement
The algorithm isn’t a game to be won, but there are ways we can get ahead of our competition. One of the best Facebook marketing tips is to encourage comments, which in turn are seen in a commenter’s feed. As a rule, if you don’t ask for comments, you don’t get them so encourage them as part of your posting. Something as simple as, “What do you think” tends to be highly effective.
Don’t forget – the algorithm loves comments. So, when you get more comments on Facebook, you also increase your reach. People also love to be rewarded for their engagement, so be sure to reply quickly to build trust with your audience. This also helps your Facebook page avoid looking like a one-way conversation. In the Facebook marketing community where relationships are everything, engagement helps to foster a sense of belonging with your audience and in turn build community.
Optimize your post timing
To learn more about optimizing post timing, we’re going to take a page out of email marketing’s handbook. It’s well-known that email marketing is most effective when emails are sent at times when the brand’s audience is likely to check email. If you attended SWFL Inc.’s Digital Marketing Class on Email Marketing, then you know the most optimal times to send emails are Tuesday through Thursday at 6 a.m., 10 a.m., 2 p.m. and/or 8 p.m.
The same is true with Facebook: it’s best to post when your audience is most likely to see the post. This way, it’s less likely to be buried by newer posts in the feed. And just like you can A/B test subject lines in email marketing, you can A/B test your post dates and times. By doing this, you can find the best time for your specific audience and optimize your future posting routine. Unlike email marketing, there isn't a recommended posting time for your industry. This data collection will need to be done internally, but thankfully, Facebook has begun beta testing for suggested posts times.
Where can I learn more?
At SWFL Inc., we are Southwest Florida’s only Five-Star Accredited Chamber of Commerce. Our greatest goal is simple: to help our region’s small businesses thrive. To do this, we provide our small businesses with the resources they need to grow in an ever-changing world.
In our upcoming Digital Marketing Course on Facebook, we’ll dive deeper into the information above, explore the newest tools for your organization’s page and get an understanding for the basics of Facebook Advertisements. To register, click here.
If you’re unable to attend the upcoming course, sign up for SWFL Inc.’s Business Builders updates where we provide valuable information to our local businesses on the industry’s latest news and trends.