A recent article published by Social Media Today offers insight into where businesses may want to direct their social marketing efforts this holiday season.
A series of polls conducted by the online publication, which specializes in social media analysis, show users’ platform preferences and dissects some of the subtle changes happening in social right now. One good example: “With the arrival of TikTok, short-from video quickly became the key trend in social media engagement, and is now the fastest-growing content format in most apps,” Social Media Today notes. “That’s also amplified a more significant change, in people using social media platforms for entertainment over connection. In the past, people had been excited to share their personal updates on Facebook and Instagram, but the increasingly divisive nature of social apps has made people more wary about sharing their thoughts in public, which has led to an increase in users creating more intimate DM groups, while using their social feeds to discover and consume content.”
Sounds exactly right, doesn’t it? Though many haven’t stopped to consider this evolution, it certainly reflects how we have collectively embraced a new norm on social media. Information like this is important for businesses to digest, given its implications for how they market organically and spend their ad dollars on certain platforms.
One key trend noted in the article is that LinkedIn continues to be a surprising underdog. Social Media Today ran a poll on LinkedIn to get a sense of how people have been using the app this year. Though the results might be skewed—since it was run on the platform about the platform, users would be more likely to see it—more than three-quarters of respondents said they’ve spent “more” or “way more” time on LinkedIn in 2023, with the largest percentage (43%) answering “way more.” For its part, LinkedIn has reported “record levels” of engagement, with a 41% increase year-over-year in sharing of original content on the app. (If you’re wondering what sort of holiday strategy might be a good fit for LinkedIn, read our update from a couple of weeks ago.)
Users appear to be skeptical of the app formerly known as Twitter, X. In Social Media Today’s poll of the platform’s users, about one in three (32.6%) refused to acknowledge its name change, and a similar percentage (31%) said their experience with the app has been worse in 2023. Fewer than 200 people responded to the poll—a very small subset of X users—so it may not provide a clear picture of what’s really going on. As far as holiday marketing on X, an overwhelming majority (87%) of respondents to a LinkedIn poll of almost 1,500 users answered no to the question of whether they plan to advertise on X in the future. And now with the news that X intends to charge all users to be on the app, there’s a significant chance a brand’s audience there will shrink.
Finally, if you’re looking to gauge the most popular social media app this year—well, if you ask folks on LinkedIn, which Social Media Today did, it’s Instagram: 42% of the 3,200-plus respondents named Instagram as the social app they’ve use most in 2023. This was not the most scientific poll, obviously, and many other surveys and data online point to TikTok being the most popular (it was cited by 24% in Social Media Today‘s poll). But the fact that Instagram beat out LinkedIn (30%) in a poll conducted on LinkedIn says something about the popularity of Instagram among that user base.
Particularly for those businesses content with reaching millennials (and some Gen Z), Instagram might be the best bet for their marketing dollars this holiday season, but do also consider TikTok and, yes, even LinkedIn, if there’s room in the budget.
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