HubSpot: 2023 Global Social Media Trends Report

HubSpot released the "2023 Global Social Media Trends Report". Consumers are increasingly using mainstream social media platforms, which have become important destinations for understanding brands. HubSpot surveyed more than 1,200 social media marketers around the world to find out which platforms they think are most effective.

To build an active community, respondents believe that Meta platforms are the best options, with 25% of respondents believing that Instagram and Facebook are the most effective, followed by YouTube (14%) and TikTok (10%).

When asked which platform had the highest ROI when selling products directly within the app, Instagram came out on top (33%), followed by Facebook (25%), YouTube (18%) and TikTok (12%).

When considering influencer marketing, Instagram is once again a favorite among marketers: 27% of respondents will use Instagram the most when working with influencers/creators this year, ahead of Facebook (19%), YouTube (18%), and TikTok (15%).

As a result, 23% of people think Instagram is the most important platform for brands to engage audiences this year, ahead of TikTok (19%). 25% of people think Instagram is also the platform that gets the highest ROI from social media marketing, ahead of Facebook (23%), YouTube (14%) and TikTok (12%).

Speaking of formats, in terms of investment focus, about 33% of respondents plan to invest the most in short videos such as TikTok and IG Reels, three times as much as long videos (11%). This further demonstrates people's strong interest in short videos: short videos are the most influential trend this year, and marketers also regard social video as a key consumer trend.

As for content types, there wasn’t much of a split between those that were considered to provide the best ROI on social media. Relevant content (16%) topped the list, but was only slightly ahead of trending content (cultural moments, news stories: 15%), educational/informative content (14%), and interactive content (polls, games, augmented reality, etc.: 13%).

The study found that humorous messages are most effective in engaging consumers, with the study showing that nearly two-thirds of social media marketers (66%) believe that funny content is effective on social media. The majority also said that relatable (63%), stylish (59%), authentic/behind-the-scenes (59%) and interactive (56%) content is effective.