By Ross Candido, VP ANZ and Southeast Asia, Meltwater
Despite gloomy predictions for recession, the outlook for marketing budgets is more positive. Globally, 70% of marketers are either maintaining 2022 budgets or increasing them. But the pace of growth is slower than previous years, and along with economic uncertainty, it’s all the more important for marketers to make their budgets work smart.
In the recent Meltwater State of Social Media 2023 report, the majority of organisations are planning to maintain or increase social budgets in 2023. 60% say that the current economic development has led to social media being perceived as more important by their organisation.
Challenges for paid influencer marketing
What is seeing a decline is paid influencer marketing. Consumers are starting to distrust influencers due to fatigue with the amount of branded content. The ACCC is also investigating the influencer marketing sector to identify misleading and deceptive behaviour. This includes influencers making false statements promoting products, omitting key information and not clearly labelling posts that have been paid for by sponsors or advertisers.
As a result, marketers are becoming more cautious when it comes to their paid engagements with influencers. They’re expanding their influencer due diligence to include vetting the number of other partnerships an influencer is engaged in and how frequently they post sponsored content.
This means we could see an increased shift towards nano influencers who don’t yet have numerous brands they’re working with. Meltwater analysis found that in 2021 micro-influencers (5-30k followers) represented 91% of all sponsored post engagements – including likes, shares and comments, within APAC. Micro-influencers on TikTok in particular are an untapped opportunity for many brands, experiencing 32x and 4x greater engagement than influencers on Facebook and Instagram respectively.
We could also see marketers tapping into niche, and often closed, communities to find advocates. Trusted online communities are seen as a key way to reach Gen Z, one of the most cynical demographics when it comes to advertising and promotion. Instead of advertisers, Gen Z are more likely to turn to peers for product recommendations.
Shifting to organic social
Additionally, many marketers are shifting their brand investment focus towards organic social media as a more authentic way to engage, including organic influencer partnerships. Most APAC marketers (72%) see organic social playing a more important role in driving business and marketing strategy in 2023. Organic social media helps build an authentic connection with a brand’s target audience, which can then be amplified with paid social.
Interestingly, the Meltwater survey found that both the role of organic (71%) and paid (66%) social media will increase for 2023. Unsurprisingly, given economic constraints, paid social will take a secondary role. But with the need to amplify messaging and get consumers’ attention, only 19% of respondents see paid social as being less important.
Keeping real-time tabs
The rapid, ephemeral nature of social and fast-shifting social trends means that marketers need to be listening in real-time. Campaigns are no longer something you run and wait to find out the results. Marketing is dynamic and fluid and needs to constantly evolve as consumer sentiment evolves. It’s critical to take a broad view and be agile: a single siloed social channel won’t tell the whole story.
With such a huge array of social channels and networks around today, using social listening platforms, including AI tools, becomes imperative. A third of marketers are already gaining a deeper understanding of their audiences through social listening and sentiment analysis, enabling more targeted marketing campaigns that can drive better results.
Continued global economic uncertainty is making many organisations much more cautious and increasingly deliberate with how they use paid social. But to gain more traction, brands need to be open and willing to invest more time and resources in social media and its development. As social takes on new roles, creates new trends, and shapes the world both outside and inside the platforms, new opportunities and threats are created on a daily basis.
See Also: Meltwater and We Are Social reveal Australia has highest monthly TikTok usage time in the world