Social Media Outlook in 2023 - Trends & Platform Stats

At present, social media is a means for citizens of all ages around the world to receive new information, express opinions, maintain contact with family, and even meet new friends.

After Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004, the concept of social media, an online networking platform, gradually entered the mainstream. In less than 20 years, 60% of the world’s population of eight billion have social media accounts, which have transformed our lives in various ways.

• In terms of politics and governance, social media can provide a more direct window for policy communication. For example, during the recent pandemic, many governments disseminated accurate information through social media to counter the spread of misinformation and disinformation. The networking between social media users further allows policy-making units to discover unsatisfied groups and reflect on and adjust policy directions. Furthermore, through the analysis of social content, government units can further understand whether related policies are being implemented, or the public’s current perception of events. Lastly, the direct participation of government units and citizens on social media can directly implement citizens’ contributions and discussions on policies.
• In terms of corporate operation, excluding intranet social media developed for work purposes (such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, etc.), the department most related to social media is usually the marketing department. Simply put, through social media, companies can better interact with consumers, or potential consumers, whether it’s during the marketing activities of new product releases, or by providing interesting, useful, and valuable content to enhance brand awareness and favorability. This type of social media marketing expenditure has created a market worth over 150 billion USD globally, with Meta being the leading company, with ad revenues reaching 129.2 billion USD. Although YouTube and TikTok also have user totals up to several billion, their revenues are only 17.38 billion and 11.64 billion USD respectively, showing a significant gap.
• However, in the past five years, social media has become more than just a marketing channel for businesses. In some companies, social media is even part of the entire product and service value chain. For instance, in product development, social listening (a technique for large-scale mining of social content), or product managers directly understanding consumer thoughts on related platforms, can provide development teams with ample consumer pain points and competitor perceptions. Furthermore, more and more companies have started implementing co-creation directly through social media, allowing potential consumers to participate in product design.
• Similarly, in customer service, we have seen more and more organizations establish relevant mechanisms and systems in the past five years to handle after-sales and other customer service needs coming from social media groups, public statements, or direct contacts with the brand.