[Tendances 2023] “Companies accelerate on influencer marketing” – Research & Barometer > Influencers

You interviewed 2,000 professionals from around the world to develop your barometer. What are the main developments?

For the third year running, the study reveals that social networks have become a central element of business strategies. And in the current economic uncertainty, social networks become a point of reference and attention becomes the main bargaining tool that economic players cling to in order to be heard, recognized and continue to connect with their audience. More than 45% of French companies (42% worldwide) plan to increase their investment in social networks in 2023 (26% of their marketing budget). Companies are ramping up influencer marketing. About 70% of BtoC companies are already involved in influencer marketing or plan to start this year. The pressure on marketers is even greater: they are being asked to do more with less. Social media is more popular in France than in the rest of the world: almost 60% of respondents said that social media is more important.

What are the brand strategies on different social networks? What does it use? What goals?

When asked about social media goals, brand awareness (81%) and brand commitment (60%) most popular in all sectors. Other popular goals include acquiring new customers (49%), followed by increasing web traffic (22%). All these indicators can also be linked to the creation of more brand awareness, as we have identified a positive correlation between all the mentioned factors and the building of brand image. The research shows that the social networks used by brands are concentrated in four platforms worldwide, including Facebook (89%), LinkedIn (87%), Instagram (84%), YouTube (67%), followed by Twitter (66%) and TikTok ( 30%). In France, we see progress from LinkedIn, which leads the ranking with 91%, ahead of Facebook (84%), YouTube (64%) and Twitter (53%) (91% VS 89% in 2021). It should be noted that TikTok (27%) recorded a 47% increase in the barometer. It is indicative of the explosion of the video format in brand strategies. If Facebook remains the reference, LinkedIn has evolved over the past two years to introduce a content offering beyond its initial purely HR use. This platform is now used for a wider use of corporate communication revitalizing and re-humanizing the brand based on the words of employees and key people in the company (Employee Advocacy).

What trends do you see emerging in 2023?

We observe it became the center of brand image. More than half of the companies surveyed in the Barometer are equipped with tools to listen to their reputation. Another phenomenon is that brands no longer just want to be seen attract their audience. It was the first performance measure to be analyzed based on the noticeable results achieved in social networks based on conversations and dialogues. To measure performance, engagement (78.71% vs. 80% last year), followers (71.04% vs. 65% last year) and web traffic (63.20% vs. 59% last year) were mentioned are three main indicators. Thus, commitment becomes the primary criterion and enforces itself as it progresses. Monitoring and measuring social media performance has grown in importance in recent years, especially when visibility and transparency are considered top priorities by all organizations. When it comes to measuring ROI, only 17% of participants said they track revenue generated by social media. These are the short video formats popularized on TikTok that will dominate this year and across all platforms. with appropriate boxes. While 62% of the content published on the platforms is produced in-house, the development of new video content, which is time-consuming and technical in nature, is outsourced to external service providers.

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