Facebook reached a new milestone in early 2023, reaching 2 billion daily users for the first time. In the ever-changing social media landscape, the world’s largest social network continues to hold its own.
So what’s trending on Facebook right now – and how will Facebook change in 2023? We’ve rounded up the most important Facebook trends that marketers should be paying attention to this year.
Hint: Facebook AI trends are leading the way. If you’re not already thinking about how AI will impact your Facebook strategy, now is the time to start!
Top 8 Facebook Trends for 2023
Trend 1: Drums are here to stay
The coils were an instant hit on Instagram. But it was initially unclear whether this success would translate into their launch on Facebook.
Enough time has now passed for us to officially say that the verdict has been reached. Reel’s losses on Facebook have doubled over the past year, and Reels’ reposts have doubled in the six months leading up to Feb. 1, 2023. This keeps pace with the rise in Instagram levels.
In addition, Facebook has made it clear in earnings reports and other announcements that reels are the main focus of the platform. This is despite the fact that they are currently losing money on short reel games that take time away from the tape.
In addition to creating Reels organic content, you can currently advertise through Reels creators. You can also create your own interstitials. As the platform seeks to increase revenue from Reels, stay tuned for new ad opportunities with short Facebook videos.
Source: Meta Business Help Center
To-do list:
- Start thinking of Reels as part of your Facebook strategy, not just the surface of Instagram.
- Allocate a portion of your advertising budget to testing ads on rollers and creating your own paid videos.
- Stay tuned for updates on new advertising opportunities with Reels. (This Hootsuite blog and social channels are a great place to get the latest news.)
Trend 2: Buying live is dead; hello Facebook shops
In October, Facebook shut down online shopping to focus more on, you guessed it, drums. Online shopping has lasted a little longer on sister platform Instagram. But as of March 16, online shopping during live events is no longer available on any Meta network.
Live social commerce just hasn’t caught on in North America like it has in China. Since this is Meta’s “efficiency year”, it’s time to get rid of this feature.
Luckily for companies that have built a customer base through Facebook, the platform hasn’t moved out of social commerce at all. You can still sell directly through the platform using your Facebook store.
eMarketer predicts that the number of social commerce buyers on the social media platform will continue to grow slowly. Facebook is expected to become the leading social commerce platform in the US until at least 2025.
Source: eMarketer
While there is no more online shopping, you can also stream the video live on Facebook. And while the commerce features built into live shopping are no longer available, you can still link to external websites while streaming.
To-do list:
- Audit your Facebook store to make sure it’s set up to maximize sales. (Need some inspiration? Check out these examples.)
- View Live Shopping sales reports to understand which products have been successful with the Facebook audience. Then consider ways to highlight these products in videos, ads, or Facebook Live product demos.
Trend 3: Meta Verified makes verification available to everyone
The coveted blue check badge is now available to any adult on Facebook or Instagram who wants it and is willing to pay $11.99 to $14.99 per month. (If they live in a country where this feature is available – currently Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.)
For now, Meta Verified is only available to individuals, not brands. But Meta says they plan to open up the program for businesses in the long term, so brands need to keep the program under review.
And while brands can’t yet apply for the program, there are still ways to benefit. First, the program will make it easier to work with creators because you will know that you have the right account for a real person. (We’ll talk more about working with authors in Trend 6.)
Source: Meta
You can also use the program to check your company’s key indicators. Consider checking your founders or representatives if they have accounts under their own names. Meta Verified also includes access to live customer support and impersonation protection. So subscriptions for your key players can help protect your company from some of the risks associated with social media.
To-do list:
- If you live in a country where this program is available, encourage key people in your business structure to sign up for Meta Verified. Especially if they talk about the business from their personal Facebook profiles.
- If you live outside of the program’s current availability area, join the waitlist to be notified when you can enroll.
- Look for the blue checkmark when looking for potential contributors to collaborate with.
Trend 4: AI will drive content creation and discovery
Even though ChatGPT exploded onto the scene just a few months ago, it has already been vastly surpassed by its own successor, GPT-4. This has brought AI content creation, also known as generative AI, to the forefront of the public imagination, and Facebook is taking notice.
Facebook has been investing in AI for several years now. But in February, Mark Zuckerberg announced “a new top-tier product group at Meta focused on generative AI to accelerate our work in this area.”
In particular, he mentions such projects as:
- “creative and expressive means”
- images, including advertising formats
- and “video and multimodal experiences”.
In 2023, Facebook users and marketers will also improve the way they use third-party AI content creation tools. It will be far more challenging (and business-friendly) than the Lensa wave of super selfies that became the Facebook AI photo trend in late 2022.
We remain a firm believer that AI is not ready to completely replace writers, photographers, or designers. But he’s willing to make their job faster and easier, especially when it comes to iterating content for A/B testing.
AI will also make it much easier to write short texts like social media captions. Hootsuite has already created an AI caption generator for Instagram. And we are working on similar tools for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
In 2023, AI will also help discover more content. Facebook is “increasingly showing more relevant content recommended by our AI systems.”Facebook CEO Tom Alison said:
“Over the last couple of years, there has been a shift: people are logging on to Facebook more to be entertained, to discover something new, or to see what’s going on in the world. It is for these new reasons that we are investing in discovery through AI. … We use AI to recommend all types of content beyond videos: photos, text, groups, short and long videos, and more.”
To-do list:
- If you’re not yet experimenting with AI content creation, check out our post on the best AI tools to help you get started.
- Try the Hootsuite Instagram AI Caption Generator and join the waitlist to be notified when it’s ready for use on other platforms, right from your Hootsuite dashboard.
- Familiarize yourself with both the Facebook Algorithm and Facebook Search Engine Optimization to make sure you are sending AI content recommendation tools all the right signals.
Trend 5: AI has made it easier to target ad campaigns
Yes, AI is also working on ads. Facebook has moved towards AI targeting as privacy and transparency changes in iOS 14.5 have made it harder to target Facebook ads using third-party cookies. In fact, Zuckerberg says that artificial intelligence is the “backbone”of Facebook’s advertising business.
With its Advantage+ shopping campaigns, Facebook allows advertisers to target high-value customers using AI based on just a few initial inputs.
Meanwhile, Advantage+ catalog ads (formerly known as dynamic ads) use artificial intelligence to offer the most relevant products in your catalog to people who are most likely to buy them, even if they haven’t interacted with your business yet.
The first results are encouraging. In the February earnings report, Zuckerberg said advertisers saw 20% more conversions in the most recent quarter. They also saw a decrease in acquisition costs.
To-do list:
- Make sure you understand all the different types of Facebook ads currently available.
- Start experimenting with Advantage+ Facebook ad campaigns to compare your results with your previous ad spend and ROI.
Trend 6: Creators Find New Growth Opportunities
When we talk about social media content creators, Facebook may not be the first platform that comes to mind. Instead, you are probably thinking of Instagram or TikTok.
But lately, Facebook has been taking steps to improve the creator experience on its platform. In October, Facebook opened the professional mode for Facebook profiles to everyone. Professional mode includes a set of monetization tools and options, including:
- Reels Play (US creators only) to earn money from reels
- Stars’ right to reels, live video and video on demand
- In-stream advertising
- Subscriptions
Source: Meta for Creators
The Hootsuite Social Trends 2023 report predicts that small businesses will start working with creators this year. Why?
Big brands are cutting their influencer marketing budgets. Facebook can be a particularly good network for small brands to work with creators. Those who use this platform rather than Instagram or TikTok may (for now) have fewer followers. They may be open to creative compensation packages.
To-do list:
- Start looking for potential authors to collaborate with. A social listening strategy is a good way to help find relevant people in your niche.
- Reach out to potential creator partners using the steps outlined on our influencer marketing blog.
Trend 7: Chatbots will take over customer service
Zuckerberg’s Generative AI post also notes that the company is working on “developing AI characters that can help people in many ways.”And just a few days earlier, he announced that Meta is releasing its own model of a large AI language, which, among other features, promises to conduct dialogues.
In Hootsuite’s 2023 Social Trends Survey, only 26% of organizations using social media as their primary customer service channel use chatbots. This is a great opportunity for brands to show leadership and stay ahead of trends.
Chatbots have been able to answer the most basic customer service questions for some time now. But conversational AI takes their abilities to the next level, allowing them to participate in more complex customer service chats, which reduces the burden on your customer service agents.
In 2023, your customers will have no reason to wait a business day to find out where their packages are, how to solve common service issues, or even get personalized product recommendations.
To-do list:
- Learn about the benefits of AI chatbots in general and Facebook chatbots in particular.
- If you’re not already using Facebook Messenger for customer service, try implementing a Facebook customer service strategy this year.
- Explore existing AI chatbot tools that integrate with Facebook, such as Heyday.
Trend 8: Groups and communities are easier to find
Whereas recommended content on Facebook used to be just recommended content, the AI recommendation engine now also recommends joining groups. Group recommendations can appear in many areas of the Facebook interface:
- Feed
- Notifications
- In other groups
- When watching videos or events
Group recommendations are based on geographic and demographic information, as well as your activity and interests on Facebook.
For brands, this means it’s more important than ever to consider creating or participating in groups to better connect with your community. Remember that Groups are not the place to focus on sales. Instead, they are an important means of building community and brand loyalty by providing useful resources and an opportunity for fans to interact with the people behind your brand.