What marketing trends are impacting small business owners in 2023 or will be soon? Here are the top 6 2023 marketing trends that are on my radar:

1. Short-Form Video Will Continue to Dominate Social Media

Short-form, mobile video roared onto the social scene a few years ago with the rise of TikTok, but it wasn’t until Instagram prioritized video content that it truly started to take off in small business marketing. This year will continue the trend and video marketing will rule supreme in the social landscape.

But there’s some good news for those of you not fond of the “dancing and pointing” type of content! We’re seeing indications of super-short/trend-driven video fatigue in consumers. That means there’s opportunity for slightly longer, original videos to perform well on the platforms.

If you’ve been slow to adopt video into your social media strategy, let me encourage you to start now. (That’s why I’m hosting a Reels Workshop next month!)

2. Social Media Will Become a Customer Service Vehicle

You might have already noticed that customers and clients are increasingly posting comments or sending direct messages through social media to discuss your products and services or to ask questions. We are going to see that behavior increase throughout this year. That means that small business owners will need to monitor their DMs and comment sections carefully and make a point to respond to all customer inquiries.

Be sure that you check the “Requests” and “Hidden Requests” folders in your Instagram app, as many messages might end up there – especially if the individual doesn’t follow your account.

3. Influencer Marketing is Here to Stay

Influencer marketing will become a mainstay line item in marketing budgets for companies of all sizes.

While big businesses (with big budgets) are focusing on influencers with massive followings and proven capabilities to move products, thousands of micro- and medium-sized influencers are happy to work with small businesses for very reasonable rates.

This year, it will continue to get harder for small businesses to reach new audiences, gain followers and get sales – especially now that organic social reach has dried up and paid advertising has gotten more expensive and less effective due to the (needed!) changes to data privacy laws.

Influencers are an incredible resource and will increasingly be included in small business marketing plans and budgets.

4. SEO is More Important Than Ever – But Now For Social

Search engine optimization (making sure your website copy and content includes keywords and terms so that you show up in Google search results) has been incredibly important for over a decade. But there’s a new twist: SEO is now critical for your social media content.

Users are increasingly using social media platforms to search for content and accounts. So Instagram and Facebook are relying less on hashtags and are now categorizing and prioritizing search results based on the keywords in your content and captions.

Called “Social SEO,” you’ll now want to include relevant information and keywords in your bio, captions, alt-text, and subtitles/closed captions.

5. The Rise (and Fall?) of AI-Generated Content

There has been an influx of AI-powered writing tools (ChatGPT is the most recent one getting buzz) promising to help businesses and content creators generate copy for their website, marketing, social posts, etc. with just a push of a button. This might seem like an amazing tool – especially for small business owners strapped for time and money. But the copy that it produces is often low-quality, confusing, and is basically a mash-up of content that already exists on the internet. I’m sure you’ve already run across these types of articles.

While we will see continued and increased use of these types of “tools” (they are just too easy and tempting not to use!), I predict that there will be a bit of a backlash toward the content it produces and the businesses that use it.

In fact, Google recently released a “Helpful Content Update” that clearly said it is working to “ensure that people see more original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results.”

6. Email Marketing Will Be Essential (Again!)

Use of email marketing – especially for small businesses – has been declining in the last few years as we were all distracted by the allure of social media and digital advertising. However, I’m feeling the pendulum swing back the other way now that it’s getting harder to reach your target audiences and show up organically in their social media newsfeeds. Your email list is one of the most important assets a small business owner has. It’s your direct line of communication with your customers and no one can take that away! (Well, unless you violate CAN-SPAM laws. Don’t do that!) So I predict (and hope!) that 2023 will see the renewed use of email marketing among small business owners.

Do you agree with these 2023 marketing trends? Did I miss any?!