Even in 2023, the world of digital advertising is not standing still. Our digital team will take you through developments to keep an eye on in the near future. This month, digital consultants Priscilla and Patricia discuss developments around digital platforms.
The digital media landscape never stands still; this year has seen some notable developments in usage as well, according to the Newcom National Social Media Survey 2023.
The biggest growth in daily usage is seen with Instagram (+18% to 4.7 million daily users), Snapchat (+30% to 2.5 million daily users) and TikTok (+54% to 2.5 million daily users). Newcomer BeReal, meanwhile, is used by 800,000 people daily.
Shrinkage is seen especially in the "older" platforms Twitter (-26% to 1.1 million daily users) and Facebook (-4% to 6.6 million daily users). YouTube's growth over the past 10 years has also stalled (-1% to 3.5 million daily users).
Total social media use is higher than ever at 114 minutes per day. Young people aged 15 to 19 take the crown with 161 minutes of usage per day. Within this group, we also see the most striking trends in what social media they use.
Young people are leaving established platforms like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube for more "fun" platforms.
With Facebook, the loss is mainly among users aged 15 to 19 who no longer use the platform because they like other platforms better or because their friends are on other platforms.
We've seen teens abandoning Facebook for several years now. This year's figures show that for the first time teens are also less likely to be found on Instagram and YouTube. These used to be the channels to reach younger audiences. Both are now surpassed by Snapchat. TikTok is also used more frequently than YouTube on a daily basis and is now almost as big as Instagram. The third platform that has momentum among young people is BeReal. This platform is now used daily by just over 20% of teens. This is also true for twenty-somethings.
Among 20-somethings, it is further notable that daily use of TikTok is approaching the level of Instagram and is now greater than daily use of Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube.
YouTube innovates: how successful will YouTube Shorts be
So YouTube is starting to lose some ground in initially important audiences for them and they are responding to that with new features. Where previously Facebook in particular successfully copied many features from other apps (Snapchat & TikTok), YouTube is now trying the same with Shorts, which is suspiciously similar to TikTok. We figured out what the opportunity is for advertisers.
The shorter, the better! Short videos that are quick and easy to record are a must within social media. Snackable content, you might call it. In addition to the popular TikTok and Instagram Reels, YouTube decided to join this trend with YouTube Shorts, which launched back in 2020. Shorts are videos of up to 60 seconds that can be viewed on the channels and the Shorts feed. That this new feature is now incredibly popular is evident from the published figures. On average, Shorts are viewed around 4 billion times a day worldwide by more than 1.5 billion active logged-in users. In this regard, Shorts is currently considered TikTok's biggest competitor. No official research figures on the number of global TikTok users in 2023 have been published yet, but it is estimated that this number is also around 1.5 billion with some 167 million videos being viewed per minute on TikTok. This makes it one of the most active channels out there. Currently, demand exceeds supply, which opens up many opportunities for creators, brands and media companies.
Now that reach is up, YouTube is rolling out Shorts advertising by region. The ads are instantly swipeable video ads that are displayed between movies in the Shorts feed. The testing phase began in April 2022, and so far YouTube has received positive feedback from advertisers and achieved good results. The addition of Shorts within YouTube, offers advertisers new opportunities to be visible within a large platform and among a large audience. Shorts are expected to become even more prominent and findable on both mobile and desktop. This is likely to further increase the reach for advertisers. Especially for awareness campaigns, this is a great addition to the media mix.
Platforms reach unique audiences
As consumer behavior changes, social media platforms are changing and innovating. In doing so, we see a trend from sharing moments (Facebook and Twitter) to sharing beautiful images (Instagram) to user-generated content and entertainment (YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, BeReal). We don't have a crystal ball, unfortunately, but it's still interesting to see how the world around social media continues to innovate and adapt. Anno 2023, the difference between platforms and on which social media channels you can best reach a particular target group is becoming more and more apparent.
By: Priscilla Teunissen, Digital Communications Consultant and Patricia van Zon Sr. Digital Communications Consultant at STROOM.