Mr Branding: Digital Audio Marketing to Take Center Stage in 2023 as Social Media Trust Plummets

Thursday, January 19, 2023

Digital Audio Marketing to Take Center Stage in 2023 as Social Media Trust Plummets

It looks like digital audio is going to become a popular choice for marketers in 2023 with all things having been considered and taken into account. This comes from a report that was just released by Integral Ad Science, and it reveals that podcasts and other forms of digital audio have turned into fertile ground in which ads can be placed to improve product awareness and brand reputation.

Another thing that this report revealed was the concerns of various marketers who are currently working in the industry. 51% of marketers said that the deprecation of cookies and other forms of third party tracking are likely going to hit them pretty hard. 33% are also concerned about their ads being shown next to questionable content, and 18% said that they have noticed a decline in consumer trust towards proprietary software and are worried that this might impact their marketing efforts in the future.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that social media platforms are going to continue to be hotbeds for marketing and advertising. 91% of marketers plan to advertise on at least one social media platform, but the platforms that they choose to work with are changing.

Back in 2022, 71% of marketers stated that they wanted to advertise on Facebook. This number has fallen to just 52% for 2023. YouTube’s share has fallen from 69% to 50%, Instagram’s has plummeted from 65% to 44%, and even TikTok has seen a 9 point decline going from 40% to just 31%.

In spite of the fact that this is the case, Twitter seems to be doing just fine. Its numbers haven’t changed at all, staying at the 46% mark, which seems to suggest that Elon Musk is not alienating marketers and brands like everyone thought he would.

What’s more, the current economic sentiment means that marketing spends on social media platforms are not growing as fast as people had hoped. Back in 2021, these marketing spends grew by an incredible 37%. The growth rate has plummeted and it now sits at around the 8% mark, and that does not bode well for the future of social media marketing.

Social advertising is also becoming less of an ideal option due to the erosion of consumer trust. 77% of marketers are worried that consumers don’t trust social media platforms in quite the same way that they used to. Still, transparency over user metrics is still something that is quite sought after, and 67% of marketers believe that they can get these metrics relatively easy from social media platforms that they might post ads on.

Hence, it doesn’t seem likely that the age of social advertising is at an end. However, Spotify was selected by 23% of marketers as a popular platform for the very first time. This seems to suggest that the scales are tipping, and it will be interesting to see if Spotify is able to sustain this popularity into the future. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen, but the coming year will prove to be a litmus test for the streaming platform and digital audio in general.