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The 7 biggest digital media trends for 2023

27th January 2023

Has your organisation thought about what to expect from digital media this year? We're only one month into 2023, but marketing managers are already thinking about how trends in the industry are going to impact their businesses.

Are we all going to be shopping in the metaverse? Is copywriting about to be replaced by artificial intelligence? Will you finally get a grip on all your digital assets? Maybe all three?

Let's take a look at what we can expect over the next 12 months.

AI is here to stay

We can debate long into the night about what 'true' artificial intelligence actually looks like, and whether or not the recent developments in machine learning really count, but one thing's clear: these tools are getting more sophisticated rapidly.

The launch of ChatGPT caused a stir in November, while examples of images created by OpenAI's DALL-E 2, StabilityAI's Stable Diffusion and Midjourney were wowing us throughout 2022.

Should graphic designers and copywriters be worried? Not yet, but there's no doubt that AI is here to stay. GPT-4 is hotly anticipated this year, and is already expected to be significantly more powerful than GPT-3.

READ MORE: How could AI and DAM work together?

Advertisers won't be able to ignore TikTok's growth

What started out as 'that new app your kids use', TikTok has seen huge growth in the last couple of years.

The social media platform now has over 1 billion active users, putting it ahead of Snapchat, Pinterest and Twitter - and closing in on Instagram.

It's a platform big brands are now taking advantage of and, if your organisation has a B2C audience, you should be too. To that end, TikTok has been improving usability for businesses and targeting options for advertisers, so maybe it's time you checked it out.

Brands need to communicate their messages quicker

One of the benefits of TikTok as a social media platform is that it allows you to do something consumers want more and more of: messaging that's delivered quickly and that's easy to digest.

Instagram Reels, launched in 2020 as a response to TikTok's growth, are hugely popular too. Again, if you're targeting consumers, you need to start embracing shorter form video content.

That messaging needs to be simple and clear too. You can't communicate a complex idea in 15 seconds, so don't try. Figure out how your product or service USPs, as well as your brand values, can be communicated in soundbites and start playing around with creating short form video.

Moving away from a reliance on third-party data

In January 2020, Google announced the company was phasing out the use of third-party cookies (the cookies advertisers use to follow you around the web) in Chrome browsers within two years. Apple are doing the same thing, and since the release of iOS 14 users are presented with the option to block being tracked.

This is arguably a win for internet user privacy (although it hands a lot more power to the likes of Google and Apple), but it's going to make advertising difficult for brands that don't have access to a huge amount of data obtained directly from their audience.

If you want to continue getting decent reach with your marketing campaigns, now is the time to start a concerted effort to build up your first party data.

The death rattle of Web3?

If you'd asked a proponent of Web3 at the end of 2021, they'd have probably told you 2022 was going to be a big year for Web3 technology (cryptocurrencies, NFTs etc). After all, Bitcoin had just peaked at an all-time high of almost $65,000, and NFTs were being promoted left, right and centre by brands and celebrities alike.

Fast forward 12 months and Bitcoin has lost almost half its value, while the mainstream discourse around crypto and NFTs in general is invariably negative, their reputations having suffered badly as a result of several high profile hacks and bankruptcies.

Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse push is also floundering, with Meta (Facebook's parent company) losing over half its value in the last year.

2023 could be a bad year for Web3 on the whole, but we're not going to say 'we told you so', because it would be petty…

READ MORE: Why Web3 is NOT the next big thing

A 'single source of truth' for digital media has never been more important

We're spending more and more of our time online, both at work and at home, and this means your organisation's digital media needs to be consistent across multiple channels and platforms.

It's not just your website where users interact with your brand online anymore. Your social media channels, ads, website, sales collateral and print media all need to be on point, but this is challenging when you don't have a 'single source of truth' for storing digital assets. Old brand assets can remain in circulation, marketing teams aren't sure which product photos they're supposed to use and sales people fill their pitch decks with outdated imagery.

A Digital Asset Management system is no longer a nice-to-have for organisations, and if you're still struggling with Google Drive, Dropbox or other file storage platform, 2023 should be the year you make the switch to a dedicated DAM.

Corporate Social Responsibility is essential

Consumers are becoming more socially conscious in the purchasing decisions they make, whether that's around issues concerning the environment, racial justice, gender equality or something else important to them. This means that as an organisation and as a brand you need to take Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) seriously.

A recent survey found companies that build a framework for business ethics across the board are more likely to be profitable than those that don't, while there are many high profile examples of brands suffering for not sharing the values of their customers.

This isn't just a consideration for B2C industries either, with many businesses thinking about how they can reduce their negative impact on the planet by being more discerning over the vendors they work with.

Here at ResourceSpace, we're incredibly proud to have made a big effort to reduce our carbon footprint, including partnering with Ecologi's to plant trees on behalf of each new customer we bring onboard.

Want to find out how ResourceSpace can help you tackle the digital media challenges expected in 2023? Book your free demo of our DAM platform below.