Meltwater released a new report on Tuesday, January 17, comparing local trends to global trends, revealing that the importance of social media is increasing among organizations due to global economic uncertainty. With brand awareness being a priority, more than half of respondents (52%) said that economic uncertainty had made social media a more important channel for their organization.
While Facebook remains the most widely used social media platform for organizations, in terms of growth, TikTok usage is increasing rapidly (30% vs. 16% last year). Additionally, 47% of those surveyed stated that they plan to use TikTok this year. This statistic held steady at 46.98% when looking specifically at respondents in Africa.
“With the current uncertain economic climate, many brands are embracing innovation to get more out of their marketing budgets. A well thought out social media strategy enables marketers to gain and retain customer attention in a highly efficient, profitable, and measurable way. We are not surprised to see respondents looking to increase their brand awareness using these tools,” says Enterprise account executive Lays Bammesberger.
Five channels dominated the social landscape in Africa. Facebook (88%), Instagram (76%) and LinkedIn (74%) were the first, followed closely by Twitter (67%) and WhatsApp (58%). In terms of growth, TikTok usage is increasing rapidly (28%). In particular, WhatsApp usage in this region is 35% higher than the global average. Of the more than 170 countries surveyed, the report found that African countries are more confident in social media as a marketing tool (74%) compared to the overall results for other regions (52%).
While brand perception and brand awareness have always been important, this trend seems to be on the rise. Marketers will continue to face familiar challenges, such as a lack of time and resources; however, social networks are an exceptional tool to combat them, as shown in the report. Investing in social media channels, particularly TikTok, is an effective method of building a strong brand.
While social media marketing has different purposes, the survey results showed that increasing brand awareness (81%) and brand engagement (60%) are priorities across all industries (B2B, B2C, and NGOs). ). However, while the top two social media goals appear to be brand-related, only 23% of organizations use brand reputation as a key metric.
In short, social media has proven to be an inevitable ingredient in the communication mix of organizations, regardless of the field in which they operate, and is only growing in importance in times of turbulence and uncertainty.
Meltwater’s full Global State of Social Media 2023 report is free to download.
Katherine McInnes is Meltwater’s head of marketing for Africa
