Are Brands Investing in Social Media Communities in 2023? We Asked 1,200+ Marketers

Download Now: The State of Social Media Trends [Free Report]

The ultimate goal of social media marketing is to generate revenue, and a crucial step to generating revenue via social media is creating engagement. If your followers don’t engage with your posts, they won’t engage with your business. And a sure way to boost engagement is by fostering a tight-knit social media community.

Social media communities are incubators for brand awareness, loyalty, and trust. They’re also a dime a dozen, so marketers must refine their approach to building and leveraging them correctly.

Let’s explore more about social media communities, their benefits and challenges, and where brands will invest their resources in 2023.

Are brands investing in social media communities?

Social Media Community Benefits

How are social media communities formed?

Social Media Community Examples

Building a Social Media Community

Challenges of Building a Social Media Community

Final Thoughts

Are brands investing in social media communities?

The Hubspot Blog surveyed 1,283 social media marketers around the globe to determine which trends they leverage, the channels they use, and their plans for 2023. Here’s what we found:

Social Media Community Trends

90% of social media marketers say building an active online community is critical to success in 2023.
At the time of the survey, 1 in 5 social media users joined or participated in an online community in the past 3 months.
Instagram and Facebook are the most effective platforms for community building.
88% of marketers say most brands will have an active social media community around their brand in 2023.

Facebook

Facebook is used by most (67%) social media marketers but takes second place behind Instagram for engagement and ROI.
Facebook will see significant growth in 2023, with 23% of social media marketers investing more in Facebook than any other platform, 43% increasing their investment, and 41% continuing to invest in Facebook.
Social media marketers see Facebook in third place behind both Instagram and TikTok regarding the platform with the highest potential to grow in 2023.

Instagram

Influencer marketers see the highest ROI through Instagram.
Instagram is used by 65% of social media marketers, coming just behind Facebook at 67%.
29% of social media marketers plan to invest the most in Instagram over any other platform, and 52% plan to increase their investment in the platform in 2023 — while another 39% will keep it the same.

YouTube

55% of social media marketers use YouTube, making it the third most popular platform among social media marketers.
14% of social media marketers plan to invest more into YouTube than any other platform, and 15% plan to try it for the first time in 2023.