So, I asked ChatGPT to tell me what trends digital marketers need to pay attention to in 2023. I think the list was pretty accurate:
Voice Search Optimization
Privacy & Data Protection
Before I sat down to write this article, I had a sense of what I was going to touch on… AI being a cornerstone of that list. Of course, I should have written down my own list first and then queried ChatGPT. But, that’s not how this technology is going to be the most useful. And indeed, I encourage all readers to find the efficiencies offered by this technology to get a jump start on your work this year.
Not to be Outsmarted
The list above is a good structure for digital experience owners to follow. If you ask this question of ChatGPT yourself, you’ll get more detail on what each item is all about. Pretty impressive. In an attempt to show my human value, I thought I would try and stump the system by asking the bot to put that previous answer into context given the current global, macroeconomic situation. Without missing a beat, I got a sensible answer about how it will be important to set priorities and focus time on cost-beneficial tactics. I got details back to consider how some of these technologies will be more intensive (expensive), while some will provide efficiency (i.e. streamlining content creation).
What You Should Do
Most of us, I would say, have a bias for routine. When everything is fine, just keep going. Even for all the ambitious people reading this, routine means constantly striving for growth. The bias though, is sticking to methods that have previously led to prosperity.
Now, the opportunity will be to integrate AI tools into your routine. You need to use ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion and other industry-specific solutions (just ask ChatGPT where to start). By the end of the year (or probably much sooner) you will also get these answers from the search engines you use every day. Bing has a head start.
The Personalization Enigma
Content and experience personalization has been on these trend lists for several years now. I predict it will be there for some time. Larger, more sophisticated teams can tailor their message to specific audience segments, but personalization still seems daunting for most brands and businesses.
Alexa, Impress Me
Voice Search Optimization made it onto the list above and that’s not something I would have come up with on my own. Voice search is handy for making sure my kids are dressed for the weather each morning, but I’m not convinced there is enough commercial value here to make this a priority for most digital experience managers. I suppose if you sell movie tickets, you might disagree.
Socially Awkward, Privately Insecure
The other three items from the list are Social Media, Video Content and Privacy. Perhaps all three will be evergreen trends. I think I just broke the definition of a trend, but still - so many businesses are way behind in these areas and most have room to improve.
Once upon a time, social media was simply for personal social moments. The cat videos, the baby pictures, and the inappropriate party moments. That changed a long time ago and consumer brands adapted quickly. Other corporate communications teams are still playing catch up. Can you answer the following questions?
Where do you need to show up? LinkedIn? Tiktok?
When should you show up? Monthly? Daily?
What will you say when you show up? What’s your brand purpose?
Are you ready for any of these trends in 2023? I bet most readers have work to do here.
*** Presentaton Mode ***
As a bit of an aside...
After writing evertything above, I used both Stable Diffusion and Dall·E 2 to try to generate the associated hero image to go with this article.
Dall·E 2 did a great job:
I first asked for a photo of a robot helping a human use a computer.
I refined that by asking for an adult human.
Finally, I went into edit mode and expanded the size of the canvas to give me something that had a 16:9 aspect ratio. I fine-tuned the canvas size in Photoshop afterward.
I then went over to Stable Diffusion to see what I got there:
I’ve fiddle around more with Stable Diffusion before (they have a Canva plugin). The result wasn’t bad, but just not as good.
