5 Predictions for Social Media in 2023

Most of them are probably wrong.

Social media has been a volatile cultural crucible for basically two decades.

What in the world could the next year look like? 

Here are five not-too-crazy predictions I have about what the next year could look like for social media as a whole.

1. Twitter won’t change too much.

Elon Musk was bullied horribly as a child and it is well-documented.

I can’t imagine what it’s like being bullied so badly as a child only to grow rich enough to buy your favorite social media platform and be relentlessly bullied on it (while also using it to bully others).

Much has been made about Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter. 

I don’t think it’s been all bad since he bought it, even if he is running it like a vengeful, juvenile edge-lord. I have long thought that if Twitter is going to survive financially it needs to be more effectively monetized, and making Twitter Blue a lot better is probably the way to do it. (Though I think tying verification to it presents more problems than solutions.)

The challenge about monetizing Twitter via a membership platform like Twitter Blue is that the more money Twitter makes via a membership like Twitter Blue, the less culturally relevant it will become, because fewer people will purchase the ability to post and have their content seen. It would take away the heart of Twitter’s magic: the level playing field it creates, the reality that anyone can tweet at anyone.

There has been a ton of chatter about Twitter ads and advertisers since Musk’s purchase—“Will advertisers leave?”, etc.—but what’s crazy is virtually every digital marketer I’ve ever spoken with agrees that Twitter ads have always been bad and not worth the money. 

I think that as wild as Twitter’s last three months have been, the next year could actually end up being pretty tame. 

Or the platform will disappear entirely, I dunno. Your guess is as good as mine.

But I think it’s more likely that Twitter in December 2023 looks mostly like it does in January 2023. 

2. TikTok will continue to burn hot, but perhaps not for long.

TikTok is my favorite social media platform since Vine. It is, without a doubt, the most culturally relevant social media platform today. The discoverability and virality factor of TikTok is unmatched. It reminds me of early YouTube in that way. (And as I write below, I think YouTube is primed to take advantage of TikTok’s hurdles.)

TikTok will continue to burn hot this year, but it could be off of United States iPhones by April. Or June. Or August. 

I fully expect TikTok to be banned in the United States by year-end.

As an aside: if you find yourself concerned about TikTok’s privacy issues with regard to China, I would ask you why you trust Facebook with your data more than you trust China with your data. Facebook has routinely demonstrated its misuse and abuse of user data. Why do you fear Xi Jinping having your data more than Mark Zuckerberg? Of course if you’re Chinese or a regular visitor of the country, some trepidation about Chinese gathering of data via TikTok makes sense. But whatever you’re afraid the leader of China may do with your data as you sit comfortably in your American home, it’s likely that Zuckerberg has already mishandled your data in more egregious, tangible ways, yet you likely keep Instagram and/or Facebook installed on your phone.

Okay, rant over.

3. YouTube will only grow in its dominance.

While TikTok is undoubtedly the most culturally relevant social media platform in the world, YouTube is the biggest. More people use YouTube than any other social media platform. This year that will continue to be the case.

YouTube won’t see any real challenger for a long time, I think. Facebook faces challenges on all fronts all the time. TikTok has its own problems. Snapchat is hanging on by a thread. Twitter is being run by a teenager. YouTube is the television of the twenty-first century, and it faces no real, scary challengers. It will continue to dominate.

I think part of the reason YouTube will grow in its dominance is because YouTube’s “Shorts” platform will take the majority of the attention from TikTok whenever it is banned in the U.S., and Instagram’s Reels will continue to be the less relevant short-form video platform. YouTube is turning on monetization for Shorts very soon, and this will help its growth.

4. Meta will cling to Instagram for relevance.

Facebook/Meta is having trouble, mostly because it seems to be pushing all of its chips in on the metaverse. It is hemorrhaging money, and even people within the company are unsure of its work in the space. Most people who know about these things think Meta is far too early and is creating a product no one is asking for or wanting (yet).

The New York Times reported in October:

In a May poll of 1,000 Meta employees conducted by Blind, an anonymous professional social network, only 58 percent said they understood the company’s metaverse strategy. Employees have also grumbled about the high turnover and frequent shuffling of employees as Mr. Zuckerberg’s priorities change. Inside Meta, two employees said, some workers now jokingly refer to key metaverse projects as M.M.H., an acronym for “make Mark happy.”

Facebook is in a death spiral for the first time ever, losing daily active users for two years straight. Instagram is being seriously challenged by TikTok for attention, and it is becoming more irrelevant by the day.

But Instagram is Facebook for Gen Z and some portion of young millennials. So I really think that we will see Meta hold tightly to Instagram for cultural clout and relevance even as it continues to burn money in its pursuit of a future few seem to want.

5. Something new will rise up.

In some ways, 2022 was the year of BeReal, an app that really exploded among young people in particular. I think the social media waters are primed for something new to come onto the scene again this year. I don’t know what it will be. I don’t expect it will grow to be as huge as something like TikTok, but I do expect something like BeReal to come around again this year. 

Usually how this stuff happens is that an app gains some traction in the spring, lies a bit dormant in the summer as young people test it out, and then explodes in the fall when students get back together for the fall semester. BeReal followed this trajectory a bit in 2022. I wouldn’t be surprised for something like that to happen again.

We are in for an interesting year, I think!

I am certain that most of these will prove to be wrong. But making predictions is fun anyway. If you have any fun social media predictions, feel free to comment with them.