Observed Signal · Mar 1, 2023 · Trend Report · Source: CMSWire · Impact: 2/5 · Sentiment: Neutral
Social Media Trends 2023: Authenticity, Privacy, Diversified Ad Spend
This CMSWire article outlines social media trends expected for 2023. It highlights authenticity as a competitive advantage, the rise of smaller digital communities among Gen Z, continued growth of social audio, and more complex influencer marketing with micro-segments. The piece also advises marketers to diversify digital ad spend as retail media networks like Walmart and Instacart compete with social platforms, and to prepare for budget cuts and stricter attribution requirements. Privacy features, social commerce integration, VR/metaverse experimentation, mental health tools, and new analytics options are discussed. The article draws on eMarketer and Forbes data and quotes marketers Lisa Barone and Hajj Flemings.
Broad editorial forecast covering social media, retail media, and marketer strategy; relevant but not industry-shifting news.
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Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- The acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk occurred in 2022.
- The article states Amazon's ad revenue is expected to surpass Meta and Google combined.
- According to eMarketer, Gen Z consumers prefer welcoming spaces over platforms indifferent to trolls.
- Forbes projects the metaverse will add $5 trillion to the world economy by 2030.
- Meta's Horizon Worlds VR platform faced high costs and stalled user adoption.
Connected Companies & Entities
11 Entities mapped“Virtual reality aspirations took a hit when Meta’s grand VR platform Horizon Worlds revealed high cost to the company while user adoption st...”
“Amazon's ad revenue is expected to surpass Meta and Google combined, driving platform choices for campaigns and customer experience....”
“Retail media such as Walmart and Instacart will challenge social media platforms to prove the value of digital ad spend alongside a tweet or...”
“Amazon's ad revenue is expected to surpass Meta and Google combined, driving platform choices for campaigns and customer experience....”
“Retail media such as Walmart and Instacart will challenge social media platforms to prove the value of digital ad spend alongside a tweet or...”
“Discord, Mastodon and Substack offer a variety of community experiences that speak to various interests....”
“Discord, Mastodon and Substack offer a variety of community experiences that speak to various interests....”
“According to Forbes, the metaverse is expected to add $5 trillion to the world economy......”
“According to eMarketer, Gen Z consumers prefer welcoming spaces over platforms......”
“Over the past two years, social media mavens flocked to Clubhouse, as well as social audio features in Twitter, LinkedIn and Spotify......”
“Over the past two years, social media mavens flocked to Clubhouse, as well as social audio features in Twitter, LinkedIn and Spotify......”
Ontology Mapping & Concepts
Related Market Signals & Shifts
Recent verified developments and strategic activity across this market segment.
AWNY, Jupiter Fest Spotlight Agentic Ads and Open Web
Advertising Week New York and the inaugural Jupiter Festival Miami highlighted the industry's shift toward agentic advertising and anxieties about the open web's future. Major announcements included TikTok's off-platform ad expansion and a new AI shopping agent, Meta's AI campaign assistant testing, and OpenAI's visual ads introduction. Paramount's $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery closed, forming Skydance. Key themes were the threat of AI to publisher traffic, the rise of AI visibility tools, the early stage of agentic media buying, unsolved cross-platform measurement, and the booming sports and retail media sectors. Deals included PubX's acquisition of Compliant and a $5 million Series A, and OpenAI's reported $30 billion round talks with BlackRock and UAE investors.
ICANN Receives 1,615 New Top-Level Domain Applications
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has accepted applications for new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) for the first time since 2012. A total of 1,615 applications were submitted by 481 applicants, with a strong focus on AI-related domains. Ten companies, including Meta and OpenAI, applied for .agent, seven for .agi, and six for .asi. Meta filed 21 applications, including .instagram and .threads, while OpenAI filed 15, including .chatgpt and .codex. German entities like Adidas, Biontech, and Allianz also applied for brand-specific domains. The application fee can be up to $227,000 per domain. The article also highlights the financial success of country-code TLDs like .ai, which earned Anguilla about €59 million by November 2025.
Musk's Grok Bot to Use Rival AI Models Like Claude
Elon Musk announced that Grok Bot, an agent app from his AI unit (formerly xAI, now part of SpaceX and recently renamed SpaceXAI/SpaceXSI), will no longer rely solely on its own Grok models. Instead, it will pick 'the best back-end model for the respective task,' citing examples such as Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5, Midjourney, and Suno. The announcement, first reported by The Information, follows user complaints about access issues. This strategic shift acknowledges that xAI's models don't lead in all areas—for instance, Claude Opus 5.5 outperforms competitors on the Artificial Analysis ranking. The move mirrors a broader industry trend of multi-model routing, as seen with Microsoft's Copilot and Perplexity, and comes despite reports of SpaceX planning $40 billion in debt for Nvidia chips.
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