10 Social Media Trends for Businesses in Ghana in 2023

Social media has become an essential tool for businesses to connect with their target audience and drive sales. With the rapidly evolving social media landscape, it is crucial to stay updated on the latest trends and leverage them to boost your ROI.

According to the 2023 Global Social Media Trends Report, there are several activities that businesses can prioritize to get the best out of social media. Let’s take a closer look at each of these trends and explore how businesses in Ghana can leverage them:

Trend #1: Building an active online community

Building an active online community is a top priority for businesses looking to increase their social media ROI. Engaging with your followers and fostering a sense of community is crucial for building brand loyalty and trust. To achieve this, you can create engaging content, respond to comments and messages promptly, and participate in relevant conversations.

For example, a restaurant in Ghana could create a Facebook group where customers can share their experiences, post pictures of their meals, and interact with each other. By doing this, the restaurant can build a community of loyal customers who are more likely to recommend the restaurant to their friends and family.

Lesson 2 of our Instagram Acceleration Masterclass training shows you how to create an online community. Although Instagram is the primary platform for the lessons, they can be applied to other platforms as well.

Trend #2: Social selling

Social selling involves using social media platforms to promote and sell products directly to customers. It is an effective way for businesses to reach a wider audience and drive sales. To leverage social selling, businesses in Ghana can create shoppable posts on Instagram or Facebook, offer exclusive discounts to their followers, and use social media ads to target potential customers.

You must have a Facebook/Instagram shop to create shoppable posts. The main requirement for a Facebook/Instagram shop is that you have your own website. These are some of the features that we prioritize when designing websites for our clients. Because, as we all know, businesses nowadays use their websites as sales and marketing tools. If you are interested in having a web design created by us, please click here.

Trend #3: Using social media for customer service

Customers are increasingly using social media to seek customer support. Businesses in Ghana can leverage this trend by responding to customer inquiries and complaints promptly and providing personalized solutions. By doing this, businesses can improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Here are two related issues in Ghana’s social media space: 1) Ghanaian businesses rarely respond to their DMs. I’m always surprised when businesses say in their Instagram bios, “No DMs.” Really? Apps like Instagram have structured their messaging features so that businesses can organize their DMs according to their needs. Some businesses, however, prefer not to use it. Most social media sales start and end in the DMs. Someone is more likely to buy from you after having a conversation with you in the DMs. I DM’ed an Accra radio station about their ad rates, as of now, I have not had a response from them. If you feel the messages in your DMs are too many, then you need a social media manager to handle such tasks. 

2) While consumers use social media for customer service, businesses use the same accounts for other purposes. This is a major issue that must be addressed. You can read our reviews of various Ghanaian businesses’ Instagram strategies. You can find it on Instagram (@ghyellowpages). The majority of these businesses are obsessed with posting what they want to post, ignoring the needs that their customers express on these accounts. If they do not stop this habit, they will struggle to succeed on social media. 

Trend #4: Social search

Social search is becoming more popular than search engines, and SEO has entered the social chat. This means that businesses in Ghana should optimize their social media profiles and posts for search engines. They can do this by using relevant keywords, adding location tags, and creating content that is shareable.

When people want to find something, they use Google. However, people are increasingly using social media platforms to conduct searches that they would have done on Google. Furthermore, social media posts appear in Google search results. As a result, when creating social media posts, you must keep SEO in mind. Listen, simply posting pictures of your products will not help you in this regard.

Trend #5: Micro-influencers and content creators

Influencer marketing is a popular trend, but businesses in Ghana should consider partnering with micro-influencers and content creators rather than celebrities. Micro-influencers and content creators have smaller but highly engaged audiences and are more affordable to work with. By collaborating with them, businesses can reach a more targeted audience and achieve higher ROI.

TikTok Influencer queen._xxc (TikTok handle: @biamaah) has 2.4k followers. She went to do her hair at a friend of mine’s salon at Madina Estate, Accra, directly opposite the Madina Magistrate court. She then uploaded the video to her TikTok account. My friend, the hair salon owner, told me that she had been getting calls because people saw the influencer’s TikTok video. At that time, the video had only 26k views. She told me this week that people were still calling her to book hair appointments. The video has now received over 150k views. Despite the fact that my friend is not on TikTok, a micro-influencer’s video is bringing her business. That is what these small influencers can do for your business.

Trend #6: Short-form video

Short-form video is driving business results and will continue to grow in 2023. Businesses in Ghana can leverage this trend by creating short, engaging videos that showcase their products or services. You can use platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts to reach a wider audience and drive engagement.

If you want to learn how to create engaging content for your business, then join our Instagram Acceleration Masterclass. 

Trend #7: Funny, trendy, and relatable content

To stand out on social media, businesses in Ghana should focus on creating content that is funny, trendy, and relatable. By doing this, you can capture the attention of your target audience and increase engagement. You can create memes, use trending hashtags, and share user-generated content to achieve this.

Trend #8: Instagram

Instagram is the highest ROI platform and will remain popular with marketers this year. Businesses in Ghana should leverage Instagram by creating visually appealing content, using Instagram Stories, and partnering with influencers.

Earlier this year, even before this Global Social media Report was released, I had written the article, Best Social media Strategy for 2023. In it, I suggested that businesses prioritize Instagram, followed by YouTube and Facebook groups. This report confirms my recommendations that Instagram is the best place to invest the majority of your social media efforts and resources.

Trend #9: Avoid re-sharing the same content

Re-sharing the same content across platforms won’t fly in 2023. Businesses in Ghana should focus on creating unique content for each platform to avoid appearing repetitive and unoriginal.

When it comes to digital marketing and social media marketing, Ghanaian banks are the worst. Meanwhile, they have social media teams. To be honest, whenever I see someone list on LinkedIn that they work in a bank’s social media or digital marketing department, I just roll my eyes ????. Banks enjoy sharing the same content on social media. In this case, a graphic designer is all that is required instead of a social media manager.

You can repurpose content but do not reshare the same content. Repurposing content and resharing content are similar concepts, but there is a slight difference between the two.

Repurposing content involves taking existing content and transforming it into a new format or adapting it for a different platform or audience. For example, you can turn a blog post into an infographic, a video, or a podcast episode. The goal of repurposing content is to reach a new audience or provide fresh value to your existing audience.

On the other hand, resharing content simply means reposting the same content on the same platform or across multiple platforms without making any changes to the content itself. Remember, you can repurpose content, but do not have the habit of resharing it.

Trend #10: AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has reached the masses and changed how we create. Businesses in Ghana can leverage AI to create personalized content, automate customer service, and analyze social media data.

There are several AI tools you can leverage for your business. An example is ChatGPT. However, using it can be a challenge. The Lesson 3 of our Instagram Acceleration Masterclass covers how to use ChatGPT and other AI tools to create post high-quality posts. Mind you, some portions of this post were created using ChatGPT. Yet, everything flows seamlessly like they are all coming from my small head. Don’t worry, you will be taught in our masterclass training.

Conclusion

Please be aware that you may already be doing some of these trending activities correctly. However, depending on the size of your business or social media team, as well as other factors, you may not be able to do everything listed here. As a result, concentrate on what you can do.