Half of consumers will either stop or significantly limit their interactions with social media by 2025, according to survey results released by Gartner Inc. Driving the decrease is a perceived decrease in the quality of social media platforms.
Gartner’s survey found that 53% of consumers believe the state of social media has decayed compared to either the prior year or five years ago. Concerns included the spread of misinformation, toxic user bases and the prevalence of bots. Consumers also worried about use of generative AI in social media. More than seven in 10 agreed that great integration of AI into social media will harm the user experience.
“Social media remains the top investment channel for digital marketing, but consumers are actively trying to limit their use,” Emily Weiss, senior principal researcher in the Gartner marketing practice, said in a press release.
“A significant slice says that, compared to a few years ago, they are sharing less of their own lives and content,” Weiss said. “As the nature of social media use and the experience of the platforms changes, [chief marketing officers] must refocus their customer acquisition and loyalty retention strategies in response.”
Gartner’s consumer survey had 263 respondents and took place in July and August, 2023.
Gartner had other predictions for marketers:
Organic search sinks. Brands’ organic search traffic will fall by 50% or more by 2028 as consumers embrace generative AI-powered search. Some 79% of consumers expect to use AI-enhanced search within the next year, according to a Gartner survey of 299 consumers in August.
“CMOs must prepare for the disruption that GenAI-backed search will bring to their organic search strategies,” Weiss said. “Marketing leaders whose brands rely on SEO should consider allocating resources to testing other channels in order to diversify.”
Focusing on AI’s absence. By 2027, a quarter of brands will lean into positioning and differentiation based on the absence of AI in their business and products.
“Mistrust and lack of confidence in AI’s abilities will drive some consumers to seek out AI-free brands and interactions,” Weiss said. “A subsection of brands will shun AI and prioritize more human positioning,” she said. “This ‘acoustic’ concept will be leveraged to distance brands from perceptions of AI-powered businesses as impersonal and homogeneous.”
A separate survey by Garner of 305 consumers in May 2023 found that 72% believe AI-based content generators could spread false or misleading information.
More time on AI talent. By 2026, Gartner forecasts 80% of advanced creative roles will be tasked with harnessing generative AI to achieve differentiated results, requiring CMOs to spend more time on this talent.
“The use of GenAI in a creative team’s routine daily work frees them up to do higher level, more impactful creative ideation, testing and analysis,” Weiss said. “As a result, creative will play a more important and measurable role in driving business results, and CMOs will actually increase their spending on creative and content.”
Authenticity. By 2026, 60% of CMOs will adopt content authenticity technology, enhanced monitoring and brand-endorsed user-generated content to protect their brands from deception unleashed by generative AI.
“As content created with GenAI tools balloons throughout marketing channels, transparency around its use will become increasingly necessary to maintain trust with customers,” Weiss said.
