Monthly Archives: February 2023

Welcome to HubSpot Marketing News! Tap in for campaign deep dives, the latest marketing industry news, and tried-and-true insights from HubSpot’s media team. 

The fashion industry and major sports leagues are two different industries that have countless collaboration opportunities.

In 2022, major sports and fashion saw a number of intersection points beyond team merch, including:

Serena Williams walking a Vogue runway shortly after announcing her retirement from tennis.
Ronnie Fieg, the founder of Kith, becoming the first creative director for the New York Knicks.
Nike opening World of Flight, its first Jordan concept store, in the fashion capital of Milan.

These headline-grabbing events indicate that fashion and sports have a meaningful overlap for consumers. To capitalize on this, sports organizations are prioritizing partnerships with artists and fashion pros to reinvigorate the world of sportswear.

Earlier this month, contemporary artists Al-Baseer Holly and Cristina Martinez created a capsule design collection merging their signature designs with NBA team logos.

The Isles Lab, the official team store of the New York Islanders hockey team, is reimagining what a team store could be. The store is designed to offer a modern shopping experience and sells a unique combination of team merch, streetwear-inspired styles, and luxury fashion items.

The fashion industry’s influence on the store is apparent, as it was created in partnership with Paul Price who was previously the Chief Merchandising Officer for Burberry.

Ultimately, both sports and fashion companies have strong communities of loyal fans who can serve as brand evangelists. As the worlds of sports and fashion continue to intersect, the opportunities for marketers to tap into these communities could be fruitful.

Marketing Snippets

The latest marketing news and strategy insights.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki announced she was leaving the company. Here’s what her departure could mean for creators.

TikTok added 7,000 new insights to its native Insights Tool.

Social media demographics: the stats marketers need to know to better understand their audiences.

Loyalty programs: Gartner released new data on how brands can leverage loyalty programs to engage with customers.

How brands can collaborate with Black creators: tips from Sprout Social on keeping partnerships with Black creators going beyond Black History Month.

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I get it, fellow marketers —sometimes, you just need the numbers.

The juggernaut known as social media only gets bigger with every new year, and because of that, demographics shift with it. And, ultimately, keeping on top of important numbers before your social media campaigns can help you with ROI in the long run. 

Here, we’ve compiled the state of social media demographics, optimized with the most important data you need to know about your audience and shaping your personas for 2023.

General Social Media Demographics

Roughly 82% of Americans between 18 and 49 years old use at least one social media site. (Pew Research Center)
The top way marketers find their audience on social media is by researching relevant online communities, such as Facebook Groups and subreddits. (HubSpot Blog Research)
84% of marketers are targeting Millennials in their social media strategy, followed by Gen X (52%), then Gen Z at 22%. Only 14% of marketers target Baby boomers. (HubSpot Blog Research)
Most marketers say that short-form video content is the most popular content format for Gen Z. (HubSpot Blog Research)
Social media users use an average of 7.2 social media platforms per month. (Hootsuite)

Facebook Demographics

General

As of 2021, Facebook has over 2 billion monthly active users. (Statista)

Facebook has almost 2 million daily active users and 2.9 monthly active users. (Meta)

Facebook is the most effective platform for community building. (HubSpot Blog Research)

The average adult in the U.S. spends 33 minutes on Facebook per day. (Statista)

Facebook is the most popular social media platform for marketers. (HubSpot Blog Research)

Facebook is the fourth most visited website in the U.S. (Semrush)

Age and Gender

Please note that audience data for individuals who do not identify within the binary are not reported.

Globally, 56.4% of Facebook users identify as male while 43.6% identify as female. (Statista)

Facebook is Gen X and Baby Boomers favorite social media platform. (HubSpot Blog Research)

91% of Baby Boomers, 88% of millennials, and 83% of Gen X have visited Facebook in the last three months. (Hubspot Blog Research)

31% of U.S. adults regularly get news from Facebook. (Pew Research Center)

Only 12% of Gen Z-ers say they use Facebook more than any other platform. (HubSpot Blog Research)

Geography

India has the most Facebook users at 329 million, with the United States in second place with 179 million users. (Statista)

Takeaways

As the most popular social media network, Facebook is definitely a platform worth investing in. Its largest user group is Gen X but it still has a wide range of users across all ages. Furthermore, Facebook is popular worldwide, making it a great social media network for brands of all industries and locations.

Instagram Demographics

General

500+ million users are active on the platform every day. (Instagram)
Instagram has the highest ROI, engagement, and highest quality leads. (HubSpot Blog Research)
The average amount of time per day spent on Instagram is 28 minutes. (Statista)

Age and Gender

Please note that audience data for individuals who do not identify within the binary are not reported.

Males between the ages of 18 to 24 represent the largest demographic on Instagram, followed closely by males between 25 to 34 years old. (Statista)
Most women on Instagram are between 18 and 34 years old. (Statista)
The smallest age group on Instagram is senior males 65+. (Statista)
In the past few months, 55% of Gen X-ers and 27% of Baby Boomers have visited Instagram. (HubSpot Blog Research)

Geography

India and the U.S. lead the board as the countries with the largest Instagram audience sizes, similar to Facebook. (Statista)
For two consecutive years, the most geo-tagged city in the world on Instagram has been Los Angeles, California. (Mention + Hubspot)
The country with the most Instagram posts in 2020 was the the U.S., leading with 571K posts, followed by Brazil with over 300K posts. (Mention + HubSpot)

Takeaways

Instagram is another leading social media platform with a large user base spanning all age groups, and it offers advanced ecommerce features, making it incredibly popular among consumers and valuable to brands.

Twitter Demographics

General

Twitter is the seventh most visited website in the U.S. (Semrush)
There are 347,200 Tweets sent per minute on Twitter. (Statista)
As of December 2022 Twitter’s audience is over 368 million monthly active users globally. (Statista)
The average amount of time per day spend on Twitter is 31 minutes. (Statista)

Age and Gender

Please note that audience data for individuals who do not identify within the binary are not reported.

Twitter’s user base heavily skews male with only 43.6% of users identifying as female. (Statista)

Geography

The U.S. is the country with the most Twitter users, at 77 million with Japan right behind at 58.2 million. (Statista)

Takeaways

If you’re looking to build a community surrounding your brand, Twitter is a great place to start. It’s particularly popular in the U.S., so if that aligns with your target audience, consider setting up your virtual shop there.

TikTok Demographics

General

TikTok is the best platform for building an active community for Gen Z. (HubSpot Blog Research)
TikTok users are twice as likely as users of other social channels to recommend something they found on the platform. (TikTok)
36% of consumers want to learn about products through short-form videos like TikTok. (HubSpot Blog Research)

Age and Gender

Please note that audience data for individuals who do not identify within the binary are not reported.

21.5% of TikTok’s global audience are women between the ages of 18 and 24 and 17% are male users between 18 and 24. (Statista)
U.S. adults spend 31 minutes per day on TikTok. (Statista)
Most TikTok users in the U.S. are 18-19, followed by 20-29. (Statista)
62% of Gen Z uses TikTok and spend the most time on TikTok. (HubSpot Blog Research)

Geography

In 2021, Asia-Pacific was the fastest-growing region for TikTok usage, with a 159% increase compared to 2020. (Statista)

Takeaways

TikTok’s audience heavily skews young, with a large Gen Z population. As such, it’s a great platform for B2C brands targeting this demographic. With short-form video taking off, it’s an opportunity for brands to not only hop on a growing trend but do it on a platform that caters to their target audiences.

YouTube Demographics

General

YouTube is the second most effective platform for building a social media community. (HubSpot Blog Research)
YouTube is the second most visited website in the U.S. (Semrush)
YouTube has over 2 million monthly logged-in users. (YouTube)
There are 500 hours of video uploaded to YouTube per minute. (YouTube)

Age and Gender

Please note that audience data for individuals who do not identify within the binary are not reported.

A quarter of U.S. adults regularly get news from YouTube. (Pew Research Center)
YouTube is almost equally as popular with Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X audiences. (HubSpot Blog Research)
YouTube is Baby Boomers second favorite social media app. (HubSpot Blog Research)
Gen Zers (18-24)’s second most popular way they discover new products is from YouTube ads. (HubSpot Blog Research)

Geography

India has 467 million active YouTube users, followed by the U.S. (245 million) and Indonesia (139 million). (Data Reportal)

Takeaways

YouTube is the leading video platform, with a wide range of users from Gen Z all the way to Baby Boomers. With the launch of YouTube shorts and popularity of short-form video, brands should develop a strategy to capitalize on growing interest to generate leads. 

LinkedIn Demographics

General

Marketers can reach 900 million users with LinkedIn ads. (Data Reportal)
Approximately 10.7% of the global population has a LinkedIn. (Data Reportal)

Age and Gender

Please note that audience data for individuals who do not identify within the binary are not reported.

56% of LinkedIn users identify as male while 43.1% identify as female. (Statista)
Roughly 60% of LinkedIn users are between 25 and 34 years of age. (DataReportal)
31% of LinkedIn users are between 30 and 39, 23% between 40 and 49, and 17% between 18 and 29. (Statista)
43.6% of LinkedIn’s global users are female and 56.4% are male. (Data Reportal)

Geography

Over 75% of members are outside the US, followed by India and China. (LinkedIn)
LinkedIn is used in 200 countries and regions worldwide, and the largest are North America, Asia-Pacific, and Europe. (LinkedIn)

Takeaways

LinkedIn’s still the number one social media platform for B2B brands. It’s full of decision-makers and young adults entering the workforce prime for social selling.

Reddit Demographics

General

There are more than 100k active Reddit communities. (Reddit)
Redditors created 430M+ posts in 2022. (Reddit)
Reddit is the fifth most visited website in the U.S. (Semrush)

Age and Gender

Please note that audience data for individuals who do not identify within the binary are not reported.

Gen Z makes up roughly 2% of Reddit users. (eMarketer)
A majority of Reddit users are male. (Statista)

Geography

46% of desktop traffic to Reddit.com comes from the U.S. (SimilarWeb)

Takeaways

Reddit’s user base has grown significantly in recent years. This suggests that consumers are becoming more interested in what the network has to offer. From an audience perspective, it’s made up mostly of male Millennials, attracting most of its users from the U.S.

Snapchat Demographics

General

59% of U.S. users check Snapchat daily. (Pew Research Center)
25% of U.S. internet users use Snapchat. (Pew Research Center)
Snapchat users spend over 30 minutes a day on the platform. (Snapchat)
There are 364M daily active users worldwide. (Statista)
There are 243M Snapchats shared per minute on the platform. (Statista)

Age and Gender

Please note that audience data for individuals who do not identify within the binary are not reported.

65% of U.S. adults between 18 and 29 years old use Snapchat. (Pew Research Center)
About 53% of Snapchat users are female and 46% are male. (Statista)

Takeaway

One thing that’s clear with this Snapchat data is that young people love it. After Instagram introduced Stories, many thought Snapchat was on its way out. Turns out, it’s still a major player in the social media game.

Feel free to refer to this list periodically as you’re working through your editorial calendars and audits for the new year. As this time of year calls for a fresh slate, the research behind your next incredible campaign has to be fresh, as well. Happy planning!

When you’re trying to grow a following on Instagram, you depend on Explore and hashtag pages to expand your audience and reach. So it can feel more than a little disheartening when it suddenly seems like your content isn’t showing up anywhere.

If you feel like your posts are receiving fewer likes and comments suddenly, or aren’t appearing for certain hashtags or on the Explore page, you might be shadowbanned.

From Instagram’s perspective, the objective of hiding “inappropriate” content makes sense (although its enforcement has been criticized.)

Why does Instagram shadowban?

Shadowbanning allows Instagram to filter out accounts that don’t comply with their terms. Some people use inauthentic measures to expand their Instagram following, like buying followers or using hundreds of hashtags that are irrelevant to their content. If that’s the case, it makes sense that Instagram hides content from those accounts so that only genuine and helpful content is promoted to users.

While Instagram doesn’t openly admit to shadowbanning, they released a statement on their Facebook business page in February 2019 that addressed the problem users were having with their content not showing up for certain hashtags.

Their statement at least confirms the hashtag dilemma as a real one — but many speculate that the statement is Instagram’s way of admitting to shadowbanning, without actually admitting it.

It’s important to note that Instagram changes its algorithm often, so those alterations could be the reason you have witnessed a drop in your engagement rate.

However, shadowbanning could be a real tactic meant to hide users’ content from the wider Instagram audience, and if you’re being shadowbanned, it’s important you take the necessary measures to get your content seen.

Let’s explore how to know if you’re shadowbanned, as well as our tips for getting yourself off the list.

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Simply navigate to your profile on the app, then Menu > Settings > Account > Account status. With this feature, you can verify what is affecting your account (if anything) and get suggestions for how to remedy it.

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If you don’t have a professional account, there’s an easy test to figure out if your account is shadowbanned.

If one or two of your employees can see your post, you might simply be dealing with a drop in engagement. If that’s the case, you can take a number of steps to fix this.

Check out our Instagram Marketing: The Ultimate Guide for tactical advice on improving your reach and engagement.

While the method above is a simple way to test whether you’ve been shadowbanned, it may not be feasible for your business. Maybe you’re the sole proprietor and employee of your small business. In that case, you can’t ask employees to check their hashtag feeds and you might not want to ask your customers. Below are other ways you can test whether you’ve been shadowbanned.

Instagram Shadowban Test

There is no foolproof test to tell if you’ve been shadowbanned on Instagram. While there are tools that advertise they can do exactly that, these tools are not reliable. Instead, try the steps below.

Check your hashtag pages.

If you look at pages of hashtags you regularly use and see a message that posts have been hidden, it’s possible you’ve been shadowbanned for using those hashtags.

Take a look at the message below for the hashtag “mustfollow.” Since users reported recent posts using this hashtag as not meeting Instagram’s community guidelines, it’s possible Instagram may be hiding your content with this hashtag (even if yours is not in violation of any guidelines).

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Check Instagram Insights.

Looking at Instagram Insights, if you notice a sudden and sustained drop in engagement, then it’s possible you’ve been shadowbanned. One of the best metrics to look at is percent of accounts reached that weren’t following you.

Take a look at the difference in “discovery” of the two posts below. This blogger duo went from reaching over 70K accounts, 32% of which weren’t following them, to reaching a little over 40K, of which only 4% weren’t already following them. This drop cued the bloggers in that their account had been shadowbanned.

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If you believe you’ve been shadowbanned, don’t worry — we have a solution for you.

Why am I shadowbanned?

There are a few potential reasons your account could have been shadowbanned. To ensure this doesn’t happen again, let’s explore some actions you might have taken that led you to being shadowbanned.

1. You use bots or another automated “Instagram growth” tool.

If you aren’t putting in the hard work yourself, you’re not growing a following authentically. Instagram frowns on this — in their statement above, for instance, they encourage users to have a strategy that focuses on connecting with the right audience. Using bots is a spammy tactic, and could result in a shadowban.

2. You use broken hashtags.

Occasionally, a popular hashtag will become overrun with inappropriate content. When this happens, Instagram can remove the hashtag or limit its use. If you use a broken hashtag, it will prevent your other hashtags from ranking, and could also result in a blocked account.

3. Your account is often reported.

When users repeatedly report an account, Instagram will assume your account is posting inappropriate content or violating their terms of service. They might disable your account, or they could shadowban it.

4. You’ve been posting, commenting, engaging, or following people too quickly.

Instagram places time constraints on how often you can follow, unfollow, like, comment, or post within an hour or day. This makes sense — if you’re following 80 people within an hour, it’s likely a bot doing the work, not you.

These actions might help you grow a following quickly, but they can’t help you connect with the right people, which is why you’re on Instagram in the first place. Additionally, these behaviors likely result in shadowban, which severely restricts your exposure to a new audience.

How to Fix an Instagram Shadowban

To get your account back to normal, you’ll want to reverse the damage. Here’s how:

1. If you use a bot or another automated service, stop and delete it immediately.

To make sure the accounts aren’t still attached to you, go to your desktop Instagram and click “Edit Profile”, and then “Apps and Websites”. If you see any of your bot accounts in the Active tab, click “Remove” to remove them from your account completely.

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Remember, it’s better to have 100 followers who love your brand and purchase your products, than 1,000 followers who never buy from you or interact with your content.

2. Don’t use hashtags that have been banned.

Take a look at Kicksta’s list of banned hashtags for 2023, and make sure to remove all broken hashtags from your content. Here’s a few from the list:

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Moving forward, be selective and careful with the hashtags you choose, and when in doubt, take a look at the hashtag’s page — Instagram will likely post a message like, “Recent posts from #summer2023 are currently hidden … “, which will indicate to you that the hashtag is no longer in use.

3. Use a content warning when applicable.

For sensitive topics, it’s best to be proactive and warn viewers of content they might find upsetting. While you can’t apply Instagram’s new Sensitive Content feature to your own posts, there is a workaround.

To do this, you’ll need to create a slideshow post with the warning image first so that users can decide whether or not to continue. Start by using the Story editing feature. Go to your profile within the app > New Post > Story > Create.

Select the image or background you want for the first slide and type out your warning message

Click Next and save the image. Now it’s ready for use along with your sensitive content. Simply make this the first slide in your new post.

4. Take a two-day break.

People have reported a full 48-hour break from using their Instagram accounts can reset the system and get you back on track, and it’s worth the temporary social media cleanse anyway, isn’t it?

5. Follow Instagram’s rules and regulations.

Read and follow Instagram’s Terms of Use, Community Guidelines, and Recommendation Guidelines. Some notable takeaways from these documents are:

Only share content you created or have permission to share

Don’t post content that’s false or misleading

Do share content that’s appropriate for anyone to see

The Foolproof Way to Avoid the Instagram Shadowban

The simplest way to avoid being shadowbanned on Instagram is to post helpful, authentic content, and abide by best practices when growing your audience. It will take longer to do this, but slow and steady wins the race — and doesn’t get shadowbanned.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in August 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Marketers in large organizations often deliver great work that falls through the cracks. Between juggling market research, campaign ideation, and collaborative projects, it can be challenging to take a step back and reflect on just how much work you’ve done — much less on communicating those accomplishments to marketing executives.

But that doesn’t mean that you should let your efforts fall silent. You can communicate your impact to the marketing team in more ways than one. In this post, we’ll discuss the different ways to gain visibility from your CMO in various marketing roles and provide you with key practices to ensure you’re on their radar.

How to Gain Marketing Executive Attention

Gaining Visibility as a Marketing Manager

When deciding which marketing KPIs to focus on — whether you’re a marketing leader or individual contributor looking for buy-in — you’ll want to consider which metrics will directly connect to your organization’s broader goals.

According to our State of Marketing Trends Report, SEO metrics are the most important to marketing leaders going into 2023. To better stand out to marketing executives, you can present them with data focused on SEO-oriented KPIs, including:

Sales, leads, and conversion rates
Total monthly visitors
Traffic from social media
New vs. Returning visitors
Click-through rate

A strategy led by SEO focuses on audience growth and brand awareness. Let your leadership know you’re focused on growing better and have the numbers to back up that success. In other words, make it apparent that your assignments and contributions are tied to those goals.

If you want to take it a step further, you can voice your innovative ideas to leadership — as long as you know how to back them up. Even your CMO will be open to a coffee chat or one-on-one with you if you have a well-thought-out plan that ties back to business goals and outcomes. After all, showing initiative will help you to stand out amongst your peers.

Gaining Visibility as a People Manager

The number of people working remotely at least once per week has grown 400% in the past decade, and marketing leaders have struggled with this transition. As a people manager, the best way to gain visibility from your CMO is to show your leadership skills through your star-studded team — no matter if they’re in-house, fully remote, or hybrid.

Unlike individual contributors, your success as a people manager is measured more by how well you’ve guided your team to reach KPIs consistently. So think of how you inspire your team to do their best, showing marketing executives that you’re a willing and capable leader.

Adapt and see your validation in your team’s results rather than personal gratification. Highlight the influence of your team members, their successes, and how their cooperation under your guidance has helped the org.

Gaining Visibility as an Internal Communications (IC) Manager

According to our Marketing Executive Leadership Survey, 72% of marketing leaders agree that their marketing org planning has been more difficult since the rise of asynchronous work and communication post-COVID. Your CMO and leadership team is not only well aware of these struggles, they’re looking to internal communications managers to relay the plans and productivity of each team.

Not only does IC help you promote brand values and vision to get employees engaged, but they also serve as a direct link to employee events, webinars, and other spaces where employees can feel involved and invested in the company. Engaged employees have a personal stake in your company’s success — and to increase your visibility in this role to leadership, you need to create organizational changes that:

Improve productivity without increasing stress.
Make clear connections between cross-functional teams and campaigns.
Clarify goal alignment across the organization.

Gaining Visibility as a Content Specialist

Our Executive Marketing Leadership Survey found that over 500 leaders believe content marketing is a critical aspect of any marketing strategy — and it’s only becoming increasingly important since field marketing has declined significantly during 2020. In fact, over 19% of marketing leaders wish their teams invested more in content marketing.

Marketing executives are looking for more input from content specialists to show the qualities of industry thought leaders that can capture the attention of prospects from different channels. They’re looking for skilled content specialists who are expert storytellers, possess excellent consumer and content trends knowledge, and have the data to prove it.

When addressing your marketing team and CMO, emphasize how you and your team develop content strategies that resonate — and show the results of those strategies in terms of generated leads and conversions. Content specialists play a role in all stages of content development, from ideation to execution to implementation. Make sure to take credit where it’s due in your next big video, podcast, or blog post.

In review, marketers in every facet of the industry can get visibility by focusing on four overarching principles:

In marketing, it’s a team effort to generate leads for a business — but ultimately, it’s up to you to prioritize your professional advancement. To better position yourself for success, make sure your marketing leaders know your name, see your impact, and notice just how much of an integral team member you are to the business.