20 Social Media Trends To Guide Your Strategy In 2025

Want to know what social media trends to expect this year? I’ve got you covered.

Each new year brings new trends in the ways consumers, creators, and brands interact on social media. 

We’ve poured over the data, looked at what the experts are saying, and analyzed the market to figure out what trends will be shaping the social landscape moving forward.

In this post, I’ll share all of my predictions to help you get a headstart on the competition. 

Let’s get into it.

1. AI integration in social workflows is now essential

It’s been a minute since ChatGPT launched, and generative AI has only gotten better since then.

Social media managers and marketers were hesitant to adopt it into their workflow at first, but the time for hesitancy has long since passed. 

Most had already begun to experiment with using AI for social content creation last year. And moving forward, it will be more or less standard practice.

Here’s how brands are using AI to improve productivity on social, according to the latest social media statistics:

  • 86% use AI to edit/refine their social media captions
  • 85% use AI to craft social media text from scratch
  • 82% use AI to brainstorm new post ideas
  • 59% use AI for customer support
  • 52% use AI to create images/visuals for social media posts

One of the driving forces behind wider AI adoption is the need to produce a higher volume of content. 

Research from Hootsuite and Critical Truth suggests that brands need to produce 48 to 72 posts every week to succeed—a tall order that’s difficult to meet without offloading tasks to AI.

In conclusion: If you don’t integrate AI into your social workflows this year, expect to fall behind, because you can bet your competitors will be.

I’m not saying that you should remove the human element from your workflows. That’s still going to be important. The anti-AI wave is coming, which I’ll discuss later on.

Related: 13 Top Social Media Automation Tools (Pros & Cons)

2. AI-generated video content is on the rise…

One clear social media trend we’ve seen recently is the rise of AI-generated video content, and we expect this to continue as AI tools get even more sophisticated.

You only have to scroll through your feed on social media platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram Reels to see dozens of short-form videos created almost entirely with AI tools like Synthesia, including AI-generated voice overs, visuals, and scripts.

Some creators are even producing music videos with the help of AI tools like Suno.

For example, the YouTube channel Chat Music uses AI to make songs out of funny YouTube comment sections.

chat music

They’ve seen fantastic results from this, gaining over 200,000 subscribers and millions of views in just a few months.

3. …but the anti-AI wave is coming

With so much AI-generated content flooding social media, we expect users to grow bored with it over the coming year.

I know I am.

In fact, we can already see attitudes towards AI-generated social media content beginning to sour:

  • 27% of surveyed consumers say they would block & unfollow a social media account that shared content labeled as AI-generate (Sources: Yougov, Bynder)
  • Only 5% say they would engage with a social media post labeled as AI-generated
  • 73% are concerned about the prevalence of AI-generated content
  • 50% of consumers can spot AI-generated copy
  • 25% of consumers see brands who use AI for social media as ‘impersonal’, 20% see them as ‘lazy’, and 19% see them as ‘uncreative’
02 ai generated content

As the pendulum swings back, the focus will instead be on human-centric content.

Genuine, authentic, human-created content featuring real human faces and voices will stand out like a sore thumb in a sea of artificial slop, and these posts will get more views and engagements.

It might still be possible to see good results from AI-generated content, but you’ll need to get more creative with it and do something original to cut through the noise. If there’s no human touch, users will scroll past.

Related: 42 Social Media Post Ideas To Boost Your Brand (+ Examples)

4. Pay attention to emerging niche platforms

Emerging social media platforms look set to shake things up this year.

Bluesky and Threads are two of the most promising. Both show signs of rapid growth:

bluesky & threads
  • Bluesky and Threads are currently the #1 and #2 most-downloaded apps on the Apple Store (at the time of writing)
  • Bluesky grew from 1 million registered users to 23.2 million registered users over the last year
  • Threads grew from 100 million users to 275 million users over the last year
  • Bluesky usage in the US increased 500% the month after the US election

At the same time, user numbers on rival social media platform X have reportedly fallen off a cliff:

  • X monthly users in the EU fell from 111.4 million to 106 million in the year leading up to July 2024
  • X user numbers have fallen in 25 of the 27 EU member states over the last year
  • An analysis by the Financial Times found the number of daily active users on X dropped by almost a third last year in the UK, and by almost a fifth in the US.

If both of these trends continue, we may see Threads or Bluesky (or both) become ‘the new Twitter’ in 2025.

The upshot is if X is one of your key social media channels, now might be a good time to diversify your focus and get active on both Bluesky and Threads. Those who get in early on these emerging networks are likely to get ahead.

Reddit is another social media platform to watch this year. Statistics show that its user base and traffic numbers have been increasing rapidly, with Reddit themselves reporting that daily users are up a whopping 47% year-over-year.

It’s also become the platform that users trust the most. Again, this might have something to do with AI. 

While other social networks and websites have become flooded with AI content, Reddit is seen as a safe harbor where users can still find trustworthy information from real humans.

Now, I’m not saying that Reddit is free of AI slop or bots. It just isn’t. There’s just a lot less AI content than other networks. 

On a side note, if you find any obvious AI comments, you can always try prompt injecting them and see what happens.

5. Videos are now everywhere…

In the past, social platforms differentiated themselves from one another by focusing primarily on different content formats.

YouTube was for long-form horizontal video. TikTok was for short-form vertical video. Instagram was for photos and images. Twitter and Reddit were primarily for text posts. 

Those lines have become increasingly blurry over the years.

And moving forward, I expect every platform to go all-in on video content.

From here on out, whatever social networks you’re targeting, video should play a key role in your content mix (if it isn’t already). It gets more views and engagement than every other content format.

6. …and short-form videos are getting longer

Short-form videos have been the top-performing content format for several years now.

And for all the talk of an imminent resurgence of long-form video, I expect short-form will still be king.

That said, there are some signs that short-form videos are getting at least a little longer.

For example, TikTok has been gradually increasing the maximum length of videos over the years. And in 2024, they announced the trial of 30-minute and even 60-minute uploads. 

The average TikTok video length increased from 39.5 seconds in 2023 to 42.6 seconds in 2024.  What’s more, accounts with more followers (50k+) have a longer average video length than those with fewer followers.

04 average tiktok video length

I’m sure this trend is set to continue and we’ll likely see the average short-form video length increase even further.

7. Social is the new search engine

Social media is increasingly being used as a search engine. In fact, 40% of Gen Z users now prefer using TikTok over Google to search for information.

Social media platforms are beginning to take notice of this trend and have been releasing new features to address this emerging use case.

For example, TikTok released its AI-powered Search Highlights feature in 2024. Much like Google, it shows a snippet of AI results at the top of the search results page that directly answers user search queries. 

ai powered search

Likewise, Meta recently deployed its new Meta AI feature across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Users can use it to get quick answers to search queries, as well as to generate content.

This has opened up a whole new frontier of ‘social SEO’, in which creators and brands focus on creating answer-driving social content and ensuring it’s well-optimized for discoverability in order to rank in the social media results pages and AI snippets.

Local businesses need to pay particular attention to social SEO in 2025 too. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok now have searchable map features to help users find businesses in their local area. 

To ensure you’re visible on social maps, optimize your profiles and posts with location tags, local hashtags, etc. And don’t forget to fill out your profiles with all your business details.

Note: It’s important that I be clear. Social search will never replace traditional search entirely. And your marketing strategy should include both. Not one or the other.

8. Brands are breaking character

We’ve seen brands getting more daring with their social personas this year, and we expect even more of this in the year ahead.

In the past, companies would set rigid style brand guidelines and make sure to stick to a consistent, uniform voice across their entire social media presence.

But lately, brands have been dropping that buttoned-up approach and experimenting with more distinct, creative voices that barely resemble their personality across other marketing channels—and it’s working.

Netflix is a good example of this. 

netflix

They’re talking like regular people on social, tapping into cultural moments and the voice of the internet in increasingly bold ways. And audiences are responding to it.

9. Proactive outbound engagements are driving results

Outbound engagements have proven to be an effective social media strategy this year.

Brands are increasingly showing up in the comment section of viral posts and chiming in on conversations to boost their visibility and tap into new communities, and it’s been paying off.

  • 41% of organizations have been experimenting with proactive engagements
  • Brands see 1.6x higher engagement when the original creator replies to their comment

This kind of strategic hijacking of the comment section is likely to continue to be effective in the year ahead, but brands will need to adapt their strategies to avoid oversaturation and maintain authenticity. 

Overusing outbound engagement tactics, such as commenting on unrelated or off-brand posts, risks being perceived as intrusive or disingenuous by audiences. 

Instead, focus on quality over quantity, and only engage in topics that resonate with your brand identity to build genuine connections.

10. Social commerce is finally taking off…

It seems that everyone has been banging on about social commerce for years now. But this year, it really does seem to be finally taking off.

Most social networks now offer some form of in-app shopping. Instagram offers shoppable feeds. Facebook has Facebook Marketplace. YouTube has YouTube Shopping, etc.

But the most successful so far has been TikTok Shop. The app was on track to amass around $20 billion in GMV last year, and they’re setting their sights even higher this year.

What’s more, the penetration rate of social shopping is expected to reach nearly 25% this year, and revenues are forecast to grow rapidly, surpassing $1 trillion by 2028

07 social commerce revenue

11. …and live commerce is worth paying particular attention to

Live commerce—a sub-branch of social commerce where products are advertised and sold during livestreams—has been a huge success in China.

But so far, it’s failed to gain significant traction in the West.

For example, in 2023, a survey found that 81% of online shoppers in China had purchased products via live streaming.

In contrast, only 40% of those in the US, 35% of those in the UK, and 25% of those in France had done the same.

But it’s too early to give up on live commerce just yet. 

The next few years will be a test to see if social media users in Europe and North America will finally adopt live shopping like we’ve seen across Asia. The data suggests they might.

Forecasts indicate that livestream ecommerce sales in the US will grow by 36%, increasing from $50 billion in 2023 to $68 billion by 2026.

08 livestreaming commerce sales

And eventually, live shopping is predicted to account for over 5% of all ecommerce sales in North America.

12. Authenticity matters more than ever

Consumers want to see more authenticity from brands on social media this year. 

Polished, overproduced content is out, and ‘raw’ content is in. Users want to see posts that capture real moments—unedited and unfiltered.

To implement this into your strategy, experiment with formats that strip back the gloss and focus on storytelling. 

Invite your audience behind the scenes with spontaneous updates, day-in-the-life clips, or unfiltered reactions to current events. 

Prioritize engagement over perfection by asking questions, sharing genuine moments, or posting in-the-moment reflections. The goal is to build trust and relatability by showing the human side of your brand.

Don’t be afraid to fire off a post written in a hurry that’s full of typos and punctuation errors. Share a candid photo with grainy quality and casual framing. Publish a quick video recorded on the go outside of the studio, with poor lighting and shaky footage.

With so much AI content out there, social media users are yearning for something real. And this type of raw content fills that need. It doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to feel authentic.

13. Non-linear storytelling drives engagement

According to TikTok’s What’s Next report, one of the next big trends to hit social media will be unpredictable stories that don’t follow a traditional narrative structure.

The idea behind this is that classic storytelling has become predictable, and therefore boring and skippable.

Creators are being forced to get more creative and push the boundaries to keep users engaged. They’re experimenting with collaborative storytelling, as well as with stories that don’t have a linear beginning, middle, and end.

And it’s working. Data shows that using quirky, unconventional narrative structures in TikTok ads keeps viewers watching 1.4x longer. 

14. Government regulations are disrupting the social landscape

If you’ve been paying attention this year, you’ll have noticed the increasing regulatory landscape surrounding social media.

In August 2024, Brazil temporarily suspended social media platform X. And in November, Australia approved an outright social media ban for all under-16s.

Meanwhile, the European Union is implementing frameworks like the Digital Services Act (DSA) that mandate greater transparency from social media companies, with penalties for those that don’t comply.

The US is still flirting with the idea of banning TikTok, and it’s already banned in various other countries, including India.

All of this means marketers, creators, and brands must be agile. If changing regulations make one social network less viable as a marketing channel, you’ll need to be ready to adapt and pivot to something new. 

Don’t place too many eggs in one basket and diversify your efforts. Spread your resources across multiple platforms to ensure your strategy remains resilient in the face of disruption.

15. UGC (user-generated content) ads are on the rise

One notable trend this year is the increasing use of UGC (user-generated content) creators in social media advertising.

UGC creators are different from traditional influencers in that they don’t share your branded content to their own social media accounts, so they don’t need to have a large following.

Rather, they’re regular social media users that brands pay to create content that looks and feels organic. Then, brands use this content in their paid social media campaigns.

And it’s working:

  • 79% of social media users say UGC strongly impacts their purchasing decisions
  • Consumers find UGC to be 9.8x more impactful than influencer marketing in its effect on their purchasing decisions

Nutrition brand Kiala Nutrition leveraged TikTok’s Spark Ads feature to promote UGC from creators who shared their authentic reviews and experiences using their products. 

ai powered tiktok

The campaign was a huge success, driving over 75 million video impressions and leading to a 43% decrease in cost-per-acquisition (CPA).

16. Trendjacking is still effective (but it’s getting harder)

Trendjacking is the practice of capitalizing on popular trends, memes, and cultural moments by creating content that ties into those viral topics and ‘piggybacking’ off their attention.

It’s been an effective strategy for a few years now, and will probably still be in 2025. However, it’s getting harder to do it effectively.

Consumers don’t always like the subsequent brand pile-on that follows a new trend taking off—it’s getting predictable, boring, and inauthentic. So, you’ll have to be more selective about the social media trends you get involved in.

The good news is TikTok has made it easier to find trends that resonate with your brand with the launch of their new AI-powered Symphony Assistant

Try asking it ‘What’s trending?’ for insights into the latest concepts that have been gaining momentum, the reasons they’re going viral, and the most popular videos and audios related to them.

17. Vanity metrics are out (and social listening is in)

Engagement metrics like likes, shares, and follows are no longer as relevant. 

These ‘vanity’ metrics might look good on paper, but they don’t always translate into tangible results for businesses—and it’s tough to connect them to ROI.

This year, brands and creators are increasingly turning to social listening to measure and track their performance instead:

  • 62% of marketers now use social listening tools
  • Social listening is now the #2 highest priority for social media marketers

Social listening provides deeper insights into how social media users feel about your brand and offers data that can more easily be connected to your marketing goals, like your social share of voice, brand sentiment, etc.

Creators and social media managers are also paying more attention to DM shares and saves. Evidence suggests they’re being weighted more heavily in social media algorithms this year.

18. Brands are tapping into fandoms

A YouTube Trends report from earlier this year highlighted the growing importance of fandoms and how they’re shaping social spaces.

  • 47% of Gen Z report being part of a fandom that no one they know personally is part of
  • 42% of Gen Z  identify as casual fans, 29% as big fans, 21% as super fans, and 8% as professional fans.

Brands that tap into these fandoms on social media are seeing strong results.

For example, McDonald’s launched a creative social media campaign to tap into the huge anime fandom.

mcdonalds

They renamed selected locations WcDonald’s in a nod to the way the golden arches are often turned upside down in anime series to avoid copyright issues.

This was a huge hit on social media and helped to lure anime fans to the fast-food chain’s restaurants.

19. Content about content is still thriving

This year, we expect reaction content to outperform fully original content on social media. 

According to a YouTube Trends report, 66% of Gen Z YouTube users in the US now say they spend more time watching content that discusses or unpacks something than the thing itself.

youtube trends report

The GTA VI trailer is a prime example of this. It was viewed over 93 million times in its first 24 hours on YouTube, but videos featuring fan reactions and analysis of the trailer were viewed over 192 million times (more than twice as much) in the same period.

Don’t get me wrong, original content is still important and has its place in your social strategy, but everything you post doesn’t have to be original.

On the contrary, sharing your take on relevant and exciting content is likely to generate more engagement and provide better results.

20. Social feeds will get more personalized (and customizable)

Over the last few years, consumers have become increasingly aware of the dangers of social media algorithms.

And as a result, they’re beginning to ask for more control over the content they see on their feeds and For You pages.

This has led new platforms like Bluesky to offer users ‘algorithmic choice’. Users can deploy custom feeds and choose what type of content they want to see, so they’re no longer at the mercy of an algorithm they have no control over.

Threads followed in Bluesky’s footsteps and began rolling out their own version of custom feeds towards the end of 2024.

We expect that more social networks will begin to follow suit. Customizable algorithms may become the new normal on social. And if that happens, the impact on social media strategies will be profound.

Final thoughts

There you have it—the 20 top social media trends to guide your strategy. I hope you found them useful!

Looking for more data-driven insights to help you win on social? 

Check out these Facebook Video and YouTube Shorts stats. You might also find these influencer marketing statistics interesting. And you won’t want to miss my roundup of Instagram video ideas to boost your following.