Social Media Trend Predictions 2025

Following a year of brat vs demure; content inflation and the rise of the specialised influencer, 2025 is set to be another year in which we see social define the cultural zeitgeist; political landscape; and of course, brand presence.

We’ve collected insight from our expert social team and industry reports to distil predictions into the transformative forces of brand social in 2025.

Next year we will likely see…

📈MORE OF Video, AI, more niche, expert influencers and more authentic reactive content

📉LESS OF X, generic/mass content, corporate personas, senseless trend jacking

💬The main three conversations brands should be having ahead of 2025:

➡️ Have you got an X migration strategy?

➡️How are you optimising your social presence for search?

➡️Have you got a framework in place for nailing reactive content?

Here are our top 5 trends…

 

📣Micro-virality 📣

It will become harder, and less relevant, for brands to seek to go ‘viral’. It’s time for a trend detox. Brands will be looking to make smaller but meaningful ripples with their target audiences.

This will include harnessing more niche influencers and employee generated content to deliver more authentic, relevant storytelling.

Hootsuite’s data shows that attitudes around ‘going viral’ have soured, with audiences increasingly holding brands to account when there’s a perception the brand is trying to misappropriate or commoditise a trend that doesn’t feel natural to them. Rather than jumping in whatever is trending, brands will do well by joining in only relevant trends where they have something authentic to say and can add value to the conversation.

Brands should make sure social listening and monitoring are regularly reviewed and align with audiences and sub communities to spot the best opps; TikTok is your best bet for the latest trends and organic virality.

 

🤯More content more problems? 🤯

The algorithmic pressure for brands to publish increasing volumes of content continues, with expectations of brands making between 48-72 posts per week across platforms.**.

This expectation aligns with the trend towards more ephemeral content: content that either speaks to a moment in time or utilises a temporary format like Instagram stories.

The key is sticking to quality over quantity and considering utilising a team of trusted creators and testing AI tools to help efficiently boost content output.

 

💌Outbound engagement 💌

41% of organisations have been testing proactive engagements* in 2024.

This means brands are wading into the comment sections on others’ content, including other brands, publishers, and creators. When done well, this can lead to meaningful connection with communities and new ways to cut through. BUT it must be done in places where your brand would feel welcome not intrusive, and where you can add value not kill the vibe.

 

📱 Build new audiences away from X 📱

We’ll see the continued migration away from X, so the trick is to start building audiences and testing other channels, so consider starting to test and activate on new channels like:

🧵Create a Threads profile and start cross-posting existing planned X or Instagram content. Remember there are no paid options yet, and Meta does have some political restrictions

☁️Think about building a Bluesky profile (and at the very least secure your handle) where you want to connect with a more opinion forming, technical, or expert audience. Again, no paid options yet, but by looking at early adopters like media outlets and following their network you’ll have an easy starter list of relevant profiles.

🤖Start to listen in on relevant subreddits to understand your audience there and build insight. Consider running some ‘AMA’ with expert spokespeople, or testing some paid placements

 

🔎Social search🔎

We’ll see continued shift of preference for search natively in social, as opposed to traditional engines like Google

💡Going into 2025, brands should be preparing by:

🔬Build an insight bank of what your audience are searching for and the keywords they use

✍️Add these keywords to relevant content in content (remember to add alt. text) captions, audio, or hashtags (and don’t just spam them all in)

🎖️Invest in quality content that is native to platform, as well as relevant and relatable to your audience