Nothing stays the same for long in the world of social media.
Content formats, strategies, and even entire platforms come and go – remember when Clubhouse was the next big thing? And if you don’t keep up to date, you’ll fall behind fast.
Fortunately, we’ve made your lives a little easier by rounding up eight key social media marketing trends to look out for in 2025 and beyond, from the increasing adoption of AI to the growth of authenticity in brand storytelling.
Let’s get into it…
Trend #1: Resurgence of Long-Form Content
Social media has been dominated by short-form video in recent years – hardly surprising given that shorter videos see higher engagement rates.
But this looks set to change in 2025, with a major shift toward long-form content. According to a 2024 survey from global creator agency Billion Dollar Boy:
👉 68% of marketers increased production of long-form creator content in the previous 12 months
👉 70% planned to boost production over the coming year
Much of this investment will go toward long-form video, including live streams. But marketers are also planning to step up creation of various other long-form content formats:
| Content type | Percentage of marketers planning to invest |
| Live video streams | 51% |
| Long form videos | 49% |
| Podcasts | 45% |
| Newsletters/Substacks | 42% |
| Blogs | 42% |
Case Study: Patagonia
Outdoor clothing brand Patagonia has been beating the long-form content drum for years.
Their YouTube channel is full of high-quality long-form videos. If you’ve got a spare half-hour, check out The Last Observers, winner of “Best Documentary Short” at the 2024 Swedish International Film Festival:
Of course, Patagonia doesn’t just support long-form video to pick up a bunch of awards. By focusing on an array of environmental issues, Patagonia Films help to reinforce the brand’s eco-friendly credentials.
That’s a big deal given that 82% of consumers prefer a brand’s values to align with their own.
🤓 Further reading: Learn more in our roundup of the top video marketing trends.
Trend #2: Smarter Use of AI
Love it or loathe it, AI isn’t going anywhere.
Fact is, AI works. Per Sprout Social, 82% of marketers who are using artificial intelligence and machine learning in their workflow are seeing positive results. So there’s no reason to assume it won’t continue to be a major trend in 2025.
But there’s a problem: consumers aren’t big fans of AI content. Indeed, Hootsuite found that 62% are less likely to engage with and trust content if they know it was created by AI.
The solution is to ditch tacky, low-effort stuff like AI-generated images and instead use the power of artificial intelligence to enhance your human-powered campaigns.
Case Study: Spotify
Spotify has been producing its yearly Wrapped reports for a decade now.
All that data-crunching would take years for a human team to perform – but AI can handle it near-instantly.
The music-streaming platform also uses AI to bring greater personalization to the Wrapped experience. For instance, in 2024, it launched an AI playlist feature that allowed users to create their own custom playlist based on prompts like “my top 5 genres”…
…and it also introduced the Spotify Wrapped AI Podcast, in which two AI hosts examine your past year of listening habits:
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Personally, I don’t need an AI podcaster to tell me that I’m in the top 0.0001% of Crazy Frog listeners, but it’s a fascinating example of how artificial intelligence can enhance what was already a strong creative format.
🤓 Further reading: Check out our roundup of 26 Impressive Examples of AI in Marketing.
Trend #3: More Authentic Brand Storytelling
As social media marketers, we’re always striving to create more authentic content.
But in 2025, authenticity is no longer a nice-to-have – it’s essential.
Sprout Social discovered that “authenticity” and “relatability” are two of the three most important traits of brand content, while polished, off-the-cuff, and/or product-centric content is a turnoff for consumers:
So if you’re going to cut through the noise, you’d better stop banging on about your product and start speaking to your audience in an authentic, relatable manner.
Case Study: Hilton
When it came to promoting its sub-brand Graduate Hotels, Hilton could simply have run an ad hyping up the amenities, locations, and other features.
Instead, they went down the storytelling route by enlisting influencer Ssonia Ong, who shared how staying in a Graduate hotel helped her to relive her college days with her husband:
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All of which made the campaign feel more authentic and relatable – and less salesy.
🤓 Further reading: Learn more in our roundup of 17 of the Best Brand Storytelling Campaigns.
Trend #4: Brands Prioritize Outbound Engagement
We’re all used to seeing brands’ social media comments full of influencers chasing sponsored content deals.
But, increasingly, brands are flipping the script and commenting on the posts of high-profile creators in a bid to reach new audiences and build their online community.
According to Hootsuite, 41% of brands have already started testing these so-called “outbound engagements”.
And we’re expecting plenty more to follow suit in 2025.
Case Study: Cupra
Electric car manufacturer Cupra was handed a golden opportunity for some high-profile outbound engagement when creator MrBeast drove (and crashed) their Formula E car:
With the video generating thousands of other comments and 5.3+ million views, this likely helped Cupra reach a ton of potential new followers.
Trend #5: Support for Smaller Influencers
Once upon a time, influencer marketing meant paying someone with millions of followers to promote your product.
But the days of mega-influencer domination are behind us (for the vast majority of brands, at least).
Not only are massive influencers expensive to work with, but they’re also less effective at driving action from followers. Indeed, research from Influencer Marketing Hub claimed that “citizens and nano-influencers” are more likely to impact consumers’ purchasing decisions than mega-influencers:
Sure, if brand awareness is your sole aim, big accounts can help you get there.
But if you’re looking for clicks and sales, smaller influencers are the way to go.
Case Study: I and Love and You
I and Love and You, a (confusingly named) sustainable pet food brand, regularly works with small-scale influencers with <100,000 followers.
One campaign saw the brand reach out to 400 micro influencers in the pet niche.
Those who took part shared a total of 122 posts, helping I and Love and You reach a combined 7.8 million people and generate 64,000 engagements.
Trend #6: Greater Focus on SEO in Social Captions
Social media and search engine optimization (SEO) used to be two totally separate channels.
But Gen Z consumers are increasingly ignoring traditional search engines. When it comes to finding products and businesses, 67% of Zoomers use Instagram and 62% turn to TikTok.
All of which means that brands can no longer afford to overlook social media as a branch of SEO.
Case Study: Sephora
Sephora is a master of social media SEO.
The beauty retailer creates regular YouTube content around search-friendly topics like:
👉 Festival hairstyles
👉 Mane hair tools
👉 Wavy hair tutorial
As well as targeting those high-volume keywords in video titles, Sephora adds them to video captions and hashtags, giving them a better chance of showing up in relevant search results:
And because Sephora’s video descriptions are packed full of product links, there’s a good chance that people who view their YouTube content will click through to the Sephora website and buy something.
Trend #7: More Tapping Into Cultural Moments
Okay, so this isn’t exactly a new trend. Brands have been battling it out to share the hottest take on pop culture moments ever since the dawn of social media.
But with 93% of consumers agreeing that it’s important for brands to keep up with online culture, social media marketers simply can’t afford to miss the bandwagon anymore.
Case Study: Duolingo
Well, it wouldn’t be an article on social media trends and best practices without a reference to Duolingo.
The language learning app might be best known for the unhinged antics of Duo the owl, but they’re also up there with the very best when it comes to jumping on trends and joining the conversation.
We could have included countless examples here, but we went for this take on Jaden Smith’s Grammys outfit:
Despite the brand’s madcap tone of voice, this stuff doesn’t happen by chance.
Duolingo’s social media team knows exactly which events and celebrities are relevant to its audience, which helps them generate a ton of engagement whenever they react to cultural moments.
🤓 Further reading: Learn more in Viral and Cultural Moments: How and When Brands Should Tap into the Conversation.
Trend #8: Brands Leverage New Platforms for Experimentation
On the one hand, you want to push your creative boundaries – because you don’t want to keep posting about the same old themes forever. But on the other, you don’t want to risk tanking the performance of your main accounts by sharing off-brand content.
That’s why we’re seeing more and more brands joining smaller platforms to experiment with new content formats.
Indeed, 23% of marketers are planning to build a presence on Threads in 2025, while just 10% of brands have no plans to join Threads or Bluesky in the coming months.
Case Study: Innocent
Smoothie brand Innocent posts more-or-less every day on Threads, using it to test new themes and messaging.
Often, their tone of voice on Threads seems a little meaner than on higher-profile platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
If a post takes off on Threads, Innocent can feel pretty confident that it’ll work on other platforms, too.
And if not, it’s no big deal, because their follower count on Threads is only about one-fifth the size of Instagram.
Want to learn more about the ingredients of high-performing social media campaigns? Sign up for one of our upcoming social media conferences.
Featured image by Freepik.
