The world of social media isn’t slowing down—it’s speeding up. Every scroll, every click, every platform update and new network rollout pushes the boundaries of how we connect and create. As marketers try to keep up with its relentless pace, one truth stands out: Success doesn’t come from chasing every fleeting trend. It comes from moving with purpose and agility.
Each year, social media management platform Hootsuite surveys thousands of marketers and analyzes primary data and third-party research to issue their annual Social Media Trends report. In their latest installment, the Hootsuite team looked deeper into what’s trending to discover why these trends are working for brands and social media marketers. I recently attended a Hootsuite-hosted webinar about their findings and am sharing below the key trends that are most impactful for brands and expected to continue through 2025.
Creativity over brand consistency. With entertaining audiences in mind, get out of your brand’s comfort zone and try new things!
Outbound engagement. Gain visibility and new followers through interacting with others’ content, specifically posts from content creators with built-in audiences.
Social listening. Use data from social listening tools to build more confidence in your return on investment (ROI) on every social platform.
Strategic trend hopping and “microvirality.” Choose wisely when “trendjacking” to find trends that resonate with target audiences rather than the entire internet.
Generative AI for content creation. Use artificial intelligence chatbot tools like ChatGPT as an additional team member.
AI as a thought partner for strategy. It’s already integrated in the tools you use!
Below is further detail on each of the 2025 social media trends, plus tips based on the webinar and AOE’s social media marketing strategies.
Creativity over brand consistency
Social teams are ditching brand consistency to push creative boundaries. Nearly half of all marketers who took the Hootsuite survey said 60 percent of their social content aims to entertain without directly promoting products or services. Of those surveyed, 43 percent tried a new tone of voice, personality or persona to suit the cultures of the channels they are using. The key is knowing what target audiences want to see on each platform. For instance, while both Instagram and TikTok are ideal for short-form video, Instagram users generally seek more educational content while TikTok* users look for fun and quirky videos.
Tips: When adjusting your brand voice and content for specific channels, start small by mastering one or two platforms before expanding into others. Create niche content for relevant channels (i.e., videos with a fun element for TikTok*) and cross-post evergreen content across all channels.
LinkedIn is a great platform to experiment with different types of content—from carousals and PDFs to memes and videos to thought leadership articles. In 2024, LinkedIn introduced a feature that allows users to share short-form, vertical videos. Mobile app users can either scroll until they find the “videos for you” feed or tap on a video and swipe up to cycle through video content. As a bonus, LinkedIn is a popular channel to reach professionals in the construction and engineering industries.
*It also is worth noting that as of Jan. 19, 2025, TikTok is required by law to break ties with its China-based parent company or be banned from the U.S. With the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the TikTok ban or sale, and the new presidential administration extending the deadline by 75 days via an executive order that may not pass legal scrutiny, the app’s fate in the U.S. remains uncertain. In the meantime, AOE suggests those using TikTok should continue creating short-form videos—they are perfect for cross-posting to YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels and now LinkedIn.
Outbound engagement
Commenting on posts created by others—specifically, content creators with built-in communities of followers—is an outbound engagement strategy that has been picking up steam. Joining online conversations is a good way to gain visibility and new audiences. Plus, a brand’s presence outside the organization’s own social media pages makes it look more credible to others, which helps to build relationships and trust.
Tips: Engage with content that makes sense for your organization, even when not referencing the brand (and it’s OK to not talk about your brand!). Keep responses positive and uplifting. When deciding to engage, follow the guidelines of this social media decision tree from AOE. While the flow chart was created for inbound engagement (responding to user comments on brand-owned social media pages or profiles), it can easily be used for deciding when to comment on third-party and user-generated content.
It’s also important to ensure your brand is engaging in the right online communities. Research content creators and their audiences before commenting on their posts (see this related article from AOE about influencers and how to choose them). You want to be where your target audience would be pleased to see you—and nowhere else! The best times to comment is within 24 hours of the post creation, as engagement decreases after that time period.
Social listening
Social listening tools provide the data-backed insights that tie social media efforts to business impact. Of those surveyed by Hootsuite, 62% use social listening tools, which can include Google Alerts, Brandwatch, HubSpot, Meltwater and built-in tools found in social media management dashboards (i.e., Hootsuite, Sprout Social). Monitoring online conversations can help marketers gauge public opinion and customer sentiment about brands as well as identify target audience concerns their brand can resolve.
Tips: Identify the keywords you want to track and monitor. Focus on “mentions” and “sentiment” (positive, neutral and negative). The “results over time” metric will identify activity peaks, allowing users to cross-check against what happened during that time period to uncover the reasons for those spikes in activity and engagement.
Strategic trend hopping (microvirality)
While going viral is no longer the objective for marketers (negative sentiment about going viral rose in 2023), brands do want the attention of their target audiences. This smaller-scale virality is called microvirality, and choosing which trends to jump on is referred to as trendjacking.
Tips: Trendjacking must be fast and timely, and most of all, resonate with target audiences. Use social listening tools to uncover what audiences care about and determine which trends to jump on. Additionally, ensure the trend aligns with your brand and goals.
Generative AI for content creation
Since the launch of ChatGPT in early 2023, social media marketers have increasingly turned to AI chatbots and other generative AI tools to help produce, edit and revise or rewrite text. In 2024, marketers doubled down on using generative AI to generate content (including images), with highly regulated industries using AI more often than others. According to the Hootsuite survey, 60% of brand content is created specifically for social media and not repurposed elsewhere. The sheer amount of content needed to meet optimal posting frequencies on each social network is hard to maintain without a little help from AI tools!
Tip: AI can be leveraged to fill workflow gaps for small teams—but don’t lose the human touch or human oversight! Start and end content-creation processes with humans.
AI as a thought partner for strategy
According to Hootsuite, marketers who use AI the most also update their strategies the most and are more likely to prioritize agility. After all, AI features are now integrated in the tools used to analyze data, manage projects and track performance. AI also can be used to free up team members’ time so they can focus on creative brainstorming and improve their productivity. As an example, the Hootsuite staff uses AI to help with menial tasks so they can spend more time using their brain power to develop strategies. They use ChatGPT to organize and summarize the ideas they generate and place them in slide format for quick distribution.
Tips: Start by identifying tasks AI can help streamline, such as transcribing conversations, summarizing articles and other large chunks of text, segmenting audiences or analyzing data to generate insights. Next, explore the AI features already integrated in the platforms your team uses to streamline those and other tasks. Finally, implement the AI-based work in small “pilot” projects to test their effectiveness.
While these are general trends for all brands, social media marketers should choose approaches best suited for their unique industry and business goals. Focus on the channels and content that drive the most engagement for your brand. For help developing optimal social media strategies, contact AOE!