12 Social Media Trends Marketers should Watch in 2025 [New Data]

We’re halfway through 2025, and it’s a good time to see which social media trends are shaping the year.

In our 2025 Social Media Trends Report, most marketers said that keeping up with trends is their biggest challenge. With things always changing in the world, it’s hard to know what’s safe and where to take big steps. But we don’t have to figure it out alone. When we work together, it’s easier to understand what’s going on.

We looked at answers from 1,751 marketers and spoke with two social media experts to learn what we can expect for the rest of the year. Based on their input, here are 12 social media trends to watch in 2025:

1. Short Videos Are Still the Top Type of Content

Would you rather watch one 15-minute YouTube video or 15 short TikToks? Most people in 2025 prefer short videos. Even if TikTok changes or goes away, the short video style is here to stay.

Marketers told us that they create short videos more than any other type of content. One in three brands use them, and they say these videos bring the best results.

Expert Insight:
Emily Brungard from Rossman Media says, “TikTok isn’t gone, but brands know they need a backup plan. Platforms like YouTube and Instagram are now focusing more on short videos and copying what works on TikTok.”

2. Sharing Brand Values Can Be Risky, but It Works

In a crowded market, showing what your brand stands for can help you stand out.

For the second year in a row, marketers say making content that reflects their brand values is a top trend. But it’s not always easy. Only about half of marketers say they are sure about what their brand values are, especially on social, cultural, or diversity topics.

Some are also afraid of negative feedback. About 52% are very concerned about how people might react to values-based content. That’s up from 29% in 2024. Still, 9 out of 10 brands are doing it, and 58.5% say it works well.

Brands can show their values by:

• Talking about their green efforts or donations to causes they support.
• Sharing stories from their founders or customers.
• Showing how their teams work on causes they care about.

Example: We once worked with a software company that helped people with disabilities. On social media, we shared videos of our team talking to disability advocates. People really connected with this content.

Expert Insight: Celine Chai from NinetyEight, a Gen Z-focused agency, says, “Gen Z cares deeply about values. We won’t spend money on brands that don’t match what we believe. But we support brands that stay true to their values.”

3. Marketers Stick With Meta but Are Trying New Platforms Too

At the start of 2025, we said that marketers would keep using Meta platforms like Facebook and Instagram because they feel stable, especially with the changes at TikTok and X. Now that we’re halfway through the year, this is still true. Facebook and Instagram are where marketers are putting most of their money—18.7% and 16.5% of marketers, to be exact.

But things are starting to shift. More marketers plan to put extra focus on YouTube this year (29.5%), followed by Instagram (28.8%), TikTok (27.6%), and LinkedIn (26.2%). Facebook comes next, with 25.9% of marketers spending more on it, while 18.6% are spending less.

4. Ai is Helping Marketers Stay Flexible in 2025

Many of us are still learning how to use AI to make marketing easier and better. In our survey, marketers shared a few ways they’re trying AI:

• Using AI to turn written content into videos, product demos, or even podcasts (21%).
• Using AI tools to handle everything from planning to posting on social media (19.6%).
• Using AI to check if marketing campaigns are giving good results (19.3%).

Right now, only 47.2% of marketers fully understand how to use AI in their strategy. But this means there’s room to grow. Since marketing is full of hard and time-consuming tasks, AI can help solve many problems—like understanding data and creating content that speaks to each audience.

Expert Insight:
Victor Valle from GRIN says, “AI helps us give users more personal experiences, plan content better, and take care of boring tasks. That gives marketers more time to focus on the creative work.”

5. Influencer Marketing is a Powerful Tool for Brands

Many brands may not realize how helpful influencer marketing can be. This year, 45% of brands worked with influencers or content creators, and 63.9% of them said it brought the best return on investment.

Most of these brands are keeping their spending the same in 2025, and 12% are planning to spend more. One out of ten brands will try influencer marketing for the first time this year.

While influencer marketing is often used by B2C (business-to-consumer) brands, B2B (business-to-business) brands are also finding success with it. In fact, B2B brands are just as active in this area as B2C ones.

The platforms that bring the best results for influencer marketing are Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok. LinkedIn is also a good option, especially for B2B companies.

Expert Insight:
Gaurav Sharma from Attrock says, “If you want strong results, try a campaign with 10–30 small influencers over 6–12 months. It can help your business grow fast. Also, using influencer platforms can help you connect with the right influencers and get even better results.”

6. Small Niche Influencers Help Brands Grow Loyal Fans

In the past, brands chose influencers mostly by how many followers they had. But today, what matters more is if the influencer shares the same values and connects well with their followers.

Marketers now pick influencers based on:

• How many people interact with their content.
• How well the influencer’s style matches the brand.
• If the influencer focuses on a specific topic or niche.

More and more brands are seeing great results with smaller influencers. This year, the top success came from:

• Micro-influencers with 10,000–99,999 followers (19.5%).
• Macro-influencers with 100,000–999,999 followers (11%).
• Nano-influencers with 1,000–9,999 followers (10%).

Working with small influencers usually costs less, helps build long-term partnerships, and reaches people who trust the influencer. This is often because their content feels real and personal.

Expert Insight:
Valle says, “Micro-influencers are very powerful. People see them as real and trustworthy. They often have strong bonds with their audience, so it’s easy to build a team of brand supporters using micro-influencers.”

7. Brands and Creators Are Going Live

After short videos and photos, live streaming is one of the best formats, giving brands great results. Marketers plan to invest more in live streams in 2025. Even though live streaming isn’t new, it’s growing fast on TikTok this year.

Creators are now live streaming all kinds of things—from playing games to answering questions or just sharing daily moments. Viewers enjoy the real-time feel, and brands can use this by joining influencer live streams or doing live shopping shows.

Expert Insight:
Valle shares, “TikTok LIVE has changed the way people watch content. Creators grow big followings by going live often and talking directly with fans.”

He explains that brands now work with well-known faces to host live shopping events. When paired with discounts or fun deals, these events help brands reach more people and boost sales. Having a familiar face on camera also keeps people watching longer and more likely to buy.

8. Marketing Teams Must Show Real Results

In the last budget cycle, many marketing teams didn’t know how much money they would get to work with. Even though 18.9% of marketers still say low budgets are a problem, most teams either kept their budgets the same or got more in 2025. Only 17.8% said they had less money than last year.

Still, many marketers now feel more pressure to show that their work is helping the business. In 2025, the top goal for most marketers is to help bring in more sales. The second main goal is to boost engagement.

One in five social media marketers says it’s hard to show how their posts lead to real business results. This shows the need to better connect content with things like sales and customer actions.

9. Content That Speaks to the Audience Works Best

Around 59% of marketers say they clearly understand who their target audience is. But that leaves 41% who don’t. On social media, knowing your audience is key. Without that, it’s hard to make content that people care about.

Also, 80% of brands say they don’t know enough about their customers’ problems or struggles. But the good news is, you don’t need a lot of data to understand your audience. With a little creativity, active listening on social media, and some empathy, it’s possible to learn what matters to them and how you can help.

Expert Insight:
Brungard says, “Find out what problems your audience has and how your brand solves them. Then, share that in a way that fits social media. Don’t just copy what you say in emails or on your website.

“A strong campaign means you truly know your audience, understand what they need, and focus your message clearly around that.”

10. Native Content Brings Better Results

Brands know they need to be active on many platforms, but they’re becoming smarter about how they do it. About 34.4% of marketers reuse the same content everywhere. But more—around 43.9%—say they create different versions for each platform.

For example, if we made a five-minute how-to video for YouTube, we wouldn’t just post it as-is on other sites. Instead, we could make a short unboxing video for Instagram or a fun dance clip for TikTok using the same product.

This might sound like extra work, but it’s an area where AI can help. Around 21% of brands are now trying tools that turn written content into videos, graphics, or other formats. Tools like HubSpot’s Campaign Assistant can help repackage content faster and make it fit each platform better.

Expert Tip:
Valle says, “Always create content that feels natural to the platform you’re using. If you just reuse the same thing without changes, people won’t connect with it, and it won’t work as well.”

11. Data Helps Guide Smart Decisions

Using data is no longer optional for marketers—it’s now something we must do. As teams feel more pressure to show that their work brings results, data plays a big role in checking if campaigns are working and in planning what to do next.

Almost 29% of marketers say using data to guide their marketing is one of the biggest changes in the field. Another 25.7% say data helps show how marketing adds value to the business.
The benefits are clear: data helps us see which ideas work best (30.6%), improve returns (29.6%), and connect better with the right audience (27.4%).

But getting and understanding data is also getting harder. New rules and changes in how people act online make it tougher to collect useful information. Around 20.7% of marketers say people don’t trust brands with their data, and 17.7% say strict privacy laws make things more difficult.

Expert Insight:
The brands are doing well with this focus on using their own data first. If we have a way to track how social media is helping our business, we can see what works, do more of it, and prove that our efforts matter. First-party data is a smart place to start.

12. Content Creators Are Now Key Team Members

If marketing teams could hire just one person right now, they would pick a content creator. This job used to be linked with YouTubers or influencers, but now more companies are bringing creators into their own teams. These creators make videos, posts, podcasts, and other useful content.

Even in business-to-business (B2B) marketing, creators like Kieran Flanagan, Heike Young, and Zoë Hartsfield are showing what this role can look like for a brand.

Google Trends shows that more people started looking up “content creator” as a career in 2023. According to Axios, full-time content creator jobs grew from 200,000 in 2020 to 1.5 million now. That makes it the fastest-growing internet job today.

The Social Media World Keeps Changing

These are some of the big trends happening right now, based on what social media marketers are seeing. But there’s still more time left this year, and new trends may come up. Big news or changes in the world can also affect how people use social media and how brands respond.

To stay on top of things, we should keep looking at what’s trending, how people are behaving online, and what our own data shows. This helps us choose which trends to follow and how to adjust when unexpected things happen online.