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How GEO-Optimization Works: Who and Why AI Agents Recommend. What Businesses Lose Without Optimization for AI Agents (GEO)
- strategy
- business
With the marketing trends for 2025 already explored, it’s time to discuss what lies ahead for social media in the coming year. Social networks have become the new normal for both businesses and personal brand development. Ignoring this effective tool is simply not an option. Here are the top SMM trends in 2025 that brands should consider when engaging with audiences to stay competitive
1. UGC, IGC, and EGC content
While UGC (user-generated content) has been familiar to us for years, EGC (employee-generated content) and IGC (influencer-generated content) are relatively new approaches to creating content for social media
First and foremost, UGC will remain a popular and effective tool in 2025, helping to expand reach, attract new customers, and build trust in the brand. Now, let’s focus on the newer directions
EGC is content created by company employees. Acting as brand ambassadors, employees showcase the company's values, atmosphere, operations, and unique aspects. This type of content is often shared through personal accounts, making it authentic, honest, and trustworthy to viewers. In 2025, we can expect to see more EGC content
IGC refers to content generated by influencers in partnership with brands. What sets IGC apart from regular advertising is its exclusivity - it is created specifically for the brand’s social media channels. Experience shows that IGC boosts engagement rates and increases click-through rates
2. Artificial Intelligence (AI) in SMM
AI continues to integrate into various aspects of business and everyday life, with social media being no exception. Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok are actively incorporating AI models (e.g., Meta AI) into their algorithms to deliver more personalized advertising, tailor feeds to individual users, and enhance search relevance, including voice-based queries. Social media platforms now automatically recognize and tag AI-generated content, improve targeting tools, and integrate AI-based features in content editors to create captivating materials (e.g., Movie Gen)
AI has also become an indispensable assistant for brands, content creators, SMM specialists, bloggers, and users building their personal brands on social media. It helps craft text, graphics, and video content, develop content plans, write compelling stories, generate creative ideas, and track analytics
Currently popular is FOOH (Fake Out Of Home) - so-called fake outdoor advertising. This tool uses real physical space, overlaying it with computer graphics in the form of various giant figures (remember the subway in London, where trains «paint eyelashes» with Maybelline mascara?). The generated videos or images gain record views and interactions on social networks
3. Cross platform content strategy
The concept of cross platform strategy isn’t new - it involves using multiple social networks to achieve a unified goal. Brands actively embrace this approach, targeting different audiences while maintaining consistency in style, Tone of Voice, and key messages
What’s changing in 2025? The focus will shift towards creating unique content tailored to the specifics of each platform, moving away from simple cross posting (reposting the same material across platforms). This will significantly enhance organic reach and growth. For example, TikTok requires short, humorous videos, Instagram thrives on visually appealing content, LinkedIn benefits from professional and expert-focused materials. Tailoring content in this way will attract different user segments more effectively, expand reach, and establish a strong presence across platforms
Cross platform integration amplifies impact - for instance, directing traffic from TikTok to YouTube for in-depth reviews or from Facebook to Instagram. Cross platform strategies not only boost brand recognition but also increase traffic and conversions by leveraging each platform's unique strengths. To achieve better results, it’s crucial to monitor metrics, analyze the performance of each channel, and adjust strategies accordingly
4. Video content
Firstly, short videos remain a dominant trend in SMM for 2025. They are easy to create, quick to consume, and effectively capture and hold users' attention. Brands use them to convey engaging and concise messages that encourage audience interaction. With new accessible tools, you no longer need to be a professional editor to produce this type of content
Secondly, long-form, meaningful videos and cinematic storytelling are gaining traction. These formats focus on deep, emotionally engaging stories that resonate with users. People love movies and series, so why not leverage this in brand communication?
In 2025, brands will shift towards creating not just videos but full-fledged short films or mini-series. This involves advanced editing, scripting, and directing. The payoff promises to be significant: emotional engagement, increased attention, virality, broader reach, loyalty, and other advantages for brands that effectively utilize this tool
What does this look like? For instance, Nike often employs this approach, producing success stories of renowned athletes, showcasing their victories despite challenges. These stories are motivational and emotionally immersive for viewers. Technically, such videos include scripts, storyboards, plotlines, dynamic editing, professional filming and sound, and other creative touches. The result? A mini-film that captivates consumers and shapes their perception of the brand
In 2025, experiment with various video formats based on your resources. Test, evaluate, refine strategies, and confidently compete for audience attention
5. Gamification as a social media promotion method
This trend has been with us for a relatively long time, but it hasn't lost its relevance. Keep playing with your audience, encourage, provoke and reward them. Sell by flirting. This remains an effective tool to increase engagement, reach, build loyalty, and also helps you gather useful consumer data such as interests, behaviors, preferences, etc.
6. Authenticity and uniqueness in SMM content
Audiences are increasingly fatigued by the picture-perfect aesthetic of social media. Consciously or subconsciously, they seek and respond to authenticity, imperfections, truth, and honesty
Don’t strive to be a «perfect brand» on your social platforms. Chasing an ideal image won’t earn you audience loyalty. Instead, showcase your failures and how you overcame them, along with how you solve other challenges. In cases of conflict, be genuine - apologize sincerely and own up to mistakes. Be real in 2025
As for the content itself, the same principles apply:
- post high-quality content, but avoid obsessing over perfection
- integrate unique brand elements into your content; for instance, if you're adding a voiceover, let it be your own
- highlight interactions with your audience, such as sharing screenshots of conversations; this boosts trust and shows your brand's true personality
7. Collaborations as a promotion tool
This tool has long been known for its effectiveness, and in 2025 we will see even more unusual collaborations on social networks. Why unusual? Because they will be both cross-platform collaborations to drive traffic between different social networks, and the combination of seemingly «incongruous» products/services/brands (for example, the collab between Mattel and Heinz called «Barbie Barbecue» - they created a pink Heinz Classic BARBIEcue Sauce based on vegan mayonnaise and barbecue sauce)
Additionally, collaborations between competing brands will gain traction as they exchange audiences and broaden their reach
8. Using social media as a search engine
Social media is becoming a full-fledged search engine, with content evaluated and ranked according to SEO principles. This trend has even given rise to a new term: Social SEO
Several factors contribute to this trend:
- social networks are more visually appealing, and their search results provide a clear representation of the content's relevance and alignment with user queries
- users trust social media content more, as it is created and shared by peers
- social media platforms enable swift interactions
- personalization: features like targeting, feeds, Reels, and recommendations make search results highly tailored
9. Social listening and proactive engagement
Social listening involves monitoring and analyzing all mentions of a brand on social media. This allows for a quicker response to negative sentiment arising from issues such as product or service quality, customer service, or situational factors. It also helps brands understand their audience better - gaining insights into their interests, preferences, and pain points - so they can refine strategies and campaigns, ultimately gaining a competitive edge
Proactive engagement is when brands actively join discussions in the comments under Influencer posts or under viral posts. This helps to attract attention and engage an interested audience. Proactive engagement can be part of an SMM strategy: brands regularly appear in the comments of an account or publication that also has a relevant target audience. In this way, the brand attracts attention and connects new audiences to the interaction. Hootsuite shows that 41% of brands use proactive engagement tools and appear in the content of other users/companies
10. Social commerce
Social media platforms continue to develop their marketplaces, enabling brands to showcase and sell products directly through the platforms. Tools like Instagram Shopping, TikTok Shop, and Facebook Marketplace are designed to make the purchasing process seamless and fast for users. In 2025, this trend will keep growing, and combined with the transformation of social media into search engines, it will turn social platforms into central hubs of digital experience
One of the elements of social commerce is sales during live broadcasts. They allow you to demonstrate a product «in action», offer exclusive positions, interact freely and directly with the audience, and viewers can ask a question, get an immediate answer and immediately make a purchase. That is, this format attracts interactivity, viewers are actively involved in the process, and the level of their involvement is growing. In addition, in this format it is also possible to use cross-platform - to broadcast simultaneously on several platforms
When AR/WR technologies become more accessible and gain a wider scale (and according to forecasts it will happen already in 2025, we wrote about it here), live sales will reach a qualitatively new level - viewers will be able to virtually try on goods, see them in an individual space, visit a virtual outlet, etc. By the way, such experience can also become entertainment for users, not only a way to sell goods
From a psychological point of view, live broadcasts can provoke the FOMO effect (fear of missed opportunities) - users, feeling the exclusivity of the offer and having time constraints, will make purchases faster
11. Influencer Marketing
This trend has been around for several years and is firmly with us into 2025. Brands will still be collaborating more with micro and nano-influencers who have relevant, loyal and more engaged audiences
New to this trend in 2025 will be the engagement of Influencers in the B2B market. Through their expertise, reputation and high level of trust, brands will be able to qualitatively reach and engage new audiences
12. Viral content
Social media algorithms now pay attention to the number of reposts or shares of content rather than likes or comments. A post that organically gains a lot of shares goes into the recommendation feed for other users and thus goes viral. Brands should aim to create content that users will want to repost. It can be different formats, topics, headings, and each brand should derive its own formula for success for more effective viral promotion. So experiment!
13. Work & Life balance
In 2025, brands and users will pay more attention to content that delivers messages about health - mental and physical, the importance of self-care, balancing hobbies, interests, leisure and work, harmony, family values, etc. A clear indicator of this trend is the shortening of the working week in some countries to allow workers to spend more time with their families and take care of their leisure time
The era of «successful success» is already coming to an end, people are tired of being in a constant pursuit of achievement, burn out, suffer and in the end get no joy from career achievements. In addition, the picture of someone else's success is no longer perceived so unambiguously - consciously or not, users realize that the «ideal» result has a background, which they try to hide or ignore. Self-care, self-understanding, mental health, new impressions even at the expense of career achievements - this is what is becoming a new trend
Trends come and go, but marketing strategy is always essential. Make your SMM work for the long haul
Conclusion: brand promotion on social media in 2025
In 2025, we’ll see the expansion of established trends - AI integration, social commerce, influencer marketing, collaborations, video content, etc. - alongside the growth of relatively new directions like EGC, social listening, and work-life balance
For a successful SMM strategy in 2025, brands should combine current trends with timeless values such as sustainable and ethical branding, social responsibility, data privacy, and alignment with general marketing trends to stay effective and competitive
Sources:
https://www.hootsuite.com/research/social-trends
https://www.coursera.org/articles/social-media-trends
