AI, Short-form Video, Micro and Nano-Influencers, and Content Experimentation are all on the Marketing Radar
Social media has become such a central component of today’s marketing strategy that keeping up with “social media trends” could be a full-time job.
It seems that everyone’s got an opinion regarding social media trends for 2025 from Hootsuite to Forbes to Sprout Social to Sprinklr to Digital Marketing Institute to Social Media Today … and that’s just the lucky few crowding the first page of a quick Google search.
Note: Gen Z readers may need to ask an older colleague for a refresher course on SERPs and their importance and in return they can explain how “living rent free” has nothing to do with their housing situation!
Maybe all this social media trend talk is just noise. Why even care?
Well, here’s 5.24 billion reasons: that is the estimated number of social media users worldwide as of Feb. 13, 2025, according to Statista. That’s a staggering 63.9 percent of the world’s population.
“Social media users are dedicated, spending an average of 2 hours 19 minutes per day across 6.8 different platforms. This equates to 14 percent of their waking lives according to Datareportal,” explains the Digital Marketing Institute. “That’s an audience that deserves the attention of any marketer. And it gives brands the opportunity to connect with customers from every demographic at scale.”
Reading, digesting, and reacting to every social media trend is, frankly, impossible. You need to be proactive and selective.
“The top performing social teams aren’t jumping on every trend. They’re building social listening into the heart of their corporate strategy to find, understand, and take action on the trends that are right for them,” says Hootsuite. “They’re rewriting the playbook with new content approaches that break more than a few long-standing rules. And they’re finding new ways to accelerate everything from content creation to strategic planning with a little help from — you guessed it — AI.”
No offense to the AI overloads, but we channeled our “natural intelligence” and read as many social media trends 2025 articles as we could to save you the time and effort and came up with the following four trends that kept popping up on the marketing radar: Artificial intelligence (AI), short-form video, micro and nano-influencers, and content experimentation.
Let’s take a deeper dive into each and why they are trending this year.
Look, we could have done a social media trends article without mentioning AI a single time but then that would basically be an article from a time capsule pre-Chat GPT.
AI is not just the elephant in the marketing room but pretty much the entire dang house these days.
“Generative AI is off probation and officially on the team,” touts Hootsuite. “When we released last year’s trends report, social marketers were just starting to experiment with ChatGPT and a limited number of other AI tools — if their organizations let them. At the same time, they were concerned about what AI could mean for their future as social media managers. But in just one year, that’s all changed.”
Of course, directing AI in the right direction for your marketing strategy can be a bit like hanging onto a fire hose at full blast … there’s great potential but how can you direct it in the right direction?
“AI is transforming digital marketing and social media is no exception. In fact, AI is integrated into key social media platforms to enhance features and help shape activities at scale,” says the Digital Marketing Institute. “AI is being used by marketers to create social content, such as text, images, videos, and even influencers. It can help analyze data, drive personalization, automate customer service through advanced chatbots, and boost advertising performance on social networks.”
AI is certainly a growing tool but not a panacea, and AI results can range from the helpful to the humorous to the bizarre.
We asked, for example, five of our favorite AI friends to complete the above metaphor regarding AI being more than the elephant in the room and the results ranged all over the place, including:
Sadly – or thankfully? – none of the AI came up with “pretty much the entire dang house” … though shout out to Gemini for calling AI “not just the elephant in the marketing room but the entire marketing zoo.”
As The Daily Upside warned in December, AI is a handy tool, but generating all your promotional content with AI can be dangerous and ineffective.
What Hootsuite finds is that a growing number of social marketers are now using AI applications for the following social media activities:
HubSpot reports that “in 2024, AI usage among marketers rose at a staggering rate. And while there are countless AI tools available to help with a wide variety of marketing needs, today’s marketers reported they have been particularly focused on using AI tools to create content to keep up with their increasing content needs.”
AI is finding its way not just into content creation but into social media strategy.
“From developing new ideas to drafting captions and producing images, it’s clear that generative AI has reshaped the way social pros create content for social media,” says Hootsuite. “Also, fascinating? The speed at which we’re seeing the use of AI make its way up to higher-level strategic roles.”
Short-form videos on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts continue to be the most engaging content in the social media world.
Sprout Social says that “short-form video is one of the best ways to connect with your audience and reach new followers.”
Sprinklr calls it the “TikTokification of social media.”
“Video content has dominated the internet for a while, with about 82.5 percent of global internet traffic coming from videos. As attention spans dwindle, short-form video is quickly becoming the gold standard for capturing attention,” says Sprinklr. “66 percent of customers say short-form videos are the most engaging, evidenced by its average watch rate of over 81 percent.”
Keep an eye out for a slight social media shift to consuming longer videos, as well, with users on TikTok now spending half their time watching videos that are longer than a minute.
“A fatigue toward quick dopamine hits is creeping in for some audiences on social media. Many are craving more meaningful and comprehensive content,” writes Hannah Tran, senior social and digital media producer at Colorado State University.
Micro-influencers (those typically with 10,000 to 100,000 followers) and nano-influencers (1,000 to 10,0000 followers) are becoming leaders in marketing campaigns.
This trend is driven by the authenticity and stronger connections micro-influencers have with their followers:
“Brands will continue to partner with influencers to amplify their message and reach highly engaged audiences,” said Social Media Today. “However, the focus will shift towards more authentic partnerships with micro and nano-influencers, who boast smaller but more loyal and targeted following.”
Web.com reported that businesses are working with 33 percent more micro-influencers every year because they help companies build genuine relationships: “They understand their audience and can foster intimate engagement. This allows creative freedom, so their audience connects with your brand naturally. It also ensures that your business is promoted efficiently, which leads to impressions, clicks, and interactions. Plus, their affordability (larger influencers charge a lot more) can ensure that your message can be disseminated without breaking the bank.”
Hootsuite says that social teams in 2025 are ditching brand consistency to push creative boundaries, as well as dropping in on creators’ comments to pick up new audiences.
“Last year, our trends survey revealed that above all else, people want to be entertained on social media. But brands weren’t meeting those expectations, and struggled to demonstrate ROI because of it,” reported Hootsuite. “Since then, organizations have stepped up their entertainment game. Nearly half of our survey respondents said that more than 60% of their social content aims to entertain, educate, or inform without directly promoting themselves, their products, or services.”
Where does your marketing strategy fall on the spectrum:
o Risk-Takers (24 percent): 81 to 100 percent of social posts.
o Champions (24 percent): 61 to 80 percent of social posts.
o Balancers (21 percent): 41 to 60 percent of social posts.
o Play-It-Safers (17 percent): 21 to 40 percent of social posts.
o Creatively Constrained (15 percent): 0 to 20 percent of social posts.
“The evolution of social platforms and culture have created opportunities that old-school brand playbooks would never allow. And we’re seeing more and more organizations toss those playbooks aside, loosen the reins on consistency, and prioritize creativity on social media,” concludes Hootsuite. “In fact, 43 percent of organizations have tried out a new tone of voice, personality, or persona on social in the last year.”
Social marketers who consistently post creative content are more likely to report a positive impact on their business. This trend allows brands to have fun and capture audience attention in new ways.
Dropping in on comments, for example, is one way brands are getting creative.
“These days, you can scroll down to the comments section of almost any social post and find a brand or two chiming in on the conversation. These outbound engagements (brands commenting on other peoples’ posts) are picking up steam,” says Hootsuite. “No matter your target audience, if you can use the comments to insert your brand into relevant communities, not just one-off conversations — and do it authentically and thoughtfully — there’s a massive opportunity to foster strong, lasting relationships (and get a few more eyeballs on your brand to boot).”
AI-generated content, short-form video dominance, micro and nano-influencers marketing, and content experimentation are only four of the many social media trends in 2025.
Social search optimization, social commerce, niche communities and IRL events, communities over influencers, social listening and “trendjacking” are some of the other social media trends to watch out for in the coming months.
These trends are just the tip of the social media iceberg and highlight the evolving nature of social media marketing, emphasizing the importance of authenticity, community engagement, and adaptability in the digital marketing landscape of 2025.
In this fast-changing digital world, staying ahead of social media trends isn’t optional – it’s essential for marketers looking to make an impact.