The Biggest Social Media Trends in 2025

Struggling to keep up with the latest social media trends? Trust us, you’re not alone. Social media is one of the fastest growing industries in the world, with an estimated 5.22 billion users, accounting for 63.8% of the global population.

From 2023 to 2024, social media user numbers grew by 256 million, making it one of the biggest marketing opportunities for businesses worldwide. With the industry forecast to exceed 7 billion users by 2028, we know that if you’re not actively using social media in your marketing strategy, you should be – and you should start now.

If staying ahead of trends feels overwhelming, social media management tools can help. These tools allow you to plan and schedule campaigns, track your posts, and stay organized, especially if you’re juggling multiple platforms.

In 2025, even the smallest company will benefit from a social media presence – simply put, it’s one of the best ways to make sure you’re consistently at the forefront of your customer’s minds. But with trends constantly changing, we know how difficult it is to keep up with the competition, which is why our team of researchers pulled together a list of the biggest social media trends to watch out for in 2025, to make sure that you don’t just keep up with the competition, but can get ahead.

Social media management tools like Planable can help you stay keep track of your posts, especially if you are active on multiple social media platforms. They let you plan and schedule your campaigns all in one place

1. UGC content and micro-influencers will become mainstream

Four years ago, the pandemic spawned a surge in online activity. With many aspects of normal daily life on pause, more people engaged in streaming content, shopping, and spending time on social media. Some companies hired specific roles to accommodate an increased demand for their products and services.

When the world came out of lockdown, this boom inevitably subsided, and companies that had previously benefited were faced with a major economic downturn.

In response, businesses began to reduce their costs by cutting back on staff and lowering their advertising spend — and this is where micro-influencers and creators have come in to help.

For resource-strapped businesses looking to grow their reach in 2025, micro and nano-influencers (creators with less than 10k followers) can drive brand awareness on social media within a tighter financial budget.

Micro-influencers tend to charge between $100 to $500 per post, meaning that they represent a viable, cost-effective way to get your brand seen by as many people as possible.

“With the recession, with COVID, and just being more financially pinched… marketing dollars always get cut. When we’re strapped for resources, creators become a very appealing tool for marketers.” — Leah Gritton, Director of Integration Strategy, Energy BBDO

Individual influencers, while requiring more personalized management and relationship-building than general ad-spending, can target far more niche audience groups, and achieve greater returns on investment in many cases, when the partnership is well-matched. This is thanks to the personalized experience that influencers can create and the trust they can build with their audience, compared to broader ad campaigns.

87% of consumers report that they have been influenced by influencer content into making a purchase.

UGC (user-generated content) will also grow in 2025. According to research, 84% of Millennials and 70% of baby boomers say that UGC influences their purchase decisions, meaning that this trend will only become more pronounced.

With an increasing demand for more relatable, ‘authentic’ content, brands in 2025 will increasingly invest in micro-influencers and UGC content to build a more credible relationship with their audience.

2. Short-form video content will continue to dominate

One corner of social media where UGC content reigns is TikTok. While the popular app only hit the global market in August of 2018, it has become one of the fastest-growing social media platforms in the world, using short-form videos of under 10 minutes.

Looking ahead to 2025, with an imminent US ban looming, TikTok’s future dominance is precarious. However, its closest competitor, Instagram Reels, could be set to profit with an influx of new users, potentially bringing Meta closer to its “super app” ambitions.

Whatever happens, the short-form video that TikTok has championed will continue to go from strength to strength on all social media platforms in 2025, as brands take advantage of viral challenges, enticing auto-play media and trending audio to boost user engagement.

“It’s particularly effective for brand storytelling, product demonstrations, and user-generated content” – Christina Stewart-Harfmann, Happy Family Blog founder.

47% of marketers agree that short-form videos are more likely to go viral. With this growing acceptance that short-form content is an essential component of any business’s marketing strategy, expect more and more brands to start honing their strategies in 2025.

If you’re looking to start on TikTok or Instagram Reels, there are plenty of guides out there about how to build your follower base, if you really want to devote yourself to it. You could also repurpose content created for other social media channels if you’re pressed for time, as the apps do accept videos first created elsewhere.

As far as original content goes, small businesses are finding a lot of luck with content that shows their manufacturing processes. Watching something being handmade is a great trust signal for your audience, and falls under the banner of interesting, engaging content, which can also boost profitability.

3. Livestream shopping and social commerce will step into the limelight

Social commerce – the use of social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, to sell products and services to consumers – has been on our watch list for a while. The global social commerce market is expected to hit $6 trillion by 2030. Businesses who want to capitalize on its growth should make it part of their marketing strategy sooner rather than later.

Of course, if you’re in the business of selling physical goods and don’t yet have an online presence, investing in a high-quality ecommerce website builder is the best place to start if you’re looking to increase your sales. But, if you’re looking to expand and reach a larger audience in 2025, social commerce is the next strategic move to build into your strategy.

Even in 2018, 55% of shoppers had purchased a product through a company’s social media account, with 87% of buyers claiming that social media helped them make a decision on a purchase.

As TikTok Shop breaks records, and business ad spend is cut at the expense of UGC marketing, social commerce is set for a big year, with shoppable posts, platform storefronts and live streaming at the forefront.

If you’re looking to take advantage of this trend, you’ll want to stay on top of the ever-growing field of social media commerce. Different platforms are always coming up with new ways to sell. By staying aware of the latest developments, you’ll be able to jump on the opportunity that suits you best in 2025.

4. VR and AR will continue to grow

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) originally made our list of trends to watch in 2022, as two of the most exciting developments in the realm of technology within the last decade. The Metaverse was expected to be one of its main gateways.

While the Metaverse still hasn’t taken off as much as Zuckerberg might have hoped two years ago, interest in VR and AR has started to grow. There are reports of WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, and Google all making plans to utilize AR more, to increase their advertising revenue. A few months ago, Meta officially unveiled “Orion,” reportedly the most “advanced pair of AR glasses ever made.”

In October 2022, Meta announced a new way to share content from Horizon Worlds – Meta’s flagship social VR app – to Facebook and Instagram Reels, along with a new Quest Pro VR headset and the promise that you’ll be able to “join a Teams meeting from inside Meta Horizon Workrooms” in 2023. In other words, at least one major tech company is still fully bought into delivering more VR and AR experiences. But to reiterate, as of December 2024, tangible results are still thin on the ground.

If you’re still unsure on the difference between VR and AR, here’s a summary:

Read more:

Augmented Reality (AR):

Augmented reality is when a platform uses reality as its base, but overlays something fantastical on that base, like a Snapchat filter overlaid on your face, through your phone’s camera. Apps that make you look older, or put a dancing hotdog on your coffee table, are using augmented reality. So-called “beauty filters” have recently been banned from use by under-18s on TikTok.

Virtual Reality (VR):

Virtual reality is the whole nine yards — the user is whisked away into another world entirely, like a zombie invasion or a spaceship, with all the elements you see being generated by a program, rather than coming from the space you are actually in. On the less whimsical side, you can be taken to a virtual house viewing, or a tour of a real-life place, from miles away.

Both of these reality-adjusting technologies have begun to be implemented within the past few years, and social media companies are using them to refresh the world of marketing, despite a few setbacks.

Facebook

Facebook took the leap into VR back in 2018, when it acquired the VR gaming platform Oculus (now known as Meta Quest) for 2 billion dollars, having seen the potential in VR as more than a gaming platform.

In 2021, it integrated Horizon – the home of Meta’s metaverse platform – to provide more VR experiences, including the sale of digital goods, virtual parties and touring far-off countries.

A turbulent year of economic downturns and large-scale layoffs saw Meta’s priorities change in 2022, resulting in the consulting CTO for Meta’s virtual reality efforts, John Carmack, leaving the company. The public rollout of Orion, though, is an indication that Meta still firmly believes AR and VR are the future.

YouTube

You’d expect a platform as big as YouTube to be dipping their toes in the VR pool, to ensure they aren’t left behind as the industry evolves, and they are certainly getting their feet wet. Using a VR headset, you can now use YouTube VR to virtually participate in all kinds of experiences, from concerts to mountain trails.

Just like with Facebook, YouTube’s use of VR can also provide marketing opportunities, such as sponsored virtual events, showing off 3D models of products, or letting you see vehicle interiors from a first-person perspective.

TikTok

TikTok has thrown its hat into AR advertising, with plans to continue to scale in 2025. Videos of people talking to the camera can be layered with mascots or products, that can be interacted with. TikTok also allows for CTA buttons to be placed on videos, resulting in significantly more conversions for creators. And, it’s not the only industry to see this.

Harvard Business Review reports that AR can boost conversion rate by 20%, as it can be used to reduce hesitation at the checkout point. It’s for this reason that AR and VR content will continue to grow in 2025. As online and in-person experiences continue to merge, it’s a good idea to consider whether, given your budget, AR is worth the investment. Do your research though, and have a clear plan, as AR and VR technology isn’t cheap (especially VR), so it might not suit your marketing method or your demographics.

5. Brands will turn their attention to social audio

Another big social media trend to watch out for in 2025 is social audio. Social audio simply refers to social media platforms that use audio tools like VoIP systems to connect audiences via voice chat.

Since Clubhouse launched in 2020, interest in social audio has been growing in the background. In 2021, Facebook launched podcasts, Soundbites and Rooms to give audio makers more tools to work with, and X’s voice posts and Spaces alongside LinkedIn’s Audio Events suggest this trend is just getting started.

Perhaps the current biggest trend in the world of social audio is podcasts. Between 2023 and 2030, the global podcasting market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27.6%, signaling how this is very much a trend to keep an eye on.

From a business perspective, social audio is a great way to directly communicate with your audience, and to gather feedback from them, too. According to research, adding podcasts to your marketing strategy can increase trust levels from 45% to 63%, with 50% of listeners more likely to buy from a brand after hearing its podcast ad.

Businesses looking to implement a social audio strategy in 2025 should focus on prioritizing user privacy, and sustainable relationships with creators and audience members.

6. AI Output Will Keep Breaking Records

Since bursting onto the scene in late 2022, ChatGPT and its contemporaries have been nothing short of revolutionary. Between 2022 and 2023, programs such as DALL-E created over 15 billion images, which equates to one-third of all the images ever posted on Instagram.

This will only continue in 2025, as businesses catch on to the potential of free tools, including DALL-E and Sora, which was made available to users a few days ago.

While AI-generated marketing has led to a number of high-profile mistakes in recent months, the upsides are obvious: users can literally create material from scratch in a matter of seconds. For this reason, the global market for AI in social media is projected to reach $8.1 billion by 2030, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.3% between 2023 and 2030.

If you’re eager to start exploring the possibilities of AI, it’s very important that before sharing anything online, you vet it first. One surefire way to break trust with a potential customer is by deceiving them.

Social Media Statistics Per Platform

Before we wrap up, let’s have a look at some interesting stats on our favorite social media platforms, which might help you make your mind up, if you’re trying to decide where to start.

How Much Has Social Media Usage Increased Per App?

Despite the struggle to return to pre-pandemic levels in most industries, social media usage continued to surge, with 2022 being its biggest reported year yet.  Let’s take a look at how each social media app grew last year:

Facebook growth

Facebook continues to lead the way in terms of popularity, with 3.07 billion active users every month. Staggeringly, it is projected to reach 75.79% of the entire global population by 2027.

The platform has enjoyed a 5% increase in daily users from 2023, which now stands at 2.09 billion. Although the numbers don’t account for non-binary users, the data suggests that Facebook users are predominantly men, with 56.3% identifying as male.

Instagram growth

Another of Meta’s flagship properties, Instagram posted some impressive numbers in 2024. The platform boasts 2 billion monthly active users, with US adults spending 33.1 minutes on it per day. This represents a 3-minute increase compared with the previous year.

In terms of demographics, Instagram also skews male slightly (51.8% vs 48.2%) and is most popular among 18 to 34-year-olds, who account for 60% of its audience.

Snapchat growth

Snapchat consolidated its position as the fifth-most popular mobile messenger app in the world in 2024, with 800 million monthly active users. Over the next four years, Snapchat’s total user base is expected to increase by 27%, which would put it at around 779 million by 2028.

Interestingly, the platform lays claim to a pretty equal gender split, with 49.1% of its users identifying as female, compared with 50% identifying as male. More than one-third (38.5%) of users sit in the 18 to 24 age bracket, with 20% of users between 13 and 17. After 35, there is a steep drop-off in use.

X growth

Things were a little bit less straightforward for X. Since taking over the platform in 2022, Elon Musk’s tenure has been characterized by controversy, with companies leaving the platform en masse, swirling fears of misinformation, and mass layoffs at the company.

In spite of this, as of July 2024, X maintains 500 million monthly active users, reaching up to 12.6% of internet users worldwide. However, it should be noted that this includes a significant portion of bots, which have flooded the platform since Musk’s takeover.

YouTube growth

YouTube continues to enjoy enormous success, with 2.5 billion monthly active users in 2024. Between 2014 and 2024, the platform has grown from 1 billion monthly users to 2.5, representing a huge growth. Behind Google, YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world.

Pinterest growth

While not as popular as some of its contemporaries, Pinterest still lays claim to an impressive 522 million users. Of this, 70% are female, and a further 42% are part of Gen Z. Reportedly, 78% of Pinterest users feel “positive” about using the platform.

TikTok growth

While TikTok is on course to be banned in January 2025, it still commands a huge audience around the world. Every month, it posts around 2.5 billion monthly visits, with one-quarter of those users under 20 years old.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the vast majority (70%) of those visits come from a mobile device, and the highest proportion (35%) of its users are between the ages of 25 and 34.

Reddit growth

Reddit enjoyed a noteworthy 2024, as The White House turned to the platform to combat the rise of misinformation in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, while the platform recorded its IPO in March.

Elsewhere, there are over half a billion Reddit users, two-thirds of which are male. Almost half of all Reddit users are based in the US, and 44% of these are between the ages of 18 and 29.

LinkedIn growth

An altogether different beast, the professional networking platform has around 1 billion members, from across 200 countries and regions around the world. Each week, over 49 million users actively use LinkedIn to look for their next position.

How to Keep Up With Social Media Trends in 2025

If your business doesn’t have a social media presence in 2025, our advice is to get one as soon as possible. Social media marketing isn’t going anywhere, especially with the success social media platforms saw in 2024. Staying on top of social media trends is one of the best ways to ensure that your business stays competitive, and there are a few things you can do to ensure that your strategy stays current.

1. Identify the best social media platform for business your business, and focus your efforts on monitoring that platform. If your target audience is Gen Y or Gen Z, Instagram and TikTok will be the best platform for your brand. If your brand is more B2B, LinkedIn and YouTube will both be great bets. If you’re new to social media, our research suggests it’s best to start small. Focus on one or two channels and build out your platforms based on audience insights as you grow.
2. Use analytics. Tracking keywords and trending topics on your social media channels will help you stay ahead of the curve. Instagram, Meta, TikTok and YouTube business accounts all have their own form of analytics – use these to filter through hashtags and songs, and monitor the latest trends to better understand how to target your audience.
3. Invest in high-quality social media management tools to help you organize, manage and plan your social media campaigns. Tools like Zoho Social and Hootsuite will allow you to manage all of your social media platforms in one place, allowing you to optimize and pivot your strategy as and when social media trends change.
4. Keep a close eye on your competition. Knowing what your competition is doing on their social media platforms is a great way to ensure that you’re one step ahead.