What’s Next in Social Media: My Predictions for 2025
By Dave McDonald, Director of Social Media
Goodbye, 2024, it’s been a wild ride. 👋 As we prepare to put another year behind us, it’s time to look ahead and consider what the new year might have in store. While I can’t predict the future, here is my informed forecast for what to expect in 2025. Let’s dive in!
Chasing trends becomes less…trendy:
Over the past few years, social content has veered away from original storytelling and toward trend-chasing; this is especially true on TikTok. If you open up any short-form video app, you’ll see companies trying to jam their voice into whatever trend is rising. While I understand that much of the intent is playing into platform algorithms to boost visibility, this leads to a messy mix of content and a diluted channel strategy. My prediction (and hope) for 2025 is that organizations will return to focusing on their long-term strategies and original storytelling and stop being distracted by quick-hit trends.
Short-form video continues its reign on the Iron Throne:
If you read my predictions post for 2024, you’ll notice I mentioned that long-form video would attempt to make a comeback on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. — Yup, I was wrong. — By early 2024, social platforms’ efforts to promote long-form content disappeared, and I don’t foresee that changing in 2025. Even LinkedIn has gotten into the vertical short-form game by introducing a separate video feed, taking a page from TikTok’s UI (and unlike their failed attempt at LinkedIn stories, I see this new initiative succeeding). In 2025, short-form will hold its status as the supreme of social media content, especially as platforms like Canva, Adobe Express, Inshot, and others continue to simplify the creation of short-form content. Additionally, as advancements in AI progress, producing short-form videos will become even easier for everyone.
This brings us to my next prediction…
If used correctly, AI will act as a powerful silent partner to social teams:
Using AI has become a delicate dance for social media professionals. Those who get caught using AI-generated captions and images are shunned for it, but those who have been using it wisely have seen their team’s efficiency increase tenfold. In 2025, the divide between companies in these two groups will become more apparent. AI is a great tool and can be an excellent assistant in brainstorming and optimizing your work, but it should be treated as just that. Those who approach AI as an additional team member that, like any human’s work, needs oversight and review will see their content improve in 2025. However, a word of warning for the companies who decided that AI can be a replacement for the work hard work of their social teams. They will have to learn the hard way.
BlueSky usage flatlines while Threads continues to move up:
As the reputation of X (formerly Twitter) continues to nose dive, all eyes are on BlueSky as the next hopeful text-based social media platform. While Bluesky has seen significant growth in the past few months, its total users are still a fraction of Meta’s Threads, which reached 300M users just this month (compared to BlueSky’s 25M+). Putting another nail in BlueSky’s coffin, Threads continues to sit near the top of the most downloaded apps, with it being the number one downloaded iOS app in November 2024 and sixth overall between Apple’s App Store and Google Play, with Bluesky not even cracking the top 100. In 2025, I believe the gap between these two platforms will continue to widen, with BlueSky falling far behind.
Social SEO becomes non-negotiable:
Instagram’s announcement of removing the ability to follow hashtags may mark the end of an era for the symbol formally known as the pound sign, meaning optimizing your social media captions for keywords will play a much larger role in 2025. In the new year, it will be imperative to include keywords in your captions that are likely to get your content to show up when users search for content on their favorite social channels. It’s also important to remember that while we still have them, hashtags can still help algorithms categorize your content.
YouTube Shorts has its moment:
Will YouTube Shorts emerge as a worthy competitor to its short-form counterparts in 2025? It certainly seems like it. This will be especially true if the TikTok ban moves forward in January. However, even if TikTok remains in play, Shorts may still have its moment. A recent Pew Research Center report on teens, social media, and technology shows that YouTube is the top-used platform among U.S. teens, with 90% usage. The study also showed that YouTube is the most frequently visited platform, with 73% of teens using it daily.
Additionally, YouTube recently announced that users can upload Shorts up to three minutes in length. This change provides brands an excellent opportunity to extend their short-form content, as users were previously limited to videos of 60 seconds or less.
Will my visions of the year ahead come to fruition? Who knows. The most important thing is that It’s crucial to be prepared for anything because, as experienced social media marketers often say, everything can change instantly.
