Social Savvy: Social media trends to implement in 2025 – December 2024

By Irene Williams

And just like that, it’s nearly 2025! Fittingly, a year that sounds so futuristic (the 25th year of the 21st century?!) is bringing exponential changes to how business leaders like you build brands and market products. You should already be accustomed to a digital-social-mobile marketplace that morphs rapidly and unexpectedly, but, as the saying goes, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Below is a list of projected trends to help you and your team prepare for marketing in the coming year.

AI-DRIVEN SEARCH IS TAKING HOLD
I recently saw a headline declaring that the era of “just Google it” is entering its last days. Now that generative AI has fully infiltrated the search arena, consumers are quickly adopting new ways to discover what they’re looking for online. Search GPT, Perplexity and Meta are on the forefront with nimble, highly advanced search functionality that rivals, if not outperforms, Google’s AI-driven search engine results (read more in the May 2024 issue of this magazine).

It’s imperative that you and your team are not just aware of this shift in search but are actively enacting ways to be discoverable by customers via this new model. While this topic merits a standalone article to address a full range of tactics-which I may tackle in a future edition-take this bit of information as your cue to proactively prioritize your business’ online discoverability across all search platforms, including social media networks.

What you can do now:
• Review and update identifying business details on your website, being sure to check all pages that include these, as well as all map apps and social media profiles. Add Yelp to your mix if you don’t use it already; Perplexity has an integration you’ll want to benefit from.
• Get comfortable with tools such as Meta AI, Search GPT and Perplexity so you understand how your customers use them and are adept at applying them yourself.
• Refresh your list of key words and search terms/phrases and use them frequently in creating fresh content for your website and social media posts.

IN-APP COMMERCE KEEPS GROWING
Across the online metaverse, developers are focused on reducing clicks for consumers, hence the continued growth of in-app shopping. With the ease of seamless payment integrations, shoppable ads and third-party product pages that load in apps, people have greatly increased scroll-and-spend activities. Compelled by the healthy pipelines of potential sales, brands have increasingly joined the bandwagon in order to capture customers’ interest in the moment. After all, it’s a much more efficient path to purchase.
Obviously, selling consumer goods or digital products directly to people scrolling Instagram is a very different endeavor from educating a prospect to make the kind of specification decisions relevant to your business. Nonetheless, this is such a prevalent and commonplace option for consumers, it’s smart business to consider ways you can utilize it in your social media strategy.

What you can do now:
• If you’re currently advertising on social media, it’s time for a thorough review. Look at your ad creative, spend and performance. Are you getting the ROI you need?
• Do you offer consults and in-store appointments? Turn those into “products” to “buy” in your social ads. Provide a code to void the cost at the point of in-app purchase (presuming you typically offer them at no charge), and direct the ad click to an auto-scheduler such as Calendly to simplify the booking of calls or in-store appointments.
• Offer samples for purchase via in-app shopping. Maximize the tactic by capturing customer opt-in to be part of your email list and other promotional communications.

MEANINGFUL COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS ARE PIVOTAL
There’s an emerging groundswell of people moving from mainstay social networks to smaller or private social networks in hopes of circumventing the riffraff to stay in touch. Typically, these people gather virtually based on a set of similar personal identity markers, like interests and geographic location. That’s why marketers can benefit from a strategy to connect with the right online communities, rather than only focusing on targeted demographics within the big platforms. Integrating into a boutique online community may prove to be an innovative and potentially more rewarding approach in today’s increasingly fractured marketplace.

As progressive as this approach may be, it’s rooted in an immovable principle of good marketing: it’s better to have a small audience of potential buyers than a massive following of looky-loos. In a sense, the shifting modes of online connection are hearkening to lower-tech times in which people sought more tightknit interactions.

What you can do now:
• Find and connect with relevant groups operating within the top social media platforms. Sometimes, these groups are where people initially ‘gather’ before transferring activity to other online networks.
• Encourage individuals on your team to be on alert for relevant online communities that may be worthwhile to join. You may find these through mentions in email newsletters, on other social platforms or through professional groups or associations.
• Consider sponsorship or in-kind support as a means of nurturing and earning a voice within smaller online communities that attract your potential customers.

CONTENT SHOULD BE INFUSED WITH EDUCATION, FUN AND REALNESS
Amid the banter around what types of social content will be most effective in the coming year, buzz terms such as ‘edutainment,’ ‘authenticity’ and ‘short-form video’ come up frequently. People’s preference for video content that informs with levity, brevity and reality is not a new trend, but an existing standard many marketers have been answering for several years.

A key takeaway is that video content is fully established as the cornerstone of social media marketing. Though static images and text-based content still have their place, you must prioritize video if you want to spark engagement with audiences online. The good news is you needn’t fuss with fancy production; stats show people typically respond most to content that’s not overly staged or polished-and that doesn’t last more than 30 seconds.

If people prefer “real,” will AI-generated content fit into the mix? You may find AI to be a helpful idea-starter for your content creation and a tool for refining your copy points, headlines and video scripts. Otherwise, you could hold an advantage with your audiences by showing real-life room scenes, clips of your team members on camera and the like.

What you can do now:
• Repurpose your existing video content. Try making new edits and extracting fresh educational topics from what you’ve already got on hand.
• Set a filming schedule to be sure you always have a steady stream of video at the ready.
• Patch your static images and text-based content into videos with music. Find music that’s trending on social platforms to increase potential views.

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