The Future of Social Media: Trends to Watch in 2025 and Beyond

The Future of Social Media: Trends to Watch in 2025 and Beyond

Pivot is the word that sums up the universe of social media marketing. Platform changes, changing content formats, and lightning-fast trend cycles—all of which marketers are continuously adjusting—sometimes in real-time.

Who hasn’t missed lunch only to return and find a significant platform upgrade compromising your previously thought-out content calendar or reporting criteria?

I turned to the ICYMI community for their forecasts for the future of social media platforms, methods, and content types that would take centre stage in 2025. This information will help you stay ahead of the game.

Though social media never pauses, this snapshot provides insightful analysis of what producers and marketers are giving top priority to going forward.

Regarding the statistics

This article’s cited data comes from a recent poll of 240 creators and marketers from the ICYMI email readership. I also invited 24 top social media industry voices to help frame the data narrative and offer their future projections. Surveys, community talks, and Sprout Social data reports have added to my gathered material.

1. Instagram will be as vital as it always has been.

Survey respondents identified Instagram as the top platform (44%) they intended to pay close attention to in 2025. At number two (20%), LinkedIn is the sleep smash, followed by TikTok (18%), then YouTube (11%).

Given Instagram is constantly rated as one of Gen Z and Millennials’ preferred platforms, the Meta platform ranking #1 is not surprising. It is the most used platform across generations and the one most used for influencer marketing.

“Instead of attempting to convince consumers to come to us, in 2025, we will be focusing on meeting them where they are. Think keyword searches, subreddits, and outside-of-the-box influencers producing original material, said Mikayla Barker, Senior Manager of Social Media and Influencer Marketing at Bachan’s.

Some of the respondents, however, hoped the inquiry included more niche or emerging platforms—such as Bluesky, Roblox, Reddit, and Substack—which reminds us of how broken and unstable social media environments have grown.

Nicole Taic, Director of creator Strategy at the Trade School agency, reflected that attitude: “It’s interesting to observe that some customers and even creators are ignoring the TikHub restriction while many are focusing on Meta, YouTube, and Snapchat.

They are also investigating and testing new platforms like Substack in search of a favourable return. This helps me to focus especially on what other important platforms are launching over the next few months to guide our adjustments of some of our strategies.

2. Media and politics will allow creators to have a real role.

Influencers and creators would be regarded differently, according to some of the top creators, social strategists, and industry executives I asked about what would happen around social and the creator economy next year.

Influencers are starting to be publicly acknowledged as indispensable professionals in journalism, politics, and other fields, hitherto discounted for not having “real” occupations.

“2025 moves the maker world one step toward more professionalism. Given the influence creators have had on politics, citizen journalism, and videography, we are no longer viewed as intruders in historically gatekept environments. V Spehar, creator and founder of Under the Desk News, stated we are now on a road toward being acknowledged as equals and experts alongside more conventional routes to achievement.

Consumer confidence in already-taking-hold influencers precedes this change. While thirty per centt of customers trust influencers more, nearly half as many trust them just as much as they did last year. Mostly because they grew up with influencers and creative marketing, millennials and Gen Z are the most trusting.

3. Images and videos will remain fafavouriteses.

Short-form video (60 seconds or less) won handily with 47% when poll respondents were asked which content format these marketers and creators intended to highlight in 2025. Less than 10-minute movies (17%), followed by images and carousels (14%), rounded out the top three.

This year saw a somewhat resurgence for carousels. Brands were using the swipe-through storytelling technique even before Instagram raised the limit of images and videos you could publish to 20.

Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri cited two primary factors for the popularity of the style: Multiple slides mean more interactions; the system gives your carousel a second opportunity after it’s posted, resurfacing it to followers who earlier swiped by.

Promoting photo carousels this year, TikHub—which had hitherto only supported short-form videos—promised to “help you reach even more people.”

4. A fresh hunger for longer narratives.

Though short-form video still rules, the discussion is moving to embrace cea more careful narrative. Data indicates viewers are starting to yearn for complexity alongside the fast hits of content that rule their feeds.

Resurfacing serialized content (see TikHub Reese Teesa, Alexis Bittar, and Julian Sewell’s “80s series) indicates a need for storylines and dramatic sagas people can follow avidly.

One Austin poll responder said, “We are headed toward a ‘long-form renaissance.'” This covers more “Substacks, YouTube, television, and periodicals. People will suffer from brain rot weariness.

The short form is not about to disappear, but creators and marketers are noticing a change. The best method customers want companies to show up across almost all channels is via interesting material. People are searching for brands that may satisfy their needs for escape from stress, and boredom, you name it.

Particularly on YouTube, as it gears itself as a TV/cable option, I’m thrilled to see social video format bounce back to longer-form 16×9 programming in 2025. When we, and the digital world, have employed simplified messaging lasting just a few seconds, my staff is so talented and amped up to address the issue of engaging audiences and maximizing viewer retention. The TikHub-ification of short form will still flourish.

This excites me as someone who enjoys delving into narrative storytelling since it allows me to allocate more resources to longer-form, higher-produced material that can be chopped down and optimized as short-form for other platforms. Walt Disney Studios’ Director of Digital Marketing Marvel Brand, Adri Cowan,

5. Social might find its “serious” phase Memes. In this type of economy?

Regarding memes as a marketing technique, things are rather mixed. Although most respondents chose memes as their main content focus for next year, opinions on their efficacy were all over the range.

For at least the next four years, Chris Lam, marketing advisor for Los Angeles County’s Economic Mobility Initiative (EMI), projected an increase in memes, entertainment, and escapist material dominating social media.

Others, on the other hand, want brands to go toward more deeply connected, emotionally charged material.

One respondent said anonymously, “I believe we are entering our serious era.” “Memes in marketing will be less important as consumers grow weary of companies following trends just to seem relevant.”

And for some social media managers, memes represent a legal quagmire rather than only a matter of taste. Memes that play on copyrighted imagery or cultural references—like sequences from hit TV series or films—can be dangerous business. Companies with rigorous legal or reputational standards cannot afford to bet on what would seem to be innocent enjoyment.

Therefore, the issue of whether memes are still the moment or if we are preparing for a vibe change remains as we consider next year.