Social Media Trends and Trip Hazards for 2025

Summary

The Digital Marketing Podcast: Social Media Trends and Trip Hazards for 2025

Hosts: Ciaran Rogers, Daniel Rowles, and Louise Crossley
Release Date: January 19, 2025
Produced by: Target Internet

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Introduction

In the January 19, 2025 episode of The Digital Marketing Podcast, hosts Ciaran Rogers, Daniel Rowles, and Louise Crossley delve into the evolving landscape of social media, exploring key trends and potential pitfalls poised to shape digital marketing strategies in the coming year. Drawing insights from Hootsuite's comprehensive Social Media Trends Report for 2025, the trio offers a critical examination of emerging practices, balancing enthusiasm for innovation with caution against potential brand missteps.

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Key Trends Explored

1. Social Teams Ditching Brand Consistency to Push Creative Boundaries

Overview:
The first trend discusses how over 60% of social content now aims to entertain, educate, or inform without direct promotion, with up to 100% of content being entertainment-driven within organizational cultures. This shift signifies a relaxation in brand consistency as companies experiment with new creative approaches.

Discussion:
Daniel introduces the trend, highlighting its dual nature—some statistics are promising, while others raise concerns.

• Kiaran's Perspective (02:23):
  Kiaran questions the rationale behind this shift, appreciating the move away from blatant promotion but emphasizing the need for balance. He remarks, "It seems a bit off to me," suggesting potential instability in brand messaging.

• Louise's Insight (02:41):
  Louise provides a positive example with Red Bull, noting their focus on experiential and emotional content over direct product promotion. She states, "That's really what's worked for them," illustrating how strategic creativity can align with brand identity.

• Daniel's Caution (03:12):
  Daniel warns against blindly following trends without alignment to brand values, emphasizing the risk of brand dilution. He illustrates this with Red Bull's cohesive yet diverse content strategy, noting, "If that doesn't align with your brand... pushing brand boundaries is good, but smashing your brand is not."

• Kiaran's Final Take (05:13):
  Kiaran expresses frustration with brands overstepping creative boundaries, advocating for maintaining brand consistency to preserve value. He asserts, "It's the real art. Don't ditch the brand consistency because that's the brand, that's what's paying."

2. The Outbound Engagement Trend

Overview:
Brands are increasingly engaging proactively with creators' comments to tap into new audiences. Approximately 41% of organizations are experimenting with proactive engagements, which can significantly boost interaction rates.

Discussion:
Daniel elaborates on the extremes of outbound engagement—ranging from adding value to conversations to attempting to hijack creators' content for visibility.

• Kiaran's View (07:32):
  He emphasizes the necessity of adding genuine value when engaging with others' content, warning against intrusive or disrespectful approaches. Kiaran states, "Are you really adding value for their users or are you just crashing in on it?"

3. Social Listening Enhancing Trend Jacking

Overview:
Advanced social media monitoring is enabling marketers to refine their trend-jacking strategies. The focus has shifted from chasing viral moments to creating authentic and sustainable engagement.

Discussion:
Daniel highlights the diminishing returns of chasing fleeting virality, noting, "Nothing kills a trend faster than the inevitable doubling of brands and dogpiling of brands."

• Strategic Creativity (09:59-11:17):
  Emphasizing creativity over reactive trend-jacking, both Daniel and Kiaran advocate for developing unique trends that resonate authentically with audiences. Kiaran adds, "Don't be lazy," encouraging marketers to invest effort into strategic content creation.

4. Doubling Down on Generative AI

Overview:
Generative AI tools are becoming integral, with 83% of marketers acknowledging that AI enables them to produce significantly more content. However, the hosts debate the quality versus quantity aspect of AI-generated content.

Discussion:

• Kiaran's Critique (10:02):
  He expresses concern over the emphasis on quantity, asserting, "We don't need more content people, we need better content."

• Daniel's Support (10:44):
  Daniel counters by sharing examples where meticulous use of AI tools like Lumen5 resulted in vastly improved content quality, stating, "If you use these tools meticulously and carefully and take the time, you can create amazing stuff."

• Louise's Addition (12:21):
  Louise underscores that high-quality content doesn't necessarily require extensive resources, advocating for thoughtful planning and storytelling even with minimal budgets.

• Kiaran's Advanced Use Case (11:58-15:02):
  Highlighting practical applications, Kiaran discusses leveraging AI for data analysis and customer insights, leading to more targeted and effective marketing campaigns. He shares, "It's revolutionary... this isn't about more content, it's about better content."

5. AI as a New Thought Partner for Strategists

Overview:
Social media strategists are increasingly utilizing AI as a collaborative tool, enhancing their planning and execution capabilities. This trend emphasizes the strategic integration of AI to maintain a competitive edge.

Discussion:

• Daniel's Insight (15:18-15:41):
  Daniel underscores the advantage of advanced AI tools in strategic planning, aligning with the importance of fostering a learning culture within marketing teams.

• Kiaran's Final Thoughts (15:57):
  He advocates for every marketer to adopt a strategic mindset, emphasizing the necessity of clear objectives before content creation. Kiaran states, "Come on. That's how it works."

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Insights and Recommendations

1. Balance Creativity with Consistency:
   While pushing creative boundaries can invigorate a brand's social media presence, it is crucial to maintain brand consistency to safeguard brand integrity.

2. Strategic Engagement:
   Proactive engagement with creators should add genuine value rather than merely seeking visibility, ensuring respectful and meaningful interactions.

3. Embrace Strategic Trend Creation:
   Instead of chasing viral trends, marketers should focus on creating unique, authentic trends that offer sustainable engagement and align with brand values.

4. Leverage AI for Quality Improvement:
   Generative AI should be utilized not just for creating more content, but for enhancing the quality and strategic relevance of marketing materials.

5. Integrate AI as a Thought Partner:
   AI can serve as a valuable collaborator in strategic planning, offering insights and efficiencies that enhance overall marketing effectiveness.

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with the hosts reiterating the importance of strategic creativity and thoughtful engagement in navigating the evolving social media landscape. They encourage listeners to subscribe to Target Internet's newsletter for further updates and resources, ensuring marketers are well-equipped to harness the opportunities and mitigate the challenges outlined in the 2025 social media trends.

Notable Quotes:

• Kiaran Rogers (02:23):
  "Why are you doing it? It seems a bit off to me."

• Louise Crossley (02:41):
  "It's all about the experience and it's the thrill of what it's like to have a Red Bull."

• Daniel Rolls (03:18):
  "Pushing brand boundaries is good, but smashing your brand is not unless you are doing a brand refresh."

• Kiaran Rogers (05:13):
  "Don't ditch the brand consistency because that's the brand, that's what's paying."

• Kiaran Rogers (10:02):
  "We don't need more content people, we need better content."

• Kiaran Rogers (11:58):
  "This is revolutionary... this isn't about more content, it's about better content."

• Daniel Rolls (15:57):
  "What are you trying to achieve? How are you going to achieve it? Work that out before you start just doing stuff, people."

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This comprehensive discussion offers valuable perspectives for digital marketers aiming to stay ahead in the dynamic realm of social media. By balancing innovation with strategic consistency, leveraging AI thoughtfully, and fostering genuine engagement, marketers can navigate the trends of 2025 effectively.

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Timestamps Reference

• 02:23 - Kiaran on Brand Consistency
• 02:41 - Louise on Red Bull's Strategy
• 03:12 - Daniel on Brand Alignment
• 05:13 - Kiaran on Maintaining Brand Consistency
• 07:32 - Kiaran on Proactive Engagement
• 09:59 - Creative Trend Creation
• 10:02 - Kiaran on AI and Content Quality
• 10:44 - Daniel on AI Tool Utilization
• 11:58 - Kiaran on Advanced AI Use Cases
• 12:21 - Louise on Cost-Effective Content Creation
• 15:18 - Daniel on AI as a Strategist Tool
• 15:57 - Kiaran on Strategic Planning

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For more insights, resources, and episodes, visit TargetInternet.com/podcast.

Transcript

[Kieran Rogers]

Welcome to the digital marketing Podcast brought to you by targetinternet.com My name is Kieran Rogers.

[Louise Crossley]

I'm Louise Crossley.

[Daniel Rolls]

And I'm Daniel Rolls.

[Kieran Rogers]

And in this episode, we are talking about social media trends and trip hazards for 2025.

[Daniel Rolls]

Okay, so our friends over at Hootsuite have put out their social media trends report for 2025. And we just want to run you through. I'm not going to go through all the, the kind of different statements, but let's go through a couple of them and I want you to, I want to get the reaction from Kieran and Louise what they think about these because I read some of these stats. It's absolutely fascinating report. So you go over to hootsuite.com it's in their research section and it's their social trends report. We'll put it into the show notes target Internet.com forward/podcast. But there's some stats that are great and some stats that are like, oh, no, we're not doing that, are we? And, and, oh, great, more of that. So I think we need to kind of look at it in context. I just wanted to give a shout to Sarah Doley, who is the head of content at hootsuite, that very kindly, the day that we're recording this, the fourth edition of my digital branding book came out and she did a lovely kind of insert for that for us. So thank you, Sarah, for doing that. Your copy will be on the way shortly. But thanks to that, we've also got a bit of a giveaway. So if you sign up to the newsletter, target. Com newsletter, we've got a load of copies of the book. I will even sign them to ruin the value, the resale value of them for you as well. So let's go through and look at just a few of these trends and see what your reflection on them is. So the first one says, and it's, this is not necessarily in line in the way they publish them. I've just highlighted a few of them. Social teams ditch brand consistency to push creative boundaries. And what they've basically kind of gone through is that they've got some stats that kind of go with these as well, which is that people are being a little bit more relaxed with their brands and they're trying different things out. And they said, grow. More than 60% of social content aims to entertain, educate or inform without direct promotion for nearly half of organizations, which I think, okay, we'll talk about that. And then 80 to 100% of social content is Entertainment driven for a culture of organizations. What's your gut reaction to that, Kieran? We'll go to the cynic in the room first.

[Kieran Rogers]

I suppose it, for me it just begs the question, why are you doing it? I suppose it's good in a way because it means they're not just trying to, you know, turn a dime on everything that they do. But at the same point, I don't know, it's just getting about the balance. Seems a bit off to me.

[Louise Crossley]

But I think there's some good examples of this, right? Because when you think especially visual platforms like TikTok and Instagram, you should maybe you shouldn't necessarily post your product anyway because if you look at Red Bull, they never post on their Instagram and they post, you know, come and buy a can of Red Bull. It's all about the experience and it's everyone, you know, it's the thrill of what it's like to have a Red Bull when everyone's off doing like ski sports and stuff like that. And it's a lot about emotion and it's not very product focused. Focused anyway. And that's really what's what, what's worked for them.

[Daniel Rolls]

Well, I think this is a key thing because it says here, you know, a quarter of organizations, up to 100% of their content is entertainment driven.

[Kieran Rogers]

Right?

[Daniel Rolls]

Now, I think we, we spoke about this in the previous episode. I think that's great if it relates to your brand. So if you are a Red Bull, okay? Now I'd also say with Red Bull there's a huge disconnect between their social media content and their TV advertising. So you know, the Red Bull gives you wings with a little the, the line cartoons and then the extreme sports stuff is, is so disconnected because some history of the brand as well. But I think the risk here is this, that if you are a consumer brand that is wants to build that brand for entertainment, that is fantastic. Okay? And you should do this. The problem is that everyone jumps on the bandwagon and says, oh, we just need to do entertainment based content. We need to do shorts, we need to do tick tocks that are fun and you know, whatever it may be, but if that doesn't align with your brand. So I think pushing brand boundaries is good. I don't think smashing your brand is necessarily very good. I, unless you, you are doing a brand refresh. And I think there's a, there's a.

[Kieran Rogers]

Danger zone that define push creative boundaries. Right?

[Daniel Rolls]

That's it. And that's it.

[Kieran Rogers]

It's pushing and it's pushing, right? A push can be a good thing, it can be fatal.

[Daniel Rolls]

So if your brand team come to you and say, what, what have you done here? You've just used different fonts, you've laid it out, the colors are all wrong. I'm pushing brand bad line for boundaries. Yeah, that's, that's what I'm doing. So I, I think we've got to be careful of some of this. But it's like the authenticity thing. It's like you get these big corporate brands with a CEO speaking straight to the camera. Is that on brand or not? Well, maybe it is, maybe it is if that person is a personality is reflective of the brand. But you know, how, how comfortable are that with me? Those people need to be media trained in all those kind of things as well. So there's a, there's a kind of area of this that we need to be careful with. I think it's interesting, but I also think there's the fear of jumping on the bandwagon if you're not careful. That could, it can mess things up as well.

[Kieran Rogers]

I think this is too much encouraged. There's too much, especially the bigger brand. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I just think it's too much at stake sometimes and it annoys me.

[Daniel Rolls]

Well, that's, that's the go in their own direction.

[Kieran Rogers]

It's like, no, that's not really the team game, is it? I always loved, years ago, I worked with a top creative from a London ad agency and he had this, he founded the agents actually, but he had this saying, give me the luxury of a really tight brief.

[Daniel Rolls]

Right.

[Kieran Rogers]

So actually a really tight for him could massively increase the creativity because you can't just do whatever you want. You have to stick within the brand and that's. There's the art to it. That's what a really good, solid brand. So here's the thing, if you just go wild west on this and do your own thing like that could be very damaging. And yeah, there are sure there are case studies out there of teams that did this and had huge result. But it's really risky and actually a lot of the time I just think they make, they make themselves look a bit stupid and they can be quite brand damaging. They don't have a sensible filter that just anything for attention. That's what annoys me. It's like, no, that's not on. Whereas actually being on brand does not mean you can't push the creative boundaries. I think it's risky to ditch them. This is the real art. I really want to prove you're really great at this. Don't ditch the brand consistency because that's the brand, that's what's paying. You know, get really creative within those boundaries.

[Daniel Rolls]

The, the next one relates to this and it says the outbound engagement trend. Brands drop in on creators comments to pick up new audiences and they're saying that, you know, 41% of organizations have been testing out proactive engagements. So rather than just broadcast doing some of that stuff of engaging with other stuff that's going on and they're saying actually if the content creator then gets involved, you get, you know, 1.6 times the amount of engagement. Again, wow. There's extremes in this, right? There's the adding value to a conversation, you know, where that could be, you just provide some extra valuable content or it could be you do something funny like the biscuit. Brands in the UK have got a habit of doing this where they'll start arguing amongst each other and kind of taking the mickey out of each other. But then there's the, oh, I'm trying to hijack a creator's work to get my brand more visible. And I think that's where the desperation comes in a little bit with some of these things as well. I definitely think the proactive outreach is, it's hugely important that building on those communities, those discussions that are out there. But brands have to be so careful with doing that.

[Kieran Rogers]

It's an art again, isn't it? It's a fine line. I think if you're hijacking someone else's content, you better be adding value to it for them massively or it's just plain rude. You know, it's not, it's not on, is it? I don't think to burst in on someone else's party and ruin it. And again, I see this happening and it's, it's not, it's not nice. But no one cares because as long as they get tension, right, it's good and that's what they're rewarded for. And it's like, no, somebody needs to like curb this enthusiasm for just getting attention. It needs to be for the right reasons and it needs to be said that you need to be community minded. You need to be respectful to the person that's created that audience that you're about to leverage on. So again, for my dividing line will be there, are you really adding value for their users or are you just crashing in on it?

[Daniel Rolls]

Well, let me read you this. The quote from the Next trend. And the next trend was all about listening launches social pros into their performance marketing era. What does that mean? It means that because of limitations of attribution modeling, we can't necessarily put a real pin down of return on investments on this social media activity. But if we've got fairly advanced social media monitoring, those people that have got it in place are more confident of the return on investment they're getting. I think, okay, that's pretty straightforward. I don't think many probably would argue with that. I can see more of the conversations happening, I can probably see more of the trends. So some advanced social media monitoring is going to help. But the, the quote I thought was brilliant was that said social listening refines the art of trend jacking. So remember, in going viral was the be all end or social media success. These days though, social media now better or the most part chasing random and fleeting moments of virality is highly ineffective and inauthentic. And nothing kills a trend faster than the inevitable doubling of brands and dogpiling of brands. So it's no shock that conversations around going viral have become increasingly negative over the last year. So it's exactly what we spoke about a couple of episodes. Whereas everyone piles onto a meme or a trend or whatever it might be and it destroys it really, really quickly as well. So the half life of these things has got shorter and shorter. And I come back to what we talked about in our New Year's resolutions episode, which was focus on being creative. Okay, so how could you go about and actually try and be more creative so that you could come up with a trend of your own, that people are more likely to jump on your trend because that's the way of winning this at the end of the day as well. So I think, yeah, thinking about that.

[Kieran Rogers]

Basically don't be lazy.

[Daniel Rolls]

Yeah, well, I think this is it. So trend four is that social media marketers double down on generative AI in 2024 and you're going to love this stack here. It says 83% of marketers say generative AI helps them create significantly more content than they could without it.

[Kieran Rogers]

That makes me sad because actually you've missed the opportunity. It is a fantastic opportunity for 83% to make better content.

[Daniel Rolls]

There you go.

[Kieran Rogers]

Using the generative and not more of it. This is the thing, we don't need more content people, we need better content. Like less content, but better. Like it just. It's always been like this way, you know, do one thing really well rather than a hundred things, you know, what makes Me laugh. Mediocre.

[Daniel Rolls]

I was reviewing some podcast from literally 10 years ago.

[Kieran Rogers]

Yeah.

[Daniel Rolls]

And I just dropped into a random moment and it was you saying, just, just do less content, but do it better.

[Kieran Rogers]

It's not hard. It's not hard, but it's just overlooked.

[Daniel Rolls]

No, because people are like, oh, shiny new toy.

[Kieran Rogers]

I can do a dozen things at once and look how brilliant it is.

[Daniel Rolls]

It's like, no, but it, it is hard. And that is the point. Because I, I did a podcast the other day was someone else's podcast. And, and it was. I said, you need to think more like a journalist because you think, why would you read, read content written by a journalist?

[Kieran Rogers]

Okay.

[Daniel Rolls]

It's because. Barrier to entry. It's because those journalists have proved their ability to write. You trust what they're saying. They do research, they have contacts. You know, it's, it's something that's not just available for. Everyone can have an opinion on news. That's what all the Facebook comments are about or whatever it might be. So I think it is hard and therefore it's good. If it's not hard, maybe it's not. It's not a good thing. I mean, like, recording this podcast isn't hard. I wouldn't say from the point of view of, you know, it's, it's, it's not exhausting and terrible and I don't know, sometimes it can be. But just from the fact that. But it's taken a lot of time for us to build the relationship that we've got together. We have to do lots of research and these things. There is a barrier to entry to.

[Louise Crossley]

Some extent, I think sometimes as well. A lot of people think creating content is hard because they're thinking, especially with video, like high production content that costs a lot of money and cost a lot of resources. Whereas actually you can create really good content with just your phone. As long as you're planning things out and making sure that you've got a good story behind it and you've got a good hook. It doesn't actually need to cost a lot of money.

[Daniel Rolls]

No. And looking at some of these AI tools, I think that's another good point, is that you can do AI based video content. Now that's brilliant. Like explain the videos and things like that. But it's how you explain it. And I always go back to the example that when we're using Lumen 5 and, and both Kieran and Louise created a video and the story I tell is Kieran said, this is how you use the tool Bang. I've output one. Why don't you do one Louise? And Louise went through and was like really careful about selecting the text.

[Kieran Rogers]

The brief. The brief to Louise is do one that's better.

[Daniel Rolls]

Right.

[Kieran Rogers]

And she really did.

[Daniel Rolls]

I remember the stats. It was 2,600% better.

[Kieran Rogers]

It was a lot better, which we.

[Daniel Rolls]

Had a laugh about. But it is all it's showing, I think is that you can use the tools quickly and get stuff out the door. Yes. But you can also, if you use these tools meticulously and carefully and take the time.

[Kieran Rogers]

Yeah.

[Daniel Rolls]

You can create amazing stuff and not say Kieran, you couldn't have done the same. Don't worry. I want to make that clear.

[Kieran Rogers]

Thank you. It's more than that though. I think increasingly I'm finding myself using AI a lot, but not to write content. I'll use it to research content or I'll use it to analyze data. I've had so much fun getting chat GPT to analyze all, all the customer reviews for this organization. I'm doing great stuff, really good. And what I asked it to do was like I fed it several hundred reviews and said, well, I know these are all customers, so can you tell me, break them down into categories for me. Oh my word. It found four categories, it aligned them with industry norms, gave them names and it's become central to my whole marketing plan for that organization. Really, really clever use of it, I think like, and, and it saved a ton of work and I'd never have got there on, on my own. But that's the sort of now I know who my audience are. Right. Because actually it's been able to bucket them for me without me having to read hundreds and hundreds of reviews. And actually I've started to extrapolate further data and analyze our customer base and analyze the results we get from different customer segments. And that's going to result in much better campaigns because we can see, oh gosh, that group there, they don't convert as well. Why not? What could we do to, to help them to understand how our product could help and improve their lives? It's just revolutionary. And so this isn't about more content, it's about better content. Because actually, you know, if you're emailing people, you can only send them so much content. If you're pushing stuff out on social media, there's only so much content people will accept from your organization. Look at it's not you turn it out till there's no tomorrow, but as you're going to get eyeballs, probably not.

[Daniel Rolls]

Well, it's a nice segue into the final point because the final one was trend five was that social media strategists get a new thought partner. And what it was showing is the editing, creating you, but planning content. The strategists are using these tools more.

[Kieran Rogers]

Yeah.

[Daniel Rolls]

And what that's suggesting is the more advanced users are using this stuff for planning. And I think those people would be at the competitive advantage. And I think this comes back to the creating the learning culture piece that we've spoken about before, which is the whole thing about actually, if you're using these tools effectively to plan, there's a, there's a much better opportunity for doing this as opposed to just using them to pump stuff out the door.

[Kieran Rogers]

Everybody should be a strategist with this. This is the thing like, because that, that's, that's where the smart money is. You know, what are you trying to achieve? How are you going to achieve it? Work that out before you start just doing stuff, people. Come on. That's how it works.

[Daniel Rolls]

We have got the upcoming social trends live update session which are free to anyone that subscribes to email. So Target Internet. Com Forward slash newsletter sign up and we'll update you on those. And we've got some additional resources that we're dropping there on, on this and we will signpost the hootsuite report as well. So as ever, thank you for listening to the digital marketing podcast and we'll speak to you next time. For more episodes resources to leave a review or to get in contact, go to targetinternet.com forward/podcast.