2025 Social Media Trends & Where to Find Them

January 14, 2025

Staying current with social media trends is an increasingly vital and powerful way for brands to build and connect with their audience.

Trends like user-generated content have allowed companies to gain visibility, leverage the passion of their most loyal customers, and expand the reach of their campaigns.

In 2025, staying on top of social media trends will be more important than ever.

Will AI continue its ascension? Can showing the ugly side of a business keep driving engagement? Missing out on timely trends means missing out on potential growth, so let’s look ahead at some 2025 social media trends that will set your brand up for success.

What Are Social Media Trends?

Social media trends are, at their core, whatever is popular on social media channels at any given moment. Whether it’s TikTok, Instagram, X, or Facebook, content is being created that generates engagement and conversation and often inspires more content.

Examples of Social Media Trends

Social media trends can arise from a cultural moment like Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and the millions of posts from her fans celebrating each performance.

They can be viral challenges like the famous ice bucket challenge or countless dance challenges, while some are born from a single video—or even a single catchy word.

However, they can also refer to content forms, like short-form videos, live-streaming, or AI-generated content, and social media trends can also arise from important political movements.

Why Is Following Social Media Trends Important?

There are over 200 million business accounts on Instagram, so it isn’t always easy for brands to stand out and find their audiences. But social media trends provide a golden opportunity to be seen.

When a brand posts content relevant to an in-the-moment trend, it’s more likely to be seen by non-followers. That engagement is a surefire way to build followings and increase engagement.

There are lots of other ways that following social media trends can help brands, too:

Staying relevant: When a brand posts about what people are talking about, it shows personality and creates connections with users who are interested in the social media trend. Wendy’s has done a great job with this, playfully posting memes related to current events and trends, not just their burgers.
Boosting engagement metrics: Joining a trend can lead to an uptick in engagements, whether that’s likes, shares, or comments. It can also improve a brand’s standing in a social media platform’s algorithm, increasing reach.
Shows brand agility: Responding to popular trends can improve the perception of a brand, as it shows that the brand is engaged with what’s happening online and on social media, is responsive, and maybe even a little trendy itself.

Who Can Use Social Media Trends?

The short answer? Anybody can use social media trends.

Whether you’re an influencer, a large corporation, a small startup, or a non-profit, social media trends are useful for meeting all sorts of goals online.

Brands & Businesses

Large corporations like Coca-Cola leverage social media trends to promote their products, particularly to younger audiences, while Apple encourages hashtag use to drive engagement and user-generated content.
Travel destinations often collaborate with influencers who have a strong understanding of what’s popular and connect with users in a meaningful way to get in on social media trends. That’s something Marketing Greece had a huge amount of success doing when they worked with our team.
Smaller brands may not have huge marketing budgets, so social media trends are a great way to expand their reach and gain visibility.

Influencers & Content Creators

Influencers aim to create content that resonates with their audience, and social media trends are an amazing way to build a following. Whether it’s videos, products, or just conversation, things trend on social media because they’re relevant and interesting to users, and that can be useful as a guide for influencers as they create content.
Reaction videos are an example of how YouTubers and Podcasters leverage social media trends to expand their reach. Whether movie trailers, sports events, or product drops, short-form reaction videos are an ever-popular engagement driver.

How to Find Social Media Trends

There are lots of ways to monitor social media trends in 2025, and they range from monitoring trend-tracking tools to following media that focuses on the digital space.

Sometimes, though, social media trends seemingly come out of nowhere and stick around for reasons that are hard to predict. Think of the “demure” trend that seemed to take over TikTok in the summer of 2024. The trend saw users posting videos explaining how to be demure. It was so popular that even LeBron James posted about it.

Why did it work? It was unique and playful, and sometimes, a social media trend is as simple as that. How to keep up with social media trends:

Social Listening Tools like Hootsuite and Sprout Social provide valuable insights into what social media trends are going viral and what under-the-radar trends are bubbling right under the surface.
Google Trends helps identify what is being searched globally and even locally. It’s a great tool for helping brands identify what topics are gaining popularity and traction.
Tools like Trendspottr and Hashtagify are useful for discovering trending content, while X’s Trending Topics section is a great way of seeing what is popular in real time.
Staying on top of industry news through publications like Tech Crunch and Wired can help foster a deeper understanding of trends in the digital and tech space.
Keeping an eye on current events like major sporting events or major movie and music releases can also help predict social media trends.

2025 Social Media Trends: Our Predictions

Short-Form Video Dominates

Short-form videos are incredibly popular on social media—whether on TikTok, Instagram Reels, or YouTube Shorts.

They have a lot of value for brands, too, with 82% of people saying they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video.

Why it works: Short-form videos are clear and concise and communicate information to users in a way that’s easy to digest. Scrolling through videos is why many users log onto their platform of choice in the first place, and there’s no reason to expect that to change any time soon.

Reversing Negative Reviews

Negative reviews will inevitably happen for every brand or company, with 95% of customers reading reviews online before buying a product. But there are ways to use those reviews to your advantage.

Every review is an opportunity to show that your brand is committed to customer satisfaction, and showing that you care can turn a negative review into something positive.

Who’s doing it? A fantastic example is Snowbird, a Utah ski resort, whose 1-Star Review ad campaign brought them lots of attention. They’ve been successfully running the campaign for 7 years, with ads showcasing real 1-star reviews from guests claiming there was “nowhere to sit at lunch,” or that the “powder [was] too deep.”

In the background, beautiful images of their resort lure skiers to their resort to experience these “calamities” for themselves. Expect to see more of this in 2025.

Why it works: Showing a negative review to your audience and demonstrating that your company or brand is empathetic and committed to meeting customer needs builds connection and trust. It can also show your brand has a sense of humour, or that something one person finds negative, another finds positive.

AI-Generated Content

While not everyone wants generative AI content, one study showed that as early as 2023, 73% of consumers globally said they trusted content created by generative AI. The opportunity to use AI to create videos, images, and copy that caters to personalized audience preferences is massive, and it will only become more prevalent as a social media trend in 2025.

Why it works: We’ve already seen AI-generated digital humans building followings on social media, and AI offers the opportunity to quickly and affordably respond to social media trends and create personalized content that appeals to specific followers.

Smaller-Scale, Audience Focused Trends

Going viral can be amazing for a brand or an influencer, but sometimes, reaching the biggest audience isn’t as important as reaching the right audience.

That’s why many brands are collaborating with micro-influencers who have fewer followers but are trusted within their niches. Going forward into 2025, brands focusing on smaller-scale social media trends that connect directly with their target audience will reap the benefits.

Why it works: Social listening tools provide valuable insights into what is going viral and that information can be leveraged to create content that takes advantage of social media trends in 2025 that relate directly to the things your audience cares about.

A Little Humour Goes a Long Way

Increasingly, brands are looking to educate and entertain with their social media content instead of directly promoting products. HootSuite’s 2025 Social Media Trends Survey found that was the strategy for over 60% of organizations. Sprout Social found that 71% of consumers say they’re more likely to engage with brands that share funny and entertaining content.

Why it works: Social media marketing is serious business, but the content doesn’t need to be. Around 64% of consumers want to connect with brands, and providing funny, entertaining content is an effective way of building connections.

Hit the Ground Running in 2025 with MODERNSPEAK

Tapping into social media trends is a great way for brands to engage with their audience and increase their reach. MODERNSPEAK’s roster of talented creators can help your brand stay current with the latest social media trends in 2025.

For more information on how we can help your brand leverage the power of social media trends and engage with its audience, email us at hello@modernspeak.co.