As we approach 2025, it’s a great time to take a step back – consider the marketing trends you’ve seen or participated in throughout 2024, which ones were or were not successful, and how those may change or evolve in the new year. Be sure to take a look back at our Marketing Trends and Predictions for 2024 as a resource for this. In this blog, we’ll discuss some new or evolved trends to look out for in 2025. Let’s get started!
AI Content and Strategy
AI for marketers in 2025 has a few facets to consider. First is safety – in a privacy-focused digital landscape, transparency in consumer-facing uses of AI is essential. While many marketers are eager to integrate AI into their workflows, they must first understand the impacts and what to watch out for.
The next two considerations concern how AI will be integrated in 2025: content and strategy. According to Hootsuite’s surveys, 83% of marketers say generative AI helps them create significantly more content than they could without it. Despite the above-mentioned safety concerns, AI has been and will continue to be used for everything from editing text to generating images.
However, AI is not just being used for content creation and execution, but also for strategy. According to the Hootsuite Social Media Trends 2025 Survey, even more social marketers responsible for strategy decisions implement AI tools than those responsible for execution. As we enter the new year, ensure you consider the safety of and uses for AI in your marketing team.
Social Listening
The next trend to look at is social listening. While marketers are aware that understanding the value of social media marketing needs to go beyond impression metrics, such as likes and follows, social listening takes the search for consumer engagement one step further. Social listening involves utilizing social media as a way to engage with your audience – not to drive a conversion, but to understand them.
Social listening helps organizations better understand their audience, improve their strategies, uncover market gaps to guide product development, spot potential crises so they can quickly take control, and even drive sales. In addition, social listening can improve your social media content and effectiveness. Awareness of social media trends, how they resonate with your audience, and how they perform can help social marketers understand how to participate in them. It’s generally not about briefly going viral, but consistently connecting with your audience.
Content Experimentation
Third is content experimentation. To stand out from the crowd and connect with niche audiences, brands are experimenting with content and social media usage. The two key ways we are seeing this are brand inconsistency and outbound engagement. Brand inconsistency involves using social media channels to step outside of the brand’s personality and comfort zone to push creative boundaries and entertain its audience. There is a move toward entertaining and educating, often without any direct promotion for the brand. This creativity goes against the consistent, trustworthy brand that’s been aimed for in the past, looking to capture and delight audiences instead.
This is evident in the use of outbound engagement: brands commenting on other people’s posts. Especially on TikTok, you can scroll down to the comments section of almost any social post and find a brand or two chiming in on the conversation. These comments often have nothing to do with promoting the brand or even brand values. Still, they frequently capture and delight, cultivating community while putting their brand in front of new audiences. However, this trend still needs to be approached strategically - Social Element has found that two critical factors drive success for outbound engagements: timeliness and length.
First-party and Zero-party Data
As previously mentioned, privacy is a key factor in today’s media landscape. This means a shift away from third-party data and towards first-party and zero-party data. The desire for first-party data has resulted in the rise of Retail Media Networks as digital advertising platforms. Their abundance of consumer data allows brands to reach highly targeted audiences through personalized ads on retailer websites, apps, and even in-store digital displays. Kantar Media Reactions 2024 shows that 41% of marketers globally are planning to increase their advertising investment in retail media in 2025.
On the other hand, zero-party data is information that customers proactively share with brands and will also be crucial in 2025. Brands will need to focus on data-driven strategies and interactive experiences that allow them to gather this data directly from consumers. However, once obtained, this data can be used to create personalized and highly targeted campaigns, allowing them to more easily reach niche audiences, produce conversions, and avoid privacy concerns and regulations.
Balancing Acquisition with Retention
The final trend we will be discussing is balancing acquisition with retention. With the need for increasingly personalized content to resonate with consumers, retaining an existing customer is five times less expensive than acquiring a new one. Balancing acquisition costs with a strong retention strategy boosts profitability and results in high-value customers. This involves understanding what drives retention, such as post-purchase engagement and loyalty programs. Taking this into consideration will be a huge help to your marketing strategy in 2025.
While these are some key trends to look out for in 2025, the marketing landscape is constantly changing and evolving. Our experts are committed to staying on top of these trends so we can provide the most effective marketing services and the best results! Contact unLOCKEd today – the one stop for all your marketing needs.
Author: Sarah Murphy
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