Following a year of exciting, and sometimes challenging, changes across the social media landscape, we’re gearing up for another year of social media twists and turns that can make or break your social media marketing efforts.
Here’s what you need to know for 2025 to ensure social media success. Let’s dive in.
Entertain, Educate and Inform
Audiences today turn to nearly every mainstream social platform with one primary motivation: to be entertained. It’s crucial for brands to align their online social media presence with this expectation to prevent your target audience from scrolling past your content and being overlooked.
Sprout Social data shows that 66% of users surveyed said they find “edutainment”—a blend of entertainment and education—to be the most engaging type of content from a brand. At The Motion Agency, we push our clients to create content that leans into this notion, developing content that entertains, educates and/or informs.
Social media is not for copying and pasting content across channels unless a strategic approach is taken. Like any marketing channel, recycling messaging or creative from traditional marketing channels on social media will miss the mark, and you’ll see that reflected in your engagement data–or lack thereof. The most popular social platforms like Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube demand original, engaging and platform-specific content, especially if you expect your brand’s content to be prioritized in-feed.
This is because consumers on social media value authenticity. Trying to hard sell in a place meant for entertainment is a stretch. Organic content leans into one of those three end goals—education, entertainment, information—and resonates more than targeted ads or promotional-heavy posts. Being authentic across your social channels emphasizes your brand’s commitment to building trust and rapport with your audience before making any promotional requests.
The Power of Organic Content
The content prioritized in-feed across the most popular social media platforms doesn’t happen by accident—or without investment. A striking 91% of consumers say the production quality and budget behind a brand’s social content influence their willingness to engage.
This doesn’t mean every social media post needs a blockbuster budget behind it. However, as consumers, we can often tell when a piece of content feels like it could be a TV commercial and what feels like it was captured on someone’s older iPhone (and this is coming from someone who had their last iPhone for years).
Still, the data does signal that audiences on social media increasingly expect the same care and polish on social media that brands historically reserved for broadcast or out-of-home advertising campaigns. So, to ensure that your content isn’t deprioritized over those in your competitive set, consider asking your team or agency partner these key questions:
- Are we building a strong case for increased content production budgets to support our organic and paid social media efforts?
- Do we anticipate opportunities to capture additional creative assets to elevate our organic creative and maximize campaign performance?
By prioritizing high-quality content that leans into social media best practices, brands can turn their social media feeds into powerful, performance-driven channels that resonate with today’s discerning audiences while still supporting overall business goals.
Platforms with Purpose
Even in a crowded digital landscape, brands have significant potential to establish meaningful connections and foster vibrant communities across the most popular social media platforms. However, achieving this requires a strategic focus, informed by real-time audience insights. Rather than stretching your efforts thin across every social media platform, it’s essential to identify where your brand’s presence will have the most significant impact.
Consumer engagement with branded content remains as strong as ever, and in some cases, is stronger than it was six months ago. When asked which platforms brands should avoid, the top response was “none.”
Brands are under more pressure than ever to develop content that resonates with consumers best. And that is typically dynamic, short-form video content such Reels, TikToks and Stories, which are resource-intensive. In an effort to keep up, many brands end up repurposing the same images and clips, which can lead to consumers unfollowing or, worse, being completely removed from their consideration set.
As you think about your 2025 social media strategy, here are a few questions to guide your discussions with your internal or agency partner:
- When it comes to a platform-specific approach to organic social media content, are we allocating adequate resources to the platforms focused on entertaining and engaging our target audience where they spend the majority of their online time?
- Do we have clear data on which platforms our target audience prefers for entertainment, discovery and customer support?
- What audience behavior insights have we uncovered in 2024 that can shape our 2025 content strategy?
- Are we aligning our overall social media content strategy with platform-specific behaviors and expectations?
- What critical insights might we be missing that could refine our platform and content prioritization?
- Where do we see opportunities to improve on platforms with the most significant impact?
Concentrating on the social media platforms that matter most to your target audience will save your team precious time and resources, empowering you to deliver authentic content that resonates more deeply and drives measurable results.
Empower Your Internal Team and Agency Partner
Marketers, specifically social media professionals, are on the front lines when engaging with their target audience and often have more visibility into industry or brand challenges. Encourage them to take creative risks and experiment with bold, social-first content strategies rooted in data or insights gained through social listening.
If this is an area of opportunity for your organization, here are some questions to ask your team or agency partner as you prepare to head into 2025:
- Are our social teams driving content strategy, or are they limited to fulfilling requests from internal stakeholders that may conflict with social media best practices?
- Are our social media efforts being integrated into campaign planning from the outset, or is it an afterthought?
If your team doesn’t have the bandwidth to create the social media content worthy of both your audience and your brand, it may be time to bring an agency partner into the fold. Of course, hiring a partner can be daunting —you need someone you can trust, who knows your business and can jump in quickly. Motion created this free insider’s guide to help you navigate the complexities of a formal RFP process and ensure you hire an agency that is a true partner. Inside, you’ll find strategies and tips for getting organized and keeping your team on task, as well as templates developed by agency-side pros who’ve responded to hundreds of RFPs over the years.
Influencer Marketing
We believe no one understands an audience better than the person who built it. It’s why influencers can persuade their followers to act—and why influencer marketing can be such a powerful tool for brands to reach a wider audience and build trust with potential customers. At Motion, we recommend clients prioritize authenticity by partnering with creators who align with their brand’s voice and target audience.
Unlike traditional advertising, influencer marketing allows brands to tailor their approach to partnerships based on their desired goals, content types, target audience and budget. This could look like structuring partnership agreements to include usage rights so that the brand can repurpose for web or paid ads to boost conversions and overall engagement.
More brands will routinely include paid ad content in their partnership agreements, especially when trying to reach a niche audience with authentic content. For one of our clients at Motion, we recently launched a multi-market influencer campaign where each influencer granted our client permission to run their sponsored content as ads across Meta and TikTok.
Micro vs. Macro Influencers: Understanding the Difference
One of the key things our agency is asked about regarding influencer marketing is, “How do we know who the right partner for our brand is?”
It’s a crucial decision shaped by an influencer campaign’s goals and underpins the recommendations for the ideal partner. Is it better to partner with micro-influencers or macro-influencers? The answer can profoundly shape campaign strategy, brand perception and preferred outcomes.
To level set, micro-influencers are generally considered to have between 1,000 and 20,000 followers on their largest platform, focusing on specific niches and deeply engaged communities. Conversely, macro-influencers are typically considered to have audiences ranging from 250,000 to millions of followers, offering broader appeal and significant reach across various demographics.
But the right influencer partnership goes beyond follower counts. Micro-influencers often build close, personal relationships with their followers, which fosters higher engagement. Macro-influencers provide unparalleled brand visibility and reach due to their larger follower counts but can sometimes have less fully engaged audiences compared to micro-influencers.
Micro-influencers excel in more niche industries or areas of focus, making them perfect for brands targeting specific consumer segments. Their highly engaged audiences often see them as relatable and authentic, driving stronger connections with your brand’s messaging. There are often cost advantages as well, with micro-influencers being more cost-effective, allowing brands to collaborate with influencers across multiple sponsored posts or with multiple influencers in a single campaign. This can increase reach and bring more users into the marketing funnel.
Although micro-influencers bring authenticity, their limited reach can constrain the ability of an influencer marketing campaign to reach its target audience at scale. So, when choosing between micro and macro influencers, align your decision with your campaign goals. If you’re looking to reach a niche audience (e.g., leading small business owners in the HVAC industry), micro-influencers are ideal for targeted engagement and reaching an engaged audience.
If you have a product or service that speaks to a broader audience, partnering with macro-influencers can lead to higher levels of reach and building awareness. But beware that the larger an influencer gets, the more likely their audience will be segmented. For example, the followers on NBA legend Shaquille O’Neill’s accounts may be following him for his basketball accolades, while another group may be following him for his DJ alter-ego, Diesel, and may have no interest in sports-related partnerships.
Quality Over Quantity
The quality of your influencer collaborations often has a more significant impact than the number of partnerships you pursue. So, stretching your budget across multiple small-scale campaigns can dilute the overall effect of your advertising efforts.
Instead, at Motion we recommend focusing on fewer, higher-quality influencer partnerships. At the end of the day, engaging (and authentic) content is what increases your brand’s reach and the opportunity to connect with more users.
So, here’s how to elevate the quality of your campaigns by investing in fewer, more meaningful collaborations. Identify and partner with influencers who genuinely align with your brand’s values and target audience, and work closely with them as partners to ensure that their sponsored content meets both your creative standards and their audience’s expectations. Remember, high-quality visuals and storytelling will help your sponsored content stand out.
Just remember to give influencers the creative freedom to produce content in their own style. This approach leads to more authentic and relatable posts, fostering a deeper connection with their audience.
And from a metrics standpoint, a smaller, more-engaged audience is more valuable than a large, less-engaged one. So, look beyond reach and impressions and prioritize influencers who have a proven track record of higher engagement rates in their sponsored content. These types of collaborations often result in higher engagement and better ROI.
Lastly, we want to define success, which starts before influencer recommendations are even provided. What defines a successful influencer marketing campaign? Here are a few outcomes that an influencer partnership can help you achieve:
- Increased brand awareness: Influencers can help get a brand in front of a new audience.
- Improved brand reputation: Influencers can help build trust and credibility within a given industry or trade.
- Increased conversions and sales: Influencers can persuade their followers to purchase products or services.
We’ve barely scratched the surface when it comes social media and influencer marketing, and as such, it’s critical to focus on what will have the largest impact in achieving your businesses’ goals, rather than hopping on a trend or a new platform just because it’s mentioned in the news.
If you need help figuring out where to start in 2025, let’s connect to create a results-driven, comprehensive influencer and social media marketing strategy that gives your brand the boost needed to accelerate growth.
