2025 Social Media trends: How will they shape Influencer Marketing?

Analysing Key Trends from Hootsuite’s Social Media Trends Report 2025

It’s that time of the year- all the trends, reports, and projections are rolling out at pace and marketers are gearing up to define their plans for 2025 and beyond. 

As with the wider marketing landscape, the influencer marketing world is also evolving rapidly, and it’s critical for teams to keep up with trends and developments and adopt these considerations into their strategy. 

In this article, we take a look at the 3 key trends outlined in the more influential industry reports and break down how these wider industry trends align with patterns in influencer marketing and what this means for influencer marketing strategy. 

3 key insights from Hootsuite’s Social Media Trends Report 2025:

With data from a wider variety and larger dataset of marketing professionals, Hootsuite’s Social Media Trends Report 2025¹,  is an interesting and reliable read that offers a wealth of insights. 

While the report primarily focuses on brand-owned channels, the trends identified have clear implications for the world of influencer marketing. Here are three key takeaways that can help shape the future of influencer marketing strategies for brands:

1. The Case for Value-Driven Content

One of the most significant shifts identified in the report is the increasing demand for value-driven content. On the Influencer Marketing side, successful integrations are no longer about how ‘believeable’ it is that an influencer uses a product.

Today’s digital native consumers are savvy. They recognize when they’re being sold to, and there are even laws in place to ensure brands and influencers disclose paid partnerships. With consumers becoming more aware of the marketing tactics at play, it’s critical that influencer collaborations provide more than just a product plug.

That’s why we’re seeing top-performing influencer content is shifting towards providing genuine value to followers. This value can take many forms, from entertainment and education to information that enhances the audience’s experience.

To stay relevant, influencer partnerships need to resonate authentically with the creator’s audience and inherent content style. The best sponsored content integrates a brand seamlessly into the narrative that a creator has already established with their followers.

What does this mean for influencer strategy? Influencer marketing teams should focus on:

• Working with creators whose values align with their brand
• Working with creators whose content is inherently valuable to their audience – in a format that is entertaining, informative, or educational
• Allowing creators the creative freedom to integrate the brand into their content in a way that is authentic to their usual style and content, and therefore aligned with what audiences will enjoy

In short: Influencer collaborations that succeed are the ones that offer something beyond a sales pitch—content that entertains, educates, or informs.

Brand messages in influencer content are more likely to be welcomed and appreciated by audiences when the content through which the brand is introduced genuinely adds value.

2. Community Engagement is King

Another key insight from the report is the growing importance of community-driven engagement in influencer marketing.
Again, while the report approaches it more from an angle of owned brand channels, it’s still a key insight on engineering perceptions of the brand-influencer fit.

Traditionally, influencer collaborations have been transactional—brands pay creators to post content, and the relationship ends there, unless the partnerships are more of an ambassador nature. But today, the dynamics of influencer partnerships are evolving, with community engagement becoming a core component of successful strategies.

More and more, brands are realizing that influencer partnerships don’t need to begin and end with a paid post. In fact, there are significant benefits to engaging with the creator’s community before a paid collaboration even begins.

By interacting with the creators’ content in the comments, emphasising their alignment with the creator, and making themselves seen amongst the creators’ community builds anticipation. This organic engagement can help brands create a sense of connection and relevance that makes the eventual sponsored post feel more integrated and impactful.

It’s almost like watching a love story unfold from start to finish- one that crescendos with the eventual partnership – a rewarding outcome to what started with a few flirtatious exchanges.

When brands take the time to nurture a relationship with the community, it leads to more rewarding partnerships in the long run. Followers feel like they’ve been part of the journey from the beginning, and as a result, they’re more likely to engage with and respond positively to the sponsored content when it does appear.

Pro Tip: Community engagement is about more than just leaving a comment here and there. It’s about establishing a genuine presence in the creator’s world—responding to comments, participating in conversations, and showing up in meaningful ways.

3. The Role of AI in Influencer Marketing

As we’ve seen across nearly every facet of digital marketing, artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly important role in influencer marketing as well. While AI’s applications are well-established in brand-owned channels, its potential in influencer marketing is still just beginning to be explored.

AI tools can streamline many aspects of the influencer marketing process, from selecting the right influencers for a campaign to optimising creative concept ideation for integrations and even analysing campaign performance.

Using AI driven predictive modelling to derive strategic insights can also enable influencer marketing teams to make smarter decisions, adjust strategies on the fly, and get a more granular understanding of how their campaigns are performing.

At Media Bodies, we’ve already started seeing significant benefits from AI integration, and as technology continues to evolve, the opportunities to use AI to elevate strategy and execution are only going to grow. Influencer Marketing teams that stay ahead of the curve and leverage AI to inform their influencer marketing efforts will have a competitive edge.

Final Thoughts: A Future-Proof Strategy

It’s reassuring to see there are so many parallels between the wider industry trends and the strategic shifts we’ve been encouraging within the influencer marketing world. After all, these trends are driven by shifts in broader PESTEL factors, and influencer marketing is by no means immune to these.

In today’s landscape, this evolution means the rise of value-driven content, community engagement, and the integration of AI tools. Tomorrow, this could mean a resurgence of something we thought was dead. Ultimately these trends are a key insight into the current state of consumption behaviours, and offer actionable insights that can help marketing teams stay on the cutting edge.

For Influencer Marketing Teams in particular, the wider social media trends for 2025 are a good guideline of where to direct strategy. By focusing on delivering value to audiences, engaging authentically with creators’ communities, and leveraging AI to optimise strategy and execution, brands can create influencer partnerships that are not only more impactful but also more sustainable in the long term.

At the end of the day, it’s clear that the most successful influencer marketing campaigns will be those that blend authenticity, creativity, and innovation. It’s an exciting time to be in the industry, and it’s encouraging to see that the strategies we’re already implementing are in line with broader trends.

If you’re looking to stay ahead of the game in 2025, these trends are a great place to start!

Sources

1. Social Media Trends 2025 | Hootsuite ↩︎