Industry trends to get you ahead of the game
The three trends we're tracking heading into 2025
quick summary ⚡️
Three digital trends you need to know
Cultural gems for your to-read list, including making way for Generation Beta, the rise of soda and damp January
Content creators who are encouraging their audiences to do good
how the social 🌎 is changing
Happy New Year! We hope you all had a restful holiday week with your loved ones.
Maybe you’re even extending it through Sunday, so we’re here to get you caught up on what’s brewing in the digital strategy world.
We’ll be back in your inbox tomorrow with a really fun trend piece for our paid subscribers. Let’s just say it should get you excited to execute on trends you're passionate about in 2025. Upgrade to paid to get it [and so much more].
Trend 1: Are we looking at a mass exodus from socials?
Not quite, but it’s clear that heading into 2025, brands and creators are rethinking how they approach digital platforms. While massive brands are turning to prosocial in 2025 (more on that below!), many smaller brands and creators are leaving the social channels that aren’t serving them and turning to new outlets.
Substack and Ghost are booming, with Substack seeing a 40% jump in active writers this year alone. Blogs are making a comeback too, as people look for more meaningful and direct ways to connect with their audiences.
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This isn’t about abandoning social media entirely, but about diversifying. Beauty brands are a good example. They’re leaning into TikTok for authentic, community-driven moments and Instagram for curated campaigns, while also ramping up email newsletters for that direct-to-consumer connection.
A recent survey found that 60% of orgs plan to invest more in owned digital properties like newsletters and blogs in the next year. It’s a clear signal that people are craving content that feels more personal and less at the mercy of an algorithm.
💡 Resource: 4 reasons to prioritize your owned platforms
Trend 2: Social media isn’t just for scrolling anymore. It’s the new customer service desk.
We’ve been saying this for ages: People are skipping the 1-800 numbers and heading straight to DMs and comment sections to get help. Fortunately, more brands are leaning in. According to Sprout Social, over 75% of customers expect responses to their inquiries on social platforms within a day, and nearly half expect answers in under an hour. That’s a lot of pressure, but it’s also a big opportunity.
Delta Airlines is a great example of this in action. They’ve turned their X account into a full-on help desk, handling everything from rebooking flights to locating lost luggage, often in real time. This kind of responsiveness isn’t just customer service. It’s relationship building. And as more industries adopt this approach, from retail to travel, social-first customer care is quickly becoming less of a nice-to-have and more of a must-have.
💡 Resource: Why prioritizing your comments and DMs is a winning strategy
Trend 3: Could 2025 finally be the year of prosocial media?
There’s been so much talk about how toxic social platforms can be, and it feels like people are ready for something better. Enter prosocial media, a shift toward platforms and features designed to foster healthier conversations and connections. Mastodon and Bluesky are getting a lot of buzz for their decentralized setups, which give users more control over their content and data. Mastodon saw its user base grow by 50% in the past year, which shows there’s a real appetite for this kind of change.
Even traditional platforms are catching on. X introduced Community Notes, letting users collaboratively add context to posts to combat misinformation, and YouTube has stepped up its content moderation tools to encourage more responsible sharing. It’s a move toward spaces that prioritize empathy and real dialogue over outrage. For brands, this is a chance to align with values people are increasingly looking for, including authenticity, accountability, and positivity
💡 Resource: The power of cultural relevance in building community online
💎cultural gems💎
The cultural moments and news that caught our attention this week:
👶 MOVE OVER GEN ALPHA: 2025 MARKS THE START OF THE GEN BETA ERA, nbc news
“Generation Beta will probably be entrenched in smart devices and artificial intelligence in a way that previous generations haven’t been, according to [Jason] Dorsey. Like Gen Alpha, they will rely on them to solve problems.”
🥤 SODA’S BIG COMEBACK, the cut
“After a string of health campaigns banished two-liter bottles and flashy vending machines to the fringes of social consciousness in the 2010s, soda is back with a vengeance.”
💻 WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE INTERNET DISAPPEARS?, the verge
“We are watching the internet slip away as websites and apps rise and fall, swallowed by private equity, shuttered by burnout, or simply frozen in time — taking with it our memories, our cultural phenomena, our memes.”
🍷 IF DRY JANUARY IS TOO MUCH FOR YOU, TRY ITS MORE LENIENT COUSIN—DAMP JANUARY, fortune
“As its name implies, the damp option doesn’t require you to stop drinking altogether. You decide what boundaries to set. With Damp January, people make rules around alcohol consumption, ultimately limiting their intake over 31 days.”
we 🤍 impact creators
The trend of donor trust in impact creators was one of our favorite takeaways from the Social State of Giving report that we worked on with GoFundMe.
“Our research reveals the majority of Gen Z and Millennials currently follow impact creators, with one in four Gen Z surveyed saying they’ve been motivated to donate because of a social media creator,” the report says. “A whopping 51% of Gen Z would trust impact creators to make donations on their behalf.”
We anticipate seeing a lot more from these creators in 2025.
check out the social state of giving report here