"Trends to watch" articles are usually hot air. A list of things the author heard at a conference, sprinkled with AI and "authenticity", signed off with a stock photo of someone holding a phone.
We're going to try to do better. These are the trends we're actually acting on with clients right now. Not predictions, behaviours. Behaviours that'll shape the next 18 months of social.
Some will age well. Some won't. We'll be honest when we're wrong.
Trend 1: The Big Social Migration
X isn't what it was. Bluesky and Threads are eating its lunch for certain audiences. Meta's building hard on Threads. Expect more fragmentation, not less. You won't need to be everywhere, but you'll need to pick more carefully than ever.
Trend 2: Creators Over Corporate
People follow people, not brands. Smart businesses are giving the keys to an in-house creator - a real face, real voice, real personality. Corporate accounts are becoming museums.
- Invest in one person: Founder, team member, hired creator. One face, consistent.
- Creator-led ads: Organic-style ads outperform polished ones, constantly.
- Long-term relationships: One creator on retainer beats 12 one-off posts.
Trend 3: AI Slop Backlash
Feeds are drowning in AI-generated nonsense. Audiences are getting ruthless about it. The brands that win will double down on human, messy, imperfect content. We think this trend is underrated and growing fast.
Trend 4: Search on Social
Under-30s search TikTok and Instagram before Google. Your social content is SEO now. Keywords in captions, descriptive text on images, searchable hashtags used properly. Old thinking: social for engagement. New thinking: social for discovery.
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Book a Social AuditTrend 5: Short-Form Plateaus, Long-Form Returns
Short-form isn't going anywhere, but attention is starting to drift back to longer, more substantial content too. YouTube's numbers tell this story loudly. Podcasts. 10-minute explainers. Don't abandon short-form, but stop ignoring long.
Trend 6: Private Communities
Public feeds are noisy. Smart brands are building private spaces - Discord, Geneva, Slack communities, newsletter-first groups. Less reach, more depth, actual relationships. Expensive in time, cheap in ad spend. Our social team helps build these.
Trend 7: Platforms Punishing Outbound Links
LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok - all quietly suppress posts with external links. Workarounds: link in bio tools, comments, native video, "DM for link". Build your owned audience (email, SMS) harder than ever.
Trend 8: Newsletter as Social
Substack, Beehiiv, LinkedIn Newsletters. The newsletter is now a social product. It's where the thoughtful content lives. If you've got anything interesting to say, start one. It's the least-crowded attention you'll ever find.
What Isn't Changing
Know your audience. Show up consistently. Make things people actually want to watch. Be a human. That's been true since 2008 and will be true in 2028. Trends are tactics; fundamentals are strategy. Our take on it hasn't really changed.
Closing
Trends matter, but fundamentals matter more. Pick two of the trends above that fit your business, ignore the rest, and don't panic-buy TikTok ads because you read an article. Including, possibly, this one.
