2025, social shouldn’t be used a stage for you to yell from- it’s a table you pull up a chair to.
when social media first erupted, advertisers didn’t rethink the strategy- they just copy-pasted their ad campaigns onto social and hoped for the best.
close your eyes for a moment and time travel with me: the year is 2015. Hotline Bling is playing on the radio, Game of Thrones season 5 just launched on HBO Max, everyone is arguing about whether a photo of a dress is blue and black or white and gold, Zayn just left One Direction and the world is in mourning, and your Instagram feed is an endless scroll of perfectly curated images with VSCO filters.
while I would love to wax poetic about my thoughts on Drake’s 2015 album and the viral dress optical illusion (it was definitely white and gold, fight me), I think you’re here for my marketing expertise, so I’ll start by sharing that:
era of the perfect grid
2015: despite the strong presence of social media, the concept of social listening was virtually non-existent and the casual nature of Instagram stories was still just a twinkle in Mark Zuckerberg’s eye. content calendars were being created months in advance and were laden with flatlays, styled product shots and an emphasis on curating a highly-produced, aesthetically pleasing Instagram grid.
fast-forward to now
…now open your eyes. it’s 2025. F1 is playing in theaters, Sabrina Carpenter is on every Spotify playlist, Severance season 2 has audiences in a chokehold, and Ryanair is too busy roasting their customers on X to bother posting an aesthetically pleasing montage on Instagram.
the evolution of social media over the past decade has been nothing short of drastic. it’s no secret that brands and their relationship with social media have a complicated history, and many started by simply copy-pasting the tactics they saw working in traditional advertising: beautiful people, beautiful photography, and punchy headlines were the winning formula circa 2015.
somehow, in the span of ten years, the winning formula became the exact opposite.
the winning formula always changes
2025: aesthetics are out. authenticity is key. consumers want to buy from brands they’d actually grab a drink with. no one wants to be sold to anymore- they want to be talked with, not talked at. audiences don’t want to be broadcasted at anymore- they want you to join the conversation they’re already having.
the brands that are killing it are the ones who are
- paying attention to their audiences
- practicing active social listening
- noticing what is happening online,
- and reacting quickly, honestly, and often with humor.
the beauty of the way our online culture has evolved is that brands now have a constant and consistent feedback loop from the largest test group in the world:
the internet.
not every brand can be as unhinged as Ryanair, and that’s fine. you don’t have to be snarky to be good at this- but you do have to be present.
if that sounds great in theory but challenging in practice, I got you. start here:
lurk. – where does your audience live? LinkedIn? IG? Facebook? spend 15–20 minutes a day scanning your own comment sections, tagged posts, and DMs. take notes on what people are asking, loving, hating, or joking about- then actually use it in your content.
eavesdrop outside your bubble. – follow the hashtags your customers use, join relevant Facebook/Reddit groups, stalk competitor comments. you’ll learn way more from where your audience hangs out than from a quarterly survey.
react in real time. – if something relevant is blowing up online, don’t wait for a 3-week approval cycle. move. post. join the conversation while it’s still hot.
ask, don’t assume. – use Instagram polls, Q&A stickers, LinkedIn questions, or TikTok comments to get quick feedback. people love sharing opinions- give them an easy way to do it.
make it a two-way street. – reply to comments like you’re texting a friend, not writing a press release. in 2025, a “LOL, same” will get you farther than a canned “thanks for your feedback!”
