In 2024, the number of active social media user identities surpassed 5 billion, representing 62.3% of the global population. As we transition into the new year, this figure is expected to continue its upward trajectory, with projections indicating further record-breaking growth in 2025.
For businesses looking to make their mark in this thriving digital space, staying ahead means embracing fresh approaches to connecting with audiences where they spend their time.
Let’s face it; what worked yesterday might not cut it tomorrow, so it’s important to keep your social media strategies fresh and current to stay competitive.
So, whether you’re starting or you feel like your branding or business outreach plans are outdated, now would be the perfect time to shake things up.
In this article, I have explained seven of the best social media marketing strategies that will set your business apart in the new year.
Why Do You Need a Social Media Marketing Strategy?
Having an online presence is no longer optional for businesses today—it’s absolutely necessary.
Think about it. People practically live on these social platforms nowadays, making them the perfect place for businesses to connect with potential customers.
According to a recent report, people spend almost 2.5 hours each day on social media on average. That’s how engaging these online networks are, and this is what makes it the perfect place for marketers to reach their target audience.
But here’s the thing––just showing up isn’t nearly enough. Without a well-defined plan, you might as well be shouting into the void.
When you align your business goals and social media objectives, you can ultimately create content that truly resonates and delivers the results you’re after.
Robust social media marketing strategies can help you:
- Boost brand awareness and expand your reach
- Build stronger relationships and foster customer loyalty
- Deliver proactive, top-notch customer service
- Turn casual browsers into loyal customers and paying clients
In the next section, you’ll find some great strategies to help you boost your presence on various social platforms. So, read on.
7 Social Media Marketing Strategies for 2025
Now, let’s discuss the various strategies you can use to boost engagement, build trust, and achieve success in 2025.
1. Collaborate with More Influencers
One of the most effective social media marketing strategies that continues to thrive today is influencer marketing.
Social media influencers have built something special–communities that trust them and value their opinions. When they speak, people listen, and their recommendations can seriously boost your brand’s visibility and sales.
Working with influencers in your niche offers a natural and less intrusive method of showcasing your company’s products.
These individuals can integrate products organically into their content, making them feel like a natural part of their daily lives.
However, using this strategy at scale poses several challenges:
- Finding and working with multiple influencers and monitoring their work is no easy task.
- Running large-scale influencer campaigns requires serious organizational skills and clear communication.
Using influencer platforms can help you with that.
End-to-end influencer collaboration platforms can help you connect with the right creators, manage your campaigns, and track how everyone’s performing.
Influencers can also offer their followers special discount codes or exclusive offers, encouraging them to make a purchase.
In the Instagram post below, for instance, the influencer partners with Gymshark to promote an offer. Mentioning that the sale ends at 5 pm creates a sense of urgency, urging followers to take action before the offer expires.
Image via Instagram
Working with micro-influencers is one of the best low-cost marketing strategies for small businesses.
Despite their lower following (10K-100K), these influencers can generate more views and engagement than celebrities in the long run. Yet, it’s less expensive to partner with them, making them a great option if you’re tight on budget.
Apart from micro-influencers, there are many other types of influencers you can work with, depending on your budget, goals, and personal preferences.
These influencers include:
- Nano-influencers (1K-10K followers): They have the smallest following, but their influence can be incredibly potent.
- Macro-influencers (100K-1M followers): These are experts or well-known figures in their niche with a substantial following. They are ideal if you need to target a large yet engaged audience.Â
- Mega-influencers (1M+ followers): These typically include celebrities, public figures, or top-tier content creators. They’re ideal for large-scale brand awareness campaigns, although their engagement may not be as high
When working with influencers, make sure you choose only trustworthy and genuine ones. One mistake, such as a misleading claim, by an influencer could damage your brand reputation.
Vetting and continuous monitoring with Popular Pays by Lightricks ensures reputation management against costly brand safety mistakes that can occur when collaborating with creators at scale. Its SafeCollab feature monitors influencer content and brand mentions 24/7, to identify potential issues and send instant alerts for the creators on your watch list.
Image via Popular Pays
When you can be confident that the creators you work with won’t cause more harm than good, and when AI allows you to be exempt from manually reviewing a high volume of multimedia content, it’s easier to collaborate with more creators at a time, driving more engagement. Popular Pays also helps marketers to ease the way when it comes to influencer discovery, brief creation, asset approvals, payments and campaign measurement.
2. Run Social Media Giveaways and Contests
Want to get people talking about your brand? Running giveaways and contests is a simple yet effective way of engaging your audience and gaining new followers.
These posts are like magnets for engagement. Most people can’t help but stop scrolling when they see them.
Here’s how it works:
- You announce a contest or giveaway via a post on your social channels.
- Explain the rules of participation in the announcement post. This typically includes asking people to follow your account, share the post, comment on it, and tag people who might be interested.
- You then promote it across channels and using multiple content formats. Don’t forget to use #giveaway and related hashtags to further boost your content’s reach.
- Once the deadline passes, select and announce the winners and reward them.
This helps you reach a lot more people beyond your social media followers as people share such content with their network. This enhanced reach gives you a chance to engage with more people who might be interested in your brand or products.
Want to take it up a notch? Team up with an influencer for a joint giveaway and ask participants to follow both accounts Here’s an example.
Image via Instagram
3. Prioritize Short-Form Video Content
Let’s talk about what’s really moving the needle right now—short videos.
Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts have changed the game and now shape the way people consume content. They offer quick, digestible videos that grab attention in a matter of seconds and keep people hooked.
Tools like Inshot can help you create short video content. It is a beginner-friendly tool that allows you to add music, images, and effects to your reels.
Image via Inshot
Here’s why short-form video content needs to be a key part of your social media marketing strategy:
- They are attention magnets: Short-from video content captures attention quickly, making them ideal for fast-scrollers. They encourage interaction through likes, comments, and shares, driving more engagement.
- They pose lower production costs: With short-form videos, you can easily market your products and make money online, even as a beginner. All you need is a smartphone and some basic editing skills to create content that converts.Â
- They feel real and relatable: Short videos let you show the human side of your brand. They can showcase behind-the-scenes footage, customer testimonials, or relevant and actionable quick tips, helping you connect with your audience without the time and effort required to create long-form videos.
Crafting the perfect short-form content that drives results requires a mix of creativity, strategy, and optimization.
Hook them fast. Start with something that makes people stop scrolling. This could be a bold statement, a question, or an eye-catching image, basically anything that can capture their attention quickly.
The Instagram Reel below is an example of how to execute this perfectly. With the hook “Things you shouldn’t do while your clients are waiting for you,” the reel instantly grabs the viewer’s attention.
Image via Instagram
You also need to post consistently to build momentum and visibility. Determine the best times to post on your selected media-sharing sites, and then create a posting schedule that ensures you remain consistent.
4. Leverage the Shopping Features of Various Platforms
The shopping revolution is here, and it’s happening on digital platforms via social commerce.
Popular platforms like Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok, and Facebook aren’t just for scrolling anymore. They’re becoming full-blown shopping destinations, especially for small businesses looking to reach customers worldwide.
Here’s how to get in on all the action. Take advantage of each platform’s shopping features and set up your digital storefront, if possible.
Take Instagram—you can turn your profile into a complete shopping experience, letting people buy straight from your posts, stories, and reels. The “Shop” tab makes it super easy for people to discover products they’ll love, based on what they’re into.
For TikTok, the platform’s highly engaging, short-form video content is perfect for showcasing products in a fun, creative, and interactive way.
With native shopping features, such as in-video product links and TikTok Shop (see image below), you can showcase products directly within your content.
Image via TikTok
5. Leverage Social Media Advertising
If you have a decent marketing budget to play with and want to see results faster, advertising is your not-so-secret weapon.
Here’s the deal. When you post organic content on social media, you can only reach your followers and people who follow specific hashtags.
Some digital platforms may also recommend your content to people who may find it useful. In any case, the reach is somewhat limited.
Compare this to social media ads, which can help you expand your content’s reach while still delivering a good return on your investment. You can create targeted ad campaigns to show your ads only to a relevant audience, instead of shooting in the dark.
Why does this work?
According to a recent study, more than half of consumers worldwide use social media for brand discovery and shopping.
Image via eMarketer
This presents a unique opportunity for marketers like you to reach these consumers who are actively looking for new brands and products.
Social media advertising can help you reach a specific audience based on their demographics and online buying habits.
The best part is that social media advertising is not very costly and can deliver great results without exceeding your budget. Here’s a quick overview of how much social media ads cost on various platforms.
Image via WebFX
6. Build Community through Niche Platforms
For many years, social media sites like Facebook, Twitter / X, and Instagram have been the pillars of social media marketing.
Yet, something interesting is happening. Various niche platforms like Reddit and Discord are emerging as hidden gems for businesses looking to build real connections and engage with highly targeted audiences.
You can engage in back-and-forth dialogues, share insights, and provide support to your audience in ways that make them feel heard and valued.
This level of interaction can help humanize your brand and increase brand loyalty among your customers.
For example, you might use Reddit’s “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) threads to engage directly with users, answering questions about your products and offering helpful advice.
Here’s a great example. By sharing the challenges, strategies, and lessons from starting a business from scratch, the host created an open, authentic dialogue with users.
Image via Reddit
7. Leverage User-Generated Content (UGC)
Authenticity is one factor that many consumers take seriously when choosing a brand.
Consumers are growing weary of polished ads and prefer to hear genuine opinions from people they trust—other consumers.
User-generated Content (UGC) bridges the gap between marketing and real-world experiences. This can help create a more compelling and trustworthy narrative for your brand.
Here are some types of UGC you can prioritize:
- Customer reviews: Display customer reviews on your social media pages. This can help your new customers to make confident purchasing decisions.Â
- Social media challenges: Create a branded hashtag or challenge that encourages users to share creative ways of using your product or service.Â
- Unboxing videos: Encourage customers to share their unboxing experiences and tag your brand for maximum visibility.Â
Below is an example of an unboxing video. In this TikTok video, a customer unboxes her new MacBook, showcasing both the excitement and the unboxing experience that comes with receiving a premium product.
Image via TikTok
Final Thoughts
Success in social media marketing in 2025 will hinge on your ability to stay agile, adapt to new technologies, and build authentic connections with your audience.
With these seven effective social media marketing strategies, you can elevate your online presence and achieve tangible results.
Stay proactive, keep your brand’s social strategy future-focused, and position yourself ahead of the curve.
Here’s to your continued success—best of luck!