Social media trends 2025: What eCommerce brands need to know

Social media has evolved into a core business channel. No longer limited to marketing or brand awareness, it now plays a central role in shaping brand perception, driving sales, and building long-term customer relationships.

At Visualsoft, we monitor platform shifts and consumer behaviour closely. This allows our clients to respond strategically and proactively to changes across the social landscape. That's why today's article focuses on the key trends that defined 2024 and the strategic focus areas for eCommerce brands in 2025.

What defined social media in 2024?

1. Bolder content strategies:

Brands adopted more informal, less polished approaches to content, leading to higher engagement.

2. Comments as engagement tools:

Outbound engagement (actively participating in conversations) became a tactic to extend reach and visibility.

3. Social listening for insight:

Teams leveraged sentiment tracking to refine messaging and inform product and marketing strategies.

4. AI integration:

Generative AI tools moved from experimentation to practical implementation in content creation and planning.

Key trends to watch in 2025

Brand integration into social environments

Consumers expect brands to align with their online behaviour - not interrupt it. Platforms like TikTok refer to this as "brand fusion": content that integrates naturally into the user experience.

Strategic considerations:

• Expand creator partnerships beyond traditional influencers to include micro and niche creators with trusted audiences.
• Prioritise transparency. Authentic, behind-the-scenes content drives engagement and trust more effectively than highly curated messaging.
• Develop content formats that reflect daily behaviours and cultural moments rather than focusing solely on product promotion.

Values-led identity alignment

Brand identity is increasingly measured against social values, not just visual consistency. Particularly among Gen Z and millennial audiences, purchasing decisions are shaped by alignment on issues like inclusivity, sustainability, and mental health.

Strategic considerations:

• Lead with clear values and communicate them consistently across platforms.
• Ensure inclusive representation across creative assets and campaign narratives.
• Engage meaningfully on relevant social issues - performative gestures are easily identified and dismissed.

Acceleration of content innovation

TikTok and similar platforms continue to reward speed, iteration, and originality. Brands that successfully adopt emerging tools and adapt formats will remain more visible and relevant.

Strategic considerations:

• Use AI to reduce production time and enable faster creative cycles.
• Reuse and adapt successful content formats to maintain consistency and momentum.
• Treat user interaction (comments, duets, reactions) as a form of collaboration - not feedback after the fact.

A unified social strategy

The convergence of identity, creativity, and community forms the foundation of modern brand-building on social platforms. TikTok refers to this alignment as 'Brand Chemistry' - the point at which content and identity reinforce each other in ways that drive visibility and loyalty.

For eCommerce brands, success in 2025 will depend on the ability to:

• Operate with cultural relevance, not simply presence
• Integrate social commerce features directly into the customer journey
• Maintain consistency of purpose and messaging across all platforms

At Visualsoft, we build commerce strategies that align social, brand, and performance to help retailers achieve measurable, sustainable growth in this space.

Contact our consultants now if you want to make your social presence more agile, authentic, and effective in 2025.