How does Social Lama see social media in 2025?

Of course it does. Predicting those changes, though, is another matter — an impossible one, to be precise. You can point to where things are headed and to likely trends in how social platforms get used, but the fact that the next 12 months will bring turning points of some kind is — well — certain.

For now, though, with some experience behind us, we can have a go at picturing social media in 2025. We asked around our Social Lama team to hear how each of our specialists sees social media in 2025 — here are their predictions. Enjoy!

Anna Ozga

Senior Social Media Manager

You certainly can't talk about 2025 without mentioning artificial intelligence. The social media industry will lean ever more clearly into COLLABORATION BETWEEN HUMANS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE — treating AI as a partner rather than as a rival to the people doing the work. The key competence for specialists will be the ability to integrate the two deliberately and effectively. It is the human, equipped with new technology, who will go on leading the way in building valuable relationships with audiences on social media.

Will 2025 be another year of VIDEO as well? I think it will, again. Consuming that kind of content doesn't take long. You can watch it in the gaps between everyday activities — on the way to work, during a quick coffee break, while waiting for a meeting. That makes it more effective, and it lets people take in worthwhile content without having to give up much time.

Piotr Zach

Senior Social Media Specialist

AI, AI… The AI revolution reminds me a little of the revolution that widespread access to the Internet was in its own right. The wild-fascination phase is behind us, though — 2025 will cement AI as a tool used consciously to help create content. It will keep being refined, but this still won't be the year hyper-realistic clips generated purely by artificial intelligence appear en masse (it will be more of a support in specific parts of the production process).

I also don't think a new, long-lived, significant “player” will spring up among social platforms (the way TikTok once did, for instance). More alternatives will appear, but still more as curiosities or a passing fad. Unfortunately, the current platforms will turn into an even bigger “dumpster”, thanks in part to that same AI and its knack for helping to make quick (and fake) content. Personalizing feeds will be even more necessary if you want to see worthwhile posts. We won't tune them to ourselves 100%, though, because the algorithms that push us things matching our “bubble” (though not necessarily things that suit us) will be forced on us even harder by the big platforms. And the analysis of our behavior, online and off [“we were talking about this yesterday, and today I'm seeing ads for that product!], will get even more advanced, so it can target specific content our way.

Poland's coming presidential election will also bring the largest scale of disinformation and political content the country has seen so far, because polarizing audiences with that kind of content is unfortunately going to be with us every single year. For my part, I'd recommend not getting drawn into those discussions or consuming that content, especially now that we have access to such an enormous amount of entertainment, education and culture 🙂

Lidia Święcka

Senior Social Media Specialist

I think 2025 will go hand in hand with storytelling and short video formats. I expect we'll see more “series” and more material with an actual plot on the popular social platforms (TikTok above all). Brands will build characters for their communications, and users will follow them with real interest.

A fantastic example is the TikTok profile of Muzeum Zamoyskich, a Polish palace museum (@muzeumzamoyskich), and I predict that in a year I'll be able to list far more good uses of the format.

Emilia Metryka

Senior Social Media Specialist

Is the world of social media heading for a crisis in 2025?

For a while now we've been able to see more and more social media posts urging their audiences to “log out of the online world”. Scroll through TikTok or Instagram and there's a good chance you'll run into a video about FOMO, overstimulation or looking after your mental health in this day and age, never mind the fact that we're practically buried in political content (the trend around the New Zealand MP and her Haka in parliament, for one). The volume of that content is a real response to the significant level of pathological behavior at freak fight press conferences (Poland's celebrity fight events) and to the Pandoragate affair coming back like a boomerang — a Polish influencer scandal that escalated in October 2023 and still echoes widely today. It is also a practical reaction to greater self-awareness about the state of our mental health. The volume and the escalation of this kind of content are why social media users are deciding to cut back, or to switch off from the online world completely.

A trend has even sprung up around “switching off” from the social media world, like this one: https://www.instagram.com/p/C_iQZr1IBqU/

Does that mean the world of social media is heading for a crisis? In my view, certainly not in 2025. Despite the growing number of posts pushing people to “log out of the online world”, and the trends springing up to encourage the practice — I don't predict a crisis in 2025.

BlueSky, a new player in the social media world

Until recently, X was the pioneer among social platforms where you could find both lifestyle and news content. Since Twitter's rebrand to X, more and more users have been seeing more downsides than upsides in everyday use. The reason for the dissatisfaction most often comes out as: “this place has become too toxic”.

BlueSky, the new platform, grew out of a desire to decentralize social media and hand control back to users. More and more X users are moving over to BlueSky. In the last few days we've even seen new accounts from the likes of Donald Tusk, leader of Platforma Obywatelska (Civic Platform), and Rafał Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw. The first Polish media outlets are showing up too, including TVP (the public broadcaster) and Business Insider Polska. The spike in new users was most visible after the US presidential election. BlueSky currently has around 18.5 million users.

Given the growth in users and the way BlueSky works, it could overtake X in popularity. What follows from that? It's worth watching the platform develop, and worth considering whether your brand should be on it.

Olga Rydzewska

Social Media Specialist

A good brand is a socially conscious brand

Social conscience will stop being an optional extra and become the basis of how every brand operates, if it wants to build loyalty with its audience. Inclusivity, pushing back on gender stereotypes, paying attention to who gets excluded — these already matter more than they used to, and in a year they could be the foundation of marketing work. Brands that think about people with disabilities, back equality and genuinely get involved in social change will have an edge. Why? Because consumers will keep getting more aware and more demanding — we want to support the ones who work “with their head and their heart”.

Naturalness wears the crown

In a world of filters, Photoshop and “perfect” feeds, there's been a natural turn toward authenticity. We can already see the fatigue with an artificially staged reality, and in 2025 it could grow bigger still. Genuine creators who show up in their “at-home edition”, hair a mess and emotions real, will be worth their weight in gold. The key will be building a relationship with the audience through honesty rather than perfection — because in the end we want to see real people, not perfect mannequins.

Eco on steroids

Climate awareness is growing, and it will get stronger still. Consumers will expect concrete action from brands: sustainability, transparency in supply chains, a smaller carbon footprint. Saying the company is “eco” is no longer enough — you have to prove it. Innovative solutions that support the planet, such as eco-friendly packaging, work on biodiversity or offsetting emissions, could become key reasons to buy. What's more, the brands that can tell that story in an interesting way, rather than “forcing it”, will win loyal customers

Patrycja Łabędzka

Junior Social Media Specialist

In the coming year social media will still be dominated by video. Instagram is signaling more emphasis on static carousels as a real part of building reach, but the rapid development of short-video features across the platforms isn't slowing down.

Video isn't everything, though. We appreciate more and more how much it matters to build a relationship between a profile and its audience. Authenticity and close contact are what count here, and that's driving new features to support communication, like the broadcast channels already available on Instagram. I think in the coming 2025 we can expect newer and newer features of that kind.

We can't leave out artificial intelligence either, which is developing at a dizzying pace. We're seeing a rising number of pieces made with its help, more images labeled with the AI tag, and even ad campaigns generated entirely by smart algorithms. AI increasingly helps us edit copy and graphics as well. It's hard to predict how much it will change over the next year, but one thing is certain — its role in the world of media will only grow.

All of this is only a first set of predictions. 2025 will surprise us more than once, bringing features and solutions that are hard to imagine today.