The 18 social media trends to shape your 2026 strategy

Creating a social media marketing trends report heading into 2026 was an interesting challenge. Trends are no longer linear, or even shaped like a traditional bell curve. They can be splintered and contradictory.

Social identities and communities are becoming more personal while AI is taking over content creation. Absurdist chaos battles it out with cozy nostalgia. All while social media evolves from a communications channel into a search engine, a research lab, and a high-stakes creative testing ground. 

In our annual exploration of the latest social media trends, we highlight what brands need to know to stay relevant in the lightning-fast social ecosystem of 2026. 

1. Algorithms are gaining nuance

It’s not new that TikTok seems to know you better than you know yourself. But heading into 2026, other social platforms are starting to gain this soul-penetrating capability, too. So much so that Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, created a Reel to assure users that Instagram is not using your phone’s microphone to spy on you. 

The comments section was… not convinced. 

Source: @mosseri 

But what really powers the social platforms’ ability to serve up content you didn’t even know you were looking for? 

Micro-behaviors. Sure, you might not have liked or clicked on any videos about hand-crocheted beanies for dogs. But did you slow down just a little when you saw one? 

Hover time has become a key signal to social media algorithms because it signals interest even when you do not take a specific action. Rewatching and pausing show even more interest. 

The way platforms use this information to surface content is changing, too. Social platforms can still draw users in for much longer than they intended. But instead of falling into rabbit holes, users are now being sent into snowballs. 

• Rabbit holes are user-driven deep dives into a topic. You tap into a creator’s profile. You watch more of their content. You tap on tags in their videos to find more relevant creators or tagged content, and so on, to infinity. 
• Snowballs don’t require that level of action. You simply experience repetition of a theme from multiple sources as you scroll. 

For brands, this means that follower count has essentially become a vanity metric. There’s a reason almost all Mosseri’s weekly Reels focus on reach. The new social experience is based on what interests users, not who they follow. 

Rather than building a strong follower base, brands need to build a deep, personal understanding of their target audience. Then, create content that speaks directly to those people across formats. This requires a lot of experimentation (which we’ll talk about later). 

It may be frustrating that fewer of your followers see your content. But the opportunities to reach new eyeballs are greater than ever before. And those eyeballs belong to people who are highly likely to find your content interesting. 

How should brands adapt to changing/evolving algorithms?

• Double down on audience research. You need to understand – really understand – three different kinds of audiences. First, the people who already follow you on social media. Second, the people who already buy from you, especially repeat customers. And third, you need to understand exactly who your ideal customer is, even if they have never heard of you. The new algorithms make it more likely than ever before that they will see your content if you understand their interests well enough. 
• Customize your content for each platform. We’ve been saying this for years, but it’s more important than ever now. Your potential audience on TikTok varies wildly from your potential audience on Facebook. You need to understand both and create content that speaks to the unique interests of each group. 
• Always have a hook. Catch people’s attention within the first three seconds to get those valuable hover-time signals. 

2. Human-made authenticity wins, but AI tools are table stakes

Nearly all employees (94%) and brand leaders (99%) are familiar with generative AI tools, according to McKinsey. Employees are already way ahead of the C-suite’s expectations for incorporating AI into their daily tasks. And 92% of companies plan to increase their AI investment even more over the next 3 years. 

AI tools have simply become table stakes for brainstorming, creating and editing content, and iterating content ideas. Our research revealed that 79% of social media managers now use artificial intelligence daily. And eMarketer found that 133 million people in the U.S. alone will use generative AI in 2026. 

At the same time, users are pushing back against synthetic perfection. More than 30% of consumers say they’re less likely to choose a brand if they know their ads are AI-generated.  And 91% of marketers say human involvement is very important or critical for evaluating or generating AI content. 

For example, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola are both getting major pushback against AI-generated Christmas ads. McDonald’s Netherlands actually pulled its AI-generated ad after it went viral for all the wrong reasons.

Meanwhile, Dove became the first beauty brand to pledge it would never use AI back in 2024. 

Source: Dove US on YouTube

So should your team use AI for content creation? We analyzed audience sentiments towards AI-generated content vs. AI slop to help you answer this question.

Social media audiences aren’t rejecting AI outright — they’re rejecting slop. Conversations around AI slop skew heavily negative, with more than half of mentions expressing frustration or dislike. The backlash isn’t about AI’s presence in content creation, but about outputs that feel repetitive, low-quality, or obviously uncurated. In other words, audiences are quick to call out content that looks like it was published without human judgment or value added.

By contrast, the idea AI-generated content is met with a far more balanced response. Negative sentiment is significantly lower. Neutral and positive mentions dominate, signaling curiosity and conditional acceptance. Audiences are comfortable with AI as a tool, not a replacement for creativity. 

In an effort to make the human touch clear, in 2026, brands are likely to emphasize slight imperfections to stand out from AI noise. The occasional stutter or flub is now a signal of authenticity rather than a mistake to edit out. 

Brands may even add imperfections on purpose. “Typo marketing” is not a new social media strategy. It’s a well-established way to get people talking about a campaign. Coors took this to the extreme in 2025 with their massive “refershment” ads leading up to the Case of the Mondays campaign.

How can brands integrate AI responsibly across their marketing?

• Look for opportunities to add AI to your workflow. How can AI make your work easier and more efficient without taking the humanity out of your content? A majority of marketers say resizing, formatting, and rapid A/B testing are prime uses for AI tools.   
• Plan for content that shows the human side of your brand. Highlight your process, spotlight your workers, or give your audience a look behind the scenes. “Proof of humanity” should be a key component of every social post. 
• Embrace the occasional flub. Over-editing can make even real videos feel fake. Keep it professional, but don’t aim for perfection. Test a typo or two to see how your audience responds, but don’t go overboard. 

3. Social content must adapt to search

Social search has been evolving for a few years now. The New York Times declared TikTok the new search engine for Gen Z way back in 2022. By 2025, about two-thirds of U.S. consumers had used social search. 

What’s new in 2026 is the multi-modality of social search. 

Users might still type a query about the best bars in New York into the search bar on TikTok or Instagram. But they can also use Visual Search on TikTok or Pinterest to search for similar content based on visuals. Or Pinterest Lens to search from a photo. 

Voice search has also entered the chat, both through social tools like Meta AI and through traditional search engines. All of this is making search more conversational.

Source: Meta AI

In July 2025, Google began indexing public Instagram posts and profiles. That means increased social SEO opportunities, including through voice search and voice assistants. The Short Videos tab on Google is specifically designed to surface vertical social short-form video content from sources like YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and Facebook or Instagram Reels. 

This means social marketers should also be thinking about AEO, or Answer Engine Optimization. You’re probably already incorporating AEO techniques in your longer form content, like blog posts. But short social media posts that directly answer questions also benefit from AEO. 

Source: Google search

How to optimize social posts for search and discovery: 

• Incorporate SEO techniques in your social content. Keyword research, alt text, subtitles, and long-form keywords can all make your social content more search-friendly. 
• Experiment with AEO. Add short social posts that directly answer questions to your content calendar. Use question-based titles and write captions as direct answers. 
• Balance creativity with optimization. Don’t go overboard with AEO and SEO techniques. Helping people find your social content is important, but it only adds value if they actually like what they see. 

4. Creator partnerships are shifting to focus on ROI

In Trend 1, we talked about the lower importance of follower count in a social environment fuelled by nuanced algorithms. That’s having a major impact on the way brands work with creators. 

A creator’s follower count is no longer a critical metric for brand value, and even engagement rate is less important than it used to be. 

Instead, brands are looking for audience alignment combined with storytelling quality. The goal is to find creators for long-term partnerships that lead to measurable ROI, rather than one-off posts that create some awareness but don’t necessarily translate into action. 

“We’ve seen creators with mid-sized followings drive more interest in bookings than larger accounts with weaker audience trust,” says Woodlock Resort’s Associate Director of Communications, Erica Bloch. “That’s shaped our move toward deeper vetting and a more relationship-driven model. We’ve passed on partnerships – even with large creators – when engagement felt inflated or out of sync with our standards.”

Rather than one-off stays for short-term PR, Woodloch has shifted to a brand ambassador program to develop long-lasting creator partnerships with a focus on serialized storytelling. 

The program has generated more than $300,000 in revenue. 

Hootsuite uses this strategy too, bringing back creators our audience knows and trusts. Our most recent influencer marketing campaign boosted impressions by 73%, met the goal for trial sign-up, and saw more than 1,000 content downloads – all real, measurable impacts on ROI. 

The important thing is to define what ROI looks like for your brand – it’s not as simple as tracking sales. For instance, Woodloch looks at intent signals like saves, shares, and “questions that indicate genuine trip planning,” Bloch says. 

How can brands align creator partnerships with business goals?

• Set clear goals for your creator program, tied to real business impact. Likes are nice, but conversion signals are better. Define what ROI looks like for each partnership. 
• Consider a KOL campaign. Key opinion leaders (KOLs) have specific expertise in their niche and have strong audience trust. They can be pricey, but can deliver strong results when there’s a good brand fit. 
• Establish a thorough vetting process for potential partners. Tools like Talkwalker can help you evaluate reputation, authority, and audience sentiment.

5. Social is becoming a first-party data and research engine

As third-party cookies lose their value, brands are using social channels to collect high-value first-party data with clear user consent. Gated content is a particularly valuable tool here, and automated DMs have made the data collection significantly easier. Lead-gen ads, subscriptions, live events, and even social quizzes and polls can all provide rich context to your CRM. 

Brands also increasingly turn to social touchpoints for market and consumer intelligence that evolves too quickly for traditional research methods to keep up. Social listening tools like Talkwalker use AI to pull specific brand insights from the vast quantities of data available on social platforms, in real time. This data can impact all areas of the brand.

For example, Yves Rocher uses Talkwalker to track consumer perception of ingredients, eco-design, and natural resources. They use the data to guide product development and positioning.

Source: Talkwalker data from Yves Rocher Case Study

STEF Group, a temperature-controlled logistics firm, used keyword and sentiment data to drive its content strategy and grow its LinkedIn followers from 50,000 to 100,000 in 18 months. 

TL;DR: Social research and data collection keep brands agile in a culture that keeps gaining speed. The old way was to review analytics after a campaign, and that’s still important, of course. But brands can now use social listening to anticipate trends, intent, and sentiment and respond to micro-shifts as they happen.  

Best practices for using social media as a first-party data source:

• Ramp up your social listening capabilities. Talkwalker helps you surface valuable insights through a few simple queries, guided by AI. 
• Consider adding a specialized social culture and listening role to your team. Social data championed by an in-house expert can impact all areas of your brand.
• Test DM automation and/or gated content campaigns for lead generation. Create a social post promoting a white paper, report, or other gated content resource and use automated DMs to collect leads. 

6. Identities are becoming fragmented across social apps

We’ve talked for years about the importance of a consistent brand voice. But we’ve also talked about the importance of adapting content for each social platform. Heading into 2026, these two concepts go head to head. 

Social media users now maintain multiple identities across apps. A CEO who posts about business strategy on LinkedIn may have a chatty Instagram account dedicated to craft beer and an active Reddit profile focused on 3D printing. 

These side quests allow space to explore different personalities within different communities. And brands must follow suit.

A single, monolithic brand voice is less effective when audiences encounter brands through many touchpoints in different online community contexts. In this world, brands must figure out how to craft flexible identities that hold onto core elements of brand truth. 

On X, The Washington Post is a no-nonsense news account using plain language and links to content on their website. 

Breaking news: Netflix will buy some of Warner Bros. Discovery’s most valuable media portfolio for nearly $83 billion.

The streaming giant will acquire the Warner Bros. film and television studio, plus HBO and the streaming service HBO Max. https://t.co/BfOsy0zYHm

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 5, 2025

On TikTok, they create fast-moving explainer videos targeted at a younger audience, with no expectation that users will click through to read more. 

The real-time nature of Threads, X, and Bluesky makes these platforms ripe for experimentation. If you’re unsure how to begin crafting new identities for your brand, these are good places to start. 

How should brands manage multiple social identities?

• Define your core identity. Instead of focusing on voice, identify the core elements of your brand purpose. While identity and voice can change across platforms, you need to stay true to the fundamentals of your brand. 
• Map your platform identities to user intent. Use social listening data to understand what people want from your niche on each platform and what kinds of actions they take there. Adapt your content strategy accordingly
• Set different goals for each account. Give each account a clear purpose and set unique but meaningful KPIs to measure real business impact. 

7. Creative pattern analytics are driving rapid experimentation  

AI is making social analytics tools more insightful than ever. Rather than simply identifying which posts performed best, marketers can now use creative pattern analytics to dig into why certain content had better results. 

Analytics tools now look at recurring elements across large volumes of social data to understand which patterns consistently drive performance – for a whole industry or a specific brand. 

At the same time, social platforms are constantly adding and changing their features, functionalities, and algorithms. What worked yesterday may not work tomorrow.

All of this has pushed social teams to adopt rapid testing and feature experimentation. It’s an intense ramping up of single-element testing. It uses the same principles as oldschool A/B testing – just at hyper speed. 

Every component of social content is up for analysis – the hook, the tone, the pacing, the structure. This is much more granular than previous analysis, which might have simply compared the success of a video post to a carousel. 

In an interview with Hootsuite’s team, LinkedIn’s Director of Product, Sam Corrao Clannon, highlighted the need for experimentation beyond basic formats: “We encourage you to explore the formats that best reflect your expertise and connect with your audience, whether that’s video, writing, newsletters, or images.” 

Mosseri over at Instagram says that one of the top ways to increase reach is to come up with “repeatable concepts,” so you can repeat a couple of patterns or ideas over time rather than coming up with new content from scratch every day. 

He also says it’s critical to experiment. “Even when ranking doesn’t change at all, we see all the time that people’s interests change.”. 

All of this raises an interesting question: Does quantity now outperform quality? Is virality just a numbers game? 

Hootsuite benchmarking data shows that brands are posting on most social media platforms at least once a day, and more than that on Instagram, Facebook, and X. Creators post so often that they have to assure fans they’re okay after a couple days’ absence. 

Source: @katiefanggg

In 2026, brands will need to find a balance: post often enough to maintain attention and glean rapid insights while maintaining quality content. 

How should brands turn analytics into creative insights?

• Create an analytics plan. Get to know your social analytics tools and what they can do. Develop a clear plan for implementing creative insights into your content strategy. 
• Establish your content pillars. As Mosseri says, it’s easier to repeat concepts than start every day from scratch. 
• Embrace AI-driven tools. You can’t do this all on your own. Iterating content is one of AI’s best use cases. 

8. Brands are adopting a creator mindset

Brand teams are coming out from behind the desk, embracing an on-camera presence. This makes brand content feel more like creator content, with components of storytelling, effective editing, and personality-driven engagement. 

Successful brand creators are becoming influencers in their own right and materially impacting brand performance. For small business owners who also serve as a social team of one, 65% say they are becoming social media content creators.

Olivia Yokubonis is a Social Media Manager at the screen time management app Opal. But she’s also the face of the TikTok account Olivia Unplugged, where her 365,000 followers feel like they’re engaging with a person rather than a brand. (Because they are!) Her videos talk about the importance of reducing screen time, with the product appearing only as a secondary character. She even got a reshare from Kristen Bell that racked up more than 23,000 likes. 

Source: @olivia.unplugged 

Opal the brand has its own TikTok account, but only 8,700 followers. TikTok simply lends itself to better storytelling through real people.

(But remember Trend 6?. On Instagram, their numbers are flipped: the brand account has 295,00 followers while @olivia.unplugged.ig has 66.6K.)

But wait, you might be thinking, You just said that reach has become a volume game. Sure, there may be a contrast here between these two trends. But realistically, there’s a need for both. A performance-forward, growth mindset and strong creative edge are not mutually exclusive! 

In fact, the most successful brands will be those that combine these two trends, learning from creative analytics to refine content and brand personality in whatever form it takes. 

How should brands act more like creators on social?

• Identify potential creators within your team. Who’s keen to go in front of the camera? Do you have a natural in your midst already, or is training required? Don’t push anyone into a public-facing role if they’re not comfortable.  
• Streamline your approval workflows. Nothing stifles creativity like a group feedback pile-on. Get clear social guidelines in place to protect your brand, then allow your team some flexibility. Use a social media management tool with built-in approval workflows (like Hootsuite!) to simplify the process. 
• Engage with your audience. Creators don’t post and then flee the scene. Keep your brand creators engaged in the comments, further emphasizing that a real person runs the account. 

9. LinkedIn is in its creative era

Once a rather buttoned-up professional network that primarily served as a recruiting platform, LinkedIn has come into its own as a truly social network. With that transition comes a focus on content creation. The LinkedIn of 2026 will be a much more expressive and visual place than the LinkedIn of early 2025. 

This is partly due to the changing demographics of the platform. Users aged 25 to 34 make up the largest age group on LinkedIn. And there are significantly more users aged 18 to 24 than 35 to 54. 

Source: Statista

But it’s also because LinkedIn has made the decision at the corporate level to lean into video, and to better support content creators. 

LinkedIn recently added new insights features that allow users to track the followers and profile views generated from each post, sends, saves, and clicks on custom buttons. They’ve also added a whole microsite and showcase page with tips to help creators succeed on the platform. 

There’s also a Videos tab (available in the U.S.), where LinkedIn users are spending more than twice as much time as they did a year ago. 

Source: Gigi Robinson ™

All of this is making LinkedIn a more engaging place to be. As video uploads increased more than 20% in 2025, LinkedIn comments are up 24%. 

Sam Corrao Clanon, LinkedIn’s Director of Product, told us: 

“Adding imagery or video to your message makes it dynamic and helps it stand out in the feed. Videos are one of the most engaging formats on LinkedIn, with members spending more time per post, on average.  And adding just one image to your post can lead to up to a 40% increase in reactions, comments, and reshares — with multiple images adding even more impact. However, make sure that the image is relevant to your post — such as an illustrative chart or image that brings additional context to your post.” 

This creative shift translates into real value for brands. Hootsuite CEO Irina Novoselsky’s LinkedIn presence generated more than 10 million impressions in three months and influenced 37% of Hootsuite’s monthly leads.

Meanwhile, 80% of B2B marketers say they need to leverage creative marketing tactics to stand out in a more competitive landscape, and 91% say that getting audience attention is their biggest worry.

Best practices for creative content on LinkedIn:

• Create a LinkedIn personality for your brand. C-suite leaders like Novoselsky are great brand advocates on the platform, but they’re not the only option. The important thing is to inject some creativity into your LinkedIn strategy for 2026. 
• Lean into video. LinkedIn has become a dynamic place. Users who post videos see a 3X growth in followers.
• Incorporate LinkedIn’s top three video recommendations. Add a short onscreen text hook, include burned-in captions, and incorporate visual elements to switch things up. 

10. Gen Alpha chaos culture is shaping new content norms

In a move that horrified schoolteachers across North America, Dictionary.com declared 67 its word of the year for 2025. 

As they ask in their own video about the choice, “How could two numbers possibly be the word of the year?”

Quite simply, this absurdist numeric meme is dominating Gen Alpha humor. The hashtag #67 has 2.9 million videos on TikTok and 1.2 million on Instagram. As a college student says in another Dictionary.com Instagram video, “No one knows what it is, but we all need to know what it means.”

Source: TikTok

According to Talkwalker data, as of January 2026, the trend seems to be close to reaching its peak and is likely to fizzle out over the next quarter:

But a new absurdist Gen Alpha meme is sure to take its place. For brands, this is more than just a cultural oddity to shrug off. It represents a shift to nonsense humor, chaotic content, and brainrot edits. For Gen Alpha, narrative is being displaced by randomness, repetition, distorted audio, aggressive captions, and overstimulation.

Nearly two-thirds (61%) of U.S. teens aged 13 to 17 use TikTok daily, and 21% say they’re on the platform “almost constantly,” according to Pew Research. 63% of Americans aged 18 to 29 also use the platform. 

Source: eMarketer

If you’re marketing to anyone under 30, TikTok culture is your audience’s culture. This chaotic visual language is shaping the next generation of consumers and will impact visual branding in the years ahead.

Best practices for marketing to Gen Alpha:

• Focus on cultural fluency. Use social listening tools to actively observe Gen Alpha TikTok culture, including relevant themes and sentiment. Save examples that perform well and talk about why they work. Look to the youngest members of your team for cultural insights. 
• Incorporate elements of chaos without going overboard. Brands need to tread lightly here. Incorporate visual elements from chaos culture, but don’t try to hijack the style for promotional content in a way that would go against your core brand identity.
• Revisit your audience research. If your target audience is over 30, they may be confused (or even annoyed) if you dive into these trends. Don’t lean into this cultural shift unless (or until) it serves your community. 

11. Work/life balance remains a key content pillar for Millennials and Gen Z

In contrast to the chaos of the previous trend, content about burnout office culture, work/life balance, and hybrid work struggles offers long-term stability. Whereas chaos culture is about cultural relevance with Gen Alpha, work/life balance content signals emotional relevance to Millennials and Gen Z. 

Two-thirds (66%) of American employees are experiencing some feelings of burnout, according to data conducted by Censuswide for Moodle. That number rises to 81% for 18-24-year-olds and 83% for 25-34-year-olds.

2025 brought a big spike in conversations around return to office (RTO) policies. These heavily skewed negative, and our analysis sentiment over time reinforces why. Spikes in discussion are consistently driven by backlash — often following policy announcements from large global employers — rather than advocacy. 

The criticism is less about offices themselves and more about what rigid mandates represent: higher personal costs, reduced flexibility, and a perceived rollback of progress made during remote and hybrid work periods. For many employees, strict RTO policies signal a lack of trust and empathy, which quickly turns workplace decisions into public reputational risks.

By contrast, discussions around work-life balance trend far more positively and steadily. Audiences actively champion flexibility, mental health, and sustainable workloads, with younger workers in particular framing balance as non-negotiable rather than a perk. The takeaway is straightforward — brands and employers that emphasize flexibility, hybrid models, and employee well-being align more naturally with audience values.

Reflecting shared frustrations, anxieties, and small victories helps humanize brands. It’s an opportunity to create real brand loyalty.

For B2B brands and employer accounts, there’s an opportunity to focus on empathy and showcase a healthy working environment. 

Consumer brands can lean into concepts related to self-care, boundary-setting, and making the most of personal time. 

How should brands approach work/life content for Gen Z and Millennials?

• Time your content for maximum engagement. These themes can capture attention mid-week, when audiences are most likely starting to feel the workweek slump. Check out the best times to post in Hootsuite for specific recommendations for your brand. 
• Focus on building community, not sales. Empathy is the name of the game here, so these content topics are not a great fit for direct product plugs. 

12. Nostalgia remix culture is driving brand loyalty for Generation X

Millennials and Gen Z get most of the attention in digital marketing circles, with Gen Alpha drawing more notice as they enter their teen years. But Gen X is actually the generation driving the largest amount of global spending: $15.2 trillion in 2025. They’ll be the spending leaders right through 2033, when their spending is predicted to hit $30 trillion. 

Source: Nielsen IQ and World Data Lab, The X Factor: How Generation X is quietly driving trillions in consumer spending

Gen X is on social media, and being influenced by what they see there. 92% of Gen Xers use social media every day, and even 28% of TikTok’s user base belongs to Gen X. In fact, the share of U.S. TikTok users over age 45 has grown 13x since 2019. 

Source: eMarketer

We’ve seen that Gen Alpha is leaning into absurdist chaos while Millennials and Gen Z identify with relatable workplace memes. For Generation X, nostalgia is the key point of connection. 

Nearly half of respondents to the Pinterest Predicts 2025 survey said they’re rewatching classic TV shows or films. Searches for 1970s childhood toys are up 125%, and for ‘80s luxury up 225%.

In fact, Pinterest says nostalgia is evolving into reclamation of moments from the past. Old meme templates are new again, and ‘90s music is appearing in new contexts. Toys ‘R’ Us is opening nostalgic holiday pop-up shops IRL.

While Millennials may claim the indie sleaze trend, young Gen X was still in their 20s during its original iteration. The comeback resonates hard with those whose high school years included both grungy flannel and neon bodysuits (and a Kurt Cobain-level of disdain for everything).

For brands, the “If you remember” trend is an easy way to spark feelings of nostalgia in this group that’s moving into a new stage of life.

How to create nostalgic content for Gen X:

• Aim for authenticity and avoid cliches. Nostalgic campaigns have high potential to generate positive sentiment among Gen X audiences, but only when they’re not cliche. Time to check in with the older members of your team, or incorporate UGC.
• Connect with influencers. Gen X influencers have a strong connection with their audience that can drive real brand loyalty and retention. 
• Rethink your platform mix. Gen X is flocking to TikTok, but they’re still more likely to be found on Facebook or Instagram. Make sure your Facebook marketing strategy is solid to connect with this demographic. 

13. Frugal optimism and slow living are taking on overstimulation

Cozy, calming aesthetics are on the rise as a pushback to hyper-online chaos. Comfort is a top theme in the Pinterest Predicts survey, with 55% of respondents prioritizing it in their daily lives. 

Social media users overwhelmed by content volume are seeking silence, beauty, and curation. 81% of Gen Z say, “I often wish I could disconnect from digital devices more easily.” Across generations, the most desired vibes are “cozy” and “calming.”

Source: The Harris Poll presented by Quad, The Return of Touch Report 2025

All of this is creating demand for IRL, offline community extensions of online interests: in-person “clubs,” experiences, bathhouses, phone-free parties. Pinterest expects to see a resurgence of letter-writing by actual snail mail this year. 

Brands can take advantage of this trend by offering offline, tactile experiences.

At the same time, cost-of-living pressures are driving budget, dupe, and value-focused content. Aspirational content is out of touch. The new aspiration is simply to be well. How many times have you heard about cold plunges in 2025?

According to our forecast data from Talkwalker, you’re likely to keep hearing about them a lot more, as this trend continues to pick up traction:

Best practices for marketing in a slow-living era:

• Look for ways to add offline experiences to the customer journey. This could be as simple as thoughtful, pleasurable packaging.
• Analyze audience data to identify offline connection points. Look for geographic customer clusters that might support an offline event or pop-up. 
• Highlight your product quality. Overconsumption is cringe. Showcase the staying power of your products to justify investing in quality. Demonstrate how your product sparks joy. User-generated content can help. 

14. AI anxiety vs. AI-native social platforms 

In 2025, the number of AI-generated articles online surpassed the number of human-written articles for the first time. 

Source: Graphite

This chart needs to be taken with a grain of salt, since it’s almost impossible to tell exactly which articles were created by AI. Many AI checkers get the analysis wrong. And many articles are written by humans, but assisted by AI. Still, it’s clear that the last two years have seen a dramatic shift in AI content creation. So much so that Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2025 is slop. 

People are getting better at identifying AI content – although it’s not always as simple as it appears. The em-dash got an unfair reputation in 2025 as “the ChatGPT hyphen.” But there’s rarely just one simple checkbox to confirm if something was created with or by AI. 

By mid-2025, about half of Americans (47%) were at least somewhat confident they could identify pictures, video, and text generated by AI. 

At the same time, AI-only feeds like Sora (from the makers of ChatGPT) and Vibes (from Meta) are on the rise. These new tools offer AI-only feeds that mimic Reels or TikTok. But they also make AI video creation significantly easier, and allow sharing to other social platforms with just a couple of taps. 

Source: Meta Newsroom

Do brands have a responsibility to educate audiences? In short, yes. Most social platforms require AI content to be identified. While creators may not always follow this rule, brands face too much risk to flout the terms of use. New laws are also coming into play here, including the EU AI Act, which requires transparency about the use of AI. 

How should brands use AI without losing trust?

• Stay aware of the tools, but don’t hop on board just because you can. Marketers need to know what new AI tools are coming online, but you don’t need to use them all just because they exist. Rather than pure content creation, look for SMM-specific AI tools like OwlyGPT and Talkwalker’s Yeti Agent. 
• Focus on trust. Never use AI tools to try to fool your audience – this is a sure way to erode trust. Label AI content as required. 

15. Fastvertising is disrupting the content calendar

Constantly online brands are now responding to cultural moments within hours, not days. 22% of marketers feel pressure to respond to trending topics or viral moments daily or a few times per week, and 37% feel a high level of burnout from that pressure, according to data from Adobe.

The timing matters – if you’re quick, you’re “in,” if you’re slow, you’re a laggard. But you still can’t prioritize speed over quality. 39% of marketers say their content flopped due to rushing.  

Source: Adobe

Sometimes this creates feeds of content that looks virtually the same. Remember the orange-and-green monolith of content from August, spurred by the announcement of The Life of  Showgirl?

Sources: @scrubdaddy, @ultabeauty, @thekitchn, @ikeaswitzerland, @scaviray, @swigdrinks

It’s no shock that brands jumped on board – it’s all the Internet could talk about. There were 2.08 million mentions of the album during the announcement week and 2.71 million during the week of the launch. 

Source: Talkwalker

In the era of snowballing (see Trend 1), it’s possible the algorithms may reward this bandwagoning behavior. And audiences seem to do so as well: 25% of marketers say they’ve gone viral with trend-driven content. 

How to evolve your content calendar for real-time moments:

• Make trend analysis part of your content plan. Some cultural moments come without warning, but good trend analysis and prediction tools like Talkwalker can help keep you ahead of the game. 
• Use collaborative tools as a safety net. The potential for error increases when you’re creating at top speed. Use collaboration tools and approval workflows like those built into Hootsuite to catch critical missteps before you post. 
• Adjust your content calendar on the fly. Jumping on a trend may require you to adjust existing scheduled posts. 

16. Employee advocacy = authenticity amplified

In a crowded and skeptical social marketplace, employee advocacy offers brands an added level of authenticity. People trust other people more than they trust faceless brands. They also trust employees more than journalists, influencers, or CEOs. 

Employee advocacy comes in many forms. The simplest model is to encourage employees to share brand content on their personal social channels to boost brand reach and add credibility.

Source: LinkedIn

But it can evolve all the way into an employee ambassador program, where employees across the brand are highly involved in creating unique content. (This overlaps with Trend 8.)

Hootsuite’s own employee advocacy program sees employees share an average of 1.2 posts per week with an average reach of 21,920. The top-performing post saw reach of 207,786. 

Empowering employees to help promote the brand can strengthen company culture while giving your audience a look behind the scenes. 

How to turn employees into trusted brand voices:

• Clarify the goals of your employee advocacy program. Are you aiming to support recruitment? Lead generation? Social selling? Brand awareness and trust? Like all marketing strategies, you need clear goals to achieve real results. 
• Recruit employee ambassadors. Identify key content creators within your company. Look for representation across regions, roles, and areas of expertise. 
• Set up your systems. Create a plan for content creation and sharing, supported by employee advocacy tools like Hootsuite Amplify. 

17. Micro-dramas go mainstream

Quibi, the short-form streaming service that launched and failed in 2020, seems to have been ahead of its time. In 2025, short-form narrative and conversational videos (aka micro-dramas) went mainstream. And there’s big money involved. Deloitte predicts that revenue from in-app micro-series will reach $7.8 billion in 2026. 

So what are micro-series – and why are they succeeding where Quibi failed? This kind of serialized content exists in three primary forms:

1. Conversational, unscripted chat shows, like Subway Takes. 
2. Scripted dramatic content/mini soap-operas, like Rented a Billionaire Husband for Christmas 
3. Bite-sized clips from podcasts (which themselves have become a video medium)

Sources: @subwaytakes, @reelshortsapp, @teamcoco

Some of this content is created specifically for existing social channels, but there are also a host of new micro-drama apps, like ReelShort and Sereal+.

At the same time, “clipping” has emerged as a new marketing strategy that increases the odds of going viral through sheer volume. Brands now hire “clippers,” who chop up long-form video content into bite-sized snippets and blast them across multiple social accounts. 

A $15,000 clipping campaign for the FX Series Adults resulted in 2,500 short clips, racking up 40 million views on Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. 

Source: @fearlessbeings

How should brands use serialized content in 2026?

• Create clips from existing long-form content. If you already have longer-form video content, start serializing it in bite-sized chunks. Or, use an AI-powered tool to create social video scripts from longer-form written assets, like blog posts.
• Consider a clipping campaign. The costs can be similar to other paid strategies, like search or social ads. Platforms like Vyro and Clip connect brands with clippers. 
• Check who’s already clipping your content. A good social listening tool like Talkwalker can find your brand in social video, even when you’re not tagged. See who’s already sharing our clips for insights into what’s working and potential ongoing relationships. 

18. Substack has become a social platform

Substack is not just a platform for newsletters. It’s a social identity tool for creators and brands alike. In an October post, co-founder Hamish McKenzie wrote:  

“We started Substack in 2017 as a response to the ways social media was warping culture, so it might seem odd that we’ve somehow built… a social media app.”

Substack now looks like most other social apps, with a feed, inbox, messaging, and social profiles that all appear quite similar to Threads or Bluesky. 

Source: Substack About Page

But it feels different – and people like that. 

Source: Substack

This means brands should tread carefully here. This is not a platform for promotional updates. In fact, straight-up promotion is prohibited:

“We don’t permit publications whose primary purpose is to advertise external products or services, drive traffic to third party sites, distribute offers and promotions, enhance search engine optimization, or similar activities.” – Substack Content Guidelines

But there is potential for brands to find value, if they act like Substack natives. That means creating and sharing content of real value. Tory Burch is a prime example here, providing valuable editorial content that looks and feels like a fashion magazine. 

Source: Tory Burch’s Substack: What Should I Wear?

For brands without an obvious editorial strategy on the platform, it still presents interesting opportunities for creator partnerships. Substack writers know their audiences, and there’s a lot of mutual trust. That creates great potential for brand lift when there’s a natural fit or a creator is already a fan. 

Letterboxd is another social app that’s not strictly speaking social media. Like Substack, it embodies the shift towards community and real voices. While its marketing potential is limited (for now, at least) to the film industry, it’s a signal that brands need to keep an eye out for new niche platforms and crowd-sourced PR.

How should brands approach Substack as a social platform?

• Get familiar with Substack. Encourage your team to spend time on the platform, even if you have no plans to use it as a brand for now. This familiarity will serve you well in future.
• Pay attention to publications and creators in your niche. Beyond their writing, look at the conversations happening in the comments and subscriber chats. This will provide good insights for potential partnerships and audience research. 
• Reserve your username. Even if you have no plans ever to use a platform, it’s always a good idea to secure your brand’s identity there.

Want to catch trends before they peak — and avoid jumping in too late? Talkwalker helps you spot early signals, track trend velocity, and forecast what’s coming next, so you can act with confidence, not guesswork. Book a Talkwalker demo to see how real-time social listening and predictive insights help you move at the speed of culture.