If 2024 was a turbulent year for social media, then 2025 shows little sign of stabilising. From looming threats of shutdowns to the rise of AI-generated content, brands face an uphill struggle to cut through the noise.
Still, social media remains crucial for British audiences, accounting for 21% of total commercial media time in 2024, according to IPA Touchpoints data. Among 16-34s, that share is 35%, indicating greater significance for younger Brits.
While uncertainty persists, brands can embrace change and drive trust among audiences.
With the clock ticking for TikTok, competitors adapt
In mid-January, TikTok – with over a billion users worldwide – briefly ‘went dark’ in the US, after the Supreme Court upheld a ruling that it must be sold to an American company. The app flickered back to life just hours later, after President Trump extended the deadline for a sale, but its future remains precarious. No such ban has been proposed in the UK – where it has over 22 million users – although Government ministers in Britain have expressed similar concerns.
Uncertainty around TikTok has prompted rivals to emerge. Earlier this year, BlueSky became the latest social media platform to embrace vertical video, joining rival platform X just days before in introducing a dedicated feed for ‘TikTok-esque’ content.
While creative that works on TikTok will not automatically perform well on other platforms, evidence published in WARC suggests ‘the tactics of vertical video increasingly translate across platforms’.
As X loses users, communities are migrating elsewhere
While turbulence has affected all providers, perhaps X saw the most negative effects. Controversies surrounding Elon Musk sparked unprecedented departures. According to UKOM/Ipsos Iris web traffic data, X lost 6.1% of its UK audience in Q3 2024.
In contrast, Meta’s Threads app witnessed a 37% uplift in its user base and a 29% increase in time spent per user, while smaller startup BlueSky saw a rapid but niche 445% growth in users.
More than a year after advertisers first began leaving X in droves, owing to concerns over brand safety and Musk’s comments, 2025 could see a shift in text-based social advertising, as Meta is planning a launch on Threads early this year.
Fact-checking changes fuel scepticism
Meta’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced in January that Facebook and Instagram would replace third-party fact checkers in the US with a ‘community notes’ model first popularised on X following Musk’s takeover. However, ‘no immediate plans’ exist to follow suit in the UK or EU.
According to the7stars Pulse research, Brits are highly sceptical already of the veracity of feed content. Earlier this month, 27% of UK adults said they ‘don’t trust much of what they see on social media at all’, while a further 26% said they ‘often fact check elsewhere’.
Opinions on community moderation are mixed: though 38% said they would be less inclined to trust such information on social media, 27% thought the community notes approach would make them more trusting of social content.
As misinformation proliferates and platforms evolve, there is increased onus on brands to build trust with audiences online. Adopting a clear brand tone-of-voice, and providing supportive information for consumers to verify claims, will help to drive trust amidst a murky social landscape.
