The 2025 Sprout Social Index reveals what people now expect from brands on social media, the stakes of getting it wrong, and what marketers should do differently in the new year

According to The 2025 Sprout Social Index™ Edition XX released, social media has become the #1 source for keeping up with trends and cultural moments, ranking ahead of TV, family and friends, and every other digital channel. While this shift gives culturally aware brands a greater opportunity to land in people’s feeds, it also means attention is harder than ever to earn, especially in an increasingly saturated social landscape. To avoid getting lost in the noise, brands must move beyond surface-level trend-chasing and instead provide original, human-centric content and personalized, 1:1 engagements— particularly in customer care— to secure trust, drive sales, and cement their place in cultural conversations.

Sprout Social’s 2025 Index surveyed consumers, social practitioners, and marketing leaders to uncover the latest trends in social culture and predict brand implications for the future. The Index also provides recommendations for what social marketers and marketing leaders should stop and start doing in 2025 based on report insights.

The results show 93% of consumers believe it’s important for brands to keep up with online culture, but simply jumping on the latest trends can backfire— a third of consumers think it’s embarrassing, and 27% think it’s only effective within 24-48 hours of a trend’s lifespan. It can burn out social teams, too, with 94% of social practitioners feeling they have to be “chronically online” to work in social media. Rather, the data reveals authenticity and relatability are the two traits consumers value most from brands, and about half say original content is what makes their favorite brands stand out on social.

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“Consumer demands grow increasingly sophisticated with each year, and this year is no different. The 2025 Index report illustrates how consumers expect meaningful engagement and cultural relevance on social media that goes beyond trend-chasing,” said Scott Morris, Chief Marketing Officer at Sprout Social. “While this may seem daunting, it can actually be freeing for marketers. Instead of continuously jumping on overly-saturated viral trends, brands can build their social presence more effectively by digging into the nuances of online culture, participating in what their communities value, and meaningfully engaging their followers on an individual level.”

This focus on social content and care will pay off for organizations as social media has become a discovery zone for consumers. 81% say social drives them to make impulse purchases and 73% say they’ll buy from a competitor if a brand doesn’t respond on social. Creating a social strategy that supports the entire customer journey–from discovery and purchase to loyalty–can have a direct impact on a company’s bottom line.

To cater to these evolving consumer preferences and support their own teams, the Index shows marketing leaders are investing more in AI. Nearly half (48%) are planning to increase their AI investments in 2025, and virtually all of them (97%) say it’s critical that their teams know how to use AI. Social practitioners are embracing the technology as well, especially to alleviate one of their biggest challenges: burnout. 93% of practitioners believe AI can help combat creative fatigue, an issue over one-third of them say they’re feeling more now than they did a year ago. Getting replaced by AI is low on their list of fears, too— practitioners report being more concerned with shifting network usage, lack of trust from leadership, managing brand crises on social, and creative fatigue and burnout.

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Additional key findings from the 2025 Index include:

• Contrary to fears of job displacement, marketing leaders think AI will actually help their teams grow. 86% of marketing leaders anticipate hiring more team members this year, and they don’t anticipate AI eliminating social media roles. In fact, over half (53%) believe AI will help them to grow their teams moving forward.
• There’s a disconnect in trust between social practitioners and their leadership. More than half (57%) of marketing leaders say their executives trust their social teams, and 74% of executives say they do. Meanwhile, almost half of practitioners believe their executives only somewhat understand the value of social media, and another 41% say their greatest fear is leadership not trusting them to publish content that will perform best.
• Brands need to take a stronger stand against misinformation. 93% of consumers think that brands need to combat misinformation more than they do today. This means brands need to actively listen to conversations about themselves, their industry, and their communities to determine when and how to respond and correct falsehoods.
• Consumers are present on all social networks, but they’re most likely to use the most well-established ones. 90% of consumers have profiles on Facebook, followed by Instagram (82%), YouTube (76%), TikTok (58%), X (50%), and Snapchat (46%). When it comes to making direct purchases, Facebook is the top platform used among all consumers (39%), but TikTok tops the list for Gen Z (54%) and Millennials (47%).