It’s been yet another huge 12 months in the world of social media and marketing. What 2025 has in store still remains to be seen but, as per our annual tradition, members of our global leadership team are kicking off the year with their thoughts about what’s around the corner, from lore in gaming spaces to the continued importance of social commerce. This is the second of two blogs – you can read the first one here.
Growing importance of Employee-Generated Content (ECG)
Naiyen Wang, Managing Director, Singapore
Employee-generated content will grow rapidly to revolutionise how brands connect with audiences and customers. Everyday employees are showcasing their company’s (and brand’s) values, culture and products through their uniquely expert voices.
Consumers crave genuine interactions, and EGC blends personal storytelling and professional insights to build authentic brand engagements as these employees live and breathe their brands. Brands are already building sustainable ECG programs taking it from a fun social media pillar to a results-driven, effective strategy.
EGC will continue to grow in 2025 as it unlocks a content machine that powers unparalleled trust, relatability and performance – all while investing in the people who work for these brands.
Great social listening will fuel next-level reactive content
Jim Coleman, UK CEO
Social media users are no longer sitting back, but leaning in, participating, in content like never before. Brands or creators putting a piece of content out into the world is no longer the end of the story, but the start, allowing audiences to add their own ideas to the narrative around it. This sense of ‘mythmaking’ and asking social media users to work for their rewards is a trend we covered in our recent Think Forward report.
It began to gather pace this year with the clever Michael Cera and Cerave team up, leaning into Reddit lore to tease social media users about the brand’s ownership and send them digging for the truth. It’s continued with the likes of Loewe, who riffed on the frequent Google searches around the pronunciation of their brand name with knowing self humour – and giving a nod to the extra work its fans are putting in. More recently, we saw Waitrose turn its back on a traditional Christmas ad to instead release a Whodunnit – perfect fodder for fueling online conversations and extending the life of its content.
Modern mythmaking really is next-level reactive content and community management and, in 2025, we’ll be able to identify the brands whose social listening game is on point by those who are best able to lean into this trend.
In community building, connection is key
Roberto Collazos Garcia, CEO Germany
Community building remains a key success factor for brands aiming to stay relevant in the long term. Today, users expect more than just posts – they seek genuine interactions and a sense of belonging. Brands that communicate authentically and actively engage their followers build trust and foster loyalty.
Key strategies for successful community building:
Authenticity: Show a human and relatable side. Users want to see the brand behind the scenes.
Direct Interaction: Formats like live streams, Instagram Stories, or Q&A sessions allow for immediate engagement and create emotional connections.
Active Participation: Engage your community through polls, challenges, or user-generated content.
Brands that embrace these approaches not only build relationships but also strengthen their positioning by creating a loyal and engaged audience. Closeness matters – and it makes all the difference.
Creating emotional resonance: the role of game lore on social defines long-term player retention
Rachel Rakowski, Global Head of Gaming
Gone are the days when social media was simply used to announce new titles, deals, or hardware. In today’s oversaturated digital space, brands must work harder than ever to capture attention. Bland, product-focused “buy it now” posts no longer cut it. Success in 2025 will depend on brands connecting with audiences emotionally.
How? By creating shared experiences through lore and storytelling—an often overlooked, yet fundamental, part of the human experience.
In late 2024, game developers, especially in the casual gaming space, began experimenting with lore-focused content on social media. This marked a shift in a genre where storytelling wasn’t typically prioritized. The results? Gamers played longer, reducing churn, while developers saw meaningful engagement spikes on social platforms and traffic increase to their websites.
The transmedia approach—spanning comics, films, and TV series—is amplifying this effect, with social media serving as the glue that binds these narratives together. These shared stories foster deeper emotional connections and unite communities around beloved worlds and characters.
Humans are hardwired for storytelling—it’s how we connect and grow. While we could dive into the behavioral science of why this is and how it works for marketing, we’ll save it for a blog post. If you need proof today, look no further than Riot Games’ $250M investment in the League of Legends TV series Arcane, an example of storytelling as a driver of player loyalty and success. If you want to succeed in 2025, lore and storytelling on social will be crucial to your strategy to fuel player retention.
Every impression becomes shoppable
Akanksha Goel, CEO, Socialize
While 2024 was about engagement, 2025 will mark a shift toward shoppable experiences, where every interaction becomes a potential transaction. This concept, popularized in China over the past decade, is now reaching the Middle East. In 2024, China’s live-streaming eCommerce market was estimated around $480 billion, driving 10% year-on-year growth, and platforms like WeChat and Taobao Live have set the gold standard for integrating engagement with seamless purchases. Now, this trend is set to transform the Middle East, where digital maturity and rising consumer expectations demand a reevaluation of go-to-market strategies.
The region’s eCommerce and Quick Commerce sectors, led by Amazon, Noon, and Talabat, are already reshaping the landscape. In 2023, eCommerce grew by 16%, while Quick Commerce surged by 25%, reflecting a clear consumer shift toward convenience and immediacy. Globally, the momentum is evident: TikTok Shop in the US is poised to generate over $20 billion in sales by 2025, and platforms like Instagram Checkout are driving social commerce growth in Europe at a 13% CAGR.
To capitalize on this shift, brands must rethink their product, media, and content strategies, leveraging tools like augmented reality, personalized recommendations, and integrated checkouts to deliver seamless and engaging shopping experiences at every touchpoint.
But here’s the kicker: undecipherable for undecipherable’s sake doesn’t work. Slapping randomness onto your feed isn’t enough. The best weird brands nail it because they’re intentional. They combine fast-paced visuals, clever writing, on-point cultural references, and aesthetics that stop twitchy scrolling fingers in their tracks. And crucially, it all ties back to the brand. Nutter Butter’s bizarre content works because it’s fun, snackable, and memorable—just like their product.
How about the Symphony Dolphin trend? It’s proof that weirdness thrives when it’s hyper-relevant and visually arresting. Brands that surfed this meme wave nailed the timing and tone.
Weirdness isn’t a gimmick; it’s a strategy. But it takes effort. Safe brands get scrolled past. Weird brands get sent to the group chat. So, stop playing it safe. Be deliberate, be smart, and get surreal—in a way only your brand can.
Disconnect to better reconnect
Vincent Reynaud-Lacroze, Managing Director, France
What if the new luxury of social media in 2025 was to be able to disconnect as easily as connect? In France, the phenomenon that has crowned the influencer of the year is Inoxtag’s ascent of Everest, a video that in just 3 months has amassed almost 40 million views. With a final message in which the content creator urges his community to let go of their phones and social networks, and focus on what really matters, explore and go beyond at his own level.
An irony for a man who would be nothing without it all. Its success is indeed an invitation to dream bigger, to surpass oneself and to reconnect with nature. It’s not a new trend, and one that the Yes Theory collective has made its editorial line for several years now.
In contrast to the ever-increasing amount of content produced by A.I., the quest for authenticity is ever greater on social media. Exploration and surpassing oneself are more important than ever. The success of Strava, the platform that has tripled its user base in five years, is part of this trend. The maxim “if it’s not on Strava, it didn’t happen” shows that never again, if social networks invite us to leave our smartphones to go running and explore, it’s only to better come back to them.
The trust revolution: authenticity as the key social currency
Kelson Ong, Singapore General Manager
Trust is undergoing a radical transformation. Against a backdrop of global political polarisation, economic uncertainty, and the rapid proliferation of AI-generated content, authenticity has become more than a marketing buzzword. Consumers are developing a new approach to trust that evaluates brands, institutions, and individuals through a multidimensional lens of integrity, consistency, and verifiable action. Compounded with a growing scepticism towards traditional information sources and a desire for more genuine and verifiable connections, gone are the days when consumers assessed brands solely on their products or services.
The key characteristics of this trust revolution include radical transparency, community-validated credibility, and dynamic reputation ecosystems. Consumers now seek brands that don’t just speak about values but consistently demonstrate them across all touchpoints.
For brands, success is no longer about crafting perfect narratives but genuine participation in social dialogues by moving beyond surface-level storytelling. It means demonstrating an authentic commitment beyond marketing campaigns—it’s about rebuilding and sustaining social trust with increasingly discerning audiences.
By the end of 2025 (and beyond), the most successful organisations will be the ones that transform trust from a marketing strategy to a core operational principle.
Thought Leadership
