As 2024 draws to a close and we head into 2025, there are several big updates in the digital landscape. The months have flown by since our last round-up, but innovations and major changes have been underway every step of the way. Let’s catch up on all the updates your social media marketing team needs to know!
Meta
Before we get into the specific platforms under the Meta umbrella, here’s a quick upgrade they’ve rolled out across all their applications. You may have seen the “Imagine Me” prompt start suggesting itself in your toolbar alongside Add Image/Video, Stickers, etc. This is Meta’s AI offering to create AI-generated images for you!
As part of the Meta AI roll-out, AI summaries of Facebook comments have been a popular use of this tool. Especially for large Pages, this can be useful for Community Managers to keep tabs on the overall vibe of the comment section.
Something we know social media managers who work in paid advertising will love, you can now add Offers in your Facebook Ad creation, which displays a discount or promo code of your choosing to help boost ad performance.
Even more, they’re testing a new Local tab on Facebook to help users better explore their local communities, so this is huge for brick-and-mortar brands and businesses targeting specific locales for events, offers, and more.
On the flip side, a downside for business owners and solopreneurs who are the face of their brand, Facebook no longer allows public followers on personal profiles. So, if you haven’t already made a Page (here’s our co-founder Sonja Crystal Williams’ Page as an example) outside of your personal profile for business purposes, it’s time to do so.
Instagram has been BUSY this year! Here’s all the biggest news since June:
- You can now have up to 20 images in a Carousel.
- You can now have up to 20 trending tunes in your Reels.
- Carousels take the lead in reach improvement strategies.
- The DM-ibility of your content is a key metric of how your content is ranked.
- Views are now the key metric in your analytics dashboard.
- Highlights are testing a new location in your Tabs, like Reels.
- Here’s one we in the marketing sphere are NOT as happy about: Instagram has discontinued the ability to follow new hashtags and your currently followed hashtags won’t show up in Feeds anymore.
Want to learn more about what else Instagram’s been up to? Check out the Instagram Blog or this month-to-month summary.
Threads
There are have been several updates to Threads’ UI, including choices for your default feed, column arrangement for desktop, mobile analytics, Active status indicators, and more. As social media users continue to jump ship from X to other networks, these features are coming at the right time. If you want to learn more about using Threads for your business community, check out Meta’s Threads educational resources.
If you use WhatsApp as your brand’s community hub, especially for ease of use with international audiences, you’ll want to check out all the new features Meta’s introduced to help better assist your community.
Messenger
Meta is making Messenger Calling smoother and more creative for users, as well as the introduction of Messenger Communities to help special-interest circles find each other easier.
So, what do marketers need to know going into 2025? Meta is still focused on AI and automation, with even more Ads functions for Advantage Plus subscribers. We at Go Getter Group have a lot on our mind as the proliferation of AI in the digital marketing space continues to grow, so keep an eye on our Blog for a special article on the topic in the near future!
Great news for businesses using LinkedIn’s newsletter tool! They’ve recently updated newsletter features, as well as launched the ability to sponsor newsletters.
Less than great news for business owners and marketers who are popular thought leaders on LinkedIn: the Top Voices badge has been sunset.
There are still other ways to capture people’s attention with your profile though, including the popular ID Verification tool and joining LinkedIn’s video content push.
Especially as LinkedIn now minimizes unpaid, linked posts and tests an in-feed video carousel, the growth of video marketing on this business-savvy platform could skyrocket in 2025.
YouTube
YouTube has been making some major moves this year to become more social media-like, allowing more ways for social media managers and brand community managers to engage with their audiences. Here are some of the biggest upgrades:
- Community Posts have been available to users for a while, and now they’re even testing a Community Space to interact more directly.
- Shorts can now be up to 3 minutes long, and tests are rolling out that take away the Dislike button on Shorts in favor of a Save button instead.
- For channels and creators who focus on Shorts content, YouTube is rolling out monetization strategies that allow for brand partnerships.
- To help market your YouTube channel easier than ever, they’ve introduced QR codes for all users.
- YouTube is making it possible to edit out rule-breaking sections from flagged videos so that the whole piece of content can stay active.
There are many more updates at work for YouTube around Comment sections and AI. To learn more about those, check out the YouTube Official Blog.
As we head into 2025, the biggest thing marketers should keep in mind is that long-form video audiences and Shorts audiences have only a 3-5% overlap – so make sure you’re strategizing for both separately!
X (Twitter)
Yes, we still find ourselves calling X, “Twitter.” The controversial platform still has hundreds of millions of users, and the network is incentivizing those users to pay for X Premium in even more ways this year.
For specifically business and marketing purposes, here’s what you need to know most:
- X Ads Academy has launched to help specialize your advertising efforts on X.
- The ability to post links in Replies is getting sunset.
- X DMs are changing in a couple ways: iOS users can edit DMs, and X DMs are working on separated functionality (like Messenger).
- Keyword analytics tool, “Radar,” is now accessible to X Premium+ users.
- Though this may affect personal users more than businesses, it’s worth noting that the Block feature will no longer hide Public posts from your blocked accounts list.
But, if you’ve already moved your brand off of X, there’s a good chance you’re now on Bluesky, and you should know this key Bluesky info for your 2025 marketing plans…
Bluesky doesn’t currently offer paid advertising features, but it’s on the table for the future. At the moment, its biggest pull for businesses and marketers is just as a fresh place for social listening and community building, so we recommend keeping an eye on this fast-growing network.
TikTok
As of December 6th, TikTok is still slated to be banned in the United States. Are we fully convinced this will come to pass? No, not necessarily. But, we still caution businesses and creators to be responsible with both their existing content and next year’s strategies.
Before we get into all the TikTok updates since June and trends for 2025, we advise you to follow these steps, especially if TikTok is an important revenue generator for your brand:
- Download all your TikTok content, especially if it was created within the app and you don’t have it anywhere else. Helpfully, you can now save TikToks with or without the watermark.
- Seek alternative platforms in case you need to move your short-form video content to a different app. We have blogs on how to launch Reels and Shorts for your business to help you get started. Several TikTok creators have been shifting their attention to YouTube, and we think it’s worth considering for your own brand.
- Shift your attention to other social media and video marketing networks while the ban is still pending, so that your community can still be growing across channels.
If you haven’t started a TikTok channel yet but you were thinking about it, perhaps hold off until around March. At that time, it should be certain whether the ban will be upheld or if you need to focus your video marketing efforts elsewhere. And if TikTok is here to stay, we also have a blog series on launching your brand’s TikTok.
Now, let’s get into all the end-of-year TikTok features and trends for marketers!
- TikTokkers can now upload custom thumbnail images, and new re-editing tools are being tested.
- In a quite Instagramesque move, TikTok has introduced Notes-like features for your profile as well as Group DMs.
- For advertisers, TikTok released a new Campaign Performance Guide, a refreshed TikTok Academy, and automated ad targeting options, as well as an integration for in-app Amazon shopping.
Though it’s hard to say if American brands and creators will be able to use the following TikTok outlooks for 2025, we want you all to remain informed regardless. Know that while AI and AR (Augmented Reality) technology will continue to grow in popularity on TikTok, experts are emphasizing that audiences are more and more seeking authenticity and connection. So, keep focusing on storytelling and community-building in your content and ads.
To learn how to take advantage of all these insights for your social media marketing strategies, please feel free to contact us! We stay updated on all the marketing technology news and changes so that you can focus on what’s most important: your business.