We're @ll here, Let’s Brand through Social
2024 was dubbed "Year of the Brand", but was it? Here’s why 2025 will be the year brands really shine and how a conceptual use of social will get them there.
We did it, Joanne from the corporate marketing team! We managed to convince the bigwigs that @-signs are more important than billboards—unless those billboards are getting posted to Instagram, of course. #ShotOniPhone #CapturedAtHoustonSt.
It’s 2024, and finally, we’re @ll here, every brand has a social account, and the investment in social is starting to match its importance. Seventy-two percent of retail marketers worldwide plan to increase their advertising spend on social platforms (eMarketer, 2024). The majority of SMBs will use social media as their primary marketing channel (LocaliD, 2024), and paid social continues to rise (eMarketer, 2024). From small to large, organic to paid, social is the way of the day—yap, yap, yap.
I know yap, yap, yap —you’ve heard it, I’ve said it, and we’re all scrolling 6 hours and 40 minutes a day, 7 days a week. But, it took brands a while to get here, didn’t it - to really put social first? Even saying that now... are they?
My Social Media Career: 13 going on 30
My first job was running social media accounts for a tech startup at 19 (well, technically, my first job was selling a hair removal product, but that’s better shared over a pint than a Substack). This was typical for 2014: give the social account to the intern while the rest of the team handles the "important" stuff. Yes, Business Development, SEO, and Content Marketing were all important back then. But looking at the graphs I opened this article with, what a blessing it was to be the intern in those days (or now if you’re at Loewe), as Social has grown to become the most important marketing medium for brands today.
It’s as if the interns of 2014 were handed the keys to the future of marketing, while many marketing leads at the time denied its significance or delayed jumping on board. Juniors quickly became the most experienced in the marketing medium of the day.
In 2020, I distinctly remember launching an Instagram account to sell cancer life insurance designed for women (I said we’re @ll here now, right?). In this project, I had to explain Instagram to a 60-year-old insurance broker who didn’t “get it.” I said, “It’s like the FT, BBC, and Westfield all in one place for under-30s.” In that translation, he got it. Now, he wasn’t a marketing professional, so no shade for not knowing what IG was, but I was shocked. It was like not knowing what the TV was in 1950, or not having email by 1999 - undeniable and everywhere
This has been a big part of my work for almost a decade—teaching and preaching social. However, what still baffles me is how often social media isn’t put first. People “get it” (that yap i mentioned earlier), but the “doing it” is rarely immediate. There’s always a “We’ll do it when...” or “It’s a big lift” or “It hasn’t been proven yet.” For a long time, social media was devalued because it’s “free” and technically “anyone can do it.” But the reality is, you have to act fast on advice and innovate. And if you don’t, guess who gets to send another invoice? 😇*
I’ve seen how a lag in action holds many brands back. Last week’s algorithm isn’t the same as this week’s (hashtags no longer work, btw), and innovation places brands miles ahead their competition in consumers' eyes.
2024: We’re @ll here now
Anyway, I’m glad the investment in social media is finally matching its importance, and my preaching continues. Social today is different from 2016’s, different from 2020’s, and this is where the 2024 "Year of the Brand" proclamation enters the chat.
Being on social media used to be a brand differentiator, a USP, and a way to position yourself. Now, we’re all here, and the USP is just an SP. We’re @ll riding the same algorithm using the same tactics, copying whoever is performing best *cough* Loewe *cough* to stay at the top of the feed. This has led to a great homogenisation in approaches, most notably, content. Like, isn’t it kind of wild that @khy and @kpmgswitzerland are pulling the same jokes? Sure, they both get views, likes, laughs, and even those precious comments—but then what? Where does it leave their brand? Personally, it doesn’t make me want to buy from Khy, and while the trend-chasing humanises KPMG, I wonder how this holds once those new grads hit the careers portals? #CorporateReality #SocialMediaFallacy
That said, brands will always need to optimise for platforms to stay ahead in a now level playing posting field. But using the viral audio du jour and Skibidi toilet memes won’t make you stand out anymore. To truly stand out, brands will need to brand out—which is why 2024 was dubbed “The Year of the Brand.” However, reflecting back, 2024 wasn’t quite the year of the brand. It held on to some old click-baity habits, and as social noobs relied on everyman tactics, our scrolls were left with branded brain-rot instead of brand lead social.
2025: The true “Year of the Brand”
As we approach the new year, I’m going to predict 2025 will be the true Year of Brand - I did mention there’s usually a lag between social theory and reality, right?
In 2024, there was definitely a shift toward brand, with perfectly directed-for-social ads from local streetwear brands and Nike regaining its narrative flow. However, it wasn’t until mid-year that we fully realised the extent of all the brain-rot content and that brands were contributing to it just as much as Memezar this laddering to a proactive rejection of obvious social tactics - very mindful indeed, *unfollows*.
With all these factors now coming to the forefront, 2025 will be the Year of Brand. There will be continued admiration for quality brand content (I recommend reading Coco’s take here) and a reduction in increasingly counterproductive trend-chasing and easy influence, holding space for more authentic, brand-driven narratives.
However, one approach I hope we see in the coming year, and one I’ve always felt has been overlooked, is Brand Social. Let’s take a moment with this. What does that mean to you? How would you approach it? What is it?
For me, this isn’t about cutdowns of campaigns, doing a brand’s take on a viral trend, or optimised edits. It’s about thinking conceptually first, then identifying which social mediums best support your brand. Fully breaking down your values and interpreting them through every angle of social. In 2025, it will be as much about how you post as it is what you post. So yes, it might include cutdowns or viral trends I mentioned, but it also can be:
☆ Creating an IG account that only co-posts with customers. They are always right.
☆ Deleting all platforms except Google Reviews. Quite Balenciaga, no?
☆ Consistent platform finnesses. Skepta loves that puzzle emoji, and Quenlin’s editing style is so her.
This conceptual approach has been an opportunity for a while, but I think brands have foregone it in favor of safer tactics they knew would work. However, in the wake of content and tactic homogenisation, perhaps 2025 will be the year brands get riskier with how they post. If embraced, I believe Brand Social would reward brands significantly, as it will breed ownable behaviors that can build deeper connections (cc Skepta and Quenlin) and the reimagination of social media conventions, allowing brands to make waves across the internet as they break the fourth wall (cc Balenciaga’s first feed clear and Calvin’s Pete Davidson Instagram takeover ). Brand Social is a whole new world of appeal brands should unlock.
Let’s @ll Brand Now?
But will it happen? With investment up, users growing tired of homogenised approaches to social, and my invite to be conceptual as well as tactical - will social finally be the brand directive rather than the derivative? Will 2025 finally be the year brands place social where society has had it placed for so long- first.
Thanks for reading. Those were my thoughts, but what are yours?
Will 2025 be “Year of The Brand” and what’s your prediction for social? I’d love to know what you think on Linkedin or via email: emily@chapps.online
till the next time i start typing…
lol, emily chapps :)