Speaker 2: 0:04

Hi everybody, welcome back to Embracing Marketing Mistakes. This week we're bringing our social media trends completely sold out webinar to the podcast. We're going to go through everything from threads blue sky to some cool campaigns from Curry's in the last year. We're going to look at what worked and what didn't work and what you can expect to work in 2025. So this one's for you, hi everybody. Welcome to Social Media Trends 2025. So did we get it right in 2024? So these were the trends we predicted last year. We said that the AI would boom hugely in 2024. What do you think Will?

Speaker 1: 0:54

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm going to say we got that right. I mean, it wasn't any particularly hidden trend, was it? But yeah, that's definitely happened, hasn't it?

Speaker 2: 1:02

Yeah, we predicted the rise of threads. So threads was about 50,000, 50 million. Sorry, not thousand, 50 million. And yes, the rise of threads is a. For those of you that don't know, if you don't use it, it's the Instagram Twitter copycat. It copied Twitter as Twitter was going into a meltdown, basically met a copycat, edit and launched threads and tied it threaded it nicely with Instagram and we felt that that was going to rise and rise and rise. We felt it was going to be a massive LinkedIn explosion in the B2B space. So LinkedIn is going to diversify its areas of content. All three of these, I'd say, have happened with LinkedIn lives and stuff like that. We said that podcasting was going to go to next generation business podcasting, so more podcasts would launch in 2024 with video and be more content rich. So, rather than the old school just audio only podcasts, we felt that multiple platform content because everything is video now and I'd say this has happened and in fact the statistics back that up that 2024 was the biggest year for podcasting.

Speaker 1: 2:12

Yeah, and certainly the conversations we're having with prospects and clients is all about podcasting at the moment. The number of conversations about clients wanting to launch their own podcasts would certainly support that.

Speaker 2: 2:23

Or looking to make you know they might have done five episodes, which anyone can do. You do five episodes and give up, and actually it's the commitment to doing something, because the content that you get from you know one chat can be multiple content across 10 platforms if you wanted it to use it that way. The demise of Twitter we predicted in 2024. And I tell you what I think again. I think we're on with that because I still think it's on its way down now, but just two days, well, just however long ago, just not too long ago, we've had the new president and we've got Elon um. Elon Musk has been um, put into the presidential team, if you will, um, and so Twitter might have a, a renaissance, or it might come back. Let's see how that does, because, um, I've seen that meta um has changed a lot of its rules, which is not for the better fact checking and things like that.

Speaker 2: 3:22

But the demise of Twitter you couldn't have predicted that Elon Musk would end up getting near the White House, so that's an interesting space to watch. I mean we could do a whole webinar on that. The evolution of Facebook advertising we felt that AI was going to kick into Facebook advertising and that has happened with Advanced Plus advertising. So there's been a bit of an expansion of that. And then controlling the narrative so brands trying to control the narrative more on social media, on multiple platforms, kind of that's happened. So we've got most of them right, to be fair.

Speaker 1: 3:54

So six out of seven we got right which is 86% success rate, not too shabby.

Speaker 2: 4:01

He's terrible at maths, so don't trust him on that.

Speaker 1: 4:03

I'll use the calculator for that.

Speaker 2: 4:06

Okay. So what did we miss? Well, we missed the blue sky boom, wow. So I mean, I'm an ex-user, twitter user. I love Twitter the original one and then it went. Since Elon Musk bought it, I just think it has gone a bit on the slide. I used to be a premium user. I've got like 12,000 followers on the platform because I've been using it since 2007.

Speaker 2: 4:29

I did not predict, I predicted the demise of it, but I thought Threads was going to take over and actually, jack Dorsey, who was the founder of Twitter there was two founders, but he was one of the founders he set up. He looked at what he did with Twitter and copied it and created a new version called Blue Sky, and this has been around longer than as long as Threads. But anyway, just in the last three months four months of 2024, it just exploded because the platform is so much. It's like Twitter was when it was brilliant, it was all the best things of Twitter, but without the negative, and it just exploded. So if you haven't used it, blue Sky's a lot of our clients that use Twitter and have said oh, twitter's not for us have actually moved to Blue Sky. Quite a few of them, but you'll see the numbers 28 million users but the content's so much better. I can't express enough to you that I prefer it. But there's a three-way battle. Now You've got Threads, blue Sky and Twitter all for little short, sharp punches and emotion and real live events. That's what Twitter was brilliant at. So it'd be interesting to watch this, because if X is moved to the right, blue Sky is moved to the left and I think Threads is trying to be somewhere in the middle and tied to Instagram. So it's an interesting battle to watch that. But honestly, out of the three, my preference is now Blue Sky AI disclosure. So this was something that we said that we thought AI was going to be big, and it's still going to be big. It's going to keep evolving because every sort of three or four months, they bring out a new version, and that version tends to be 10 times better than the version that was out. So if you use ChatGPT or whatever at the moment and you ask it a few questions to look at statistics, for instance, it's already at PhD level and so a lot of people are using it to generate, you know, content and images. And now, just as of in just at the end of 2024, meta announced that it was launching its testing People being able to label whether their imagery or videos had been created by AI. So you can say no, no, edit, no edit, which basically means you're not using AI, because so many people are using AI now and they're worried that you can't tell the difference. So there was a big thing about disclosing that you're using AI A in your content, so maybe on your social media posts or your blogs. That was a big thing in 2024.

Speaker 2: 7:02

The TikTok shop take takeover. So obviously we've had a recent thing not too long back that um tiktok went dark because america's banned it. Then again, donald trump throws everything out, everything that biden's done. He just threw into the bin and started again. Um, so bike dance, the owner of tiktok have brought it back into the uh, americans can start using again. Let's not doubt this tiktok massive 100 million it did on Black Friday in the TikTok shop and I reckon most of that is in my 12-year-old's bedroom. Trust me, honestly, the teenagers love TikTok and it's just grown and grown. Here's a couple of examples. Hopefully the sound works Will tell me if the sound's working on this. So this is an example from the the hollywood actor, idris elba for black friday. Um that he did for his charity, um all right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show.

Speaker 3: 7:52

How did your first tiktok shop live go, wow? First of all, I said on tiktok live live that I just I might give up acting. I could do this all day. I'm giving salesman vibes. All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome. Welcome to the shop I was giving it. And why was it so important for DSYF to do this activation here IRL, but also the TikTok shop live? I mean, look, dsyf is designed to try and keep the conversations around knife crime, how we can raise money and awareness around it. It was important for us to try and be innovative.

Speaker 2: 8:28

Christmas isn't a time that people want to talk about knife crime, but ultimately, if they can help, that gives you a feel that's more of a serious um interview. But then you get things. This is both on a black friday, but then you get this on on black friday from tiktok shop as well. So yeah, I mean, I mean a hundred million just on Black Friday. Do not doubt the power of TikTok. The rise of threads so yeah, we were right. We predicted the rise of threads 300 million users. I've got a thing about this. I'm on threads. It's big in America and it is big here. There's a lot of people using it. But I think Blue Sky watch that battle, because that battle Meta and Blue Sky and X it's interesting to watch. But Blue Sky 28 million users, threads, 300 million users that gives you. So it's 10 times the size. So it'll be interesting to watch. I prefer Blue Sky, though. So who got it right and who got it wrong? Well, right. So Charlie XCX launched the Brat campaign. So she launched her album on June, the 7th, 2024.

Speaker 2: 9:47

And it seemed that she created like a conversation, so everything about Brat which was to do with her album and it was to create some sort. It was culminating in chatter online. So this became like a cultural thing in Gen Z. So, for instance, they picked they went through thousands of types of green to pick a green that was particularly garish. They also picked a font that looked slightly blurry to use for Brat and for the album launch. She didn't have the album details. Everywhere there was posters of that color and you would just associate what was going on and people would take pictures of it and share it on social media.

Speaker 2: 10:26

It became like a cultural thing, so it was an. It was to create people to talk about it without actually talking about the album. So, um, there was um, a tiktok live with updates to what was called a brat wall giving clues to new tracks, remixes that she was doing. There was a in there, an extended album. There was also a brat generator which you can find online, where audience can bratify pictures and yet me neither and usernames, but it really would. It went absolutely viral, and so Charlie's brat is a master class in how to successfully drive cultural conversation, necessarily with Gen Z and in the tick-tock generation as well. It's the perfect case. Today we've put here in handing over the keys to the community, rather than a brand trying to control the narrative and saying here's an album launch. She basically gave it to the world and everyone started talking about it and sharing it online. Now that's just an album launch.

Speaker 1: 11:21

That became a cultural phenomenon in 2020 via social media and, to show you, it sort of ties in with another one of mine, which is Just before you go on, Chris, in the chat I challenge anyone to try and eloquently define what a brat summer is, Because we had a debate in the office for about two hours and all the Gen Zs couldn't even define it. And that's the beauty of the initiative, I think.

Speaker 2: 11:48

Yeah, and it's sort of the language they're using. And in the next example I've got a video in a minute you'll see him trying to be tying into the brand trend. So another brand that got it right is Curry's. So TikTok right. So I mean, yeah, you'll have seen us do stuff. We've done a whole webinar on TikTok. You can find that on demand on how to use TikTok as part of your strategy. But TikTok is an entertainment platform. First, it's not about you know, it's about entertaining people, and Curry's have used it to do that. So some examples of the things that Curry's have done on their TikTok, which is completely different to all their other social media, but you'll see what I mean. And this first video ties in with Brat. Just watch what he does.

Speaker 4: 12:32

Brat Summer at Curry's my guys. Our offers hit different AF. This microwave ate and left no crumbs. If you've got guap, a pizza oven is peak flex. These are giving me life no gas in. Go full brat summer and drag all your friends who only own fugly barbecue units it's serving Need a new phone, I'd bet, Say less. This one's bussing skibbity. Toilet riz and the WhatsApp access is sending me toilet riz and the WhatsApp access is sending me. Look at the way he hoovers. Very understated, very subtle, very mindful, very demure. This air fryer is the GOAT on point cash with that low key drip to have all your guests saying, yes, Slay Queen, he cooked. Our returns policy is on fleek Brev. Don't believe us, We've got the receipts. It's a brat slammer at Curry's my guys.

Speaker 2: 14:09

The new Ninja Double Stack XL out now available at Curry's. Two very different videos there, but both equally entertaining, and they're just having a laugh with products, which I think is great. Somebody else that got it right as well is Pure Sport. So Pure Sport did this campaign. See what you think.

Speaker 5: 14:27

We sent 500 boxes to influencers this Black Friday and they were all empty. Here's the story behind how we rethought Black Friday at Pure Sport. I was trying to game plan a Black Friday campaign, but one that aligned with our values, one that wasn't about quick fixes or pushing a message of excess being in the supplement space. The last thing that we wanna do at Pure Sport is encourage people to take stuff that they don't actually need. Having worked in the influencer industry, I've come to realize that it's often marked by excess Countless PR boxes over the top, gifting and brand sending wild, flashy boxes that often end up sitting unused. So I wanted to do something different this time.

Speaker 5: 15:04

We sent the box to 500 creators and athletes. They'd open it up to find it empty, or at least they thought it was. Inside the box was a letter explaining that the box isn't actually empty. It's full of opportunity to make a difference. We asked the creators to fill the box with items that they've never used, that they might have been gifted from other brands but actually not found a use for, Anything that could go the extra distance for someone else. And in parallel, we partnered with an incredible charity called Greenhouse Sports. We've used the power of sport to transform and develop and support young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in London, and alongside the help of the Pure Sport Run Club community. Everyone will be picking up a box and running them over to Greenhouse Sports, where the items we've collected will help Greenhouse continue on their mission, recognising that sport is more than sport we sent 500.

Speaker 2: 15:57

Great campaign. And then people just shared bravo, pure Sport for standing out and doing things differently. What I love about that is they've done something really great and tied all the rubbish that influencers get sent to deal with and giving it back, giving stuff that they're not finding useful to people that really, really need it. What a great campaign and minimal amount of investment required to send all their products out. So really really clever use of social media and making an actual difference using social, which is great. Right, this is right or wrong? So we've put this here right or wrong, because you could argue this one until the cows come home and if you've been on LinkedIn and you're in the marketing space or you listen to our podcast or whatever, you'll know that this has been debated a lot. So, um, jaguar, for those if you haven't seen the Jaguar thing, um, most people have, but if you can't um, jaguar made the choice to steer away from its traditional image. Um, with a totally new advertising campaign.

Speaker 2: 16:52

There was a 30-second clip released across multiple social media platforms, which quickly sparked an online backlash. So, basically, against the backdrop of a techno beat, the clip featured various models accompanied by phrases of copy nothing, delete the ordinary and live vivid. And basically then they showed the cars later which were completely different. So they're going ev in time they're completely ev. They're moving away from the old traditional jag, you know jeremy clarkson type jag, to an electric ev and they wanted to completely revolutionize the brand and move into a different space. Now the cars looked like and there was a giant pink one and it looked like something out of Thunderbirds. Do you remember Park? For those of you that are as old as me, you might remember Parker driving a giant pink car in Thunderbirds and it looked a bit like that. Now, for me, I think this is quite interesting because they're trying to find a new audience and I think that the cars that they actually produce this is more conceptual. I think it will be not as shocking.

Speaker 2: 17:55

So this was really shocking and it created people to say it got so much chatter online, which is the argument did they get it right or wrong? Because they alienated their current customer base. But with people like Elon Musk again on X saying do you actually sell cars on X Because there was no car in it in the first one? And then the New York Post described it as the latest example of idiotic and woke corporate virtue signaling. But is it that they're going to tone down the cars? The conceptual ones aren't going to be as shocking as what they did and actually they'll actually be quite acceptable. And so that will bring, it'll got everyone talking about it and move the brand into 2025, six, seven what do you think Will?

Speaker 1: 18:40

Yeah, interesting debate in the office about this one. I think they they arguably knew what they were doing in terms of upsetting the woke brigade and the right-leaning media. The global exposure they got is hard to argue with. Ultimately, jaguar is a declining car brand in the UK and globally it's got an aging demographic, the buyer. At some point they're going to have to build equity with Gen Alpha and Gen Z and arguably this has done it really well and if they're playing the long game, this has been really, really effective. So I quite enjoyed the outrage at this and I sort of think they knew what they were doing.

Speaker 2: 19:18

I also always think that that guy in the middle looks like Matt Lucas, but that's just me, okay, so wrong is Chick-fil-A. So a TikTok user and worker at the American fast food chain, chick-fil-a was getting lots of online traction, posting really positive reviews of menu items on her page, and she got over 50,000 followers from it sharing great content off the menu for the brand basically the online response driving many users to eat Chick-fil-A. She was reached out by the marketing team, who asked her to remove the videos as they broke a rule in the employee handbook. She wasn't allowed to be sharing stuff from behind the scenes, etc. Instead of partnering with a team member on a social campaign that could have increased brand awareness and earned them some good quality PR and bland chatter, chick-fil-a stuck rigidly to its policy, attempting to shut the worker and her videos down, which sounds really stupid in 2024, 2025. The restaurant's competitor, though, shake Shack, saw the missed opportunity and quickly got in touch with the TikToker, partnering with her on videos featuring Shake Shack's food, and her Shake Shack clips became a viral hit, sending thousands of followers through the doors of Shake Shack, and we're going to include a link afterwards. So that just shows you the changing of the guard in terms of the boardroom. So let's get into 2025 then what should we care about in 2025? Well, generative AI for content creation is still here. So generative AI.

Speaker 2: 20:48

I've got a big argument about this, like the amount of hype around AI, and my argument's this the generative stuff is intern level. It is not better than what a copywriter, a PR or yourselves can write. It's a good start for 10, but it's never better. I would never I tell any of my staff never post anything copied straight off the bat out of generative AI. But I'll just say some of the stats here. So 83% of marketers say that generative AI helps them significantly more create significantly more content. Considering recent research indicates that brands should be making up to 48. Brands should be making 48 to 72 posts per week across platforms.

Speaker 2: 21:41

Ai to use is essential for brands to keep up with the content demands. Audiences are increasingly favoring transparency, particularly around AI disclosure, which is what I just talked about a minute ago Disclosing when you use AI. My argument is the content is not as good as it can help, but it's not as good as what AI is great at is curating content. So if you've already written something asking it to improve. It can be much better. But when you use it for social media posts, let's deep dive into the digital landscape you know what I mean.

Speaker 2: 22:13

So what does this mean for you? Well, it's cost effective and dynamic for content creation I would say content curation as well. You can use it as a starter for ideas, but not necessarily to produce it, because it's in-term quality, but it's more accessible for smaller teams, so you could create more content on a much easier, smaller scale, with a much minimal cost. And it's the ability to produce huge amounts of content unique, tailored to your audience interests. And one of the great things about AI is you could. The best thing about it is you can ask it to act as the audience. And if you asked it to act as the audience and if you asked it to act as the audience, that can be really, really powerful, because then, if you make the content to that particular audience, that's when it starts to get a bit cleverer. But I try to un-ai it as much as possible. Right, I'll let will talk about what's happening give you some um breathing space, um yeah right, wow, 43 chats in the chat.

Speaker 1: 23:10

Yeah, thanks for the comments. Thanks for the comments. It's great to have, um, a little bit of lively debate. Is that, um? Is that working chris? Yeah, cool, so we'll. We'll have a pause in a minute and look at some of these questions. I've been answering quite a few of them. Um, there's. I was hoping for a bit more of a debate around the Jaguar ad actually, so we can certainly talk about that. Let's get started though.

Speaker 1: 23:32

So you know, chris talked about this really, and it's worth dwelling on for a moment. So, you know, 2024 was all about threads. It kind of absolutely climbed high in the app charts, but a lot of people kind of industry commentators and based on our own research as well are predicting threads is going to start plateauing in 2025. Now. That's driven by a number of factors, not least the fact that blue sky is on the rise and people are kind of, you know, heading away from twitter and x, and that's something we we were briefly discussing on the chat. Actually, you know, we're seeing that particularly in the higher and further education sectors and public sectors. So almost every academic we speak to is saying look, myself and all of my colleagues are abandoning Twitter and we're heading to blue sky. So, you know, blue sky is likely to smash the 200 million user mark in 2025. For comparison, I believe Twitter's about 600 million. So already Blue Sky, so early in its journey, is nearly a third of Twitter's entire user base. So watch this space.

Speaker 1: 24:36

When it comes to Blue Sky, and as Chris said, it feels like a much kind of purer platform where there's genuine connection and engagement. So what does it mean for you, um? We would always advocate, before you kind of you know, before you start abandoning platforms or you start going all in on new platforms, always do your kind of audience understanding, audience insight piece. And ultimately, we need to know what, what our audience are up to and where they're hanging out. You know, it may be that our audience are just not interested and not active on blue sky. If we're in certain sectors, ie education, it may be that our audience are in abundance on blue sky. So get your audience understanding um done and probably do that quarterly. You know you, you really need a close idea on where your audience are hanging out. Um, it's definitely worth exploring blue sky. I would say um, become familiar with the platform. Um, you know, secure your account, secure your hat. You know your user handle and and start to figure out whether, um, whether it's for you and certainly you know the media are heading that way um, education, public sector. So, yeah, watch this space. Um, youtube.

Speaker 1: 25:46

So youtube is not a new platform, you know, and it's it's kind of been rumbling away in the background at any one point. It's it's it's, you know, typically the second biggest search engine in the world, um, but really what we're going to see in 2025 is something of a renaissance, um, in youtube and there's going to be a few kind of developments and changes in the way that people use the platform and new features they're introducing. So, first of all, youtube is currently the most popular platform amongst Gen Z, so something like 83% of users are 15 to 25. So as a channel to reach Gen Z in a really meaningful way, you can't really beat it, to be quite honest. But looking ahead to 2025, then there's a few kind of developments that YouTube are introducing, largely around increasing the kind of community driven aspects of the tool. So YouTube Shorts so in the middle there you'll see YouTube Shorts that was introduced a few years ago as a means to kind of address what's happening on some of the social networks like TikTok. So shorts is already massive on YouTube. I think 50 billion daily views they get on YouTube shorts, which is absolutely mind-blowing. But this is going to grow and grow and grow.

Speaker 1: 26:59

In as far as how people use YouTube shorts and somewhat counterintuitively, they've actually increased the length of time a short can be. So it's now not so short, it's three minutes long and that's kind of in line with what TikTok are doing in terms of increasing their video length. So essentially they're leaning towards longer form content, even on, even on YouTube shorts. And this idea of longer form content longer than ever, form content on YouTube is continuing to grow. So 70% of YouTube users watch videos longer than 10 minutes. For example, and certainly that's our experience we have a podcast Embracing Marketing Mistakes. Each episode goes as a long form piece of content on YouTube and we could be looking at 60, 70 minutes long. But the retention rates we get through that is extraordinary and we're getting thousands and thousands of views for each of those videos and there's a real demand for that kind of really long form video content on YouTube. And then, equally, we're using shorts as well to kind of promote those sound bites and those kind of nuggets from that, and then, in turn, driving traffic back to the long form so think, really long form in terms of YouTube, and that's really where the eyeballs are going to be in 2025.

Speaker 1: 28:08

And then the second feature that's quite exciting is called hype. That's currently in beta testing, but essentially, hype is going to be a feature where viewers can hype a video, which is essentially like a like for a video, and this is particularly aimed at content creators. So what they want to do is start giving exposure to up and coming content creators and the more hypes those content creators. So what they want to do is start giving exposure to up and coming content creators, and the more hypes those content creators get, the more visibility they're going to get. So, again, this is YouTube trying to reclaim influencers and content creators on their platform.

Speaker 1: 28:39

I think we've sort of forgotten about YouTube as a way to engage with influencers. I think, typically, brands will look to TikTok, they'll look to Instagram if they want to do influencer engagement. Actually, youtube wants to take that back and hype will help them do that. So what does it mean for you on YouTube Absolutely, it's that channel to engage with the younger demographic. As we said, 15 to 25-year-olds are extremely active on this platform and they're not just visiting it for a few minutes a day, they're in it for the long haul, watching long videos. If we want to experiment with longer form content, absolutely we can do that, and also there's a shift towards less polished content as well. So if we're doing long form, we don't need an hour long, beautifully edited TVC. It can be something a bit more candid. That could be a customer event, it could be a podcast, as we're doing it. And also let's let's not forget youtube as a really effective platform for influencer relations. As I said, I think we tend to look at insta or snapchat or tiktok as as as the kind of de facto place to engage with influencers, but actually features like hype are going to really kind of boost the amount of influencers on YouTube.

Speaker 1: 29:52

B2b brands with personality. We've called this one on LinkedIn, and this is less of a technology-driven trend, more of a user-driven trend. So if you've ever been on any of these kind of trend events with Chris and I, you'll know that we love LinkedIn at Prohibition. It's a great platform. They're investing properly in it. It still feels like quite a pure platform in terms of content and engagement. I think in 2024, a lot happened on LinkedIn. They launched, for example, their own version of the For you page, which is all about kind of promoting its library of UGC content, and that was really really effective.

Speaker 1: 30:30

But really in 2025, what we are anticipating we see is a bit more of a laid back approach to content on LinkedIn, certainly from a brand perspective. So I think traditionally brands tended to be quite conservative, with a small C, and formal with their content, but we're going to see much more of a kind of a laid-back content, um, that kind of connects and drives engagement on this platform. So again, example, the type of content we find works best for us on linkedin is this kind of um, almost um. Well, you can see from this post you know chris struggles to grasp gen z hoodie trend, so almost kind of irreverent, slightly humorous content in a way that probably wasn't very palatable a few years ago.

Speaker 1: 31:13

And then, at the same time as that, we're going to see a real rise in individuals kind of becoming, you know, the cult of personality, if you like, individuals becoming kind of influencers and highly engaged with on LinkedIn, and this is what we would call the platform becoming parasocial. So parasocial meaning one-sided connections between users and people they feel they know. So essentially, this is about individual influencers becoming people we engage with and we follow on this platform. So breaking all of that down into what it means for you, I think leaning into this idea of kind of more personal, more irreverent narratives as a brand is the way to drive engagement on this platform, and we're going to see an awful lot of that on LinkedIn. Not to say we're dumbing the brands down, we're just being a little bit more relaxed with how we present ourselves to business audiences.

Speaker 1: 32:08

At the same time as this, the individual from a thought leadership perspective will become more important than ever. Actually, the smartest brands understand that and look at how their key people within an organization can become thought leaders and how they can also optimize their brand presence. And those two factors really need to work hand in hand. And really, linkedin, from our perspective, you know it still is that platform where you can get really good organic engagement, and I think certainly platforms owned by Meta, for example, have become quite cynical when it comes to engagement and you have to pay for it. Essentially, linkedin is still possible to get really good organic reach if your content is good enough micro virality. So, um, bigger is not always better and brands are starting to recognize that. So brands and certainly from our experience over the last 12 months and this is going to be, this is going to be with us for the long term and brands are now prioritizing much more targeted, focused content as opposed to chasing from, you know, mainstream engagement from everybody.

Speaker 1: 33:15

So this is about kind of creating more niche content that resonates with smaller, specific audiences rather than chasing this mainstream engagement. And there's a load of examples of brands doing this, including work we've done. The National Trust, for example, have spoken about in the last few months around how they use social media listening to kind of identify hyper-local areas of interest amongst their members based around National Trust sites, and then they create hyper-local content around that and they found, actually, that the engagement of that content is far higher than if they go out with general content. Equally, we work with Northumbria University. Now they've got a space research peak. They're one of the leading space academic authorities in the country and rather than kind of trying to get their space division research peak to appeal to everybody, they've really kind of doubled down on those niche space communities and essentially they've started curating their space-related content using a kind of a landing page, the SpaceNU hashtag, and they've also started kind of reaching out and engaging with some of those niche space communities and actually their engagement and impact of that content has gone through the roof after kind of doubling down on this much more niche focus. So I guess it's the same way you'd engage with nano-influencers over engaging with the Kardashians it's a much more relevant, engaged audience and the way brands are approaching content is very much in line with this. So yeah, essentially it's about forming real deep, authentic connections with your niche audiences. Not to say all of your content has to do this. There's still a role for that kind of macro content, but certainly in some of your specialist areas, whatever it may be, or your product sets, then there's the opportunity for this and social listening can help you do this actually, and we'd always advocate, you know, using social listening to kind of identify where there's existing communities, where there's a lot of chatter around some of these niche topics, and ultimately that will help you lead to supercharging your engagement, and who wouldn't want that?

Speaker 1: 35:27

One of my personal favorites is outbound engagement and I think we've been used to well to define what it is. First of all, outbound engagement is brands dropping in on other brands, influencers or indeed their customers on social media and posting proactive comments with the end goal of improving, growing their audience and improving their engagement. And I think we've become quite used to seeing this from fmcg brands, the supermarkets like um, aldi, m&s, little, etc. They're big on it, um, but it's going to broaden out to lots of other brands and I think other brands are starting to recognize. Actually, you know, we want to improve our engagement, we want to grow our communities, which is is harder than ever to do so. We need to be proactive in terms of how we engage with um, with with third parties. Now, hoot suites, research from this year suggests that 41 of organizations already test out proactive engagement as part of their strategy. That's, that's just going to grow and grow, and grow, and this is this is actually something we've been doing for a while.

Speaker 1: 36:31

We work with Sealy, which is a bed company in the UK and internationally, and we actually this was from a couple of years ago we actually have run a few campaigns, proactive engagement campaigns. It was called the Sleep Concierge and through our social listening, we realized that when people have had a terrible night's sleep typically well, not typically, but often they'll take to social media and complain about it. Ie, oh God, I'm so tired today I didn't sleep very well, whatever it might be, and people will really kind of vent on social media when they've had a terrible night's sleep. So in the UK we started tracking those conversations around where people had had a terrible night's sleep and then we reached out to them where appropriate we're not spamming them and we offered them um tailored advice based on our content library around how they can resolve their sleep problems. We directed them to the mattress selector, which is a really great tool on the sealy website which allows them to understand what sort of mattress is right for them. But we also gifted them, on a selective basis, a sleep wellness pack, so they got something free out of it as well, and it absolutely flew. You know, people were genuinely delighted in most cases unless they had a really terrible night's sleep that we were trying to offer them and ultimately we're offering them value and our engagement when we tried this over the course of several months absolutely flew. Gillette did a really cool campaign as well a while ago, called they launched a zero irritation razor blade and basically they reached out to people who were irritated on a Monday morning on social media and then gave them gifted them free razor blades, so similar kind of concept.

Speaker 1: 38:08

But yeah, this is an example of how outbound engagement in practice could work. So what does it mean for you? It's not about spamming people, but there is opportunities to be more proactive and reach a wider relevant audience and ultimately that comes down to seeking out those conversations and those communities where we can add some kind of value. I'm not suggesting you need to gift people something. It's not about selling to them. It's about opening up that kind of two-way communication.

Speaker 1: 38:35

This has got the potential to increase your engagement. It could be quite time intensive, but actually there can be commercial benefits from it as well and actually brands are using it for lead generation, for example, in terms of targeting people. In fact, chris and I um in another life used to work for a laser eye clinic and we used to directly engage and a laser eye surgery treatment what four to five grand, I think it was for two eyes. We used to proactively engage with people debating um laser eye surgery treatment on social media surprisingly, of which there's a lot of those conversations and we started converting about one customer a month at the revenue of about five grand. So there's lots of opportunities to directly sell as well.

Speaker 2: 39:19

More than that, I think. I think it was more than that. We got three or four in one month. It did quite well just by listening to chat, chatter.

Speaker 1: 39:25

And it's mainly fear, wasn it? People were expressing fear about the process and basically it's a reassurance message. It was connecting them with testimonials from customers, from doctors, et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah, adding value, not just selling the reddit revolution. Um, quick show of hands or comments who's on reddit as a brand? Is anyone on reddit? Um, I'd be really interested to know. Um, if you can shout in the chat and chris can yeah, I'll let you know who says it.

Speaker 1: 39:53

Yeah, yeah but it's big. So, um, I think there's a. There's a misconception about reddit that it's um, for it's irrelevant. It's us. It's not really UK focused. I did a bit of research on it, actually, because I wanted the latest numbers but something like 23 million people in the UK are active users. 1.2 billion monthly active users globally it's huge, it's absolutely huge, and it's got a really good UK base as well.

Speaker 1: 40:21

But what's most interesting about Reddit is that, when it comes to engagement, it beats Facebook, instagram and TikTok in terms of engaged users. So if people are on Reddit, they're likely to be super engaged, and it's actually one of the most visited websites in the world. You'll notice it always shows up in search, doesn't it? If you search anything, it always comes up as a Reddit thread. But really, from our perspective, it's a really untapped resource for marketers. There's something like 140,000 highly engaged communities, communities being kind of subject discussion areas, and there's subject discussions on every niche you can imagine. So example here we work with a company called Diverum, which is a global mobile kidney dialysis organization. They've got some very high tech kidney dialysis machines. There's a huge number of kidney dialysis forums and we've actually started serving ads. It's got a really good self-serve ad model Reddit it and we've actually started serving ads within these communities, offering value, offering tickets to events, offering further information about their products and services. And we also did this for a kind of an education research company again very niche higher education forums and the ads actually outperform every other channel from a CPA perspective. So they're cheaper and they get more clicks and they get better engagement when the click actually leads to the website as well. So it's a hugely untapped resource in terms of advertising and it's also a great resource in terms of kind of learning more about how people perceive your brands. But Reddit actually accounts for less than 1% of all social media ad spend.

Speaker 1: 42:09

So now is the time to be on reddit um advertising. I think you get some really good value on it before it becomes kind of saturated um. So, yeah, um, it's mostly generated by humans. The content it's a great source of content. Most social media listening tools scrape reddit as well. So it's um. You know, it kind of shows up in those um, in those social media word clouds and things, um. So use it for an insight tool, um and um. Use it to learn about how your product is used. Engage with those niche communities and you can actually engage on behalf of a brand, build equity in those communities and also consider it for ads. Great for driving traffic, relevant traffic and highly engaged traffic to your website.

Speaker 1: 42:47

Um, now the final trend and again I noticed in the chat actually um a few people kind of mentioning um. You know, when we talked about the curry's example, and then we somebody else said northumbria, was it northumbria zoo or something, and then the Royal Armouries in Leeds suddenly doing these like wild creative executions and this is definitely a trend and we call this creative disruption and essentially this is driven by the fact that there's falling engagement across the board when it comes to social media and the content landscape is massively oversaturated, you know, and that's in part driven by AI, the fact that there's never been more content, so for a brand, cutting through is really difficult, to be quite honest. So probably in the last 6 to 12 months and this is something we're going to see much more of we're seeing what we call creative disruption, which is basically brands shifting their focus from strict brand consistency to very imaginative, bold, challenger strategies, and this plays out in lots of different ways, but typically wild creative executions that make us laugh and get us sharing things. So Cards Against Humanity, that awful but brilliant card game that a lot of us have played. They did a really cool Black Friday stunt where they basically asked people to pay $5 and they gave nothing in return, which is classic for a classic kind of Cards Against Humanity stunt. It made the media everywhere. You know it made the media. It absolutely got covered worldwide and probably got them. I think it got them tens of thousands of dollars of donations as well from brand fans, which is which is a bit wild, um, but as a, as a kind of a traditional pr hook, that worked.

Speaker 1: 44:34

A personal favorite does anyone follow the rspb? I don't know if this would play with sound we don't actually need sound on this, um but if anyone follows the rspb on um, on tiktok, um, they're definitely worth a follow and and the last few months they've been embracing creative disruption, um, and they do a hilarious feature called bird of the week where they where they basically they get nominations for people's favorite birds and then do some crazy video about it. So the bird of the week last week was a duck, I think.

Speaker 2: 45:13

That's not a duck Will, just to be clear.

Speaker 1: 45:15

Sorry, it's a heron.

Speaker 2: 45:23

Why is there a dog in the middle?

Speaker 1: 45:28

you get. You get the idea they're absolutely brilliant on and you wouldn't think a charity. You know rsp, rspb long established, quite conservative charity. Actually, if you follow them on tiktok that you know they're absolutely engaging with Gen Z, which, ultimately, is the future of the charity. It's those 16, 17-year-olds that are going to have a few quid in a few years and want to be donating to a charity and they've realized that. So follow them. Brilliant example of creative disruption. So what does it mean for you? Again, this isn't about dumbing down your brand. It's just looking at how you can engage with some audiences on some channels and have a bit of fun, ultimately, and do something a little bit different or a little bit bolder. Tiktok is your obvious channel to do that and, you know, get it right and as the Royal Armouries did, as Curry's did, and, and you know, that's a really good way to drive brand recognition and loyalty, particularly amongst those younger age demographics. So whistle stop, tour of what we think is going to be big. As we said, we'll share the deck and there's going to be some bonus trends in there as well that we didn't have time to cover. But essentially, ai casts a long shadow on 2025, generative AI for content creation. One of the bonus trends is AI for strategy as well. Look at blue sky it's going to be big in 2025. Youtube renaissance, certainly from a long-form content perspective. Have some fun on LinkedIn. You don't need to have kind of rigid brand guidelines. Look niche as well as macro when it comes to engagement and social media content. Be proactive with your engagement, outbound engagement. Definitely consider Reddit from a paid perspective and let's be disruptive when it comes to creative. So lots to think about, lots of questions, some fantastic engagement.

Speaker 1: 47:27

We have got a product called the Social 360, which essentially is a strategy in a box, and it's a really good way to kind of review where you're at, what your competitors are doing, where your customers hang out, and basically build a strategy on the back of that which can incorporate many of these trends and many of these platforms. So we offer the 360+, which is a channel strategy and competitor audit. We then develop a year's strategy for you with some content ideation and then, if appropriate, we can deliver that. So we offer packages. It starts at around £5,500. A really good tool if you're thinking of refreshing your strategy. You might be overwhelmed. I hope not.

Speaker 1: 48:09

What we would say you need to do if you're interested in any of these trends revisit your social strategy. So, if you're the 55% of people that haven't done that for a year, now is the time to do that. Refresh your audience, personas, personas that will have changed. They will be on new platforms, there'll be a new emerging demographics and then ultimately, look at kind of match some of these trends against those, those insights you get from your audience. So, um, you know, test and learn. First of all, don't don't you don't need to throw the baby out with the bath water and go all in, drop every channel and just do blue sky, test and learn, try one or two things and then measure the effectiveness of it and then you can start to scale. So that's the approach we would say. You don't need to kind of do everything all at once. Look at what your audience are doing, get that customer understanding and then test and learn some new activities. So turn trends into action and supercharge your marketing performance.

Speaker 2: 49:04

As chris said, embracing trends is a way to drive competitive edge and to drive that kind of a supercharge your performance and if you need a hand with your social media audit, like will said where you want us to audit your stuff, just let us know. Happy to help because, yeah, yeah, I know how busy you all are. Um, so we'll let you crack on with your day and thanks for your time.

Speaker 1: 49:24

Thanks everyone.

Speaker 2: 49:25

Thank you.