Social Media Trends

TikTok is literally telling us what to post For free. Not just what’s trending but what people actually want, how they search for it, and what content works. - What people are searching for - The exact words they use - What’s trending alongside it - What content already performs Take “best road running shoes” – 132K searches in the last 7 days. TikTok is basically handing brands a playbook: What products/brands to push (Hoka, future styles, men’s options) When demand spikes (seasonality, product drops) -> opportunity for reactive PR How to present it (feature highlights, user experience, personal reviews) This isn’t just social it’s real-time consumer behaviour. Soon this will be something you can analyse and understand at scale. TikTok isn’t replacing search, it’s expanding it. The way people search here is impacting how they search everywhere else. Are you using it as part of your content strategy? Follow 📲 Ray Saddiq for more social and search updates

POSTING ZERO: WHY THE INTERNET STOPPED SHARING AND WHAT COMES NEXT By Ritu David - Inspired by Ravin MIRCHANDANI The Silence You wake up, scroll through your feed, and notice something strange. No breakfast photos. No weekend updates. No "just thinking aloud" tweets. Just silence. This is Posting Zero. The quiet collapse of public sharing. In 2015, Instagram saw 1.5 billion photos uploaded daily. By 2023? Less than half. We didn't abandon the internet. We just stopped performing. What Happened? The Death of the Digital Town Square Social media was supposed to be a party. Now it feels like a job interview where the interviewer is an algorithm, and the salary is attention. Platforms optimized for advertisers over humans. Organic reach collapsed. AI sludge flooded feeds with brands, bots, and "engagement hacks" that drowned real voices. The risk/reward calculation broke. A casual post could go viral for the wrong reasons or vanish unseen. Result: Lurkers now outnumber posters 10:1 according to Pew Research. Where Did Everyone Go? We migrated to spaces where we could be human again. WhatsApp groups exploded to 2 billion users, growing 300% in emerging markets. Sixty per cent of Gen Z now shares through private stories instead of feeds. Discord communities, Substacks, niche forums became the new gathering spots. Anywhere without algorithmic judgment. Why Brands Should Panic (But Strategically) 1. The CAC Crisis Customer Acquisition Cost is soaring because organic reach is dead. Meta's brand post visibility sits under 5%. Influencers lost trust as 72% of Gen Z ignores sponsored posts according to Morning Consult. Ads shout into voids while target audiences hide in DMs. 2. The Posting Zero Consumer This new consumer ignores feeds but checks DMs. They trust micro-networks of friends and small creators over brands and influencers. They reward intimacy. Eighty percent of purchases now start in private chats according to HubSpot. How to Win 1. Build 'Permission to Whisper' Shift 30% of budget to dark social channels like WhatsApp, Telegram, and email. One DTC brand grew 200% by moving VIP customers to a WhatsApp community. 2. Create Moments Over Content Stop posting filler. Host IRL experiences or private audio chats. Glossier's Slack community drove 40% of referrals. 3. Measure Trust Over Vanity Metrics Track DM replies instead of likes. Calculate Trust-Adjusted CAC by measuring the cost to earn a one-on-one conversation. The Reset Posting Zero signals the market correcting for authenticity. The next era belongs to those who earn whispers instead of screams. Feeds are dead. Private sharing is the new frontier. Brands must pivot to dark social, micro-communities, and trust metrics. The winners will be those who listen more than they broadcast.

📲 𝗗𝗲𝗺𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗿 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗗𝗲𝗺𝘂𝗿𝗲, 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Only few days ago and after a BRAT summer, a new trend has emerged shaping the way brands communicate with their audiences: "Demure, Very Demure, Very Mindful" The "BRAT Summer" trend, fueled by Charli XCX’s album BRAT, has even seen a collaboration with Roblox's popular game 𝘿𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙄𝙢𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙨. This partnership introduces BRAT-themed clothing and accessories in the game, reflecting the rebellious and fun spirit that this trend represents. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗤𝘂𝗶𝗲𝘁 𝗣𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗗𝗲𝗺𝘂𝗿𝗲 "Demure, Very Demure" trend emphasises modesty, mindfulness, and intentional living. This trend has captured the attention of consumers who are looking for authenticity and subtlety in their fashion choices. Brands are responding by: 🧵 Introducing Modest Collections: Many fashion houses are launching lines that focus on modesty, featuring clean cuts, neutral tones, and sustainable materials.    🌿 Emphasizing Mindfulness: Marketing campaigns are increasingly focusing on ethical production practices, sustainability, and the importance of conscious consumption, aligning with the "very mindful" aspect of the trend. 🧘♀️ Encouraging Mindful Living: Brands are partnering with influencers who embody mindfulness and introspection, promoting a lifestyle that is as much about mental well-being as it is about fashion. The speed at which trends emerge and spread on TikTok is astonishing. This rapid virality reflects TikTok’s unique ability to amplify niche content to a global audience almost instantly. For brands, this presents both an opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity lies in the potential to engage with millions of users by tapping into these trends early, often leading to a significant boost in visibility and relevance. The challenge, however, is in the execution—brands must be agile enough to recognize these trends as they start to gain traction and be authentic in their approach to capitalize on them without seeming forced or opportunistic. TikTok has essentially democratized the process of trendsetting, allowing virtually anyone to start a movement that can influence consumer behavior on a massive scale. Brands that succeed are those that can quickly and authentically integrate these trends into their marketing strategies, ensuring they resonate with the target audience’s values and emotions. 📣 What do you think? 📣 How can brands best navigate the rapid rise of TikTok trends to stay relevant and authentic? #TikTokTrends #BrandStrategy #ViralMarketing #ConsumerEngagement #DemureOrNotDemure #BRATSummer #FashionStrategy

TikTok dropped its 2026 predictions. If you work in social or create content, here are 3 things worth paying attention to. Trend 1: Reali-Tea. Audiences want honest, unfiltered, behind-the-scenes content. Polished still works, but connection matters more than production value now. Brands sharing learning moments, experiments, and real stories. They're building actual trust. Trend 2: Curiosity Detours. Curiosity is the new currency. Platforms are rewarding content that helps people explore new interests and niche communities. Stop trying to appeal to everyone and speak directly to your specific audience using their language, their references, and their real problems. Trend 3: Emotional ROI is everything. People buy, follow, and engage based on meaning and belonging, not just price or features. The question is why does this matter to me? 2026 is all about how people want to feel. Connection is outperforming perfection. The brands that get it will grow the fastest. If you're planning your next content sprint, save this for later. 

Why The Iconic New Generation Is Choosing Silence Over Posting 🤔 - - - - The Rise of “Posting Zero.” Something strange is happening online 👇🏻 The Iconic New Generation — the most digital-first group in human history — is suddenly going quiet. They’re still scrolling. Still watching Reels. Still snapping on Snapchat. Still consuming EVERYTHING. But many have stopped posting. The loudest generation just chose silence. And here’s the part that should make marketers sit down: 📉 A Financial Times study surveying 250,000 users across 50 countries found social media usage has dropped by almost 10% worldwide. Yes… even the algorithms are crying in a corner right now. So what’s going on? Here’s the anatomy of “Posting Zero”👇 1. Consumption > Creation (by a LOT) The new generation is online but invisible — they watch, not publish. For marketers, the audience is there… just not signalling. It’s like yelling into a room full of people wearing noise-cancelling headphones. 2. Judgment Anxiety Has Exploded “Will this get likes?” “Will someone screen-record it?” “Will this ruin my vibe?” They want presence, not exposure. Privacy is the new flex. 3. Algorithm Fatigue Is Real Platforms used to feel social. Now they feel scripted. The Iconic New Generation feels controlled by the feed, not connected by it. They’re tired of performing — and honestly, same. 4. Micro-Communities Are Dominating Public posting is out. Small circles are in. DM groups. Close friends lists. Discord servers. Niche subcultures. The next wave of influence isn’t public. It’s private, intimate, and untraceable. 5. Authenticity Isn’t a Trend Perfect is out. Real is in. Unpolished content wins trust. They don’t want content — they want context. 6. Brands Must Rethink Their Entire Playbook The old advice: “Post more, post everywhere.” The new reality: “Post less, say more.” Because when the world’s most active generation stops posting AND global usage falls 10%… your calendar is not your strategy anymore — your relevance is. 💡What This Means for Marketers (Read Twice) Your audience is still online — just quieter. Engagement will shift from public likes → private shares. Creators with community influence will outperform creators with big follower counts. Silence isn’t disinterested — it’s strategy. Influence has moved into invisible rooms. This isn’t a content drop. It’s a behavior reset. Have you noticed this shift on Instagram, Reels, or Snapchat? Drop your thoughts — I’m studying “Posting Zero” closely. 😅 #marketing #management #humanresources #branding

“We might also be heading toward something like Posting Zero, a point at which normal people—the unprofessionalized, uncommodified, unrefined masses—stop sharing things on social media as they tire of the noise, the friction, and the exposure. Posting Zero would mean the end of social media as it was once conceptualized, as a real-time record of the world created by anyone who was experiencing anything at all. But the presence of normies was what made social media worth tuning into. In their wake, like detritus on a once busy beach, there will be only dry corporate marketing, A.I.-generated slop, and dreck from thirsty hustlers attempting to monetize a dwindling audience of voyeurs.” https://lnkd.in/eKsAP883

Everyone is talking about TikTok Shop becoming one of the world’s largest retailers by 2030. That projection is impressive. Yet the ranking is not the real story. The real story is structural, we are watching the convergence of media, marketplace, together with manufacturing into a single operating system. For the past 20 years, ecommerce has largely been intent driven. Consumers searched, platforms fulfilled. Amazon won because it captured demand. TikTok Shop is different. It manufactures demand at scale. This is the first major retail platform built on an algorithm that prioritizes attention velocity over keyword intent. Products do not win because someone searched for them. They win because the content triggers curiosity, social proof, together with impulse in seconds. That shift has serious implications. 1. Demand creation is becoming embedded in the transaction layer. Marketing is no longer upstream from commerce, it is commerce. The same piece of content can entertain, educate, convert, as well as retarget in one loop. 2. Brand equity is being rebuilt around creators, not storefronts. Traditional retail rewarded distribution power. Early ecommerce rewarded performance marketing sophistication. TikTok Shop rewards creative agility along with creator partnerships. Influencers are no longer just awareness channels, they are distributed sales forces with algorithmic amplification. 3. Speed is replacing scale as the competitive advantage. The brands winning on TikTok Shop are not always the biggest. They are the fastest at iterating creatives, adapting to trends, optimizing affiliates, in addition to managing inventory in real time. Supply chains are now reacting to viral moments. 4. Retail shelf space has become algorithmic. In physical retail, you fought for placement. On Amazon, you fought for search ranking. On TikTok Shop, you fight for attention density as well as watch time. That is a fundamentally different competitive battlefield. If ByteDance ultimately becomes a top global retailer, it will not just be because of transaction volume. It will be because it solved something bigger, how to compress entertainment, influence, community, together with checkout into one seamless behavior. We may look back at this moment the way we look at the early days of Amazon Prime, not just as growth, rather as a rewiring of consumer expectations. The question for brands is not Should we sell on TikTok Shop. It is, are we structured internally to operate in a content native commerce environment. Because this is not just another sales channel. It is a different retail architecture. Curious how operators are adapting, especially teams balancing brand building alongside performance inside the same feed. Huge shout out to Bryan Rangel from Cruva for provinding the graphic.

My son has seen every highlight dunk and dime that’s been thrown in high school, college and the NBA this year and has yet to sit and watch a full televised game. Marketers, pay attention. He lives on TikTok Instagram and YouTube following House of Highlighte, Overtime and dozens of creators. He's following the plays and moves first - players and teams are secondary. He knows what sneakers they're wearing and the fits they wear to the game and the trainers that helped them perfect their game. The National Basketball Association (NBA) gets it. While everyone else debates TV ratings, they've built an ecosystem where the surround of basketball is greater than the game itself. The data backs this up: EMARKETER projects digital live sports viewers will grow to 127 million by 2027 while traditional TV viewership drops to 75 million. My son isn't an outlier - he's the future. Meanwhile, NBA social content is exploding. The league's TikTok has 24 million followers, House of Highlights has 59 million across platforms, and individual player content drives billions of views. The creator economy around basketball - training videos, style content, highlight reels - has become the real gateway to fandom. Content creators like WearTesters and KixStats have built audiences around sneaker reviews and tracking what players wear. Brands like Overtime have built entire media companies around this insight, while challenger sneaker brands like Anta , SeriousPlayerOnly, and 361. are gaining ground by understanding basketball culture, not just viewership. This isn't just about basketball - it's representative of how fandom works now. The most engaged fans aren't sitting through three-hour broadcasts. They're discovering and engaging where cultural influence actually lives. So ask yourself: where is your audience actually spending their attention when it comes to their passions? #Marketing #SportsMarketing #DigitalMarketing #CreatorEconomy #NBA #ContentMarketing #SocialMedia #Fandom

what are the common creative themes between the top shared brand TikTok videos last month? memes. the "meme content" cluster averages 6.1K shares per video among the top 20% of brand content in April 2025, making it the most effective format well its actually more than just memes (detail in photos). i wanted to approach this from a data perspective beyond basic statistics so I built a content analysis algorithm that provided tags for each video (video summary, format, theme, tone, emotions, visual elements, actions, etc), which I then processed through hierarchical embedding. after filtering out boosted content with my detection algorithm, I ran clustering to find universal patterns across industries, excluding sports, gaming, and entertainment which identified 10 distinct content clusters. across the most successful TikTok brand content, 4 universal patterns emerged: gen Z cultural fluency - meme audios, comment‑reply cutaways, and self‑aware text overlays show brands speaking the platform's native dialect rather than repurposing legacy ad styles fast, snack‑sized storytelling - every cluster keeps clips under a minute (often under 20s), using rapid cuts, punch‑line captions, or time‑lapse motion to earn attention before the next swipe hyper‑vivid visuals - whether it's neon stage lights, macro lipstick swatches, or turquoise seas, color saturation and tight framing dominate, helping small screens feel cinematic humor & playfulness as a hook - even "serious" verticals (cruises, science demos) weave in jokes, surprise reveals, or exaggerated POVs the most successful brand TikTok content is entertainment and culture that happens to feature brands. Many are investing in high production quality assets that simultaneously keep that lofi authentic social persona & vibe: POV angles, first-person narration, on-screen captions, and meme slang that is native to TikTok on social brands are essentially becoming entertainment studios with products attached

🚫📱 “Posting Zero” — The Internet’s New Quiet Quit Turns out… the generation that lives on the internet is getting tired of it.🤷🏽♀️ People — especially younger users — are posting less, scrolling less, and generally saying: “No thanks, algorithm.” 🫷🫸 Why?🫣 Because feeds today feel like ads + AI sludge + random viral noise… and less like actual humans. So users are opting out — quietly.😓😓 🔍 What this means for us: 🤔 • Less noise = higher bar. If you do post, make it worth someone’s scroll. 🤓 • Authenticity wins. Polished, performative posts are out. Real > perfect.🤨 • Quality > quantity. The old “post daily” strategy? Meh.🫤 • Engagement > impressions. People want conversations, not broadcasts.🤝 🎯 The takeaway “Posting Zero” isn’t social media dying — it’s users demanding better. If you’re creating content in these new times, the new rule is simple: 👉 Don’t post more. Post meaningfully. 😎 ❓ Question for you: Have you personally started posting less — and why? #SocialMediaTrends #DigitalCulture #ContentStrategy #AuthenticityMatters #CreatorEconomy #PostingZero #FutureOfSocial #DigitalMinimalism #LinkedInCommunity #MarketingInsights