2025 is fast approaching. Every new year brings feelings of “I want to be better or do better than last year”. A business is no different, it asks “How do we move the needle further?”.
It’s easy to make a laundry list of items we’re going to do or change come January, but I find we are more successful in life and business when we focus on just one thing. This reminds me of a Steve Jobs quote “Do not try to do everything. Do one thing well.”
When trying to create a social media strategy for your brand in 2025, it can be hard to know which area to focus most of your efforts on. But when brands seem to do this and do it well, they see results.
This article aims to help inspire you to focus on doing one digital marketing strategy really well in 2025. Are we saying to focus all your efforts on Instagram ads and forget email marketing? No. What we’re saying is to choose something you are going to excel at. AKA Keep doing the email marketing but excel at Instagram ads.
To help inspire you we will explore four well-known brands who mastered a specific social media marketing strategy in 2024.
Let’s dive in.
We’re mentioning Spotify first because it’s almost time to receive your “Spotify Wrapped” (if you are a Spotify customer). At the end of every year, Spotify releases a campaign that interactively displays each Spotify user's listening data - specifically their most listened to music.
As a customer, you can view your top songs, artists, and genres. And just like everyone else, you likely post it on social media and share it with all your friends.
What’s amazing is people start talking about it even before the campaign is released, creating even more publicity for the brand.
It’s personalized marketing at its finest. Not only is it cool for you to see your listening data but it’s an amazing way to connect with friends and other Spotify users. People are excited to share their Spotify Wrapped every year.
When was the last time you shared a brand campaign on your social media? Besides Spotify Wrapped? I never do. That should tell you something.
It’s fun, it's a conversation starter, and it creates FOMO for all the non-Spotify users.
Spotify obviously runs other campaigns throughout the year, but Spotify Wrapped is one thing they do really really well.
So much so that their competitor Apple Music created “Replay”, a Spotify Wrapped dupe.
If this is a strategy you think you should focus on, but you don’t have access to user data like Spotify does, a platform like SOPRISM can surface data that helps you personalize your campaigns.
Below is a snapshot of the HBO Max audience and their interests — similar to Spotify’s Wrapped, it highlights what your audience loves most (for example, their favorite movie genres).
What you see in the SOPRISM dashboard here is all the interest data for HBO’s audience. In this section, you will find thousands of different interest categories to choose from. In this case, we filtered it down to this audience’s favorite movie genres.
If HBO didn’t have access to this data through their own streaming platform, they could use these SOPRISM insights to personalize their marketing campaigns based on their customers' top-liked shows, movies etc. just like Spotify has done with their customers' listening data.
Gucci was one of the first luxury brands to really use TikTok to market to their customers.
Their TikTok videos are creative, visually appealing, and they stand out for being authentic.
Gucci has adapted to TikTok’s style of posting and by doing so they have been able to connect with a younger generation.
They are extremely good at using their TikTok for storytelling. Some of their videos don’t even have speaking and they aren’t using the trendy TikTok music, but they take the viewer along for a visual journey where the viewer can imagine on their own what is taking place. It’s very artsy and feels like a very tasteful way to showcase their luxury products on the app.
They also excel at their use of Keywords - they analyze the top trends and keywords associated with those trends and always incorporate those keywords in the description of their videos, making them easy to find by their target audience.
Finally, they work with influencers who are currently trending within the TikTok app - so they’ll have someone like TikTok influencer Nara Smith who is known for her cooking videos, show up in a Gucci video attending a Gucci show or wearing the brand.
They have shown they play by the rules of the app but they also put their flair into their posts and that’s what has really resonated with their audience. TikTok is the one thing Gucci does really well.
If your brand doesn’t have a TikTok page yet, but 2025 is the year you’d like to focus on building one, Audiense can highlight the types of content and videos that will resonate with your audience as well as the top keywords and hashtags to use when promoting your videos.
Below is a report run on the audience of luxury brand parent company LVMH. Within the content tab, we’ve surfaced this audience’s top keywords, hashtags, and emojis - all of which can be used for SEO purposes when writing the description for a promotional TikTok (or any social media) post.
The Fenty Beauty brand has also mastered TikTok, specifically when it comes to user-generated content.
User-generated content means content created by influencers or just regular TikTok users that includes Fenty tutorials, reviews, and makeovers.
This strategy does two things: it creates a community and it organically promotes their products through relatable content.
With a variety of UGC circulating the TikTok app, it sends the message to viewers that Fenty Beauty products look good on every skin type and tone.
When you type in Fenty in the TikTok search bar you can see the types of views their UCG gets on the platform, regardless if the TikTok poster is verified or not.
If you want this strategy to be your focus in 2025, we encourage you to create an ambassador program that incentivizes UGC or work with a platform like Audiense to uncover the best influencers for your brand (big or small):
Above is a report we ran on Estée Lauder’s audience. When looking for an influencer that has both synergy with the brand and the brand’s audience, we can flip to the “influencers tab”. Here is where we will find macro influencers like Tati Westbrook who we know will resonate with the Estée Lauder audience. If we were looking for smaller “micro” influencers for UGC we could do that in this tab as well.
You can’t say “Tesla” without immediately thinking of Elon Musk.
Even before he bought Twitter (and changed the name to X), he was extremely vocal on the platform. It has been said that Elon bought X “because he gets Twitter”.
This is the one thing he put his focus on (in terms of a social media strategy) and it stuck - he now has 200 million followers.
His communication through the X platform has undoubtedly driven Tesla's success. His tweets shape Tesla’s brand image, they speak directly to the interests of his fanbase, and they even sometimes influence the stock market.
Tesla is now the 10th most valuable company, and this goes to show that having a direct line of communication between a CEO and their customers is a powerful selling tool.
I drive a Volkswagen and I couldn’t even tell you who the CEO of Volkswagen is. I’m sure you don’t know the CEO of the car brand you drive either.
Elon is direct, unfiltered (sometimes to a fault), but he gives Tesla a heartbeat and a personality. Customers love that he’s always authentically himself and that they can trust him to be transparent.
This strategy, to have your CEO become a thought leader and create a direct line of communication to your customers could be the one you choose to focus on. X is the best platform (for most industries) to test this out.
One hurdle when first getting this strategy off the ground is building up your CEO’s following. The best thing you can do is assess their current following with a platform like Audiense so you can go out and find more like them.
Below is a snapshot of the audience of Ford CEO Jim Farley; within his audience lives segments like Tech Investors and Sports Coaches, with this in mind Ford can help Jim connect with his audience on a deeper level on X, by speaking to their interests and passions, forming a strong community like Elon has.
Well, what’s the goal? Is it to humanize your brand like Tesla? Is it to connect with a younger audience like Gucci? Are you hoping to create organic publicity like Fenty? Or maybe you want to give your customers a more personalized marketing experience like Spotify to build community?
Whatever social media strategy you choose to focus on in 2025, we have you covered with the insights you need to be the best at it.
Listen to the wise words of Steve Jobs and stop trying to do everything - do one thing and do it really well.
Ready to master your 2025 social media strategy? Audiense provides the insights you need to elevate one focused approach that drives results. Sign up today!