We know that social media is moving quickly. And frankly, marketing specialists do not have time to consume the same sweetened, not so on the state of industry. This is why we are launching this new series, @Menexttime, where we will invite the Sprout team and some of our favorite social experts to share how they Really Feel the latest trends. Our first business order? Dig into the place where brands should appear these days.
Nothing is guaranteed– This is a lesson that we relearn every day in the social media industry.
Between prohibitions, boycotts and changes in algorithm, the social media landscape is fragmented even more in 2025. The race to gain the capital-march and relevance in new spaces is underway.
This makes specialists in social marketing (naturally) uncomfortable. Most say that their greatest fear is that their audience is moving to private, closed or niche platforms, according to 2025 Sprout Social Index ™.
The fears are justified – it is not only in our heads. Almost 40% of marketing specialists say that their audience is already starting to spend more time on emerging platforms such as sons, Bluesky, Lemon8 and Mastodon, according to the Sprout Pulse T1 2025 survey.
This seismic change has been a long time, with clear signals along the way. So why are so many brands taken from the heels? Social marketing specialists do not obtain the support they need to make large oscillations on new platforms.
Betting on emerging platforms
What works today will not be the ticket for relevance tomorrow. If a specialist in social marketing told you that the strategy of his brand had been built around Vine, you would probably assume that you were teleported to 2013 (#Doinforthevine).
In today’s social media landscape, you should keep a constant impetus on where your audience appears. Only invest in the inheritance or established platforms will make it difficult Cross new networks. Being an early adopter gives your brand an advantage over your competitors and your industry peers.
Don’t get me wrong: I am not plead for nixing all popular platforms. Your customers are impatient to interact with your brand in a variety of spaces.
But the same report revealed that when consumers were asked where they wanted the brands to stop, their response was somewhat surprising: nowhere. Each The network offers opportunities to find and develop your community, because social users use all platforms to meet different connection and consumption needs.
With a new platform that arrives on the stage apparently every week, it complicates things. It is unrealistic for social teams to strengthen a presence on each emerging network. Even folding one or two experimental platforms in your 2025 strategy would always be sufficient to diversify your investments and cover your bets. But your leaders will have to convince it worth it.
Present the experimentation of the platform to your managers
We recently asked brands to experiment on Bluesky how they plan to feed their content pipeline. Almost 60% say that their current strategy republishes the content of other platforms, according to the T1 2025 Sprut Pulse survey.
While reusing content can Help to fill the production shortcomings, each platform and algorithm are different and the performance vary considerably. In addition, many new networks require social teams to refine different skills and invest in net creation of new content. Even the reconditioning takes time – if you reuse a video in a long text publication or translating a static image into a filter.
Testing the waters on new platforms will probably require the cut elsewhere to accommodate your bandwidth. It’s good. You just have to be transparent on the time you will need to reallocate (for example, 20%) and the impact planned for your editing rate.
The best way to assert your case is to offer a controlled experience and defined with objectives that are extremely specific to the mind. For example, “over the next three months, we will use this new platform to develop our community by X%.” Keep in mind that metrics and public commitment and growth are the most likely to resonate with marketing leaders, according to the index.
If you respect the resistance, ask managers to consider possible growth for your brand on networks where you already have a bastion. The limit exists. This does not mean that the new platforms guarantee the expansion of the audience, but they offer potential. You can also suggest leaning generated by the user And influencer Contents on the established channels to anticipate the opposite winds of performance.
Remember that nothing stimulates leaders as knowing that they are overwhelmed by other brands. Present them in the sense of other companies that have already diversified their approach.
Brands stretching a new path on emerging networks
Over the past three years, Llbean Released “out of the grid” throughout the month of May in honor of awareness of mental health. The brand stops completely publishing on all traditional social channels – giving their team and subscribers a chance to go out. Their community commitment makes it increase During these months, thanks to their challenges focused on outdoor on applications like Strava and Naturedose. The brand has also reported an increase in annual shift impressions, a greater awareness of their mission and no negative impact on sales – insistent insistents that helped convince their leaders that their approach worked.
The success of LLBEAN is an example of a broader trend that we have observed: the accounts of the brands appear community -based networks (in particular retail brands). From Louis Vuitton’s discord server For the new substitution of Realreal, the brands create spaces for an authentic community and forge stronger parasocial relationships with their audience.
Faced with so much volatility of the network, double community management has a lot of sense. The platforms come and go, but a strong community can resist (and even prosper in) an era of diversification of networks.
If you are not sure of the alternative platforms in which you must invest, start where conversations on your brand are already occurring. For example, at Sprout, we have favored community engagement on Reddit. On the platform, users talk about their Martech batteries and offer non-filtered comments on our product. Not to introduce yourself was an opportunity cost that we could not afford.
Stand out in the social media landscape for the right reasons
We get it – the finish of the bandwidth to experiment on emerging platforms seems overwhelming, and the divestment of basic networks is a risk. But the maintenance of the status quo is more important.
Social teams already have community management and public commitment skills to succeed in these other spaces. They just need membership to get there.
Although no one can predict which platforms will resist the test of time, one thing is certain: solid and committed communities will always be an interesting investment. By experimenting with emerging networks and meeting audiences where they already find themselves, brands can exercise their social strategies against the volatility of platforms. The key is to remain adaptable, listen to your community and adopt change as an opportunity rather than a threat.
Are you looking for more on which social teams should prioritize in 2025? Read the latest edition of The Sprut Social Index ™.
(Tagstotranslate) Awareness step
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