We asked eleven experts at the beginning of this year to give their predictions on social media for 2025. They pointed to big shifts — world-building, private communities, AI in everything and everywhere, LinkedIn’s rise, and a creator economy moving toward more sustainable businesses.
It’s time to review your tapes now that we are at the end of the year.
Some predictions came true nearly perfectly. Some predictions came true faster or in a different way than anticipated. This gap between expectation and reality contains the most important lessons.
This article revisits seven of the themes we explored in our original article. We look at what happened and where there were misperceptions, as well as what brands and creators can do to plan for 2026.
⚡Review the 2025 Predictions at 7 Predictions for Social Media in 2025 from Creator Economy Experts
Prediction 1: LinkedIn as a creator & influencer hub
The verdict: Mostly accurate
In 2025, it was predicted that LinkedIn will evolve from a professional network to a platform for creators.
The shift in behavior was evident both on the platform and among creators.
LinkedIn made it simpler to consistently publish and added more analytics for creators. At the same, companies and brands began to feel more at ease collaborating with the creators of the platform. Employees also used LinkedIn in an intentional way to develop their own and the company’s brand.
Proof points
- LinkedIn now has a video format that is growing at a rapid rate. Both the number of uploads as well as viewers are up 36% in yearly terms.
- Creator–brand partnerships became more common across industries, with one agency reporting From August 2024 through April 2025, monthly campaign volumes and payments to creators increased by 3x. If you still need proof, in 2025 I was among the creators that benefited from an increased interest in branding partnerships.
- Employee-generated content gained momentum as a way to build trust and reach — something we’ve seen firsthand at Buffer as documented in How We’re Empowering the Entire Buffer Team to Become Creators.
- LinkedIn has become more flexible and creator-friendly as a result of the growing Gen Z audience.
The following is what this means to you:
LinkedIn has reached a new intersection. It now offers creators the opportunity to engage in a professional manner while maintaining their credibility. For creators building authority, relationships, or long-term opportunities, it’s no longer just a résumé platform — it’s a place to publish, experiment, and grow.
To plan ahead, there is a simple takeaway: If your work relies on trust and context then LinkedIn has a place in your strategic planning.
Prediction #2: the rise of small, private communities
Verdict: very accurate
In 2025, our predictions were that feeds would become smaller and more focused. Over time, this trend has become more and more obvious.
Audiences gravitated toward places that felt calmer, safer, and more conversational — and creators followed them. Although public platforms remain important, the deeper connections are increasingly happening elsewhere.
Proof points
- Instagram broadcast channels have continued to expand as a way for creatives to easily communicate with the most loyal followers.
- Substack Chat and Discord are gaining popularity, particularly for communities with niche interests and low-pressure engagement.
- Posts where the creators responded to comments on Instagram and LinkedIn saw 42%, 20% and 30% more engagement. respectively.
- Patreon crossed over 25 million paid memberships and passed the $10 billion lifetime creator payouts milestone — signalling growing creator demand for direct, private-community models.
- Privat or “spam” Pages gained popularity as the creators created quieter and more authentic spaces apart from their primary profiles.
The following is what this means to you:
Public feeds increasingly functioned as discovery layers — places to be found, sampled, and shared. The private community became the loyalty layer where relationships, trust and belonging are formed.
Creators should not abandon their public platforms. Pair them with spaces that you manage, and where you are able to set the tone for building connection.
Prediction: AI will become a key part of the content creation process (with some backlash).
Verdict: very accurate
At the start of 2025, the prediction wasn’t just that AI would become more common — it was that platforms would fully integrate it, and audiences would have mixed feelings about that shift.
This is largely what happened in the past year.
AI became a part of all social media platforms. It touched everything, from distribution to ideation. Artists and their audiences were cautious. Platforms and brands had to be more careful about the way AI was used in social feeds.
Proof points
- AI Assistants, creation tools, such as auto-captioning and image editing, search improvements, and content suggestions were introduced by major platforms. Some AI-only platforms, like OpenAI’s Sora or Meta’s Vibes, were also introduced.
- It wasn’t all smooth. New AI features in some cases triggered immediate pushback on feed quality and originality.
- Content that is more sensitively received by audiences has grown in popularity felt automated — especially in personal or expertise-driven niches.
- After the adoption of AI, brands became more conscious about their use. early signals Showed lower trust in creator content heavily AI-generated.
- After the adoption of AI-generated content by brands, there was a slowdown in their use. reports The prediction of a backlash against transparency and lowered trust is in line with this.
It matters:
AI didn’t replace creativity in 2025 — it replaced friction.
Creators who used AI as a support layer — to brainstorm, outline, edit, or repurpose — often gained speed without losing connection with their audience. The opposite can happen to those who lean too heavily on AI generated content.
AI is best used behind the scenes. But authenticity remains important to avoid “sloppifying” Your content
Takeaway: Planning ahead and the importance of it If you want to know more about this, please contact us. AI: How to Use It and More About What is the most visible way? Your work will reflect this. Over time, those who treated AI more as an assistant than a replacement gained more respect.
Prediction 4 – Short form video will continue to dominate
Verdict: Correct, nuanced
The growth in short-form video did not slow down by 2025. In 2025, it continued to grow across almost every major platform from TikTok to Instagram to LinkedIn to YouTube.
Its importance didn’t change, but its role did.
Short-form content has settled at the very top of the funnel, rather than replacing the other formats. This format was the most effective way to reach new customers, while long-form formats had more weight in terms of depth and retention.
Proof points
- Platforms continue to invest in short-form discoveries. LinkedIn has expanded the use of its dedicated video stream, which includes more face-tocamera videos and content repurposed from webinars, livestreams, podcasts.
- YouTube Shorts is still a great way to discover new creators, and repurpose content on other platforms.
- Instagram Reels has consistently outperformed static posts in terms of reach, both for entertainment and education.
- Visual storytelling styles evolved quickly — fast cuts, text-forward narratives, and tightly edited micro-stories became familiar patterns across TikTok and Reels.
The longer format formats remained popular. The long-form videos on YouTube continue to be the main source of trust and time spent watching TV. By 2025 they will surpass even the modern and traditional broadcasters.
It matters:
Short-form video remained the fastest path to discovery — particularly for new or growing creators — but it wasn’t the only format that mattered.
Those who combine short clips that reach a wide audience with longer formats have often seen better results. The short-form content drew people in, but the longer material gave them more reason to stick around.
The ecosystem will feel more complex and layered by 2025. The short-form format shaped the first impressions, momentum and nuance of content, while the longer formats boosted credibility and retained audience.
Balance is the key to planning for the future: Use short-forms to open doors, but do not expect them to perform all of the work when someone enters.
Prediction 5: Platforms evolve into end-to-end ecosystems
Verdict: Accurate, but uneven across platforms
At the start of 2025, the prediction was that platforms would try to keep creators inside their walls by offering more of the full workflow — creation, publishing, analytics, and audience management — in one place.
The shift has happened. It didn’t occur evenly.
Some platforms have made significant progress in becoming an all-in one ecosystem, while others concentrated on making narrower bets and moved slower on the creator-side tool.
Proof points
- Instagram and Facebook expanded native creation features, including multi-clip editing, AI-assisted captions, audio recommendations, and scheduling — reducing the need to bounce between editing apps.
- LinkedIn’s move away from posting platforms to something more like a publishing environment was supported by the introduction of deeper analytics as well as robust creator dashboards.
- Threads, Instagram and Facebook have become more connected, reinforcing Meta’s ecosystem-wide approach with cross-postings, shared recommendations and unified email inboxes.
- YouTube has continued to refine its shorts, community, live, long-form ecosystem. The hub remained as one of the most powerful single platforms, though updates were mostly incremental in 2025.
The prediction that fell short
Some platforms are not equally focused on end-to-end processes.
TikTok focused more on search and commerce than production features for creators. X concentrated more on monetization and less on creation tools. Many platforms still use external tools to edit, plan, or collaborate.
It matters:
This shift has subtly altered the way creators work What is the best way to learn about? Time is spent.
In 2025, more work happened inside platforms — editing, publishing, reviewing performance — instead of entirely across third-party tools. However, the experiences were not uniform. Others still acted as distribution platforms.
In 2026, the takeaway is to be flexible. Platform native tools simplify some parts of workflow but can limit control if they are too dependent on one ecosystem. In order to be resilient, the best setups were able to balance independence with convenience.
Prediction 6: Creator business models evolve beyond “solo”
Verdict: Partial Accuracy
At the start of 2025, many experts predicted that creators would move away from one-person operations and toward more traditional business structures — small teams, clearer roles, and diversified revenue streams.
The shift in the economy has happened, but mostly on the upper end.
Growth looked very different for many people.
Proof points
- As evidenced by The Publish Press’s constant flow of job opportunities, full-time creators who have large audiences began hiring in order to expand their offering.
- In particular, creator-led brand expansion has continued in education, finance and fashion.
- For mid-sized creatives, products like courses, templates and community sites remained reliable sources of income.
The prediction that diverged
It is a good idea to have a plan. “growth means building a team” didn’t scale across most creators.
Many creators chose to stay small. To increase their output, they used AI, batching and workflow repurposing. This group focused on efficiency instead of expansion.
A parallel trend also became visible. Founder-led content is a new way to create and distribute original content. the rise of storytellers.
By 2025, there will be more entrepreneurs and business teams who share their lessons learned, experimentation, and work behind the scenes. This has in some cases flipped predictions on their heads. In some cases, this meant that companies began to look more like the creators.
It matters:
The creator economy did mature in 2025 — but not in a single direction.
It didn’t always mean that you had to hire or increase your headcount. It was more often about creating systems that would support consistency and avoid burnout. Some people equated this with teams. Others saw it as better tools, more focused workflows and a tighter focus.
The key word to remember is “flexibility”. Growing sustainably is not a one-size fits all proposition. The creators who thrived were the ones who designed businesses that fit their capacity — not someone else’s playbook.
Prediction 7: World building becomes an essential creator strategy
Verdict: Very accurate — but in an unexpected way
In 2025, world-building You can also find out more about the following: become more central to how creators grew their audiences — just not in the way our predictions imagined.
Although they are definitely there, see Bilt’s popular series. roomiesroomiesroomies) Instead, creators began extending their worlds beyond the screen, building experiences that audiences could step into offline.
The shift in audience behavior reflected something else: they weren’t only looking for new content. It was about connection. They were looking for connection.
Here are some examples from this year.
- Netflix launched immersive in-person experience tied to its digital content. Netflix has launched an immersive experience. Stranger Things The following are some examples of how to get started: Squid Game MrBeast is a new experience. Beast LandYouTube IP can be turned into a real attraction.
- Online audiences have been transformed into tours, live events, and physical spaces by large creators. Colin and Samir expanded Spotify has partnered with The Publish Press to bring a New York physical space.
- The media and the creators collectives held summits, pop-ups, or meetups which brought together online communities in person. The All-In Podcast organized a large in-person event All-In Summit Dude Perfect, for example, has continued to transform digital fandom in live concerts.
Instead of expanding stories purely by content, the creators extended them through presence.
This is why it matters:
The focus on world building in 2025 in the United States was creating a strong sense of identity: something people could identify with, take part in, or return to.
The offline extensions strengthened trust and loyalty like algorithms cannot. A live event, meetup, or shared experience made the creator–audience relationship feel more durable than any single post.
This is what it means to creators
It doesn’t take a huge budget or a lot of spectacle to build a world. It can be as simple as hosting a workshop, running a small meetup, or creating spaces where people connect with each other — not just with you.
Creators that embraced this change weren’t trying to be innovative. The creators were addressing a human need: the desire to be a part of something bigger than a screen.
You can also read our conclusion.
What will be the biggest question in 2026? “What’s the next big platform shift?” It’s “How do creators stay adaptable when change is constant?”
A pattern is evident when you look back on these predictions. The growth in 2025 did not come by chasing after every feature and format. This growth came about by carefully choosing where and how to present yourself, as well as what type of content was worth creating.
They chose platforms that increased trust and not only reach. The creators paired visibility in public with intimacy. AI was used to remove friction and not replace the voice of their customers. Balanced short-term discoveries with longer-term depth. Instead of scaling up blindly, some focused on creating systems or communities to fit their capacities.
In other words the successful creators didn’t even try to create. “win” They were building relationships that could outlast the algorithm. It was a relationship that would last a lifetime.
The real lesson of 2025 is that tools and platforms will continue to evolve, while predictions will never be perfect. Clearness, consistency, care, and attention to your audience will always be advantages.
The goal of your planning doesn’t need to be achieving more. You can do what works, but with more intention, sustainability, and a better understanding of your purpose.
The mindset that you adopt will last much longer than any one trend.
