by Google
The new year is here, and with it come new trends for influencer marketing and brand strategies. While some established trends will continue in 2025, there will also be a number of changes that will define the way brands and influencers reach their audiences. From deep authenticity and long-term partnerships to technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and computer-generated influencers (CGI), these trends will create new opportunities for more effective and sustainable marketing and can take you to the next level. If you want to stay ahead of the curve and be ready for 2025, read on to find out which trends will play a major role.
Emphasis on authenticity
Authenticity has been important until now, but 2025 will bring an even stronger emphasis on authenticity to influencer marketing, which is a key factor for successful campaigns.
Followers will also find it easier to detect collaborations that are superficial and motivated purely by financial gain.
Therefore, if you are a creator, we recommend that you share real experiences, lifestyle and don't be afraid to share your problems. In addition, authenticity also means transparent product reviews. Your audience will appreciate it if you tell them how the product really works and point out any negative points, or at least tell them which group of people you recommend the product to. No product is perfect or universal.
Authentic content also leads to higher interaction rates and better engagement with your followers. The challenge for brands and influencers alike will be to find a balance between being natural and maintaining quality. Authenticity leads to good and long-term relationships between customers and brands, but also between influencers and brands.
Long-term relationships
Long-term partnerships between brands and influencers have proven to be an extremely effective way to build audience loyalty and deepen relationships with customers. This trend is a response to a change in audience behavior, which no longer trusts one-off collaborations. People find “quick ads” artificial or insincere.
With long-term collaborations, the audience sees that the influencer uses the products or services repeatedly, which creates trust and proves that the influencer stands behind what he or she is promoting and that the products are truly a part of his or her life. For the influencer’s audience, this can also feel like an evolving story of which they are a part.
Long-term collaborations should last for several months, even years. Long-term collaborations can also include joint events, exclusive collaborations, or even some collabs and limited edition products. Additionally, long-term campaigns provide more time to analyze and get to know your audience, allowing for better targeting and campaign customization.
Diversity and Equality
Diversity and equality will be even more prominent and part of influencer marketing in 2025. Such an inclusive approach can help brands reach a broad spectrum of customers from different communities. To achieve this, brands are seeking out and connecting with diverse influencers from different cultures, ages, ethnicities, etc.
People are much more likely to identify with content in which they see someone similar to themselves – whether based on age, race, physical characteristics, or lifestyle. An approach that includes multiple voices and perspectives also shows that the brand understands and supports the values of inclusion and equality.
Growth of video content
TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts and their several-second videos are becoming more and more popular, so this trend of short video content will continue to strengthen in 2025. Why are short videos dominating social networks?
People have shorter attention spans, so the length of content watched is constantly getting shorter. Short content is easy to consume, does not require long concentration and can be watched anytime, anywhere. Platform algorithms have also adapted to this trend and are therefore pushing shorter videos to the forefront.
If you are a creator, short video content allows you to easily show a product in practice - tutorials, reviews, unboxing. If you add short videos regularly, it is very likely that the platform will support you and push your content to the forefront. And don't be afraid to experiment!
Which formats will be top in 2025? Tutorials and “How - to” videos, because people go for practical content that will help them learn something or solve a problem. Short videos can also be created very authentically, in some unexpected current situation, they don't have to be perfectly set up, or they can be behind the scenes videos. The last format is live streams or interactive formats, which can
Boom AI and CGI in influencer marketing
In 2025, we expect artificial intelligence and computer-generated influencers to revolutionize influencer marketing. Artificial intelligence is a key tool that can speed up brands' analysis of influencers and help them choose the right one based on demographic data.
Whether you're a brand or an influencer, learning to effectively implement AI in your work can save you a lot of time. Use AI to analyze your audience or content and find out how you can better target, improve and move your creation forward. Automate simple tasks that would take a lot of time manually, but with AI you will get them done in no time. This includes, for example, creating captions, which you can create in a few seconds using the Captions application.
CGI, i.e. virtual characters, are gaining popularity, especially in the fashion, gaming, technology and marketing industries. CGI influencers have the advantage that they can be designed to match the target group of the brand. The use of CGI can attract a younger generation that is more open to technological innovations, while also giving brands the opportunity to implement more creative, futuristic or even surreal campaigns that are impossible for ordinary people and traditional influencers.
Nano and micro influencers
We expect that in 2025 brands will increasingly seek out nano and micro influencers and they will become an integral part of influencer marketing. These influencers with smaller numbers of followers - nano influencers under 10,000 and micro influencers under 100,000 - bring many advantages to brands.
Nano and micro influencers have more loyal and more active audiences because they can engage with them more and more personally. The audience may feel that they know the influencer better due to more frequent interactions, build a stronger relationship with them, trust them, and this increases the likelihood of purchasing the product they promote.
These influencers are more affordable for brands, which means that the brand can collaborate with multiple small influencers and get their product to different target groups. Because smaller influencers are under less pressure than large influencers, their reviews are more honest and brands can communicate their values and messages naturally. At the same time, these influencers can be a great way to test products thanks to their authenticity.
2025 will bring fundamental changes to influencer marketing and reinforce emerging trends. Emphasis on authenticity, long-term partnerships, diversity and equality, and the use of innovative technologies such as AI and CGI are just some of the key elements that will shape successful campaigns. If you want to be at the top, now is the time to start planning and adapting your strategy to this new direction.
