The Social Media Takeaway - Louise McDonnell

2025 Social Media Marketing Predictions from 6 Industry Experts

• Louise McDonnell • Season 1 • Episode 49

Share episode

In this week’s episode of The Social Media Takeaway, we dive into the must-know social media trends for 2025, featuring expert insights from leaders across LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, and beyond. Our panel of specialists, including Louise Brogan (LinkedIn Expert), Anita Wong (YouTube Strategist), Samantha Kelly (Twitter/X Specialist), Julie Burke (TikTok Expert), and Karen Sheehy (Social Media Manager), share actionable strategies for businesses looking to thrive in the evolving digital landscape.

From leveraging short-form video to understanding AI’s growing influence on content creation, this episode is packed with tips to help you stay ahead of the game. Whether you're aiming to boost engagement or enhance your brand's online presence, this episode will provide the knowledge you need to succeed in 2025.

Don’t miss out on transforming your social media strategy! Subscribe, like, and comment below with your predictions or questions!

Connect with our guests:

Louise Brogan (LinkedIn)
LinkedIn

Anita Wong (YouTube)
LinkedIn

Samantha Kelly (Twitter/X)
LinkedIn

Julie Burke (TikTok)
Linkedin

Karen Sheehy (SellOnSocial.Media)
LinkedIn

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to my podcast because more like this is on the way!

If you'd like to book a call to see how I can support you head over to my website here. www.sellonsocialmedia.academy/hello

My 2025 Social Media Content Planner & Guide is now available! Packed with 400 content prompts, expert tips, and $377 worth of free resources to help you save time and get results in 2025.

Grab your copy now on Amazon!
Amazon UK
...

Louise McDonell:

Welcome to the social media takeaway. This is the show for business owners that want to know how to use social media more effectively to drive sales and leads for their business. If you enjoy the show, please make sure you subscribe on whatever channel you'd like to check out your podcast. Whether that's a podcast channel itself or indeed YouTube, I would love to get you to subscribe. And if you enjoy the show, please make sure you give it a five star review. So I am delighted. This is the first time I have ever done a show live. Anyone tuning in live, you're very welcome. We are going out live at the moment on Facebook, on Instagram, on LinkedIn, on YouTube, on Twitter, pretty much everywhere. If you're tuning in, please make sure that you comment, let us know where you're tuning in from. If you have any questions, you're going to chat with any of the guests, please let me know and I will check on the comments throughout the show. Today we're going to be, talking about 2025 predictions. So I am delighted to be joined by my esteemed guest. So I have a really dynamic panel that are going to come on and join me live. I have Louise Brogan, who is a LinkedIn expert, Anita Wong, who's an expert in YouTube and a video. Samantha Kelly, who is an expert in Twitter. I'm still calling it Twitter X and LinkedIn and community building. Julie Burke. She is a TikTok expert and then Karen Sheehy is a Facebook and Instagram organic and paid ad expert. She also does a lot of work across LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest as well. It's beginning of the year. So what I really want to do is invite each one of the guests on and talk about trends that they have noticed taking place on social media. So the thing about social media is if you're active on social media all the time, sometimes. You notice things happen slowly. I want everybody to reflect on 2024. Let me know of what they changes that they noticed. And then based on that, what their, predictions are for 2025. So, my first question is, First guest I'm delighted to say to invite to the stage is Louise Brogan. Louise Brogan is a LinkedIn expert. She is an international speaker and podcaster who talks to audiences about building business online, marketing on LinkedIn and building a YouTube channel. You're very welcome, Louise.

Louise Brogan:

Thank you very much, Louise. This is lovely to be here.

Louise McDonell:

Thank you for being here. So tell me what did you notice across like I know LinkedIn It's really your channel that you're really that that you specialize in but you use YouTube as well to help drive leads for your LinkedIn business so across those two platforms and social media in general, tell me what you've noticed.

Louise Brogan:

So, it's really funny LinkedIn continues to grow and has been really since 2020, like the growth has been massive and more and more businesses and entrepreneurs are realizing they should be on LinkedIn. The number of people who say to me, Oh, I really need to be on LinkedIn. Yes, you do. It's always increasing, but what I've noticed is, I don't know if you remember, probably this time last year on your LinkedIn newsfeed, you would have seen a lot of selfie posts. Someone would write a post and their photograph would be a big selfie of their face. Those seem to have died down a little bit on LinkedIn. I do still put a photograph up with a post because I know it lands with the audience, but I'm definitely seeing a little less of those, as we came to the end of 2024. What I'm seeing a huge growth in. All through last year and into this year is the focus on video on LinkedIn, which is great because that's what we do with our clients. We help them create video content for LinkedIn, it's become such a growth area for LinkedIn that they have come out with, a new video tab.. There are recommendations now directly from LinkedIn about that video content. And that is to try and keep video content under two minutes long. Ideally doing your video in the portrait. Vertical style, and. Also, you write a post with it. You can upload video content to LinkedIn that is under 10 minutes long. They don't allow a video longer than 10 minutes. When you do a live stream they ask you to do it for longer than 10 minutes. LinkedIn platform is aimed at recruiters and hiring. It's a brilliant platform for small business owners to raise our visibility and to be seen as thought leaders in our space, they make their money off companies showing up to recruit and hire. That is the revenue model for LinkedIn. But what we've seen across all social media is the short form content. Captures the younger audience. People who are in that, post school, post college area of life where you're maybe changing your job every couple of years. That audience is attracted by short form engaging video content and LinkedIn has recognized that. And that's why it is encouraging. People like us to create that content

Louise McDonell:

So it doesn't surprise me at all. Like I know, they're all following , TikTok, which is funny because like even META is following TikTok and trying to copy TikTok . And if you look at, if you sit down and watch TV this evening, watch The commercial ads, any segment on the news or any current affair program, it is that fast moving, short form kind of segments that hold our attention and that's why they tend to work. So, I'm actually delighted that LinkedIn have introduced this new video tab because it makes it easier for agencies like you and me create a real style video and it will work equally across multiple platforms which is good if you're trying to create your social media efficiently, so I love that the selfie posts have died down. I still do them because they're easy to do and they still get a lot of attention. They work because it's a real face and if it's not perfect, so what the video tab videos under two minutes? Is that your projection going forward for 2025 anything else you wanted to do?

Louise Brogan:

What's interesting is the volume of ai content on linkedin and there's two sides to this because linkedin are owned by microsoft who are part owners of chat GPT, the open AI platform. So they are bringing in a lot of AI. If you have a LinkedIn premium account, you will see this everywhere. They're encouraging you to write your profile with AI, optimize your posts with AI. So they're embracing AI in that way. But. The negative of that is we are seeing so many companies and individuals who are using AI to generate comments on posts. And it just stands out like a sore thumb. This morning I did a post about, I met somebody yesterday for a mentoring session. Conversational comments underneath and then one by a company page that is so obviously written by AI. It's like, I'm not even going to respond to this comment cause it's just so generic and a waste of time. So there's a battle on, I think, probably across all social media for AI to be used as a tool. Cause it is really, really useful as a tool, but to not create your contents just with AI, you're not going to stand out anywhere and it actually makes you stand out in the wrong way. It makes you look like you are just too generic. So that is, it's a, it's going to be really interesting to see where AI goes this year on LinkedIn.

Louise McDonell:

I completely agree. So there are three brilliant suggestions. Keep a focus on video, keep it under two minutes or as short as you can and embrace AI as a tool. But, don't let it write your comments for you. Because it's really disingenuous. And puts people off. Louise, thank you so much for your predictions. I look forward to maybe checking in with you later on in the year to see if anything has changed. Thanks so much to Louise for kicking off the show. what I want to do now is give myself a plug for my 2025 social media planner and guide. If you haven't already picked one up for yourself, these are available on Amazon. You can get them in paperback format, in which case it'll also be accompanied by a diary. The Kindle format has all the advice at the front. And it also has the free resources. So there's 377 worth of free resources with the planner and the free, masterclass that comes with the planner is taking place next week. So if you buy the planner today, on Amazon, even if you buy the Kindle format, you're going to get immediate access to those resources and you can register for the masterclass. If you buy the paperback, you mightn't have it yet. Just email me proof of receipt, and I'll get you there. So I am going to just play a little video about the planner just in case you haven't heard about it so far. Save time and get better results with the 2025 social media content planner and guide. It's packed full of tips and advice on how to create better content, how to use chat GPT to save yourself time and get better results. There are over 400 prompts for special days to give you inspiration for every single day. And there's 377 worth of free resources, including an online masterclass in January, 2025. Just want to say thanks very much to the people tuning in live. We've got a nice audience tuning in live. Orla, you're here, delighted to be here. So delighted to have you here, Orla. If anybody else wants to comment, or even comment on some of the discussion that I've already had with Louise, please let me know. I will come back and check the comments a little bit later. I just want to invite my second guest into the show. I'm inviting Anita Wong. Anita Wong is a YouTube and video expert. She's a strategist and loves to help business owners step into YouTube and grow their leads and visibility through video. I know she's very strong on AI as well. You're very welcome to the show.

Anita Wong:

Thanks Louise. I'm really pleased to be here and great tips on LinkedIn from the other Louise just then, it's really interesting to see different aspects of how, the channels are working. Excited to be here.

Louise McDonell:

Brilliant, tell me, I know video is your area of expertise, but also you have a huge area of expertise on YouTube. you helped me greatly with my YouTube, strategy this year, so you absolutely know your stuff, Anita. Do you want to tell us any trends that you noticed across both platforms or in video in general, over the last year or so?

Anita Wong:

Yeah, definitely. I think, short form content is really starting to be key. With YouTube, the biggest change is the introduction of the longer YouTube short. Prior to that, there were 60 second YouTube shorts, and then you'd have your long form video. Now, YouTube have introduced a YouTube short, which can be up to three minutes long. That's a vertical video. Treated exactly the same as the original 60 Seconds short., it took a little time for them to roll it out properly. But now you can see these longer videos on YouTube it's just people, understanding how they can use those shorts to add to their visibility on YouTube.

Louise McDonell:

When it comes to YouTube shorts, for anyone, who's not familiar, they're the portrait style.. In your opinion, are you better to try and keep it under a minute or should you go for the longer short?

Anita Wong:

I think it depends on what you want to achieve from it. So what I usually say is that you use your YouTube shorts as that visibility tool to throw ideas out there to your current audience, but more so to a new audience. So that's where repurposing, your TikTok videos and Instagram reels are really good because you can use that content to put out onto YouTube and then use those for that purpose. But then on YouTube. Ensure that you actually do that longer form quality value piece, which is generally in the landscape.

Louise McDonell:

They bring your viewers to your longer form.

Anita Wong:

Use the shorts for visibility and then the longer form to give that value. The great thing about the shorts is that, and YouTube are trying to make it easy for you to do that by giving you an invisible connection between the short form video and the long form video. So you can do all of that in the studio, even upload and mix it up a little bit. Using AI to help you cut the long form value pieces up into shorts. So that you've got little tasters of that longer content that you can give to people, but also don't be afraid to actually do a purposeful short video where you pick up the camera and you just be yourself and talk to your audience as well. I think that's quite key. A bit like, that more natural, unpolished sort of version of yourself that we see on TikTok and Reels. YouTube wants to see that as well.

Louise McDonell:

So, that would have been like what has happened in 2024. And that is that your trace that is , your prediction, more shorts, more of this kind of real style, TikTok style video on YouTube itself.

Anita Wong:

And building community. I think YouTube is somewhere that is overlooked as a platform where you can build your community. YouTube have really created. a hub within the YouTube platform for you to actually build a community so you can do community posts within your YouTube channel. So although YouTube is video first, and I think that's always going to be the same way, They really are encouraging their users to build a community you can do that through the YouTube app by asking your community to get involved with what you're doing, offering memberships and lowering that tier to allow people to build a community on there. So predictions for 2025 would definitely be embrace video and don't be afraid to repurpose what you're doing on other short form platforms onto YouTube. And also just embrace that community feel on YouTube so that you can actually engage with your audience more.

Louise McDonell:

Fantastic. Any advice then, any predictions for video itself, apart from, YouTube, Anita?

Anita Wong:

Generally speaking, I think a lot of the things that stop people from stepping into YouTube is that worry that things have to be polished. But actually with the introduction of short film video just pick up the phone and start speaking to your community through video. That will help you step in and embrace video as a whole, and don't be afraid to use AI to help you do that.

Louise McDonell:

Thank you so much for those predictions. Really enjoyed that. and, we'll check in again later on in the year. Thanks very much to Anita. So any people are wondering what the message on below is, if you buy my social media planner and guide, Today, you can claim your free resources, and then you can join my free, chat GBT Powered Content Creation Masterclass, which is, which is on next Tuesday live. There'll also be a recording available to you that comes free with the planner. If you buy the Kindle version you get instant access. If you buy the paperback, just email Kim at sell on social. media. What's your proof of purchase? And we'll send you on the link to claim your free resources. I'm delighted now to invite Samantha Kelly, also known as the tweeting goddess to join me live on the show. So Samantha is, also known as the tweeting goddess, and has wonderful expertise on Twitter, but also has expertise on LinkedIn and specializes in building communities, which is a huge, area that she works in. She's an international speaker and small business champion. You're very welcome, Samantha.

Samantha Kelly:

Thank you. I'm delighted to be here. It was great listening to Louise and Anita as well. Yeah. Brilliant.

Louise McDonell:

Great. Yeah, I love hearing people's experiences because no more than yourself and myself and the two girls, we're all on social media. We are living and breathing it every single day. And I think, it's wonderful that people can tap into our, insights because, we will all have different insights and I can't wait to hear yours. So what trends did you notice emerging throughout 2024? Samantha, first of all, before we go on to your predictions.

Samantha Kelly:

Okay, well, obviously there were big changes around Twitter, or X, as it's called now. My Twitter handle is tweetinggoddess, but I didn't want to change it to xgoddess because I thought I might get the wrong audience, obviously there were a lot of people who have left the platform, however Twitter will always be the place that people will go to that might not necessarily engage, but they're lurking, they're watching because they want to see live news as it happens. For example, when the fires happened in LA, people were going to Twitter to find out information. You cannot beat that for real time information news as it happens. You will never be able to beat Twitter for that or X as it's called now. We saw that big change, a lot of negativity around it, but people seem to forget and Gary Vaynerchuk said this yesterday, online, social media is not negative. It's about how you use it. Who you're talking to, who you're following, who you're watching, the videos you're watching. Will affect your feed. It is worth learning how to use it correctly, especially if you're a business owner. another thing that I saw coming in was, as Louise mentioned, the vertical video feed in LinkedIn. They also stopped using LinkedIn audio. And I was a huge fan of LinkedIn audio. They didn't really promote it much anyway, but it was very good and very useful, for building new connections. On LinkedIn, it's all about people people talk about it as a, you know, a professional network, but it is still about people and humans behind the business. Don't forget there's a human behind that photograph on LinkedIn. so I'm all about people buy from people. And if you connect with people on LinkedIn, you're connecting with a human, so remember they got rid of LinkedIn audio. LinkedIn live is something I do a lot, which is what we're doing right now. We're live across different platforms and this is stream yard. There's other platforms as well that I use different one, but you know, It's really powerful. It gives us a piece of the pie. It gives the normal person or small business owner a chance to share their knowledge and be seen by a bigger audience. And I think that's really nice. And I love that also about X. Like there's a creator program there. for example, I'm on the creator program. So there are opportunities there to make money from being a creator, you know? These are all lovely things that I think people don't talk about much. Another thing that I noticed was, more influencers on LinkedIn, you can influence the influencer if you are giving value, sharing your knowledge helping others along the way and showing your thought leadership. So I've noticed a lot more business and bigger brands are using B2B. Influencers, people like myself, who have an audience of small business owners or have an audience of business owners. And they, there's a lot more talk about that. There wasn't before because people sometimes think of an influencer as, someone taking selfies in a beautiful, you know, curated, beautiful house, beautiful scenery and all of that, like on Instagram. But actually, it could be a micro influencer. It could be someone that is actually only got like 5, 000 connections, but if you have an engaged community and community is really important, people will want to get in front of that community.

Louise McDonell:

So I'm going to ask you a question now. So, recently we had Mark Zuckerberg, announcing that they were getting rid of the community moderators and were going to follow what X or Twitter are doing now where it's kind of more community moderation. Have you noticed what the moderation is like on Twitter? And how do you think that's going to work across the other meta platforms?

Samantha Kelly:

Oh, I don't know. I'm not a meta fan, so I can't really, comment on that. The best moderators are going to be people within the community, the people who create the communities. I don't see a big community on Twitter. They have communities. Community is all about engaging with your audience getting into private messages building relationships and then taking it offline to a zoom call or a cup of coffee. That's the way I build communities. It's about making your community feel special instead of. Seeing what's in it for me, how can you bring value to your community? I wouldn't be in a good situation to answer that because I don't spend much time on Facebook and Meta in general, Instagram.

Louise McDonell:

I was just kind of wondering, in terms of moderation, if there's any problem content, do they deal with it well on Twitter?

Samantha Kelly:

No, I don't think so. I don't feel like they do, but then I don't see a lot of the terrible content.

Louise McDonell:

I think it'll be an interesting space to watch. To be honest, I think they are really struggling. They are really watching what TikTok are doing so closely. and now, I wonder where it's all going with that announcement last week. Time will tell. I'm laughing here at the comments. Louise Brogan says the funniest brand collab she had was from Febreze. So, I'm sure you couldn't make that work, Louise, if you'd rise. so, thanks, thanks to Louise for that. Also hello to Evelyn. thanks for tuning in as well. We have a huge audience tuning in at the moment. Thank you so much, any final predictions for 2025?

Samantha Kelly:

My predictions, I mean, AI was mentioned a lot. If you want to stand out. Be real. It doesn't have to be perfect. Don't forget that video doesn't have to be perfect. It's nice if it's perfect, but people want what's in the content to give value and to be valuable. My best video that did really well was one where I'd been caught in the rain and my eyeliner was running down my face I'm like, why is that video the one that people like, but they liked the emotion. They liked what I was speaking about. Keep it real, less polished. Real time news, you won't be able to beat Twitter for that still. And then the vertical video feed, keep an eye out for that. Just keep adding value and sharing your knowledge. Engagement is something that we don't mention a lot. Engagement is probably the most important piece and that could change your social media this week. If you start engaging with people who've engaged with you.

Louise McDonell:

The algorithms, have all changed now and it's all based on content. It's all based on interest and on engagement. So, if I regularly engage with your content, and if you regularly engage with mine, then we're going to see each other's content in the news feed. That's absolutely wonderful. advice about engagement. And one thing that also really occurred to me, and I'm going to do something on this later on. I don't know if anyone noticed towards the end of 2024, people started sharing their LinkedIn in review. You could kind of click this link and then you got this card about, how many followers you had. What I noticed about the people that were the most successful on LinkedIn The amount of comments that they had generated, it's not posts, they comment, they take the time to comment thoughtfully on other people's posts. And I think that makes a huge difference. Louisa Brogan hit the nail on the head as well, comment authentically. So I think that's super important as well. They're fantastic predictions, Sam. Thank you.

Samantha Kelly:

I just want to say well done for doing this because this is going to help so many people and I don't know if I'm allowed to mention Social Media Fest. I mean, you're going to be speaking to that and Anita is and like Louise spoke at the last one so do check it out the 9th of April if you want to learn more cool things like this.

Louise McDonell:

Fantastic. Thanks. I'm looking forward to that, getting to Dublin for two nights and speaking networking and meeting people in real life, as well as online. Thank you so much. Next I'm inviting onto the stage. Julie Burke. you're very welcome to the stage, Julie. Julie is a comedian and she is a TikTok expert, she's over 50, 000 followers on social media, she's really a sensation taking social media by storm, she's going to come on and share with her, us, her prediction, what she, trends she noticed, in 2024 first of all, and then we'll take your predictions.

Julie Burke:

I think a lot of the trends that I saw particularly on TikTok was a lot of women of my age group jumping on and saying, Oh, I thought this was all for young people. Oh, it's actually for people my age too. And we can have fun. And the other thing I noticed is that people of our age are actually much funnier as well. So I think, the biggest trend that I've noticed is that, Every age category is hitting TikTok. It used to be the young person's app and now everybody is on TikTok, businesses included, and what it has done for small businesses has been transformational. To get somebody that has 2 million followers commenting on a product you're selling, all of a sudden this business has rocketed and sold out within days. So that's, that's the change that actually social media can have to a business. It's incredible.

Louise McDonell:

Yeah, I know. I totally agree with you. I've been saying that in our agency for the last few months now, TikTok has gone mainstream. It might not be your channel depending on who your target audience is. But, for many businesses, if you're active on Facebook and Instagram, and it's working for your business, chances are you need to be on TikTok. I'm talking about coaches, hotels, retail. Every age group is on, TikTok now. My husband and all his friends a demographic that you would not get on other platforms. They're all there. Every age profile is there. So any other trends that you noticed then in 2024, Julie on from, from a TikTok tock perspective.

Julie Burke:

Think what I noticed was, and unfortunately this is the case now with the new legislation coming in in the States, was a lot of people dropped the ball. They really poured their focus into TikTok and kind of forgot about their other platforms. So they stopped Putting as much effort into Instagram Facebook Twitter and places like that. They really just put all their eggs into one basket. and that was quite unfortunate for us, particularly a lot of the US creators. Now they're starting to face the facts that they may actually have over egged the yolk on TikTok. And they're really scrambling to try and move their followers from one platform to another, which is quite stressful.

Louise McDonell:

And a lot of social media experts would always be hopping on about this. Your social media exists to grow your email list full stop. This is an exact example of why you never want to depend on social media for this exact reason, what do you think is going to happen? TikTok tock in the States? What would you think? Any, any. Interesting.

Julie Burke:

I've been watching this and following it very closely. so what I think is going to happen is I don't think the ban is going to last. I predict that they are going to ban it for a while, but they're going to realize very quickly. So what's happening at the moment is, I don't know if you've heard of Red Note, but everybody's jumping on Red Note. And Red Note is China based. It's very similar to TikTok tock. We've had over half a million people sign up. and what people are doing is really what they're trying to say in the US. The users don't like being told where we can or cannot put our content. so red note again is they could have chosen lots of other apps. What they've done is they've opted for red notes. The legislation wasn't focused on red notes. It was focused primarily on TikTok tock because that was the major competition there. So I think what's going to happen is they're going to realize very quickly that This is like whack a mole when we take down TikTok tock and when we ban Red notes something else is going to pop up that we're going to have to contend with and really I think it's more around education and talking to people and saying, look, we would prefer we recommend we're going to educate you on why we don't think you should be using these particular apps or putting all your eggs in one basket. So my prediction really for 2025 is what I think we're going to see a lot of users in social media using all their platforms as much as possible. They're going to start using YouTube short reels, Instagram reels, Facebook reels. And putting their content out there across everything, to make sure that this never happens to them again. There's a few new ones that have popped up. I don't know if you've heard of Lemonade. That's another one that's popping up. You've got Snapchat Spotlight. And there's another one coming up, Triller. Now, the X. His name is Sean Kim. He's now the CEO of that, but he actually was in TikTok and he brought us for you page. So again, Triller is one that could end up becoming very, very popular, I think what people are going to do is they're going to download all the apps, put up all their content on everything and try to keep an even playing field.

Louise McDonell:

Yeah. And, and, you know, something, I think if you're going to go to the, if you're going to spend time, and I know Anita would be very strong on this. If you spent time creating a real, or for Instagram, why not put it on Tik Tok, why not put it on your YouTube shorts? It's going to land perfectly well everywhere. And also have that strategy for migrating them from whatever social media channel you're on to your email, because you own your email list. You do not own your social media following. And tell me, will Elon buy a Tik Tok, do you think?

Julie Burke:

Don't think any of us can predict what Elon would do. I think what's going to happen is there's going to be the standoff I think what's going to happen is that the states are going to realize that we can legislate. But at the end of the day, it's going to be more around education and talking to people about the dangers of it and the pros and cons of it. But at the end of the day, I think we just have to let people make their own decisions and their own choices. But where they want their content, there is a website as well called save my TikTok tocks dot com where creators can save all their content there and then they can use that to transfer it to other apps. So as these apps are constantly popping up, you can take that website and then put your content. a new app very, very quickly, which is really helpful.

Louise McDonell:

I'm really interested to watch this space. We have a new president coming in, next Monday, who's very much connected to Elon Musk. the TikTok getting banned. I'm just really interested to watch the space and to see what happens, but for you, for business owners. Yeah, protect yourself, create content, repurpose everywhere, save it yourself and grow your email list. Julie, fantastic predictions. I can't wait to see what happens in this space. So, next I want to invite to the stage, there she is. Karen works on my team. She is a senior, social media account manager on Sellum social media agency. and she would work with our clients. we work, I suppose I would've said maybe last year, predominantly Facebook and Instagram. I think LinkedIn has grown phenomenally for our clients over the last 12 to 24 months. TikTok as well, of course, and, and, and other, and other platforms like Pinterest. You very welcome, to the show. Karen, what trends did you notice, in last year that you think is gonna help impact on 2025?

Karen Sheehy:

Yeah I'm probably going to reiterate a lot of what Louise and Anita and Simon and Julie were saying there as well. But like you just said, Louise, most of our clients would mainly be on the Meta platforms, Facebook and Instagram. But we've noticed a massive growth on LinkedIn and TikTok. Every age category is on TikTok now. So I think if you're not on it, you're probably missing out. And there's also many different sides to TikTok. Like book talk food talk fitness talk and interiors talk. So there's a niche for almost Every industry on TikTok, one of our clients had a reel that, that reached over 40, 000 on TikTok and that exact same reel reached four and a half thousand on Instagram. There's a massive, reach potential on TikTok, especially for like that, that was, interior design particularly. But there's so many niche on niches on TikTok that people should be taken advantage of. And the same with LinkedIn. LinkedIn would be a big platform for majority of our clients, especially if you're a coach, a consultant, a facilitator, or entrepreneur. it's a no-brainer. You have to be on LinkedIn and be authentic on there as well. Like everyone was saying is really important.

Louise McDonell:

Yeah. So like, I know we were having a chat about this in the office yesterday, like the types of content that we, that we, that, that have stood at, that have really performed well organically. What were your insights there, Karen?

Karen Sheehy:

People focused content is essential. It's always the best performing post for us. If your feed is just full of sales content over and over again, Nobody's going to stop and look and content that features people always outperforms the other content pillar. So you kind of need to personify your business if you want people to connect with you. For example, recently we've been posting simple staff profiles for clients. One of the first ones we did for one of our clients reached over 150, 000 people. Just because they had a local, they had a local following, people recognized the worker, they share it on, people comment, tagging them in, and maybe previous employers are reaching out, connecting. So once you have people in your content, it really tends to perform well on all platforms. having a face to a business , is crucial and not just the owner's face, but the staff as well. Putting a connection there for people to reach out with, you know.

Louise McDonell:

Yeah, I know, that was a really good example. They had a following of only a few thousand. To reach nearly 150, 000 on the back of a few thousand, just goes to show the interest there was in the post. People might have said to me over the years, but what's that going to do for the business, the staff profile. That actually keeps you top of mind. People still know what you do. They can check out your profile, check out your other posts and that one staff profile can bring somebody to your account if they check out your other posts, then you know that they need what you're selling. you know, it's it all always always benefits so that people that people focused within your content. Anything else than you noticed as well? Karen.

Karen Sheehy:

We're following on from what a lot of the guys said keeping your videos short, videos are getting shorter and shorter. People's attention spans are getting less and less. Try and keep your videos to under two minutes, even under a minute, in the case of Instagram Reels. On TikTok, people will do a series of short videos. You might see a part one, part two, part three. That'll mainly because people have short attention spans but also to keep people engaged and coming back for the next video i've noticed shorter form videos tend to outperform videos that are over a minute especially on meta platforms.

Louise McDonell:

Within the agency as well is that if you're going to sell, you need a budget. So if you do want to have those posts, you're selling something. And just even to follow on just from what Julie was saying as well, that actually this huge value at the moment for TikTok ads, because, as an advertising platform, it's not as busy as Facebook and Instagram at the moment. So huge value. Anyhow, and pay dads if you do them correctly, but also hugely on TikTok. and then, yeah, we were also talking about benefits of planning. So you're, you're, I know you are the queen at this. So tell us.

Karen Sheehy:

Yeah, I think it's essential to plan your content ahead of time. I'm sure a lot of business owners can relate you go, Oh God, I haven't posted in a week. Throw something up and you're just scrambling for an idea and you post something without thinking strategically about it so yeah, it really helps to be strategic and also consistent that's where the planner can be really helpful. If you're really struggling for content ideas There's loads of national days, international days in there that often help us tie in nicely with something there's always something that you'll find that you can relate to your business. And when you download the planner you also get the excel format of the social media and content planner, which is really helpful. We use it for all our clients. So it just really helps you to be consistent because you need to be showing up. Every one of our clients say, Oh, I just don't have time. I just throw something off every couple of weeks. and that's where planning is essential to keep you consistent.

Louise McDonell:

Thank you so much. So thank you, Karen, for joining me and thank you to all my guests who joined me today. I think it's been a really interesting show. I think, the big themes, I suppose, AI, use it as a tool. Don't lose yourself to it. make sure that you get yourself and your employees. you know, out front and central, it doesn't have to be perfect use AI, to increase productivity and get more tasks done. Video is crucial. Short term video, whether on Instagram or YouTube, or of course it's, you know, it was born on the likes of Instagram, but short term real portrait style video is absolutely massive. and spend time planning, spend time. being strategic because if you want to spend the least amount of time getting the best possible results, that's what's going to do it for you. So for anyone who has bought my planner, please don't forget to claim your free resources. If you get the, you'll find this on Amazon. If you just search for social media content planner and guide or my name, you'll find it. You can buy instant access with the, with the Kindle format and you can claim your free resources. If you do happen to buy the, the, the paperback, it's beautiful. It's full color. It's a lovely tool to work in for yourself or your team. and if you have proof of purchase, you may not get it before my free masterclass next, next week. But if you email Kim at sell on social. With proof of purchase, we'll send you back the link and you can register for the free masterclass. The masterclass is taking place, on Wednesday the 22nd of January

at 11:

00 AM et if you're tuning into this podcast after don't worry because the the playback of that is going to be Available for you all year and that masterclass is going to help you how to use chat GBT to create your content for social media So it'll be a really really fun and interesting masterclass. Thank you to everyone who has tuned in And thank you to all my guests Julie, Louise, Anita, Samantha and Karen, for coming on and sharing your expertise. Thank you to everyone who has joined in live. I wish you all the best, success, health and happiness for 2025.