Want to connect with Gen Z? TikTok.
Want to change up your social strategy? TikTok.
Want to connect with your audience on a whole new level? TikTok.
Whatever you use TikTok for, make sure these 5 2025 TikTok trends are on your radar for your marketing strategy this year.
Exploring what’s currently trending on social media is one of the best ways to refresh your marketing strategy to keep appealing and engaging your audience.
That’s why we’re always on the pulse of the next big trend, translating and adapting it for that big B2B impact. It’s about reshaping and interpreting trends through a promotional merchandise lens.
Are you ready to get trending? Get in touch with us today and we’ll help your brand reach new heights with mind-blowing brand activation.
1. Emphasis on User-Generated content (UGC)
We all do it. You’re on your favourite online retailer's online store and you want to make a purchase, but before you do, you check the reviews. You trust the reviews. You trust the comments from (hopefully) real-life people with real-life experience.
Trust. Real. Experiences.
That’s the crux of UGC, or User-Generated Content, and what’s going to be all over our TikTok feeds in 2025 from brands.
83% of consumers trust personal recommendations over traditional advertising.
By organically integrating consumers' needs, desires and opinions into your brand strategy, you immediately capture that authentic essence that comes from real, lived experiences.
It’s content that’ll resonate with your audience as it’s created by your audience.
Incredibly simple, right?
And brands are really embracing this:
UGC helps to grow an inclusive community with real-time engagement and connections. They aren’t a celebrity face to the brand. They aren’t the Founder or CEO. They aren’t unrealistic and unattainable, and that’s what makes them so powerful.
And one aspect of UGC that can’t be overlooked this year is connecting through comments. 68% of users have said that brands should interact more through comments on their social platforms to better understand their audience.
This connection isn’t only building your brand though, it’s also helping to bond your community with each other. It creates brand advocacy and trust, which in turn creates close-knit niche communities.
Read more: 5 Sustainability trends your business needs to adopt in 2025
2. Authentic storytelling
What’s your story?
People are bored of the corporate approach. Your clients, your readers, and your audience. Everyone would much rather get to know you, and the real story behind your brand.
And the best way to do this? Through authentic storytelling.
Authenticity online has so many benefits for your brand. From accelerating business growth, shaping ideas and connecting with your community. With 40% of TikTok users engaging more with a brand that shows a personality, authentic storytelling is set to be all over your social feeds this year.
It’s about meeting your community where they’re at. You don’t want to alienate potential customers or miss out on great opportunities because your ‘vibe’ just wasn’t ‘vibing’. 45% of social media users feel more understood by a more authentic brand.
Think about changing up your social strategy by flooding your feed with unfiltered content, street interviews, behind-the-scenes, hopping on hilarious trends that play to your brand’s strengths… the list goes on. Ultimately, you need to build that all-important trust in your community that only comes from being authentic.
If you’re struggling with ideas on how to incorporate authentic storytelling into your strategy, there are a few different techniques you can use. From episodic tales (a plot that’s spread across several clips) to the fairytale technique (once upon a time...), to even the classic monomyth. You can vary your content to make it as interesting as possible for your audience, and to capture their attention for longer.
Stories bring communities together; they always have and they always will.
Just how we’re sharing these stories is changing.
Make sure you share yours this year.
Read more: Finding the perfect dupe: Exploring the Gen Z dupe culture TikTok trend using promotional merchandise
3. Tackling audience fatigue
Your audience is tired. Especially if they’re Gen Z.
They’re tired of keeping up with trends, they’re tired of being bombarded online 24/7 by everyone. We hate to say it, but they’re probably tired of you, too.
When creating content in 2025, you’re going to have to take into account how fatigued your audience is. The goal of social media is ultimately to entertain, so this needs to always be at the forefront of your mind, especially with TikTok.
And this is done by simplifying your strategy. Short content that evokes an emotional response. Humourous trends that your audience can quickly hop between. A mixture of videos and images to keep your feed fresh.
All with positive entertainment in mind.
Plus, Gen Z is getting older now. This ‘Activist Generation’ has been vocal through social media in their teens and early twenties, and now, they’re done. They’re becoming a lot less political and idealistic. And perhaps sadly, they’re becoming more cynical, too. And they’re looking for content that doesn’t demand a lot from them.
With 63% of Gen Z feeling the pressure to change the world, they’re tired of carrying the weight of a generation’s social standards.
Social media is meant to be fun, right? Bring the fun back to their feeds with your brand.
Read more: 9 merchandise trend predictions for 2025
4. Collaborating with creators
Influencer marketing goes hand-in-hand with content creation, with an influencer now for every industry and audience. If you haven’t already, it might be worth reaching out to a few to see what you can create together.
This is because 2 out of 3 TikTok users like it when a brand partners with a variety of creators. It allows you to connect with different demographics within your audience, and may even introduce you to a previously untapped customer base.
This is especially true if you decide to collaborate with influencers outside of your niche, a trend that loads of brands are adopting this year, or even micro-influencers who have especially loyal followings with up to 60% higher engagement rates than larger influencers.
Micro-influencers usually have 2,000 and 100,000 followers, and are a great addition to your social strategy if you’re looking for a super-engaged following in a particular niche. They’re usually more budget-friendly to work with, too, and their conversion rate is 22.2x more than traditional celebrities.
Working with influencers outside of your niche may seem like a risk, as, most likely, not all of their followers are your targeted audience. However, if you keep the collaboration authentic, and work with an influencer who’s values still align with your brand, then it could be a great tactic for reaching a larger audience.
Read more: Rising social media platforms every marketer should know about
5. Escapism
If you can work this trend into your 2025 social strategy, you’ll be set for success.
We all scroll to escape sometimes. To travel, to explore, to experience an adventure in the palm of our hands. To escape through music, art and culture.
Winter is now dubbed ‘Escapism Season’, BookTok helps readers escape into more stories they could ever dream of, and the cottagecore trend allows escapism from hustle culture.
Nostalgia content is also a form of escapism, by escaping into the past. 15% of Gen Z would rather think about the past than the future, and over a third are nostalgic for the 90s, even though they weren’t born then. It creates an exclusive-feeling connection between you and your audience with, “I remember that, too” being uttered fondly between scrolling reels.
Incorporate escapism into your content by romanticising the everyday. From your office morning routine to that afternoon cup of coffee.
2025 is all about using your content to help your audience escape.
Read more: The most popular wellness & self-care trend predictions for 2025
How will you grow your following on TikTok in 2025?
A great way to get your brand out there on socials is with visually stunning merchandise.
From branded merchandise to unforgettable, brand-defining moments, isn’t it time to revolutionise your brand?
Get in touch with us today and we’ll help your brand reach new heights with mind-blowing brand activation.