Social in 2025: What’s Working on IG, TikTok, LinkedIn
If your social strategy still looks like 2023, you’re already behind. In 2025, short-form video remains the engagement engine, social search is real, and LinkedIn has quietly become a video-first B2B playground. Here’s a crisp, platform-by-platform playbook you can steal today—what to make, how to post, and which metrics to track.
Instagram Reels
Reels with a strong first 2–3 seconds and clear visual proof earn replays and completions. Pair them with save-worthy carousels—checklists, frameworks, before/after walk-throughs—to trigger the quiet ranking signals of saves and shares. Convert attention through Stories using polls and stickers to open DMs, where trials, samples, consults, and quotes often happen. Optimize discovery by saying the primary keyword on-screen and in VO, placing it high in the caption, and using a small set of highly relevant hashtags.
TikTok Videos
Keep them casual: quick cuts, clear on-screen labels, and captions. In the caption, start with the exact question your viewer would type (“How to choose a tankless water heater”), and say that phrase early in the audio, too. Create series instead of one-off posts—break a topic into 3–5 parts and use matching thumbnails so viewers keep watching. Ask for questions or pushback in the comments, then reply with new videos to build momentum and link your content together. When you run ads, boost your best-performing organic videos (“spark” them) and mix in creator-made clips to keep costs down and relevance up.
LinkedIn: Expert POVs
LinkedIn rewards useful, consistent, expert-led posts. Videos (30–120 seconds) work best when they lead with a point of view, teach one concrete lesson, cite a helpful datapoint, and end by inviting others to weigh in. Document carousels—templates, teardown decks, mini case studies—earn dwell time and repeat saves. Activate a small bench of internal SMEs to post weekly, cross-reference one another, and comment thoughtfully on industry news; people follow people, not faceless logos.
What to Stop Doing
Over-produced videos that feel like ads underperform against lo-fi native styles on TikTok and Instagram. Straight reposts without commentary lag on LinkedIn compared to original insights from real experts. And captions without keywords miss growing social-search demand—especially on TikTok.
Final Thoughts
Instagram favors Reels and carousels that earn saves, then converts through Stories and DMs. TikTok rewards search-optimized, series-based education and reply-videos that compound reach. LinkedIn surfaces videos and document carousels from practitioners who spark discussion.