BNL’s 2025 Wrap-Up (And Predictions for 2026)
And just like that, we’ve blinked and found ourselves in a brand new year at BNL. With 2025 officially wrapped and 2026 already picking up speed, it feels like the perfect time to look back on what last year threw at us and make a few educated guesses about what the world of social media has in store next.
2025: A Social Media Retrospective
2025 was certainly a unique year to be online, whether you’re a full-time social media pro like us, an occasional expert, or just an avid user with a screen-time-related New Year’s resolution (no judgement). We saw plenty of changes to the landscape over the past few months, many of which connected to the predictions we made last year. To recap:
The Matter of AI
If 2024 was the year AI really broke into the mainstream, 2025 was the year we started to see its real potential. While the weirder aspects of this tech got a lot of attention (like AI influencers and malicious deepfakes), other, more mundane uses really stole the show. Whether it was Google’s AI overview completely changing the way the search engine is used or the hard launch of Meta’s AI-generated content tools, we saw this technology forced into more and more of the digital spaces we inhabit, and this trend is showing no signs of slowing.
Live Selling Reigned Supreme
As predicted in our 2024 Wrapped post, live selling on social media really came into its own this year. This was the fastest-growing form of e-commerce this year, thanks in large part to the way it blends shopping, entertainment, and social media. It’s a modern approach to sales for a modern age, and it’s only rising in popularity as social media increasingly becomes the epicentre for online business.
Micro-Influencers Earned Their Keep
Last year, we predicted that micro- and nano-influencers (creators with follower counts ranging from 1,000 to 50,000) would step into a new niche of online content creation. We saw this begin to pay off for these smaller creators this year, thanks in part to changes to social media algorithms to help show off more small accounts rather than only the top 1%. While the long-term sustainability of the micro-influencer remains to be seen, we’re still paying attention to these small but mighty creators in 2026.
What’s (Maybe) Coming in 2026
We like to think we know our stuff after all these years in the business, but of course, even a unicorn gets it wrong from time to time! For instance, last year, we had the question of TikTok’s future on our minds. At the time, there was serious doubt over whether the app would continue to be available in the US after its government ordered that it find American owners for the company.
While TikTok has recently signed a deal agreeing to spin off its US assets to a new group backed mostly by American businesses, it doesn’t seem like the app itself is going anywhere. And with all the other turbulence surrounding American policy, concern about TikTok’s shutdown in the US has mostly fallen by the wayside. Related to this, we also predicted a rise in alternative social media platforms, and while some have shown modest gains, the behemoths of TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook continue to rule virtually unopposed.
All of this is to say that we can’t guarantee that this year’s predictions will come true, but we got three out of five last year and that ain’t bad! So with that said, here are a few other predictions we’re putting out there for 2026:
Short Form’s the Norm
For a long time, we’ve sung the praises of short-form video as an invaluable way to add to an existing marketing approach. But as social media usage and engagement stats show year after year, short videos are no longer a useful part of the strategy—they are the strategy. In 2026, short-form video will be the standard form of marketing, with everything else acting as an exception to the rule.
Google Makes a Big Change
You’ve likely already been using Google’s AI overview (which sneakily took the place of the identical-looking featured snippet pane) for a few months. This can be a handy tool, letting you quickly scrape the first few results of your search to find a specific answer to your question. The accuracy of these results is still dubious at times, but the sheer convenience of this feature makes it hard to ignore, even if you’re not an avid fan of AI.
As Google continues to push its AI search engine mode and incorporates Gemini into Google Drive and Gmail, we think we’re about to see a major shift in the default format of Google. Rather than being the search engine we all know, expect for the AI mode to become the default, spelling a major change for the value of websites as click-through rates plummet to never-before-seen levels. Instead, we predict Google will become more and more of an LLM platform (much like ChatGPT), which provides the answers to your query directly rather than sending you to sites.
The Success of the Social Commerce Experiment
Live shopping and social media e-commerce have been viewed as high-potential experiments in the marketing game over these past few years (except for in China, where it’s been exploding in popularity). However, we think the experimentation phase is done, and we’re now about to see widespread, mass adoption of these strategies. Small businesses and household names alike will be making use of these tools, trying to capitalize on the inherent attention-grabbing abilities of social media to help drive sales.
AI Use Is Expected
We believe that social media marketers and agencies will soon be expected to use AI in some capacity for their work. That may be AI co-pilots to help manage daily tasks and workflows, image generation platforms for easy, inexpensive content creation, or LLMs for written work. Whether you like these tools or not, we’re expecting to see major shifts in the way the industry works with them in 2026.
Traditional Ads Get Ditched for UGC
Lastly, we believe we’ve just about seen the end of traditional, polished, high-budget ads on social media—even for major companies. While these conventional marketing strategies probably won’t ever be gone for good, the ease, low cost, and natural engagement potential of user-generated content (UGC) are simply too much to ignore for most businesses. This means fewer overt ads on your site, and more incognito advertising that poses as normal content—definitely a blessing and a curse for the average user.
Prancing and Dancing into the New Year!
If even a few of these predictions come to fruition, things are set to look pretty different in social media world by this time next year. While it’s impossible to say with certainty where the tides of tech, marketing, and commerce will take things, the most important thing for business owners is to stay tapped into the latest. And if that feels like a lot to juggle when you’re busy running your business, we get it!
That’s why we’re here to support you over this next year, come what may. Social media can be tough to keep up with, but the right team in your corner can make all the difference when it comes to staying on top of trends and changes to the industry. So if you’re ready to prance into 2026 with confidence alongside the unicorns at BNL, we’d love to connect. Drop us a line to learn how we can set you up for success in the New Year!