Content Creation Trends

I've been reflecting on one major trend from last year that I feel will be hard to ignore in 2025: Gen Z’s relationship with brands and social media. This generation doesn’t just consume content, they drive it. And they do so with a level of authenticity and transparency that demands our attention. For Gen Z, brand loyalty isn’t built on flashy ads or influencer endorsements alone. It’s about values. It’s about knowing what the brand stands for and aligning with causes they care about: be it sustainability, inclusivity, or social justice. Here’s how I’ve been thinking about this shift as an entrepreneur: For Gen Z, being true to themselves is really important. They want brands that embrace uniqueness and support personal expression. To connect with them, we need to be authentic and offer products and messages that let them express who they really are. Social Media is the New Word of Mouth: If you’re not engaging in the conversations Gen Z is having on social media, you’re missing out. They trust their peers and online communities more than traditional advertising, and their feedback is immediate and powerful. Experience Over Projection: For this generation, it’s not just about seeing an ad but engaging with a brand in a meaningful way. Whether through personalized experiences, interactive campaigns, or exclusive content, creating a connection is more valuable than ever. Gen Z is not just shaping the future of business but is redefining what it means to build loyalty and trust. Is your brand ready for this shift?

In the inbound marketing era, content was queen. In the AI era of marketing, yes, content is still queen. Last week, I spoke to a CMO whose content marketing strategy revolves entirely around SEO. After years of solid growth, her company’s traffic is declining. It’s a familiar story in 2025. She asked: “Now that SEO is less effective, is content marketing less important?” I told her the opposite is true. Content is more important than ever but a few things are different. 1. Content needs to be specific. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), or how your brand shows up in AI-driven responses is becoming important. The difference between being cited or invisible often comes down to one thing: specific, high-quality content. Marketers leading in AEO are seeing 3–4x higher conversion rates, but only when their content goes deeper than surface-level keywords. Authority, clarity, and originality are the new ranking signals. 2. Content needs to be multi-modal and multi-channel. Buyers no longer follow a linear journey. They read, watch, listen, chat, and scroll, often in the same hour. AI makes it easier to meet them in those moments, but you still need powerful assets to show up well: Video and interactive demos for discovery, Long-form explainers for education, Bite-sized insights for social. The format changes, but the foundation doesn’t: clear, helpful, human content. 3. Content needs to be dynamic and personal. AI gives us the signal—who’s interested, what they need, when they’re ready. But only great content makes the connection. Dynamic, intent-based content can turn data into meaningful engagement. That’s how you create moments that feel personal instead of programmatic. The tools have changed. The algorithms have changed. The constant is content. It’s still queen – because it’s still how trust, engagement, and growth begin. Ps: Huge shoutout to our HubSpot partner Mole Street, who’s all-in on helping customers grow through great content. Whenever I speak with Brendan Walsh or Brian LaPann, “Content Hub” comes up within the first two minutes. Last week they released a fantastic whitepaper on it, link in the comments if you’d like to take a look.

After 9 hours of research, I discovered the major social media shifts in 2025. Social media is now a young adult, leaving the parents' home—traditional marketing—and carving its own identity—this theme is shared across all trends. 1. Social Media is breaking free from brand identity - Social teams are breaking free from the rigid “stay on brand” rule because it kills creativity. Look at AirAsia's on-trend content or myBurgerLab's quirky customer-centric posts. They don’t look corporate but stick in your audience’s mind. The truth? Social media’s job is to entertain and connect. If your content does that, you win—even if it feels off-brand. 2. Influencer Marketing moved beyond “Can we pay you to post?” Sure, influencer posts can generate awareness, but clicks and conversions? Not so much. Viewers have to jump through too many hoops to reach your product page. The solution? Turn influencer content into ads. Platforms like Shopee and Lazada already do this, letting influencers showcase products directly through shoppable ads. Another example? Brands like Muji Malaysia Sdn Bhd are doubling down on authentic, user-generated content for paid campaigns. The less polished the content, the better it performs—it feels real, unlike an ad. UGC-style content stops the scroll, and the results speak for themselves. 3. Video has been on every trend list for 20 years, right? But in 2025, it’s evolving again. You need a face that is raw and engaging; even LinkedIn is prioritizing the same. This is where Employee-Generated Content (EGC) comes in. Take Tokopedia's employee-led TikToks—simple, fun, and insanely shareable. However, not every brand has willing or camera-ready employees. Enter brand hosts—creators explicitly hired to represent your brand on video. Look at platforms like TikTok, Kumu, or Douyin, where brands do this at scale. 4. Social Shopping—Remember when high-end brands avoided e-commerce giants like Lazada & Amazon? Now, they’re embracing it because the revenue is undeniable. The same shift is happening with TikTok Shop and Shopee Live. Take Dyson, which showcased premium products during TikTok Live sessions for Singles’ Day sales and crushed it. Social shopping isn’t just for low-cost items anymore. It’s for anything—and it’s reaching massive audiences. 5. Live Content - Live isn’t new but more critical than ever heading into 2025. Why? Platforms like Shopee Live, Kumu , and Taobao Marketplace Live drive trends like live shopping and creator monetization. Live streams are proof of authenticity in a world dominated by AI-generated content. Even as AI-generated videos become indistinguishable from real ones, live content will stand out as raw, unfiltered, and honest at least for a while. Final Hot Take: In 2025, social media should be an independent team that doesn't have to be part of branding and marketing. #ravisbook  #socialmedia  #contenstratetgy #2025strategy

In case you missed it, everyone is building a personal brand now. What I'm seeing and why I think it's happening I scroll TikTok and Instagram and I go- wait, I know that person. And that person. They're all making videos now. And of course on LinkedIn. People from high school are posting career advice. College friends are doing day-in-the-life vlogs. Business school classmates are writing founder-led content. I started doing this a year ago, terrified of being judged. Now half my network is doing it too. Here's my take on what's happening: 1️⃣ The traditional career path is broken. Nobody wants to work for a giant company forever. The old climb-the-ladder, get-promoted, retire model feels outdated. People get laid off from "stable jobs" with no warning. They're seeing AI replace entire departments. The promise of job security is gone. 2️⃣ Content is the lowest-cost way to build something that's yours. You can open your phone and start with no inventory or upfront investment. No inventory, no major upfront investment. Compared to starting almost any other business, content creation has incredibly low barriers to entry. (which also makes it harder to have a moat, but that's a story for another time!) 3️⃣ Even our day jobs now require us to be content creators. CEOs are expected to post on LinkedIn. Engineers who share their work get recruited faster. The person who documents their process gets seen over the one who works in silence. Content isn't only a side hustle - it's also career leverage. 4️⃣ AI made the logistics much easier. Script writers, video editors, caption generators – the technical barriers that used to stop people are disappearing. You don't need to be a video pro anymore. You just need something to say. (on the flip side, this also makes it harder to stand out in a sea of AI slop) 5️⃣ The money moved from traditional media to creators. Brands are throwing real budgets at TikTokers and "LinkedInfluencers". When I tell my friends I make thousands from one sponsored video, suddenly everyone's interested. I thought I was late to the game when I started. Turns out I was still early!! Here’s how I built my personal brand to six figures while working 9-5:

I consult businesses for $3K/hour on how to double or triple their organic traffic. Here’s 5 of my best, non-obvious advice for 2025: 1. Start optimising for AI chatbot visibility Over 71.5% of consumers now use LLMs for search to complement Google. • Structure content clearly. Use bullet points, concise intros, and proper H2s so AI can summarize your info easily. • Publish original stats, examples, and expert perspectives. AI prioritizes unique, first-hand insights. • Add schema markup. Use FAQ, How-To, and Product schema to boost AI readability. • Build domain authority with consistent mentions and authoritative backlinks. Chatbots prioritize trustworthy sources. • Monitor citations. Use tools like AlsoAsked, Bing Chat, or Perplexity to see where your brand shows up, and reverse-engineer what works. 2. Create topical clusters Google’s moving from keyword-based indexing to topic-based indexing. That means: • Build pillar pages and surround them with 10–20+ related articles. (depending on topic size) • Cover every question and angle around your niche. (Use ChatGPT or Ahrefs to come up with content ideas) • Link internally in a way that mimics expert knowledge architecture. • Update older pages with new stats, examples, and links to new content to keep your topical coverage fresh. 3. Focus on user-centric SEO Google prioritizes user experience signals now more than ever. • “Last-click satisfaction” tells Google your site ended the search. If users pogo-stick back to the SERP, your rankings are toast. • Format pages to be scannable and easy to read. Use short paragraphs, strong subheadings, and clean layouts that guide the reader's attention. • Prioritize user intent, not just search terms. Understand what the searcher really wants and deliver it fast. 4. Double down on video and visual content 60% of users say they prefer video over text when learning something online. Google knows it. And they’re adjusting the SERPs. To stay competitive: • Embed short-form videos that summarize your content to boost dwell time and increase value for skimmers. • Use VideoObject schema to help search engines index and feature your videos properly. • Add custom visuals, charts, or infographics. They make your content more engaging, reduce bounce, and boost backlinks. • Repurpose blog topics into YouTube videos targeting the same keywords. This doubles your chances of appearing in both search and AI-generated results. 5. Focus on bottom-of-funnel keywords and CRO Informational queries now trigger AIOs 59% of the time. To stay profitable: • Focus on commercial intent keywords like "[product] vs [product]" and "best [product] for [specific need]" (these trigger AIOs only 3-5% of the time) • Maximise revenue from your traffic by testing different headlines, CTAs, and page layouts to improve conversion rates. • Install heat map tools (like Hotjar/Mouseflow) to get invaluable data on user behavior and fix potential friction points.

Every generation has its "dream jobs," and for Gen Alpha – children born after 2010 – these careers are digital-first. A recent survey revealed that 32% of Gen Alpha kids aspire to a career as a YouTuber, with TikTok creator and video game developer following close behind. While it’s easy to brush these dreams off as unrealistic, they may reveal a redefinition of success for a generation embracing creativity and self-expression. Even traditional careers (like doctor, which has stood the test of time at 20%) could offer those opportunities today – think a teacher with a YouTube channel or a nurse sharing their career journey as an Instagram influencer. For those looking to inspire this generation, there’s a key insight here. Gen Alpha has grown up in a world where online platforms shape almost everything, including career aspirations. To encourage them to explore broader paths, it may not be enough to talk about the work itself – you need to show how those careers align with the desire to create and share. By meeting young people where they are and recognizing the invaluable digital skills they bring, employers and educators can help Gen Alpha envision future careers that blend creativity and purpose.

Content marketing isn’t what it was five years ago. It’s not even what it was last year. Here’s where things are headed and what actually matters moving forward: 🔹 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞. 𝐏𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐝𝐨. The algorithm favors personal accounts, and so do humans. If your content plan doesn’t include internal influencers (your CEO, your subject-matter experts, your loudest marketers), you’re making it 10x harder to reach anyone. 🔹 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐒𝐄𝐎 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐰. If your traffic strategy is still clinging to “What is [insert industry term]?” posts, congrats - you’re feeding Google’s AI answers, not your audience. Time to shift focus to original insights, expert takes, and content that can’t be copy-pasted. 🔹 𝐆𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭. Nobody wants to fill out a form just to get a glorified sales pitch disguised as an e-book. Stop creating content traps and start creating content people actually want to consume. 🔹 𝐕𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐨 𝐢𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐨𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞. Whether it’s a full-on production or a low-effort, high-impact clip filmed on a phone, video-first brands will win in 2025. If your team isn’t making video, fix that. 🔹 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐨𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦. Stop looking for “influencers” when you could be turning your own employees into trusted voices. If your sales team, engineers, or leadership aren’t creating content, you’re leaving reach and credibility on the table. 🔹 𝐈𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝𝐧’𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐢𝐭, 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐭. Half of B2B content is just noise. It’s fluff, filler, or lifeless corporate drivel. If your content doesn’t make someone pause, think, or laugh, it’s not working. 2025 is going to be messy. AI will create more content than ever. Attention will be harder to earn. And the brands that win will be the ones making content that actually matters. Are you ready for it?

Most brands are obsessing over Instagram reels and stories to reach Gen Z. The budget, the creators, the campaigns, everything goes there. But Indian Gen Z is telling us something different. 79 percent use YouTube and Google daily. When forced to pick just one platform for an entire year, they choose YouTube over everything else. They're not just watching for entertainment. They're researching before buying anything. 👉 93 percent of Gen Z feel confident about purchases after watching YouTube content. They trust creators there more than influencers on other platforms. The shopping behavior has completely shifted: 83 percent have bought products directly through Instagram, and a significant portion of Gen Z discover products through YouTube content 71 percent prefer YouTube Shorts for product discovery over other short video platforms. Real examples show this working. ➜ Reliance Digital ran impactful YouTube campaigns during Durga Puja, resulting in increased brand engagement and visibility ➜ Hyundai Motor Company leveraged YouTube livestreams for their SUV launch, attracting millions of views and boosting showroom interest Indian Gen Z controls 860 billion dollars in household spending today. By 2035, that becomes 2 trillion dollars. Trust in celebrity endorsements among Gen Z has declined significantly too, with many preferring authentic peer reviews and relatable influencer content. Brands keep pouring money into flashy Instagram campaigns while Gen Z is on YouTube learning, researching, and making actual buying decisions. Where is your marketing budget actually going?

ESPN just hired a 14 million-follower creator as their newest talent. 🏈 Katie Feeney, the recent Penn State grad who made waves as the Washington Commanders' first-ever Social Media Correspondent and covering events such as the Super Bowl and Oscars, is joining ESPN as a Sports & Lifestyle Content Creator. She'll contribute to ESPN's social and digital efforts, including a refreshed SportsCenter on Snapchat show, create short-form content for an upgraded ESPN app, and appear across key shows like Sunday NFL Countdown and College GameDay. This is ESPN acknowledging what we've known for a while: Gen Z doesn't consume sports the way previous generations did. They're not sitting through three-hour broadcasts. They're watching highlights on TikTok, following creator commentary on Instagram, and getting their sports news from personalities they trust and not traditional anchors. ESPN's accelerating a playbook that's working. They hired Omar Raja, who created House of Highlights as a full-time digital commentator in 2020. They inked a deal with the Pat McAfee Show in 2023, and launched the ESPN Creator Network, now in its third iteration. And they're not alone in this shift. Look across the sports landscape. This year alone: 🏈 The National Football League (NFL) broadened its creative initiatives by granting creators and players turned podcasters access to its official archives and event field passes 🏀 The National Basketball Association (NBA) expanded its Creator Program re-upping its Creator Correspondent Program ⛳ The PGA TOUR established a Creator Council to have creators collaborate with its media, marketing, and communications teams ⚾ The Major League Baseball (MLB) invested in Jomboy Media to leverage its expertise and build activations across its key events 📺 FOX Sports announced a collaboration with Barstool Sports that brings its personalities to Fox's college and basketball broadcasts Traditional sports media companies and leagues are racing to stay relevant, and creators are their bridge to younger audiences. What also is fascinating is how this creates entirely new career paths, outside of having to climb the traditional journalism ladder to become a sports media personality. If you build an engaged following, demonstrate your unique voice, major networks, organizations and teams may come calling with partnerships opportunities, job offers or even investment dollars. Katie Feeney joining ESPN isn't just a hire. It's traditional media admitting that creators aren't just supplementary talent anymore: they're essential to survival. The smartest media companies aren't fighting this shift. They're embracing it and I love it. 📬 Want more analysis on how traditional media is adapting to the creator economy? Plus weekly platform updates and what they mean for your strategy? Subscribe to my newsletter: https://lnkd.in/eme5sJMq

Co-creation: If Disney can do it, you can too. On a recent earnings call, Bob Iger said Disney is in talks with AI companies about tools that let subscribers generate and share their own video content built from Disney-owned stories. That stopped me. Not because co-creation and remixes are anything new to me, but because if Disney, home to the most legendary and tightly protected IP on earth, is moving toward co-creation, then the ground has officially shifted. We already know Gen Z & Gen Alpha are wired for creative expression. They’ve grown up curating their personal brands from a young age, and they want to co-design the stories and experiences they care about. Not consume… contribute. In traditional research terms: The vast majority of Gen Z say social media content feels more relevant than TV and movies (Deloitte, 2025). From fan fiction to “forge mode” short stories, young people already operate inside a remix mindset. That genie left the bottle years ago. Disney now has the chance to blend Roblox-level creativity with Hollywood-level production, and fans are ready. This also fits their huge partnership with Epic Games, where you can feel the demand from users to bring their own ideas, aesthetics, and narrative twists to Marvel, Star Wars, and beyond. I think any brand that isn’t willing to play ball will go down in history like the brands who tried to sue and fine people for streaming music rather than buying their physical CDs. If The Walt Disney Company is opening the door to play, who exactly has an excuse not to anymore?