A guide to Social Media Marketing in 2025

It’s no secret that social media marketing has experienced major growth over the past couple of years. In fact, it is estimated that over 26 million people in South Africa alone are active across various social media platforms.  As a business in 2025, if you are not engaging with these millions of people in this online space then you are losing out on a goldmine. But fear not because we got you covered! In this blog, we will look into the world of social media marketing, examining its importance in 2025 and defining actionable steps to successfully implement it into your business. But first, let’s start with the basics. 

How to start social media marketing?  

Truth be told, you don’t need to have your brand on every social media platform to be successful at social media marketing. All you need to do is choose at least two platforms that suit your business and are most likely where your target audience is hanging out. Once you have that set up, the only thing that matters thereafter is consistently showing up on these platforms.  

And there you have it! You will have successfully stepped into the playing field of social media marketing. Let’s take it a step further and look into an example of social media marketing to get a better understanding of this term.  

In our example, we will use a startup fashion brand whose target audience is teens.  Since fashion is more of what meets the eye and is associated with visually appealing clothing, choosing a platform like Instagram and Tik Tok to capture the visual essence for these fashion pieces would be the best decision for this brand. And what’s more is that these two platforms are known to have this demographic of users.  

But hold up, it doesn’t just stop there. Social media marketing will only really come into play when you show up. What do I mean by this? You need to be there for your audience, you need to consistently be posting, engaging, communicating and listening to your audience.  

Let’s go back to our example, our fashion brand now has an Instagram page and a Tik Tok account set up. But now, this fashion brand must consistently post various types of content. For example, they could be showcasing new product launches or influencer collaborations, and the most important thing to note here is that they show up constantly with new content.

Secondly, they need to listen to and communicate with their audience. If for example, a customer is complaining about fabric quality, the fashion brand should respond quickly and address the situation. Not only does this build brand saliency but will also create a stronger customer-brand relationship.  

Driving website traffic 

A very important thing to remember is to use your social media platforms to guide customers to your website. Meaning whoever stumbles across your social platforms that is intrigued by your brand, will most likely head over to your website to find out more information. The best part with most social media platforms is that you can add your website link onto the platform. This cuts out the hassle for your audience to search for your website and instead streamlines the user journey.  

Provide information 

Treat your social media platforms as a source of information. While your website does the heavy lifting in terms of information, your social media platforms can be treated as mini versions of your website. Meaning, you can synthesise relevant information about your brand through your social content. For example, the about us section of your website, can be summarised into a small, catchy paragraph on your Instagram bio! 

Brand awareness 

By establishing and consistently showing up on your social media platforms, not only are you building an online presence for your brand, but you are giving it a visual presence, something that leads to brand recall and eventually conversions. A very common example of this is Coca Cola, if we were to take away its name and logo on one of its recent posts, you still would be able to tell from the black and red colours that this is a post from Coca Cola.  

Building community 

As previously mentioned, listening and communicating consistently with your audience is key to successful social media marketing. Why? Because by lending your audience a listening ear and frequently taking note of their sentiment, they will start to see you as a brand that truly cares about them. In doing so, they will acknowledge the time and effort you put into them, and this builds a sense of community, a community where trust, loyalty and authenticity lives.  

Final Thoughts 

So, by now, we know social media marketing is the way to go in 2025 and what we have learnt is that it is more than just posting content. Instead by choosing the right platforms, showing up consistently and truly listening to your audience, your brand can thrive in this digital space. 

If you’re ready to take your brand to the next level with social media marketing, head over to our website to learn more about us, our services and connect with our team of experts in social media.