How do users behave on social platforms in 2025?

We could start this story with a philosophical question.

Are social platforms social? Or should we rename them to something else. Content platforms? Hubs? 

Don’t worry. We won’t go there today.

Today, we’ll talk about social platforms—and how brands can position themselves here to stay top of mind, and sell more stuff. By looking at data, as always.

Why do online users keep researching a brand? 

Social platforms now resemble virtual, moving shopping windows. 

The choice abundance, despite sophisticated recommendation tools, means that users will often require two, three, or even more touch points before they decide to buy.

That’s why you’d want to answer this—What makes the first encounter likely to lead to a second one? Here’s what the data says:

Before we move to each response, it’s interesting to see that influencer followers are generally more likely to further research products compared to general users.

But in which cases? Most will go down the rabbit hole if a brand matches their needs, followed by matching their style or aesthetics. 

Seeing a brand in an ad comes third, which might indicate that a good ad can spark a lot of curiosity. 

The Crew Opinion: The fundamentals of advertising remain. Aligning your product with key customers’ needs and pain points will hook your shoppers and warm them up for further research.

What else can you do: Once you nail the messaging for the initial touch point, make sure your entire brand aesthetic is something that will resonate with who you want to sell to.

Organic or paid, this could seal the deal and keep your brand top of mind.

Users log in because they want to look for products

First, social media turned from a place we go to socialize, to the place we go to consume content.

Now, it appears that there’s a new purpose for the Snapchats, Instagrams, and TikToks of the world:

TikTok is quickly establishing itself as the go-to platform to find information about brands. This report says that this tendency rose by 71% since 2021.

More than double compared to Snapchat, for example.

Which means that going strong on your brand account on TikTok is never a bad idea. 

Most users will use the platform, either to discover your brand as a first encounter, or to find out more about it after they’ve learned about you somewhere else.

Another note: With Snapchat’s example, you can also see that quite possibly each platform is turning into a branding platform. Of course, not at the same rate as TikTok…

But is this social-as-search trend growing, or stalling?

Here’s a little insight:

It’s obvious.

Ever since COVID-19 when e-commerce peaked, user behavior has started shifting towards online shopping. This wave caught social media as well.

Already in Q4 2022, 47.7% of shoppers visited social media to learn about a brand. Late last year—and even when adding the oldest demographic—this number rose to 50%.

What does it mean: Your social media page is where users will go to educate themselves on many things, such as:

• Are you active on social media? 
• What kind of content are you selling?
• Do you regularly post about promotions or discounts?
• Do you have an engaged audience? Are you interacting with it?

And many, many more. 

What can you do: Don’t neglect organic social media. It’s your storefront, your FAQ, and most importantly, your trust signal. 

So treat it as such. A place where research happens, and not just a place where you dump content. 

Here’s another interesting chart:

This tells us that users will follow a social media brand account to look for news. 

Most (64%) will look for news about sales and promotions, while a bit less (57%) will want to learn about new products or product updates.

A huge chunk (58%) will follow brands for entertainment as well, indicating that you’ll also have to keep your audience engaged even when news is scarce. 

What should you do: Share news on social media. Everything that’s happening with your brand should be on there.

A special holiday discount? Create a Reel, or even better—an influencer promotion. 

A new product feature comes up? Instantly post it on Instagram. Launching a new line? Flood TikTok with it. If you combine it with entertainment, even better.

But the key idea is to let social media tell your story always and in real time. If you’re not on it where they can find you… do you even exist?

Which platforms are the most brand-centric?

Okay, we concluded that branding on social media might move the needle. 

But it’s also fair to say that maintaining your presence on every single social media platform might not be possible. Especially if you’re a smaller brand.

So let’s see which social platform might yield the best results:

Overall, 83.4% of active users say they follow brands on social media. Quite telling.

But if you can choose one channel for consistent branding, it’s best to choose Instagram, according to data. 62.3% of users will follow brands here.

Facebook (52.5%) and TikTok (51.1%) are a bit further below, on the second and third spot, while all the other platforms are below 50%. 

But as we learned a bit before, TikTok’s brand discovery purpose is growing rapidly, which you should also consider when looking at this chart.

Additional tip: LinkedIn might be underrated for branding. Despite its lower score, the users who are active on LinkedIn usually have professional intent and higher purchasing power. 

A brand that tailors its messaging to this mindset—productivity tools or career development products, for example—can stand out with less competition and more authority. 

Which generations have strong ties to social media?

The younger users are, the more they’ll shift their focus to social media.

But let’s see how it looks charted out:

So if you see, the eldest don’t feel any connection to content creators or spend that much time on social media. 

The younger users are, the more they rely on social media compared to traditional.

The interesting part: More than 40% of Gen Z still feels connected to TV personalities and feels traditional content is relevant. Which is surprising.

That said, them and millennials—who are now slowly entering peak age spending-wise—are the most likely to rely on social media for content. And possibly shopping.

What can you do: Make sure your product or brand is “social-native” for Gen Z and millennials, which means it should be visually engaging, shareable, and personality-driven.

For Gen X and boomers, you might want to go with a hybrid approach. Lean more into traditional channels like TV—or CTV nowadays—email newsletters, or simply google. 

But don’t ignore platforms like YouTube or Facebook groups where older users engage.

How to make shoppers more connected to your brand?

Some brands—at the mere mention of their names—make their customers all giddy inside.

Because these brands manage to form meaningful relationships with their shoppers. Similar to how users connect with favorite creators, or bands… or hobbies. 

But what makes customers feel connected to brands? Let’s see what they say:

Just like in human relationships, it’s trust (66%) that makes it. Or breaks it. 

Besides this, customers also feel a special connection when:

• The brand aligns with their values (53%)
• The brand understands them and their wants (51%)
• They depend on the brand’s products or services (50%)

Besides the last, which paints more of a co-dependent relationship, the other two combined tell us that users like brands who feel relatable and emotionally intelligent. Like a friend.

The Crew’s Opinion: When a brand mirrors the consumer’s identity and listens like a human, it stops being just a product and becomes a part of someone’s self-expression.

What can you do: Regularly gather and use customer language via reviews, support tickets, social media in your messaging, so shoppers feel both heard and understood. 

Why should you form this connection? Good question, let’s see the stats:

See that? Connection means leverage—as 76% are more likely to purchase your product over a competitor. It also means staying loyal to your brand (64%), upping your retention.

There are also secondary benefits, like customers turning into your ambassadors (68%), and recommending your brand to their friends or family. 

It also increases the chance to shop with you after a bad experience. Everybody fumbles sometimes, but if you establish your connection before—you might get a second chance. 

What should you do: Find ways to establish relationships through social media. 

Show up like a person first, brand second. Reply to comments with intention, not canned lines. Also, don’t let their questions marinate in DMs. Be quick. Followers will appreciate it.

Mention them by name in Stories, polls, or replies. Ask for their opinions and try to actually use them. Those are just some solutions that came to mind.

What makes shoppers buy on social media?

We’ve saved the best for last.

Let’s see what drives social purposes the most:

First up, it’s good to notice that 65% believe UGC is more influential than celebrities. 

This further proves that branding on social media is a different kind of game. You want authentic, raw content, even if you partner with content creators to make it.

Also, 58% consider brand responses to customers on social platforms as important. This backs up what we’ve mentioned in the previous chart.

Now, about those purchase drivers…

• 60% shop when a discount or promotion is offered.
• 51% were already on the lookout for the product.
• 35% liked how the post looks.

Under 30% of users that purchased associated themselves with people on the post, or found the post humorous. Finally, some bought as the content felt important and current. 

Discounts rule the social world: No matter what you do, if you want to sell on social platforms, post every sale, every promotion. It’s what breaks the mental block. 

Social media is often mid-funnel: Half of shoppers are already aware of your product before looking at your social media pages. Use this space to solidify their opinion.

Things like the post’s aesthetic, content relevance or engagement value will not trigger purchase immediately. But they’re there to help you make a final push towards purchase.

Brands socializing

Social media has come a long way from being just social. 

Now, a platform is a research hub and a trust builder. To win, you might have to combine consistent messaging with relatable engagement, and visually strong content.

The main thing, however, is to keep acting human and try not to miss those sweet moments to connect.