As social media and digital advertising continue to grow, research suggests brands should embrace a lighter online culture to better connect with consumers, according to We Are Social.
The Digital 2025: The United Kingdom report found that annual social media advertising spend is now £9.02 billion, which represents a 13.8% year-on-year increase.
“All of the signs point to 2025 being another “bumper year” in connected tech, with rapid advances in AI, the evolving social media landscape, and broadening online behaviours all gearing up to reshape the digital landscape over the coming months,” said Simon Kemp, chief analyst at DataReportal.
The report also revealed there was an overall 2.5% year-on-year growth of internet users, pushing the total amount up by 136 million.
Moreover, social media user identities saw an increase of 206 million accounts, which is 4.1% year-on-year increase.
Although a marketers’ potential reach is growing, a prominent issue has also arisen.
A marketer’s top social media challenge was pinpointed as limited team bandwidth, with over half of respondents (53.3%) choosing capacity as a problem over alterative barriers such as “too many channels” or “not having the right tools”.
The data findings also found a trend that marketers should be taking advantage of, “low stakes social”.
As digital and URL worlds alike begin to overwhelm, audiences want brands to provide lighter online culture – a refuge from the emotional labour of day-to-day.
“Looking beyond our seemingly insatiable appetite for information, the latest data has also shown that more and more people are using connected devices and services to connect with people they care about, to stay up-to-date with current affairs and to access entertainment,” added Kemp.