By the Social Media & Strategic team at TPA
In 2025 social is for storytelling and connection. By tapping into these core values, you can make content that works for you and is fun to create and consume.
Have you ever sat at your computer thinking ‘god I haven’t posted on LinkedIn in ages, I swore I would get on that this year.’ ‘Ugh I just don’t want to be on camera, why is this something we have to do?!!’ We feel you. Starting to put out content in the public sphere can be daunting.
Despite major headlines purporting the downfall of social media with the likes of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg in charge, social media continues to grow.
With competitor platforms like TikTok, Pinterest, Youtube and BlueSky on the rise – now is the time to invest in making your content engaging and purposeful.
Making social content that has value for your brand and audience (and that feels authentic to you) can be done. We promise!
Social Media As StoryTelling – the state of social in 2025
At TPA, we love social media for its ability to bring your brand and community together. Through highlighting the work you do, bringing people on your growth journey and sharing valuable information, you can forge powerful connections with your audience and potential customers.
Call out: “Think of social media not as a performance or broadcast space; but as a storytelling device.”
Authenticity and consistency are key in 2025, so don’t worry about needing to have a whole crew to make daily content. You just need to show up regularly and with purpose.
The best, and most efficient way to make content is through first creating a simple strategy.
So, how do we make a Content Strategy?
You don’t need reams of documentation, but considering a few key questions will help you create stronger content.
Who?
What?
Where?
How?
See – it’s simple! Let’s start.
1. Who are you on social?
Every brand has its own personality. Consider your brand’s social media presence and if it accurately reflects that personality.
As a brand are you formal? Chatty? Informative? Funny? Heartfelt? Community focused?
If your brand was a person, who would they be? How would they show up on social media? What would their behaviour be like?
It can be helpful to compare your brand personality to a celebrity or to sketch out a list of the person’s attributes and traits. You can also think about the person your brand definitely isn’t. This can get you going in the right direction.
If you are a service-based business or sole trader, remember that your brand personality doesn’t have to exactly match you the individual behind it. You can create a separate professional personality for social, as we all do at work.
Another way into this question can be to think How do I want people to feel when they see my content? Inspired? Seen? Motivated? Relieved? Educated?
Jot down some of these thoughts and you’ll have a better idea of who your brand is on social media.
2. What do you want to talk about?
All good social content should have a purpose. So think about what you want to say, what you want your audience to know, and how you can create stories around your brand. Are you a product-led business? Demonstrating your service? Showing your charity’s impact?
Social media can be a great place to do some of the heavy lifting around your brand. Rather than direct people to a website, put your key information around services, products, people and values right in front of your audience on social media.
- It can answer FAQs that you get
- It showcases your work and why people like you
- It can tell people what your business does, or what your charities goal is
- It can start building relationships
Begin with a list of 10 things you want to say, and more will come – and many times your topics can be turned into series.
3. Where should you be posting?
This is sometimes the thing that gets people stuck. We worry we need to be on all the platforms all the time. That makes social so time-consuming! Our advice: ask yourself ‘Where are my ideal clients or audience?’ go where they are.
Source GWI: https://www.gwi.com/
Limit yourself to two or three platforms at most. If having too many platforms is what is making social stressful for you, pull back and pick just one to give your time and attention.
Here’s a quick breakdown of each platform to get you started
(Click on each platform header for more information)
- Owned by Meta. Community & information sharing platform.
- Image, plain text and video sharing. Community, events & group functions. You can direct traffic to your website with links too.
- Owned by Meta.
- Visual and storytelling platform. Image and video sharing. Stories are hugely popular and you have lots of engagement functions there.
- Don’t put links in your captions – people can’t click them here!
- Business / Professional network.
- Has had a huge growth spike with people migrating from X/Twitter.
- Has lots of content functionality including images, videos, articles, events, documents, newsletters and groups.
- Owned by Elon Musk.
- Short form plain text, imagery and video.
- Has experienced a decrease in users with its policy and algorithm changes. Harder to build an audience there. Some brands & news outlets have left the platform.
- Owned by ByteDance.
- Storytelling, humour, pop culture and visual platform. Video and image content focused.
- Started the short-form video boom, and now has options for image carousels and 10-minute videos.
- A search-based social platform.
- Experiencing a big boom, especially in young people.
- Visual platform. Strong imagery is essential. Can drive traffic to your website.
4. How do I want to make content?
The million-dollar question! The first thing with making social content is not to panic. It is all about experimenting, testing and learning. So if a bit of content doesn’t get as much reach or engagement as you hoped, that is completely fine. Use it as a data-gathering exercise!
The more you post, you’ll start to learn what content you like to make and also what content your audience engages with most.
In 2025 we have lots of options for how to make content. Here are a few ways in:
(Click on each header for more information)
Don’t feel like you need to be on-screen if you’re not comfortable with that – there’s plenty of faceless content that can be made!
For instance, take people behind the scenes, bringing them along on your brand journey. This could be through filming a design process, creating a product, touring your office or store, highlighting customer favourites or simply giving advice.
This content can work nicely as short-form video is the leading type of content on social, and it gives people a sense of the style and feel of your business, helping build your brand narrative in this space.
Equally, you may be a natural extrovert, in which case you can harness this to be the star of the show!
We are naturally drawn to other people’s faces in the social feed, so if you are comfortable with this, use it to your advantage!
Giving your brand a personality through your own presence is a great way to build connections and recognition in an over-saturated feed. Particularly if you are a service-based provider, potential customers will feel familiar with you already, making them more comfortable engaging with you for assistance.
Content examples you could pursue include a ‘day in the life’ video, a ‘come with me to…’, creating employee-generated-content, or giving product demonstrations.
Design-focused content can also work nicely as a rotation in your content creation.
This would be well suited for informational content, i.e. opening hours, FAQs, announcements.
By utilising your brand style and colours here, you can reinforce recognition of your brand, making people more likely to remember you when they come to seek out your service/product.
The key here is to make the post eye-catching and fit for social, so don’t tailor this to look like a poster or an advert. Keep it lighthearted, natural and simple to follow.
It’s tempting to think that to convey high-quality service or products, your social media should include professionally made and produced content – but in 2025 this simply isn’t true!
This is the era of authentic narratives and content of value. People are prioritising substance over style in what they are consuming.
Filming on an iPhone is therefore perhaps even better than creating something overly polished, as this keeps a natural feel that is easier for consumers to relate to and connect with. It maintains the human element and nurtures that emotional connection, whereas production perfection can feel more detached.
Consider creating a photo diary, sharing personal updates, showcasing a journey or posting from events you have attended.
If you’re just starting out with social media, make sure to spend some time scrolling on your chosen platform to get a feel for what content is out there. Save content you like in an inspiration folder, and go back to analyse what it is you like about them. Maybe you like the tone of voice, their use of colour, the speed of editing and so on.
We have a morning social scroll along with checking the news to keep us up to date, and would highly recommend it.
Content Inspiration – A Start Point
Hopefully, now you’re feeling more confident with how to approach your content, and make things that work for you and your brand.
If you’re looking for some people to follow for inspiration:
Retail
Charity
Services
Don’t forget that Instagram, Facebook and TikTok all have in-app editing options. You can create video and photo content right in the platform. No extra apps needed!
You could also consider tools like Canva. This free and paid tool can really help with designed content. We’d recommend getting a professional to set up some templates for you if you want to explore this option.
A Final Reminder
Social media should be fun! If you’re not enjoying making the content, it won’t connect with people. Try to use it as a creative tool to convey your brand personality and make connections with your audience.
