It’s wild I’ve written a few hundred essays about social media at this point. Future Social is something like 3 & a half years old now. This year’s content tended to get a little more pointed with far more thought pieces on our industry & what the future of social media looks like (guess I named this place correctly).

Below you’ll find my favorite pieces from 2025, as well as a link to every Future Social I’ve ever written—most of ‘em are evergreen because (quiets voice to a whisper) social networks change, but social media strategy fundamentals don’t.

I can’t thank y’all enough for reading & all your support. It’s still crazy that I get to do this for a living, and I feel a great sense of appreciation and responsibility to help us all get better at our marketing jobs. So, so much more coming in 2026!

—Jack Appleby

Instagram Strategy: do you need different content for followers & non-followers?

It's an interesting question. I tend to be very top-of-funnel focused in my social strategies, but Caliber just released a new 36-page social media report with this little slide, and I tend to agree with the thinking.

It's easy for us to just think in "what's the single best metric?" (which I'm definitely guilty of, my speciality is top of funnel), but with an organic strategy you're gonna want content that your fans & advocates can share, which can look a lot different than big swings at viral view counts.

Grab Caliber's new report for the deeper dive, along with: 

• 30+ examples of trending content formats 

• Breakdowns of new social network features 

• Why you need a "Movement Metric"

• and a whole lot more.

One of the easiest partnerships I’ve worked on recently (I especially dig the explainer on Data Visualization).

100+ free essays about Social Media, Content, and Creator strategies

It’s painfully cliche to say a year’s been insane, but 2025 fit the bill. I built a second media business around basketball, took 2 months off after a stalking situation scared the hell out of me, spoke across the country to thousands of marketers at conferences, played pro basketball in Brazil, and generally went from down bad to loving my life for the first time 5 years.

I also wrote a whole lot about social media strategy. Between the TikTok Ban, new Instagram features, and the way our industry changes over and over again, the pen never came close to running out of ink. You can read a couple hundred essays on social strategy via this newsletter’s home page, and I’ve gathered my favorites from the year below.

Best of Future Social: 2025 Edition

• HBO’s hysterical rebrand content campaign. This is a best-in-class showing of being in on the bit & leaning into your mistakes.

• How Hot Wheels built their TikTok & YouTube. A little short-form with tiny cars, a little long-form with much bigger cars.

• U-Haul hit 7 million views on TikTok talking about break-ups. I’m not crying, you’re crying.

• LeBron and Hennessy trolled their way to billions of impressions. But are all impressions good impressions, or was it all cringe?

• Jake from State Farm is Gen Z’s Favorite TikToker. The best way to build a brand sometimes is to build a character before the brand.

Think Pieces

• Why your brand shouldn’t care about comments. That’s a thought that’ll rock your world, but I’d argue comments are the vanity metric.

• Why being “chronically online” isn’t good for social pros. You’re getting too close to the work & you’d be better at your job with less screentime.

• Should your brand be on every social network? I’d argue yes. Don’t worry, there’s some small caveats, but it’s easier than you think.

• Social media shouldn’t move fast—there’s literally no reason for it. Social should NOT move at the speed of culture. That doesn’t even make sense.

• Should brands use AI to make social content? It’s an important question to ask for speed and scale, but how are consumers taking it?

• Why your first social media team hire should be a content creator. If content is king, go hire your sweet prince first.

Instagram-specific strategies

• How Instagram’s algorithm ranks content. The Head of IG made a great lil’ explainer video to help you understand why content does and doesn’t get seen.

• Are Instagram Collabs bad for brands? I think the feature is actually a little broken, and you probably shouldn’t actually use it.

• I don’t think Trial Reels make any sense. To effectively use that feature, you’d probably do a lot of extra work.