Introduction

How can brand marketers navigate the social media landscape in 2025?

It’s definitely a challenge.

With multiple platforms, ever-changing algorithms, and evolving consumer behavior, social media professionals must be versatile—part analysts, trend forecasters, data engineers, and even, to some extent, mind readers. (We can’t confirm the last two, but it’s likely part of the job description these days.)

The aim of our State of Social report is to simplify this complexity—to equip marketers and analysts with the insights and benchmarks they need to cut through the noise, uncover opportunities, and develop stronger strategies for 2025. In short, to make social media work harder for you without adding more work to your plate.

Key insights from the report:

1. Share of Voice: Brands drive just over 1% (1.11%) of all conversations about them on average.
2. Emotional Response: Tech brands receive the most angry mentions, while entertainment brands trigger the most joy.
3. Generational Trends: Baby boomers are more vocal about energy brands, while Gen Z and millennials dominate entertainment discussions.
4. Peak Activity: Brand mentions peak on Wednesdays and Thursdays, with Sundays being the quietest.
5. And more: Explore what drives unique conversations across eight key industries.

Read on to learn what’s shaping the social media landscape in 2025.

Social benchmarks

This section delves into social engagement benchmarks across eight key industries, examining a variety of metrics. You’ll also find actionable tips for organizations to leverage these insights to engage their audiences more effectively.

Note: These benchmarks represent industry averages based on a sample of 347 brands, providing a solid foundation for analysis. However, it’s essential to conduct your own evaluation to understand how your brand compares within your specific competitive landscape.

Audience Emotion and Sentiment Benchmarks

Analyzing emotion and sentiment can help your organization gauge public perception of your brand, products, and services, as well as the content you share on social channels. Essentially, these metrics serve as a “health check”—with emotion analysis identifying specific feelings expressed in posts, while sentiment analysis offers a broader overview of whether a post is positive, negative, or neutral.

Which emotions do consumers express in brand-related discussions?

Analyzing emotion-based conversations by industry reveals the following trends:

1. Entertainment and retail brands generate the most joyful posts, with 56% and 54% of mentions expressing happiness, respectively.
2. Consumer tech brands face the most anger, with 37% of mentions reflecting frustration.
3. Food and CPG brands received the highest proportion of disgust-related mentions, at 29% and 28%, respectively.
4. Energy brands experienced the largest share of sad (29%) and fearful (14%) mentions in their conversations.

• Section 1: Introduction, key learnings, and methodology
• Section 2: Social benchmarks
  • Audience emotion and sentiment benchmarks
  • Consumer sentiment across industries
  • 3 ways to leverage emotion analysis
  • Consumer-brand interactions by industry
  • Industry audience breakdown by generation
  • Best days to post by industry
• Section 3: Industry Spotlights

Pricing: 

• Free

Methodology

We analyzed 718.6 million online mentions across eight industries and 347 brands from February 1 to July 31, 2024, using Brandwatch Consumer Research.

The eight industries we examined are:

• Automotive
• CPG
• Consumer tech
• Energy
• Entertainment
• Financial services
• Food
• Retail

We looked at 347 brand queries to get industry averages as well as generic industry queries to pull more industry-specific insights.

Brandwatch Benchmark was also used for content analysis and to pull in some social media benchmarking data across the eight selected industries.