Trends in social media: The Motherhood, a top influencer marketing agencies, scours the headlines so you don’t have to. Check back throughout the month for more!
Influencer Marketing Industry Resources
How brands are combating influencer engagement downturn with social series – September 25, 2025
Creator content formats that were once pillars of influencer marketing strategies—such as “get ready with me” videos—are no longer capturing the same level of audience attention as they once did. Rather than continue to pump out more pieces of increasingly identical creator content, a growing number of advertisers are instead turning to viral social media series to help them cut through.
Why influencer marketing thrives on brand freedom – September 25, 2025
At The Drum Live, Unilever’s Leandro Barreto, Our Own Brand’s Sarah Fulford-Williams and Hypetap’s Detch Singh explored a truth many marketers still resist: in today’s influencer economy, brands grow stronger when they give up control. For decades, brand management meant protecting every pixel and word. But as Unilever’s chief marketing officer of beauty and wellness, Leandro Barreto, noted during a discussion at The Drum Live, that mindset no longer matches the world brands inhabit.
Sephora’s Creator Stores Just Killed The Influencer Marketing Playbook – September 25, 2025
As retail chains scaled, the focus shifted to shelf space. The brands that occupied the most shelf space inside the store gained an immediate advantage. When shopping moved online, the fight shifted from real estate to clicks and traffic. Social commerce has fundamentally transformed the way people shop. Discovery and checkout are merging into a single cycle, creating both opportunities and chaos, which is precisely why brands need their own creator infrastructure. The next phase is the rise of dedicated creator storefronts. Instead of sending traffic off-platform, creators now host the shelf themselves, operating as merchants rather than affiliates.
Brands Briefing: Brands and agencies sharpen their influencer and affiliate strategies for Q4 – September 23, 2025
Ahead of the all-important holiday season, brands are refining their influencer and affiliate strategies to stand out in an increasingly crowded space. The amount of money being spent on influencer marketing is growing every year, with U.S. influencer marketing spend expected to surpass $10 billion in 2025, according to eMarketer. In turn, many brands are finding that some of the same tried-and-true tactics no longer work.
The creators with very public hobbies – September 21, 2025
Sometimes, it’s not about the destination, it’s about the content you create on how to optimize your time spent on the journey and grow your audience. The internet not only demands you post your weird little crafts or triathlon medals, it also wants you to package up your processes and post about how you did it.
Influencers are expanding far beyond their social media channels—and brands are both a tool and a benefactor – September 17, 2025
Influencer Tefi Pessoa recently partnered with The Cut to launch a podcast, and it’s brand synergy for both parties. Ask twenty-something-year-old women what they think The Cut’s brand is, and their responses might echo what one Redditor put succinctly: “The Cut has been posting insane articles (among some very good journalism) forever.”
Instagram affiliate marketing: What works (and what doesn’t) – September 15, 2025
Instagram marketing has leveled up fast. Once a space for brand awareness and community-building, it’s now a full-funnel strategy that drives real business results, playing a key role in everything from product discovery to conversion. Affiliate marketing has evolved alongside it. What started as a side hustle for content creators and an occasional bonus for brands is now a powerful engine for building trust and generating sales. At a time when brands are feeling the pressure to turn social media content into conversions, affiliate marketing may be the answer.
Why influencers are shifting from rented to owned social media channels – September 15, 2025
The influencer economy is facing unprecedented challenges, and smart creators are adapting fast. You can’t build a truly sustainable business when you’re essentially squatting on someone else’s property. Instagram changes its algorithm overnight, and suddenly your reach might plummet. TikTok faces potential bans, and your entire livelihood could vanish. The smartest influencers are saying: ‘enough is enough.’
This influencer is using her social media accounts to help retire early from the corporate world — here’s how – September 13, 2025
Influencer Taylor Hayes, who runs a blog and several social media channels as imperfecttaylor, recently shared on TikTok that she’s leveraging brand deals and her growing number of followers to retire early. Although she has 141,000 followers on Instagram and 49,400 on TikTok, she’s not a full-time influencer. Rather, she has a full-time corporate job and operates her blog and social media properties as a side hustle.
Dissecting Nike’s social media strategy: Lessons in influencer marketing and driving culture – September 12, 2025
Nike’s social media strategy isn’t just about selling products—it’s about chasing the impossible and shaping global culture. The brand’s historic legacy built on athlete partnerships has made Nike the blueprint for social media success in any industry. Their recent Breaking4 campaign is the latest example of a global movement that illustrates how belief-driven storytelling can transform brand and culture. And it’s just one in a long line of historic athlete partnerships that have consistently redefined what’s possible in sports and marketing.
Bobbie: Championing Human Touch In Influencer Marketing – September 11, 2025
Bobbie, a dedicated influencer marketing agency launched in April, combines technology with human connection in a time when automation is becoming more common. Spun out of HUNTER, a New York–based marketing communications agency, Bobbie serves as a standalone venture, catering to brands seeking specialized influencer expertise beyond what traditional marketing agencies typically offer. Led by President Donetta Allen and Managing Director Monica Caponigro, Bobbie was established in response to changes in marketing priorities, as influencer marketing has moved from an experimental tactic to an essential strategy.
Influencer Marketing Experts Think Geography Is Now a Better Predictor of Purchasing Behavior Than Age – September 11, 2025
As consumers’ relationships with technology and personal tastes change, brands must be ready to pivot their marketing strategies accordingly. While that’s always been true, these switch-ups are now more frequent due to a rapid, ever-shifting trend cycle and constantly evolving algorithms.
How The Summer I Turned Pretty Helped Brands Win Over Gen Z – September 11, 2025
Happy Thursday and welcome back to Influencer Insider. This week has been pretty packed! Summer’s over and everyone’s got the holiday blues (me included). The Summer I Turned Pretty is teaching brands how to channel their Gen Z voice, Beckii Flint is teaching LinkedIn about crisis management, and Bunmi Jenfa is teaching me all about law and the creator economy. I also came across an exciting opportunity from Digital Voices, who are joining forces with Adobe at Advertising Week NYC for a live creator showdown – there’s a $25,000 brand deal up for grabs.
In Graphic Detail: Virtual influencers click with young audiences, yet brands’ interest wanes – September 11, 2025
Younger audiences are warming up to virtual influencers — but marketers are still on the fence. Over the past year, it’s become difficult to open Instagram or TikTok without scrolling by a virtual influencer. These are different from the faceless creators who use generative AI tools to mass-produce content; instead, they are fully AI-generated avatars whose appearance, voice and actions are fine-tuned by an individual or team of individuals behind the scenes.
Brands can fix the problem with late influencer payments – September 10, 2025
The payment structure behind influencer marketing campaigns has been broken from the very beginning. Even before influencer marketing or the creator economy became part of our lives, big brands have dictated the rules of engagement for decades in our industry. Payment terms were written to protect them, not the small agencies, freelancers and contractors who powered their campaigns. The assumption was clear: Suppliers had no leverage, so they had to accept whatever crumbs they were offered.
An AI-generated influencer ad is the latest test of consumer sentiment – September 8, 2025
The news: Brands are testing the waters with AI-generated influencers as AI becomes a staple of advertising and everyday life. Telecommunications brand Vodafone is the latest to jump on the trend. Digiday reported the company posted an ad helmed by a generative AI (genAI) “influencer.” Vodafone claimed it was “testing different styles of advertising” by incorporating AI into its campaign.
Yes, but: Consumers aren’t on board yet.
- Only 23% of adults worldwide are likely to consume content from AI-generated influencers, while nearly half (45%) are unlikely to trust them, highlighting hesitancy to buy into non-human creators.
- Over 47% of US adults are very unlikely to follow AI-generated influencers on social media, while another 15.2% are somewhat unlikely and only 8.5% are very likely.
- Engagement potential remains low: 58% of adults across generations are unlikely to engage with content from AI-generated influencers, while only 11% are likely to engage.
Beyond The Feed: Why Brand Collabs Are Moving Into Closed Communities – September 8, 2025
The first time I saw 150 comments on a brand post, it wasn’t on Instagram; it was inside a women’s wellness group on WhatsApp. One member shared a brand’s free cycle tracker, and just like that, the thread took off. Women asked questions, shared screenshots and tagged friends in the chat. There was no paid media. No creator. No algorithm to please. It was just community trust doing the heavy lifting.
Gen Z’s ‘Creative Maximalism’ is reshaping influencers and brands’ storytelling – September 8, 2025
A new report from the YouTube Culture & Trends team, created with research partner SmithGeiger, has revealed that India’s Gen Z (aged 14–24) is defining a new creative language online, Creative Maximalism, that is changing how creators produce content and how brands need to engage with young audiences this festive season. The study analysed hundreds of trends across top global markets and surveyed thousands of internet users aged 14–49. The findings underline that today’s teens are not only consuming content but also actively creating, remixing, and curating it.
How Gymshark Taps Into Sorority Partnerships On Social Media To Fuel Growth – September 5, 2025
British activewear company Gymshark has been quietly redirecting its marketing focus toward U.S. sororities, turning cultural moments such as recruitment and Member Class (MC) reveal into viral opportunities as the broader athleisure market girds for intensifying competition from giants like Nike and Lululemon.
Inside Peach & Lily’s unconventional influencer marketing strategy – September 4, 2025
When skin care brand Peach & Lily was crafting a social media campaign to launch its latest product, the team wanted the results to speak for themselves. Breaking from convention, the marketer avoided trending sounds and viral gimmicks that saturate the platforms and instead took a risk by sending the product — sans any and all branding — to select influencers for an effort that generated an engagement rate five-times higher than its previous campaigns.
Instagram Money Calculator [Influencer Engagement & Earnings Estimator] – September 4, 2025
For most of us, Instagram is the platform to share our travel adventures, graduation pics, and everyday lives with our friends and followers. But for brands, it’s a marketing medium. Our Digital Marketing Benchmark Report found that Instagram is one of the most used marketing platforms, with over 38% of marketers using it.
American Eagle CMO: Sydney Sweeney campaign was ‘worth every single dollar’ – September 3, 2025
American Eagle CMO Craig Brommers has no regrets about those Sydney Sweeney ads. Despite customer backlash to the apparel brand’s “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” campaign, which largely centered on the use of language that some described as racially coded, Brommers told us that AE’s most expensive campaign to date was money well spent.
Three signs the creator economy is at an inflection point for marketers – September 2, 2025
Following years of explosive growth, the creator economy has become a foundational element in any marketing strategy, but is reaching an inflection point, according to seven influencer marketing experts. There are countless indicators that the creator economy is booming — from brands signing creator agencies of record to mergers and acquisitions. However, as influencer marketing spend increases, so too does scrutiny around costs, measurement and scale.
The creator economy wants to be a mature media channel, but measurement is holding it back – September 1, 2025
The creator economy is growing into a fully formed media channel — complete with dedicated ad spend and marketing playbooks. But according to seven influencer marketing experts, the creator economy has measurement issues that could stunt its further growth. Measurement fragmentation, lagging price standardization and inconsistent attribution hold it back from becoming a true media channel like TV, paid social, programmatic or search.
The future of advertising: Why influencers and DOOH are a winning combination – August 29, 2025
Imagine walking down a busy city street, glancing at a massive digital billboard, and seeing your favorite influencer or celebrity discussing the latest must-have product or trend. It feels personal and familiar—like a recommendation from a trusted friend rather than just another ad. This is the new frontier of advertising: the seamless merger of influencer marketing and digital out-of-home advertising. Influencer marketing has dominated the digital space for years, shaping consumer decisions through platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. At the same time, DOOH has evolved into one of the most effective and engaging advertising channels, capturing attention in a way that traditional media struggles to achieve. As these two forces converge, they create an advertising experience that is both impactful and action-driven.
Are Influencers Losing Value or is Your Business Leaving Impact on the Table? – August 25, 2025
Spoiler alert: Many brands are not reaching their full impact when it comes to working with influencers. What was once considered a niche, experimental part of marketing has officially cemented itself as a critical tactic for success. Influencer marketing is predicted to reach over $71 billion by 2032, meaning its evolution has been and is expected to be exponential, considering it was just valued at $20 billion in 2024. As with anything new, there ought to be debate about how to do it right and how to measure it: How does one measure ‘influence’? How do you communicate the ROI from a collaboration with an influencer to leadership? How do you ensure you’re getting the most out of your partnerships?
social news
Trump Signs off on TikTok Deal as China Weighs Details – September 25, 2025
What I do know is that the White House has today published a press release which declares that U.S. President Donald Trump has “saved TikTok” while protecting U.S. national security, based on Trump signing a new executive order that approves the sale of TikTok to a U.S.-based consortium, which will be headed by Oracle.
Retailers sharply increase spending on social media in 2025, study says – September 25, 2025
Social media ad spending spiked 20.2% year over year in Q2, well above prior projections of 12.4% growth and the equivalent of about $4.9 billion in additional value, according to an update from WARC.
TikTok Unveils New Tools To Highlight Charitable Causes – September 24, 2025
TikTok has announced the latest participants in its “Change Makers” program, which puts a spotlight on creators and non-profits that are seeking to “implement meaningful change in their communities through TikTok content.”
The Most Followed Gen Z Celebrities on Instagram – September 24, 2025
Who are the celebrities who have the biggest sway with young audiences, based on their Instagram following? According to this new listing from Visual Capitalist, Kylie Jenner tops the list, with 393 million IG followers, followed by soccer star Kylian Mbappe (126m), singer Billie Eilish (125m), and Lalisa Manoba from K-pop girl group Blackpink (105m).
Dash Social – 2025 Social Media Benchmarks
Want to know how your brand stacks up on social? We analyzed key performance benchmarks across 12 industries on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), and Threads so you don’t have to. Whether you’re keeping an eye on the competition or just trying to make sense of the algorithms, these reports give you the insights you need to boost performance and drive real results.
Threads Updates Profile Search Capacity – September 21, 2025
Threads has quietly integrated a handy new profile search feature, which will make it easier to find relevant posts and mentions from a specific user.
TikTok Highlights Related Trending Topics To Help Guide Creators – September 21, 2025
TikTok’s looking to inspire creators with more resonant content ideas, via a new element within its creator analytics that highlights trending concepts based on your existing posts.
Reddit Is Becoming a Key Consideration for Marketers – September 17, 2025
If you’re looking for new ways to maximize your digital marketing performance in the age of AI-assisted discovery, it’s worth paying attention to Reddit, and the significant increases in attention the platform is deriving from AI referrals.
Pinterest Says Curation Is Key To Driving Purchase Activity – September 17, 2025
Pinterest has published a new report that looks at the role that decision paralysis, or overwhelm due to too many options, can play in cart abandonment, and how brands can maximize their listings and approach to reduce consumer stress.
6 Steps for Better LinkedIn Ad Measurement – September 14, 2025
Looking to utilize LinkedIn ads in your social media marketing strategy? This will help. LinkedIn recently published a new overview of how to get the most out of your LinkedIn campaigns, including notes on how to choose the right objectives for your aims, how to set up your campaigns, how to measure your performance and more.
Threads Experiments With Communities To Spark Topical Engagement – September 14, 2025
Threads is working on a new “Communities” feature, which looks a lot like X’s communities, and could be another way to gather users around topics and discussions of interest.
Meta Announces New Reels and Threads Ad Options – September 11, 2025
Meta has announced some new ad options at its annual Brand Building Summit, including more options for Reels ads, new ad formats for Threads, and additional qualifiers to help guide its AI-powered ad targeting.
Pinterest Highlights Rising Summer Search Trends – September 11, 2025
Pinterest has shared some new insight into rising search trends, which could help to guide Pin marketing approaches heading into summer in the southern hemisphere.
GEO vs. SEO Guide: Navigating Rankings in the AI Search Era – September 5, 2025
Search is no longer just about climbing Google’s first page—it’s about being the answer when someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity a question. Marketers are now asking: Is SEO dying, and is GEO the new frontier? What’s clear is that discovery behavior has shifted. Users increasingly trust AI assistants that deliver instant, citation-backed recommendations over traditional lists of links. That shift changes the rules of visibility. SEO still matters—backlinks, page speed, and technical hygiene remain table stakes—but generative engines prioritize other signals: schema markup, clarity of answers, topical authority, and even how “quotable” your content is.
Instagram Updates Notification Ranking To Reduce Repetitive Alerts – September 3, 2025
This may or may not be worthy of note, depending on how it’s actually applied in practice, but…This week, Instagram has outlined a revised approach to in-app notifications, which will demote updates from the same person or profile if the system feels like its sending repetitive updates from those users. As outlined on the Meta Engineering Blog, Instagram’s development team has devised a new way to ensure that users don’t get notification fatigue, by reducing the amount of updates from specific users.
Snapchat Shares Insights Into the Effectiveness of Gen AI for Marketing – August 26, 2025
AI-generated experiences are becoming a bigger part of our everyday lives, and providing more capacity to engage and interact with digital platforms, in often exciting and interesting ways. Snapchat’s Lenses are one example of this, with Snapchat developing new AI-based formats for its interactive experiences, which are helping to grab attention, and boost interaction with brand content.
Instagram Shares Tips on How To Grow Your Following – August 25, 2025
The Instagram for Business team recently posted a range of tips on how to get more engagement, by using different content approaches, in line with your preference and/or capacity.
IG Chief Says Longer Captions Won’t Increase Reach – August 24, 2025
Last week, in his weekly Q and A session on Instagram Stories, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri responded to a question about whether longer captions impact your post reach in the app.
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