Social media just won’t stop evolving, and neither do we as marketers. Algorithm updates, new features, changes in audience demographics and preferences – there is just so much to keep up with! The fundamentals, however, are more straightforward than some might think.

With 2025 underway, it’s time to take a fresh look at the social media trends shaping these fundamentals and how recruiters can do their marketing. What lies ahead are plenty of opportunities to engage with your clients, candidates and future employees with savvy social media marketing strategies and practices. 

Here are key social media trends for 2025 and how to tap into them for growing your recruitment business. 

1. Instagram: Still a Powerhouse

Instagram’s popularity is soaring, making it an essential marketing channel for recruitment agencies in 2025. If you’re sceptical about it, don’t be! Now ranking as the third most popular social media network, with 2 billion monthly active users, Instagram remains essential for your social media marketing strategy.

Instagram’s visual format is ideal for showcasing daily life in your business, team milestones and event highlights. The platform’s multigenerational appeal means you can engage with Gen Z, Millennials, and even older demographics in one space. Compared to other social media platforms, that audience diversity has enormous potential.

Of course, you want to confirm that your target audience is active on Instagram before building a game plan for the platform. With a dedicated recruitment marketing agency by your side, you can effectively segment your audience and develop a content strategy that will speak to them. We can help you manage your Instagram presence with regular, fresh content that shows your brand’s unique personality, saving you loads of time every week.

2. Get Serious with Influencers & Creators

Industry influencers and content creators are being taken more seriously by brands and audiences, and for a good reason – they can connect their audiences to exactly what they’re looking for and add credibility to your messaging.

This year, look for opportunities to partner with respected voices in your industry niche. Collaborating with such voices can help you position your agency as a thought leader, broaden your audience and give you new content ideas to play with.

In the recruitment industry, influencers are more likely to be thought leaders with solid industry experience than people running paid promotions on TikTok or Instagram. Think of individuals with strong credentials in the sectors you recruit in and people with subject matter expertise related to topics you want to bring to your audience. These people can make excellent collaborators for your company’s marketing vehicles like podcasts, webinars and events.

Here at Prominence, we’ve helped our clients achieve great results from collaborating with influencers and creators connected to their industry niches. By managing the entire marketing process for Beyond Recruitment’s Economic & Labour Report 2023-24, we enabled their audience to engage directly with industry thought leaders, resulting in a 74% audience growth from the previous year and a wide-reaching earned media coverage.

With a strategy to collaborate with industry experts on topics such as employer branding though blogs and video content, we’ve helped Bespoke Careers grow their LinkedIn impressions by 46%, increase post reactions by 12%, and boost comments by 57% – all critical measures for expanding audience reach.

Need another reason to collaborate with influencers for marketing content? You can use such content as resources to distribute to client and candidate prospects – a handy way to add value and show off your brand’s authenticity.

3. Give Video Content More Love

Video is dominating social media, with platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram prioritising video in their algorithms, whilst TikTok and YouTube continue to go from strength to strength. It’s no wonder, as Sprout Social’s survey indicates, that marketers are prioritising video this year.

Some 47% of marketers will prioritise short-form video (60 seconds or less), whilst 17% will focus on videos less than 10 minutes long (17%) and 14% will devote more resources to photos and carousels. 

Video can seem daunting if you’ve never dipped your toes in, but we can assure you it’s vital social media marketing strategies, getting your brand and message out there. The good news is that you don’t need an expensive video production set-up to get started. 

Whether it’s short clips for social media posts to in-depth content for webinars or podcasts, video can be produced with minimal cost and be endlessly repurposed for variety of channels. We’ve helped clients with creating videos with production quality that quickly engages their audience without breaking the bank, and we can help you do that, too! Some good places to start with video content include recruitment tips, team introductions and client testimonials.

4. Connecting with Audiences on a Deeper Level 

Storytelling is a recruiter’s most important marketing tool because at its heart, recruitment is all about people. In 2025, make every piece of marketing content start with a compelling, human-centered story. 

Showing people the ‘story’ will humanise your brand and build trust. Case studies, video testimonials from clients and candidates and showing your team’s work behind the scenes are some effective ways to do this. In 2025, ramping up your presence on YouTube and other storytelling-friendly platforms will help your brand meaningfully connect with clients and candidates.

To make storytelling effective, it helps to have expertise in identifying the moments that you can turn into narratives for compelling content. We can help you with this process, guiding you through strategies for developing content that tells a story and doing the creative work to execute that strategy, including video, visual design and copywriting.

5. Memes: Proceed with Caution

Memes can make your company’s social media presence fun and relatable. But as economic conditions shift, it’s important to strike the right tone. Not all audiences will appreciate a humorous approach in social media marketing strategies, especially in challenging markets.

The jury’s still out on whether meme-based content will continue to get positive engagement in 2025. It’s important to consider whether using memes and humour in your marketing content will add the value your audience is craving. In other words, you need to ‘read the room’.

To achieve the right balance between sounding relatable and using an appropriate tone for your audience and market, working with a specialist in marketing for recruiters is a sensible move. We can help you assess whether memes and humour align with your brand’s tone of voice and audience and create content that balances humour with professionalism. With a close eye on changing market dynamics, we can help you adapt your social media strategy to your audience’s expectations.

6. Keeping It Human

Artificial intelligence will continue to gather momentum in 2025. AI tools are no doubt helpful in creating job adverts and job descriptions, whilst 58% of candidates globally (and 78% in Australia) are using AI to apply for jobs and clients are using it to screen candidates. It’s already an unstoppable force.

However, as more organisations adopt AI for everyday use, the need for human connection will become even more critical in marketing for recruiters. Relying on automated content can risk your brand sounding, well, lifeless! 

Recruiters who can balance a personal touch with AI will get the best results from their marketing efforts. With the right marketing expertise, you can integrate AI-based tools in your marketing whilst maintaining your brand’s human side.  

7. It All Starts with a Social Media Marketing Strategy  

In 2025, effective marketing for recruiters will succeed with a social-first approach – creating unique, engaging content specifically designed for social media. We all need to be where the audience is! As audiences spend so much of their time on social media, adopting a social-first marketing strategy is critical for building brand awareness and new business leads.   

Consistency is key, but it can be time-consuming for a recruitment business to manage a social media presence full-time. With our data-driven social media marketing strategies, you can empower your team to focus on the essentials of recruiting, while we take care of the rest. 

Marketing for Recruiters Done Right 

Exciting times are ahead for social media marketing, but it can be tricky to keep up with the pace of change. Here at Prominence, our mission is to help recruitment agencies build a social media presence that creates value for their audience and makes their brand shine. We’d love to help you get real results. Get in touch with our experts in digital marketing for recruiters today – we’ll get you started.