50% Consumers Will Significantly Limit Interactions With Social Media By 2025: Gartner

A perceived decay in the quality of social media platforms will drive 50% of consumers to abandon or significantly limit their interactions with social media by 2025, according to a survey conducted by research and consulting firm Gartner.

The survey of consumers found that 53% believe that the current state of social media has decayed compared to either the prior year or five years ago. The top reasons for this perceived decline were the spread of misinformation, toxic user bases and the prevalence of bots.

Concern about the impact of anticipated generative artificial intelligence use on social media is high, with over seven in 10 consumers agreeing that greater integration of GenAI into social media will harm user experience.

“Social media remains the top investment channel for digital marketing, but consumers are actively trying to limit their use,” said Emily Weiss, senior principal researcher, Gartner Marketing Practice. “As the nature of social media use and the experience of the platforms changes, CMOs must refocus their customer acquisition and loyalty retention strategies in response,” Weiss added.

Gartner also released other marketing predictions for 2024 and beyond.

By 2027, 20% of brands will lean into positioning and differentiation based on the absence of AI in their business and products, Gartner predicted. A Gartner survey of consumers found that 72% believe AI-based content generators could spread false or misleading information. Another Gartner survey found consumers’ perception that AI-powered experiences and capabilities are better than humans is eroding. 

“Mistrust and lack of confidence in AI’s abilities will drive some consumers to seek out AI-free brands and interactions. A subsection of brands will shun AI and prioritise more human positioning. This ‘acoustic’ concept will be leveraged to distance brands from perceptions of AI-powered businesses as impersonal and homogeneous,” said Weiss.

According to Gartner, by 2026, 80% of advanced creative roles will be tasked with harnessing GenAI to achieve differentiated results, requiring marketing leaders to spend more on this talent. Much of the attraction of GenAI revolves around productivity and cost savings. However, the enhanced productivity will enable senior creative roles to redirect their skills and time to more advanced strategic creative endeavours, such as leveraging GenAI product and service innovation.

By 2028, brands’ organic search traffic will decrease by 50% or more as consumers embrace GenAI-powered search, Gartner predicted. A survey found that consumers are ready for AI-enhanced search, with 79% of respondents expecting to use it within the next year. Furthermore, 70% of consumers expressed at least some trust in GenAI-backed search results.

“CMOs must prepare for the disruption that GenAI-backed search will bring to their organic search strategies. Marketing leaders whose brands rely on SEO should consider allocating resources to testing other channels in order to diversify,” said Weiss.

Additionally, Gartner predicted that by 2026, 60% of CMOs will adopt content authenticity technology, enhanced monitoring and brand-endorsed user-generated content to protect their brands from GenAI-produced deception. Rapid advances in GenAI have left organisations without the frameworks and best practices to ensure responsible use and mitigate risk. A dedicated content authenticity function and development of guardrails for brands will be an organisational imperative.

“As content created with GenAI tools balloons throughout marketing channels, transparency around its use will become increasingly necessary to maintain trust with customers,” said Weiss.