Social media content in 2025 isn't just about what you say. It's about how you say it. Pick the wrong format, and even your best message will disappear into the void.

Think about it, a carousel that gets great results on LinkedIn? It'll probably tank on TikTok. Meanwhile, that trending Reel getting thousands of views on Instagram would be completely pointless on LinkedIn.

The brands that actually win at social media aren't just pumping out random content. They're mixing it up: short videos here, carousels there, testimonials for retargeting, UGC for cold audiences. Each format does a different job; you just have to test the various types and figure out what your audience likes. Once that’s done, you can just scale the winners and keep testing.

This guide breaks down 15 types of social media content that are effective at driving engagement. We'll cover what each format does best, which platforms favor them, and how to use them strategically based on your campaign goals.

The 15 most effective types of social media content in 2025

1. Short-form videos (reels, shorts, TikToks)

Quick, snackable videos that grab attention in the first few seconds. This is your go-to format for top-of-funnel awareness, mainly because it matches how people naturally scroll through feeds. 

Ryanair and Duolingo didn't accidentally build their strategies around 15-30 second clips. They know these videos stop thumbs mid-scroll better than anything else.

Pro Tip: Keep your reels under 30 seconds, and leave captions visible for at least 3 seconds per chunk of text for easy readability. Keep in mind that most viewers scroll with sound off, so if your hook doesn't work silently, your reel doesn't work.

2. Carousels

Multi-slide posts that let you unfold a story, teach something step-by-step, or compare products side by side. When it comes to brand awareness, this format is particularly popular on LinkedIn. Meta and Canva use carousels on LinkedIn all the time because they hold attention longer than static images. 

Pro Tip: Your first slide needs to stop the scroll. Lead with your strongest hook or the main benefit right away. Most people won't swipe through all your slides, so make that first one count.

3. User-generated content (UGC)

Content that is made by your actual customers or third-party creators, not your marketing team, can often be more effective. The authenticity does not have the same manufactured feel because it's real and raw. Gymshark has figured out how UGC builds trust way faster than anything coming out of a professional studio; it just hits different.

Pro Tip: Try Spark Ads or whitelisted creator campaigns. They regularly beat traditional brand content by huge margins. Some companies report CTR improvements of around 40% when they switch from polished brand ads to UGC-style content.

4. Testimonials and reviews

Let your customers sell for you. Testimonials work best for mid-funnel folks who like your product but need that final nudge. Shopify nails this with video testimonials from actual store owners sharing real numbers and outcomes, not vague compliments.

Pro Tip: Don't overpolish this content while sharing; keep the subtitles on and show real faces. Studies suggest 82% of people trust authentic, slightly rough testimonials more than slick production. The imperfections actually boost credibility.

5. Educational/how-to content

This format is all about teaching your audience something valuable while establishing your brand as one that’s worth listening to. HubSpot and Hostinger practically run their YouTube channels on this format to drive saves, shares, and nudge decisions.

Pro Tip: Make your steps visual and caption everything. One solid how-to video can become both a carousel and a video ad, stretching your content budget further.

6. Infographics/data visuals

Complex info turned into something you can understand in five seconds. B2B audiences especially love these because they're all about data and insights. Semrush constantly posts "State of Social Media" graphics that rack up engagement because they're both easy to scan and actually useful.

Pro Tip: Keep it simple. Cramming too much data into one graphic kills engagement. Use infographics as awareness content on LinkedIn or Meta, where your audience is looking for professional insights anyway.

7. Behind-the-scenes (BTS) content

Showing what happens when nobody's watching. Your team at work, your process, how things actually get made. Atlassian famously posts behind-the-scenes during its flagship conference, Team. These posts are meant to build emotional connections, which matter more than people think when it comes to purchasing decisions.

Pro Tip: Try short BTS clips as Story ads. They're great for recruitment, showing company culture, or proving your product is legit. Humans connect with humans, not corporate logos.

8. Memes and trend-based content

Riding the wave of whatever's happening on the internet right now. When you nail the timing and relevance, memes become wildly shareable. Netflix and Ryanair have entire social strategies built on jumping on trends fast and doing it cleverly. However, if you get either element wrong, you’ll just look like you're trying too hard.

Pro Tip: Put a small budget behind meme posts to warm audiences only. You want it to feel organic while getting extra reach. Heavy promotion kills the vibe that makes memes work in the first place.

9. Polls and interactive posts

Dead simple but surprisingly effective. One tap gets you engagement, which feeds the algorithm and gives you useful info about what people actually want. LinkedIn polls and Instagram "This or That" stories are everywhere because the barrier to participation is basically zero.

Pro Tip: Use these for market research and re-engagement campaigns. They're low-effort for users but give you targeting and messaging insights you can actually use.

10. Contests and giveaways

The fastest way to build your list and drive early engagement. People love free stuff, and contests capitalize on that while growing your audience quickly. DTC brands frequently bundle products as prizes because it introduces people to multiple items at once.

Pro Tip: Combine contests with UGC or influencer partnerships. When creators push your giveaway to their followers, you're borrowing their trust and tapping into their audience at the same time.

11. Influencer/creator collaborations

This format focuses on getting someone else's credibility and audience to work for you. Instead of your brand hyping itself up, you're using someone people already trust. More brands are running Spark Ads with creators now because it lets them amplify creator content through paid channels while keeping that authentic feel intact.

Pro Tip: Micro-influencers often crush bigger names on ROAS. They have smaller audiences sure, but their influence is more effective as their followers actually trust what they say. Niche trust converts better than massive reach when you're looking at bottom-line results.

12. Livestreams and webinars

Real-time content that creates urgency around anything ranging from product demos and Q&As, to expert talks and knowledge sharing. It’s just you going live to tell people that something's happening. The interactive nature of the content keeps them watching longer than they would with pre-recorded stuff.

Pro Tip: Chop up your best moments and run them as retargeting ads. Not everyone can show up live, but highlight clips let you capture the good parts and use them to pull back people who've already engaged with you.

13. Product demo/unboxings

These posts are designed to show exactly what your product does and how it solves problems. SaaS companies lean on UX walk-throughs because watching the product work is way more convincing than reading about it. Demos kill uncertainty, which matters a lot when you're trying to drive conversions. 

Quite often, they collaborate with influencers/content creators to showcase their products. YouTube channels like Unbox Therapy, and Marques Brownlee are popular leaders in this content niche.

Pro Tip: Short demo clips work as reels for quick impact. Save the longer, detailed versions for YouTube Ads where people expect and want more depth. Match your format to platform expectations.

14. Customer stories/case studies

Taking testimonials up a level by telling the full story: what problem they had, how you solved it, and what results they got. Web hosting providers like Hostinger, BLuehost, and GoDaddy do this well with customer success campaigns showing real companies and real outcomes. It's proof at scale.

Pro Tip: Turn written case studies into motion graphics or carousels for retargeting. Movement grabs attention, and since retargeting audiences already know who you are, they're more willing to engage with longer-form proof points.

15. Brand announcements/launch teasers

Building hype before you actually release something. New product, new feature, new campaign, whatever it is, teasers get people talking early. Apple basically wrote the playbook here with minimal teaser clips that generate massive buzz while showing almost nothing.

Pro Tip: Run countdown ads that work with sound off. Big text, clear visual cues. People need to understand what's coming even if they're scrolling silently. Pair it with a specific launch date to maximize anticipation.

Building a winning content mix for social media 

Here's a mistake new brands make all the time, they use the same content format whether someone's never heard of them or is one click away from buying. It doesn't work that way.

If someone is discovering you for the first time, they need something completely different than someone who's already looked at your pricing page three times. Different stages, different content, pretty straightforward once you think about it.

Let’s break down the stages into three to help you better label where someone is in their buyer’s journey.

Top of funnel: awareness and reach

At this point, people are strangers to your brand, they aren't thinking about buying anything from you because they don't even know you exist yet. So forget selling, just try to be memorable.

Short videos and memes do well here, Duolingo posts the weirdest TikToks that barely connect to language learning, but you remember them. Fashion brands let customers post styling videos that feel more like inspiration than ads. That's the vibe you want.

Most of this happens on Instagram, TikTok, and Meta because that's where people go when they're bored. They're not in shopping mode, they're scrolling to pass the time.

Middle of funnel: engagement and trust

Okay, they've seen your name pop up a few times. Now comes the "should I actually care about this brand?" phase. You need to give them reasons without being annoying about it.

Carousels work because you can break information into bite-sized pieces. Maybe a fitness app explains common workout mistakes across five slides. Feels helpful, not salesy. Behind-the-scenes content lands well too. When Notion shows how their own team runs on Notion, it's more convincing than any marketing copy could be.

Polls, how-to posts, that kind of thing keeps you on people's radar while you build credibility. LinkedIn and Instagram make sense because users are okay spending more than three seconds with content there.

Bottom of funnel: conversion and action

They're interested, they've been thinking about it, now they just need that final bit of confidence to actually buy.

Testimonials and product demos seal the deal here. A SaaS brand walks through exactly how their tool fixes one annoying problem. An online shop shows real customers unboxing stuff and giving honest reactions. Glossier figured this out early and turned customer photos into pretty much all their ads.

Platform doesn't matter as much at this stage. Meta, YouTube, LinkedIn, wherever. People are comparing options and doing research. Just show them the proof they're looking for.

Where brands mess up is creating random content without thinking about timing. They waste good testimonials on people who don't trust them yet. Or they're still doing brand awareness stuff for someone ready to pull out their credit card. Figure out which content belongs where first. Test small. Scale what converts. Drop what doesn't.

How AI helps you choose and create high-performing content types

Creating content for social media used to mean endless brainstorming sessions, waiting on designers, going back and forth on revisions, and hoping you picked the right format. By the time everything's approved and posted, you've already spent two weeks on what should've been a quick task.

Then there's the guessing game. Should you post UGC or carousels? Video or static images? You make your best guess based on what worked last quarter, but audience behavior shifts fast. What crushed it three months ago might not work today.

Identifying what works before you create it

AI is changing how smart brands approach this problem. Instead of guessing which content types will perform, you can see what's actually works for your business immediately. Holo is trained on over 10 million marketing assets and 19,000+ high-performing social posts, so it knows which formats are getting engagement across different industries and audiences.

Let's say you're a fitness brand launching a new protein powder. You could spend days debating whether to create UGC posts, educational carousels about nutrition, or product demo videos. 

Or you could let Holo analyze what's currently crushing it in the fitness supplement space and show you that UGC-style content and testimonials are getting way more engagement than polished product shots right now.

Speeding up production without sacrificing quality

Here's where it gets interesting. Once you know what to create, Holo actually generates it for you. It learns your brand voice, visual style, and what resonates with your audience. Then it creates multiple content variations across different formats, all matching your brand’s DNA.

UGC-style captions that sound authentic. Carousel layouts with copy for each slide. Short-form video concepts optimized for specific platforms. The stuff that used to take your team a full week now happens in under an hour.

It makes A/B testing becomes easier too. Instead of manually creating five different post variations, Holo generates dozens of options across multiple content types simultaneously. You're testing carousel vs video vs static posts all at once, each with multiple creative variations. You figure out what resonates faster, and you're not burning hours on manual production.

When one format starts losing steam with your audience, you're already testing the next batch. No scrambling, no creative bottlenecks, no waiting on freelancers or agencies. 

However, this isn't about replacing strategy, you still need to understand your audience and make smart calls about messaging.

Holo handles the repetitive stuff: generating variations, adapting content for different platforms, and spotting patterns in what's working. Your team focuses on high-level decisions instead of getting stuck in production mode.

Conclusion

The format you pick for your social content actually matters for your bottom line. It changes what you pay per click, how long your ads work before people tune them out, and whether anyone bothers converting. Get it right and your campaign will scale and bring business, get it wrong and you're just lighting money on fire.

Match your content to where people actually are mentally. Someone who's never heard of you? Hit them with a quick video or meme. They're not ready for anything deeper. People who've been checking you out need carousels or educational stuff that explains why you're worth their time. Someone who's been to your site three times this week just needs proof, like a solid testimonial or demo showing your product actually works.

Test small before you go big. Try a handful of content types with limited spend. See what moves the needle for your actual audience, not what some case study says worked for someone else. Then scale whatever's performing. 

Want to figure out which content types actually work for your brand? Try Holo for creating, testing, scaling your social content. Think of it as your AI partner for getting better results without the usual headaches.