The State of Social Media 2026.

Trust is the thread running through Brandwatch's State of Social Media 2026, published on 24 September 2025. Its data shows people calling out hidden charges, intrusive ads and empty influencer content, and rewarding honesty and good service.

The report draws on 910 million online posts collected with Brandwatch Consumer Research between 1 January and 30 June 2025, with some trends traced back to January 2022. Unless it says otherwise, each change compares the first half of 2025 with the second half of 2024. Brandwatch adds third-party research in places.

Trust is breaking down

• Mentions of hidden fees and extra charges grew 40%, with 30% more new voices joining in.
• Mentions of deinfluencing, people warning each other off products that disappoint, rose 79%.
• Calls to boycott rose 95%, and posts saying "do not buy" reached 836,000 between January and June 2025.
• 54% of conversations about ads show anger, over clickbait, ad overload and paid subscriptions that still serve ads.
• Nearly 90% of mentions of clickbait in 2025 were negative.

Service decides loyalty

Online, customer service attracts more negativity than any other part of a business, the report says. Of the eight industries Brandwatch tracked, finance is the most negative, with 36% of service mentions negative, driven by refund and payment problems. Food services have the most positive service conversation, at 46%, though 33% is negative.

Chatbots are winning people over. Mentions of them rose 14%, positive ones jumped 63% and negative ones fell 3%. Brandwatch also counted more than 348,000 mentions of helpful customer service.

Influence, ads and AI

• Influencer conversation rose 20% in early 2025. Finance influencer talk is the most negative (40%), while consumer packaged goods influencer talk is largely upbeat (24% positive).
• Clearly disclosed sponsored posts, tagged #ad or #spon, draw far more positive reactions.
• AI conversation grew fastest in automotive (up 102.5%) and energy (up 98%). More than 30,000 mentions linked AI to energy use and the climate, up 32% on the previous six months.

The report closes with rules for each platform: authenticity and trends on TikTok, polished but not too polished visuals on Instagram, thought leadership on LinkedIn, and genuine participation without overt promotion on Reddit.

What it means for marketers

Brandwatch sells social listening, so its central message, that the conversations that matter happen without you, is also its sales pitch. The report doesn't break its data down by country, its "fewer than 1%" figure is measured on X alone, used by 38% of Saudis, and it doesn't cover Snapchat, used by 77%, according to SCOP's 2026 study of social media use in the Kingdom.

The direction still applies here. Hidden fees, slow refunds and clickbait cost trust everywhere, and the fix is operational before it is creative: clear prices, quick refunds and service that answers. In influencer work, the numbers favour disclosed, relatable creators over polish.

Sources

• Brandwatch, "The State of Social Media 2026" (24 September 2025)