Online community engagement in 2025 is an exciting space that warrants a deep dive. Whether it’s the emergence of AI or the growing role of nano-influencers, online community engagement is all pointing in the one direction: towards genuine and authentic engagement. More than ever, audiences have been starved of real connections with the brands they love and are hungry to feel like they are a part of a greater community.
But what makes genuine and authentic engagement so special and why should you care about it?
At BeKonstructive Marketing, we understand the opportunity to harness shared value and deliver long term ROI with audiences has never been greater.
So, let’s dive into the online community engagement landscape of 2025, exploring where it’s headed in the future, and what it means for your business.
Key Takeaways and Trends
Social Media is Still on Top
While the broader landscape of community engagement continues to evolve, social media platforms remain the cornerstone of online community engagement in 2025. Instagram remains the top ranked community engagement platform, followed by TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook.
While these platforms continue to offer great value for marketers, mastering their ever-changing algorithms can be challenging. This means social media strategies that served you well in the past may no longer be the silver bullet to community building.
Quality Over Quantity
When engaging with audiences, it can become easy to fixate on achieving numbers including followers, likes and shares. Community building in 2025 is much greater than superficial and algorithm-dependent engagement metrics. Audiences are now so habitually involved with social media that basic connection is no longer enough to truly engage audiences, it has to be trusting and intimate.
The real value of community building in 2025 is derived from genuine and meaningful connections that aren’t reflected by traditional engagement metrics. The more genuine the connection shared with audiences, the better you can understand them. Since our online habits and constant connectivity aren’t going to be changing any time soon, real connection with your audience will continue to deliver more value for your brand than clicks beyond 2025.
De-Influencing and Nano-influencers
Once the ultimate in marketing, traditional influencers with 100K+ followers have become just another form of advertising to audiences. Simply put, audiences have grown tired and untrusting of big influencer marketing and have learned to just keep scrolling. Instead, nano-influencers with 1K to 10K followers provide much greater value to community building.
This is thanks to the more authentic and trusting relationships shared between audience and influencer, fostering more active and engaged communities. In 2025, we will continue to see more and more brands tap into this space and experiment with the value nano influencers bring to communities.
Return of Email Lists and Newsletters
In a blast from the past, longer form written content including email lists and newsletters are reemerging as community building platforms in 2025. There is real value in these forms of content, thanks to the alternative they offer to cluttered social media algorithms.
This provides more meaningful and direct access to your community and allows creation of more personalised and thoughtful content. While email lists won’t become the next Instagram or LinkedIn for community engagement, 2025 is set to be their comeback year as audiences and marketers alike seek an escape from social media.
Role of AI
The growing prominence of AI can be seen in almost all aspects of life in 2025 including within online community engagement. While the growing influence of AI is inevitable, marketers cannot expect miracles. This means grand ideas of totally AI managed communities can be put on hold as AI lacks the genuine and personalised interactions demanded by audiences in 2025.
In fact, the growing prevalence of AI in society only makes authentic and intimate connections shared between audience and brand all the more valuable. AI will undoubtedly continue to take a greater role in community engagement beyond 2025 as the technology advances and becomes more human-like. However, nothing will replace the value of authentic community engagement.
Brand Examples
So what does effective community engagement look like in 2025? Here are some brands that are killin’ in on socials and in micro-communities..
Premier League Instagram Channel
Instagram’s new broadcast channel feature is a great way to create humanised and engaging online communities, directly to the inbox of audiences. This escapes the clutter of regular posts and stories which are easy to scroll past and ignore.
Here, the Premier League, a soccer league in England, makes great use of the feature in their “News” channel, inviting members of the channel to their matchday blog. This funnels audiences toward their own website where audiences can more directly engage with the brand.
The ability for followers to reply to content turns this into a platform for conversation and greater connection between brand and audience, creating a deeper and more intimate sense of community.
Use of nano-influencers
Lacroix Water has truly tapped into the value of nano influencers, reposting user generated content on social channels from creators with as little as 1000 followers. These creators have helped shape the brand’s authentic and community based identity, allowing Lacroix Water to reach smaller but highly engaged communities. By featuring user generated content, this also encourages other creators to join in and post their brand experiences in the hopes they’re featured
Canva Email Newsletter
This email newsletter from Canva makes great use of email marketing for community building purposes. Sent weekly, Canva’s email marketing offers genuine benefits to subscribers and avoids appearing as junk mail. These emails feature useful informational content such as tips and tricks or in this case showcase news and upcoming events. This keeps subscribers in the loop and engaged with the brand, fostering stronger connections with audiences.
Implications for Business Owners and Agencies
Harnessing the power of your online community through community engagement has never been more valuable for brands than in 2025. The insights it can provide into your online audiences are second to none and its potential to deliver enduring ROI makes tackling its challenges with expert advice truly worthwhile.
Looking to enhance the value of your online community? Check out our social media management services to book a free discovery session.
