A brand new iStock 2025 Advertising Developments report finds declining shopper belief in social media and influencers, emphasizing the significance of relatability over perfection for entrepreneurs and companies.
Belief For Advertising Success
The iStock report finds that 81% of customers don’t belief content material on social media. However they nonetheless belief visible platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels for discovery and inspiration. By way of affect, 64% of customers belief companies over celebrities and influencers, notably manufacturers that align with their values (58%).
Authenticity And Actual-Person Content material (RUC)
iStock’s information reveals that shopper notion of influencer “realness” has declined, with 67% of individuals trusting conventional promoting over sponsored influencer posts. iStock is recommending what it calls Actual-Person Content material (RUC), pictures and movies that challenge realness. Video content material was highlighted by iStock as a powerful pattern that buyers ought to contemplate as extra customers flip to video content material for studying and inspiration.
iStock recommends that entrepreneurs concentrate on being “actual, truthful, and unique” as the important thing to constructing belief. Whereas authenticity is essential, iStock is emphasizing providing actual tales and being relatable versus content material that displays nearly unattainable perfection.
They write:
“This transformation is affecting how individuals work together with visible content material, particularly on social media. Regardless of individuals’s lack of belief, they nonetheless discover these platforms helpful, 82% of customers nonetheless go to locations like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts for video content material to be taught one thing new or get inspiration. In different phrases, individuals need the advantages of social media, with out the detrimental results. This shift has additionally made video-driven social search extra standard, the place platforms targeted on video are not only for scrolling —they’ve change into locations to look and uncover. In 2025, to succeed, you might want to converse on to your viewers, this strategy will all the time be more practical than a flood of generic posts.”
The report recommends radical honesty by exhibiting the corporate in ways in which embody imperfect moments. iStock’s 2025 Advertising Developments report reveals an strategy to connecting with customers in a method that displays qualities of realness that persons are on the lookout for within the content material they eat.
Learn iStock’s report:
Crack the Code on Belief: 2025 Advertising Insights for Small Companies
Featured Picture by Shutterstock/HAKINMHAN