Algorithm Approved: The Social Media Trends That You Need to Know for 2026

Social media has more twists and turns than the Beckham feud. And for socials to work for our businesses, we need to stay on top of them. So here are some top tips on maintaining your social media presence in 2026.

Social Media Trends for 2026

AI is your friend, not your enemy

Whether you like it or not, AI is becoming an integral part of not only businesses but our day-to-day lives. You can either fight it (and get left behind), or work with it. It’s important to know that it doesn’t replace us (yet) but is the perfect assistant to help develop ideas and objectives with efficiency. Use AI to help enhance content creation - generate fresh post ideas and captions that algorithms will favour. You no longer have to trawl the internet in search of copyright free imaging, AI can create them for you! It can also identify emerging trends, meaning you can always be on top of what's hot.

Keep It Portrait

Bite-size content conforms to our ever-shrinking attention spans (sad but true). In a surprising study done by Mediabrix, 90% of vertical videos (Instagram Reels, Instagram Stories, Facebook Reels) have a higher watch time than horizontal ones. These portrait short-form videos are what people are craving. In a recent survey done by Sendible, customers were asked which content type was most relevant to their 2026 strategy - 38.8% said short-form, while only 18.1% went for long-form. 

Google is so last year

People are ditching the usual search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo and are opting to use social media platforms to search for information (particularly Instagram and TikTok). This means our platforms’ SEO (such as relevant keywords, hashtags, and engaging video content) has never been more important. 

Just needs a human touch

Followers value human-led storytelling and UGC (User Generated Content). Building a community and fostering deep engagement is now paramount. People are bored with the polished, generic content; they want to see the raw truth! Let's be honest, we’re a nosy bunch and like to see behind the curtain, let your followers see behind the scenes.

Tell a story!

Keep your followers hooked. Rather than posting disjointed content, create interconnected episodes that builds a narrative. Getting people to tune into the ‘next episode’ has them returning to your page for more.

#Hashtags are dying

Now SEO is becoming so essential, dumping a novel's worth of hashtags at the bottom of a post no longer cuts it. You now have to be intentional, not just with your hashtags but also with your keywords and description. Your hashtags should align with these but don’t go wild - use two or three max.

Make it exclusive

This isn’t a new concept, but something that has really taken off recently. People are using public feeds less and are now opting for specific private groups, so content is more relevant - this is especially applicable to Facebook and LinkedIn. Why not make some of your top followers feel extra special by creating an exclusive group which shares the content they’d be most interested in? Or, make sure you're interacting in the groups that most align with your brand. 

Social media is a fickle beast that can be hard to tame, but keeping up with trends gives you the best tools possible to make it a big asset to your business.