Always an exciting and unpredictable space, social media is downright chaotic in the current landscape.
Confronted by platform controversies, legislative debates, and moving targets, brands face tough choices to safeguard their reputations, cultivate consumer trust, and create meaningful engagements.
Should you abandon your community on the more problematic platforms and seek your social fortunes elsewhere, or abandon the notion of “brand safety on social” and let the chips fall where they may?
Before you, as a content team leader, decide how — and which — social platforms factor into your marketing strategy, you must accept a universal truth: “These channels are not yours,” says Carmen Collins, director of social media for Generac. “The platforms own everything that happens on them. We are playing on their fields.”
To get more detailed guidance, we asked industry experts to share how their brands have adapted to the current realities of marketing in the social sphere.
Pick your platform battles wisely
The roll out of community fact-checking and shifts in consumer behavior related to platforms’ sociopolitical affiliations are just two of the recent social media headwinds.
“The state of social right now is like the Wild, Wild West — but when has it not been?” says Petra Khan, associate director of strategy at ICUC, a global social media management agency. “We’re at the mercy of whatever platform updates X, Google, and Meta want to make to their algorithms and usage decisions,” she says.
Your brand, their policies
The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer: Special Report — Brands and Politics found that 78% of its 15,000 respondents believe brands are “doing things that are political or politically motivated,” and six in 10 consumers buy or boycott brands to express their political viewpoints.
In this environment, publicly choosing a side on an issue comes with bottom-line risk and some potential reward when your position aligns with most of your followers. Even the seemingly most benign social media activity can be perceived as a political statement.
“Politics are seeping into platforms’ business decisions, including how they structure their algorithms, the type of content they allow on their platform, and their moderation tactics,” says Juntae DeLane, founder at Digital DeLane, a digital marketing agency.
Brands risk being “political by association” based on the platforms where they conduct their social conversations. This may be why companies like Best Buy and 3M maintain a presence on X (presumably) to respond to customer service inquiries but stopped posting original content in the years after Elon Musk purchased the platform.
Keep an eye on significant shifts
Despite any “sides” social platforms take, you have some control over your brand’s narrative on them. Direct your teams to stay current on what’s happening in the space. “I would imagine that if any platform does anything that drastically affects your brand’s safety, you would shift your content focus to other platforms,” Carmen says.
Your team should also track use data and listen to gauge audience sentiment around the platform’s directional shifts.
If an issue arises on the platform or with the platform’s policies, should you say something about it in your content conversations? Petra says it makes sense to chime in if the issue directly affects your business or target audience.
An issue that would spark a response from a nonprofit like Planned Parenthood likely shouldn’t get a reaction from a restaurant brand. “You don’t want to make a comment under pressure when you’ve never spoken about that issue before,” she says.
When speaking up is appropriate, prepare your team to do it thoughtfully and productively. Carmen recommends providing documented social media guidelines and guardrails and initiating team discussions around the issue. “If you sell solar panels, of course, climate change is something you can talk about. But there are ways to talk about it with facts and figures instead of terms that might trigger a backlash,” she says.
TikTok: Hedge your bets or go all-in?
While China-based TikTok is a heavy hitter in marketers’ social media lineup, the platform’s fate in the United States remains in the air. That may make a risky proposition for brands enjoying success on the video platform and those considering the platform.
A big gamble could net big rewards
Some experts remain bullish on the platform’s value proposition. “I honestly think brands need to double down on TikTok,” says Keenya Kelly, video marketing and social media strategist at If You Create It. She predicts a deal will be struck before the U.S. ban on the app takes effect, and its popularity will explode at that moment.
Waiting out the TikTok standoff could cost your brand opportunities, especially if enterprising competitors go all-in. “All the people who were there are going to come back, and people who've never been there are going to go there,” Keenya says. “TikTok is a culture center and a culture shifter.”
Yet other brands are more hesitant to ante up, given the value they’d leave on the table if a deal doesn’t come through.
When Carmen started at Generac, one of the things she looked at was the conversation about the company and its products on TikTok and whether a presence on that channel made sense for the brand. At first, she thought the answer was “yes.” But as the uncertainty about the platform’s future became more pressing, she decided to prioritize her resources for the time being. Until there’s a clear way forward for TikTok, her team has leaned more into testing and refining its vertical video content on other platforms like Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and even Linkedin. “We have a pilot to understand short-form content and what’s going to work. We started rolling out on LinkedIn with great results,” she says.
While Petra agrees that brand leaders should explore how to convert their TikTok audience to other platforms, it’s still best to build each content piece natively. “Follow each platform’s best practices, rather than republishing something [that’s clearly watermarked for] TikTok on Instagram,” she explains.
Make the case for joining a new space
With the emergence of new social spaces like BlueSky, its Flashes app, and Meta’s Threads, should your brand explore and experiment, or watch and wait?
“My advice for brands is to not jump just to jump,” Carmen says. “I can probably name five channels that had a very short shelf life. They come and go all the time, so it has to be: Are your customers there? Does it make sense for your brand? Does it give you a different way to connect with them?”
Take BlueSky. Sure, its numbers boost every time X makes a policy change, but brands renowned for their social media on other platforms haven’t been especially active there. Doritos has just 1.1K followers. On Threads, McDonald’s stopped posting in 2023 despite its over 750,000 followers.
It might feel like a bold statement navigating to new platforms that better align with your brand’s and your audience’s values, but it must have a business case, too. “Where you're doubling down on or where you're focusing all or most of your resources is certainly dependent upon the return on that platform,” Juntae says.
Gauge opportunities against priorities and resources
Leaning into platform strengths can help prioritize your brand’s time and resources. For example, Juntae explains that the X algorithm does not penalize mediocre content, while Instagram and Facebook do. “If the last three posts that you publish on Instagram didn't do so well, then the fourth post would get penalized because your previous three posts weren't so good,” he says.
As such, a smart strategy could be to see what new content resonates on X and bring what's working to newer platforms where your brand is less established.
You can also repurpose battle-tested content on older platforms as they evolve. Judi Fox, whose consultancy helps businesses on LinkedIn, sees more interest from B2C brands wanting to reach audiences on the professional platform.
“We forget that the human consumer also exists at the workplace,” she says. Brands can effectively use their company page to showcase their team, their case studies, and the journey of the company – the brand story, Judi adds.
Embrace the social journey
Whatever your social strategy is today, it may look different in six months and change again in a year. Through each iteration, you increase your brand’s odds of success by taking directional cues from both your customers and each platform’s strengths.
“The most common conception of empathy is the old adage of walking in someone else’s shoes, but that’s woefully inadequate,” Carmen says. “Instead of trying to walk in someone’s shoes, it’s really about walking beside them. That’s an important distinction for brands on social to make.”
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