Here’s a brutal truth: The people who know your brand’s audience best—the ones living in the comment trenches, decoding internet hieroglyphics, spotting a meme before it even hits Slack—are still being treated like interns with Canva logins.
It’s 2025. Why are social teams still getting the “just whack it on Instagram” brief after the real decisions have already been made?
This isn’t just a minor oversight. It’s an epic failure of business intelligence. If your social team isn’t in the room, your brand’s strategy is already three steps behind.
Still stuck in 2012? The Corporate Dinosaur Playbook
Let’s be real. Most companies are still running on a dinosaur playbook where “real work” happens behind closed doors and “the socials” are some mysterious, slightly embarrassing appendage. You know, the place you dump the press release after you’ve paid the agency and high-fived yourself for being “digital-first.”
What a joke.
By the time the big idea reaches the people who actually have to make it land on social, it’s been steamrolled by five rounds of approvals, stripped of any edge, and neutered into oblivion. “Let’s make it more on-brand,” they say—code for “let’s make it safe, boring, and completely miss the zeitgeist.”
If you’re still running this way, congratulations: you’re the brand equivalent of a landline in a 5G world.
The team actually doing audience listening
Let’s get something straight. Nobody—nobody—in your company is closer to your audience than your social team.
They’re literally living in the feedback loop, riding shotgun with the algorithm, and copping it all, unfiltered. They know what’s landing and what’s cringe before you’ve even realised your campaign hashtag is also urban slang for something unprintable.
No, your brand tracker does not tell you this. No, your CEO’s “gut feel” doesn’t count. And no, your agency’s slide deck of recycled trends from last quarter isn’t going to save you.
Social teams are the only ones with real, unvarnished, minute-by-minute pulse checks on what your audience cares about. Treating them as order-takers is not just foolish—it’s actively sabotaging your relevance.
Why do brands still sideline social? (And why that’s ridiculous)
Why do social teams keep getting sidelined? The reasons are almost too dumb to list, but let’s do it anyway:
1. Status games.
Social is “junior” work, apparently. Never mind that the social team is out here negotiating with trolls, crisis-managing in real time, and reading more audience data in a day than most execs see in a year.
2. Fear of speed.
Real-time means risk. Brands love to talk about “agility” but break into hives at the thought of a TikTok trend that legal hasn’t seen yet. Result? You end up with content that’s about as fresh as last week’s banana bread.
3. Outdated KPIs.
Still measuring success in “reach” and “impressions”? No wonder you can’t see the point. If you think the goal is to look big, not be beloved, you’ll never get why social’s POV matters.
What happens when social leads? (Spoiler: everything gets better)
Let’s drop the polite case studies and say it:
When social teams get a seat at the table, the whole business gets smarter. Not just louder.
- Campaigns stop flopping. Social can spot a “viral” idea that will nosedive into cringe before you waste a single dollar. You want your brand to be roasted on Threads? Ignore your social lead. Want to win? Let them call the shots.
- Risks get killed early. Your social manager’s Spidey-sense for brand blowback is worth more than any consultant’s hourly rate.
- You move at the speed of culture, not the speed of your approval chain. Newsflash: if you have to ask permission for every post, you’re already irrelevant.
And honestly? Your brand just feels less like a bot and more like a human being. Shocker.
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Comienza GRATISCulture doesn’t wait for your sign-off
Let’s spell it out:
Culture is not waiting for your Q4 “brand refresh.” It’s happening right now, in DMs, Discord servers, TikTok comments, and 2am memes. If your social team isn’t in the room, you’re not just missing the boat—you’re still at the dock, arguing about what colour to paint it.
Brands that still relegate social to the content queue are telling their audience, loud and clear: “We’d rather be safe than seen. We’d rather talk at you than with you.”
Good luck with that.
Here’s what actually needs to change
- Put your social lead in the strategy meeting. If they're not, you deserve every awkward moment when your brand gets clowned online.
- Give them veto power. If they say it’s cringe, drop it.
- Reward them for cultural intelligence—not just post volume. The best insights come from where the action is.
- Stop talking about “agility” and start acting like it. Trust social to run with a trend without four levels of sign-off.
- If your brand’s voice is flatlining, let social do CPR. Don’t make them write in the tone of the annual report.
The real risk? Not listening.
Let’s not sugarcoat it. The biggest risk isn’t letting your social team lead. It’s ignoring them and watching your brand become a punchline, not a player.
The best brands—the only brands that actually feel alive—know this. They put their social team front and centre. They let the culture translators translate, not just transcribe. They win the internet because they are the internet.
So, next time the boardroom doors close, ask:
Is the most culturally fluent person in the building in the room?
If not, don’t bother with the brainstorm. You’re already irrelevant.
Sked Social is built for teams who actually shape the culture—not just watch from the sidelines. Bring your social team into the strategy tent, power your workflows, and prove your impact (with less admin and more actual influence). Plus, Sked's social listening tools sharpen your ability to turn online chatter into actionable insight. Track conversations, spot trends as they break, and arm your team with the real-time data you actually need to steer strategy (not just fill a content calendar).
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