News and Insights

The Slippery Social Media Slope, Part I: Creating a Strategic vs. a Reactive Platform Presence

June 10, 2025

In today’s hyper-connected digital landscape, a brand’s presence on social media isn’t optional – it’s essential. However, the rapid emergence of social media platforms and generative AI (GenAI) presents an overwhelming pool of options – and a number of challenges – for companies trying to build a presence and connect with target audiences. The criteria that companies apply to determine which platforms are worthy of investment and engagement can make or break their success.

While businesses should always adopt a thoughtful, data-driven approach to platform selection, the recent phenomenon of brands jumping on trending social platforms without clear purpose is a slippery slope for communicators. Often prompted by competitor activity, cultural waves or political preferences, these reactive decisions vs. sticking with a strategic approach mean that a company may fail to build a lasting, engaged community in favor of chasing short-lived buzz.

The Strategic Approach: Prioritizing Purpose Over Presence

Strategic social media planning begins with a deep understanding of a brand’s goals, audience, and resources. Communicators should ask critical questions before launching a new presence on a social media platform:

• Who is our target audience and where do they spend their time?
• What kind of content resonates with our audience? Video, graphics, text, audio?
• What are our business objectives? Brand awareness, community building, increase sales?
• Do we have the capabilities to support ongoing, quality content creation and engagement?

For example, to build a thought leadership presence and educate potential partners on their differentiators, a health company may prioritize LinkedIn and YouTube. Then, to engage consumer audiences with disease education resources and supportive materials, they may leverage Meta and TikTok. If a brand’s business objectives can be achieved on existing platforms, as validated through analytics and creative agility, then there may not be a reason to expand to new, trendy platforms.

By mapping platform capabilities to audience insights and business objectives, these companies make fewer moves, but with higher impact. These scaling techniques are proven effective and avoid the cycle of spinning wheels that comes with overextending resources.

The Reactive Bandwagon: Prioritizing Trends Over Results

In contrast, reactive social media strategies are often driven by the almighty FOMO. The fear of missing out on a platform that is gaining media attention, the feeling of falling behind, can be contagious. It can drive brands to deploy a new presence on a platform without an informed, sustainable strategy.

As communicators, we often receive requests from clients who want to go viral to make a “splash,” or from an executive team member who wants to be active on a new platform “just in case” it should see an uptick in engagement. Alternately, and most recently, we’ve seen companies suddenly flee social media platforms because an executive team member does not align with the platform’s political affiliation. Ultimately, the reactive bandwagon approach can lead to:

• Inconsistent branding and voice across platforms,
• Unfocused content that doesn’t resonate with any audience,
• Underperforming channels that drain resources,
• Confusion or mistrust among target audiences.

While we must always ensure a company’s social media presence aligns with its values, we must also analyze data and encourage our clients to make business decisions based on factual audience information and content performance. Making decisions based on reacting to headlines or industry chatter not only minimizes the company’s credibility, but it diverts attention from platforms and campaigns that may be generating real results.

The Sweet Spot: Blending Agility with Strategy

The desire to maintain a strategic presence across platforms does not mean that companies should avoid experimentation altogether. Quite the opposite: being nimble is a strength in the fast-paced world of social media. The key is balancing agility with a strategic backbone, testing new platforms through pilot programs, setting clear KPIs at the beginning of the engagement and conducting real-time reporting to understand its effectiveness, and aligning each move with a broader marketing plan. This method allows companies to stay engaged and innovative without losing focus or risking results.

Choosing the right social media platforms is not about being the loudest voice in every room. It’s about being a thoughtful voice when and where your audience needs you most.

Now is the time to assess: Are you active on a particular social media platform because it supports business goals – or because everyone else is?  Choose purpose over presence. The results will follow.

In the second part of the “Slippery Social Media Slope,” we will discuss the additional challenges to establishing a trusted social media presence posed by generative AI, reinforcing the great need to be intentional, purposeful and consistent in your overarching social media strategy.