Keeping an eye on the social media creators
Almost every company uses social media for marketing purposes these days. But the platforms are becoming increasingly complex, local sales support is becoming less common, and the market is flooded with video creators who claim they’ve finally figured out the medium.
Marketing managers have no choice but to bring light into the darkness, to understand and constantly scrutinize the mechanisms of the world's widest-reaching media genre.
Challenge organic content and its impact, it's a fallacy!
Content agencies preach it like a mantra: posting several times a week is mandatory, only accounts with many followers achieve reach, and content must not look like advertising. But how much of this is really true? Basically, platforms like Meta are not designed to help companies achieve success for free. They are marketing platforms and their business model is based on advertising. Meta generated revenue of USD 164.5 billion in 2024 - more than all TV stations in the world combined. The lion's share comes from advertising revenue. Regular posting hardly brings any long-term benefits. The only decisive factor is whether content is relevant and provides a concrete benefit. This is a challenge, especially in less "entertainment-related" industries. Many companies therefore try to score points with jokes - often without any real effect.
The hope of gaining more reach through many followers has also become a myth since the switch to the "discovery feed". Content is played out where it arouses interest and regardless of follower numbers. Unfortunately, the competition is huge: around 95 million new posts compete for attention every day. So it's no wonder that engagement rates are often disappointing.
Our recommendation for action
Challenge the logic of organic reach and calculate the reach costs using the tried and tested thousand contact price (CPM): production costs / reach in thousands = effective CPM. Now ask yourself whether something that is X times more expensive than advertising really achieves X times greater impact. In most cases, you will receive a clear signal as to whether you should continue to trust the hypothesis of organic impact.
Question the implementation: Early branding is not a mistake, it's a must!
Content creators often argue: "No branding at the beginning - that's a deterrent." Instead, a brand should only be subtly incorporated at the end. Anyone who continually claims this has probably never looked at an advertising impact study such as a brand lift study on social media. You can read the facts in the listicle.
Our recommendation for action
Only early branding will bring full brand impact. At the same time: Apart from this requirement, give the content creators as much creative freedom as possible so that the video remains authentic. Show your creator the comparative figures (see table).
What does the campaign mean "worked well"? Question the success metrics of the content creators!
Creators often focus on metrics such as views, likes or shares - which is understandable, as these are easy to measure. However, other KPIs are much more important for marketing managers: brand awareness, image, sales.
Likes, for example, only show that a piece of content was likeable, but do not prove any purchase intention, brand loyalty or long-term effect. Campaigns that are geared towards engagement often fail to achieve their goal and primarily lead to people talking about metrics that are of no benefit to their brand and company.
Our recommendation for action
Use social media platforms for what they were built for, and that is targeted marketing on "Marketing KPI". Each platform offers tools to optimize campaigns for specific marketing goals - from brand awareness to consideration to conversion. These objectives have long been standard and enable precise reporting and target-oriented optimization of your campaigns.
"Platforms like Meta are not built to help companies succeed for free."
Facts
Early branding is a must!
1
Show who you are
The average viewing time of an Instagram reel is 1.7 seconds. Anyone who does not immediately show who they are and what they are about has simply missed the opportunity.
2
Fire lift
A recent TikTok study ("The Long and the Short Form of It", TikTok and System1, 2025) shows: Early branding increases brand lift by over 80 %. This applies to advertising recall, brand awareness and image.
3
Entertainment
But: entertainment remains essential! Nevertheless, the content creators are not entirely wrong, as the same study shows that entertaining videos have 2.8 times more influence on brand image than boring videos.
Variant Logo Purchased Drop-off rate Branded
Impressions appear after 1 second Impressions
Video 1 after 5 seconds 100'000 60 % 40'000
Video 2 in the 1st second 100'000 80 % 100'000
"Regular posting brings hardly any long-term benefits."
Social media support for SWA members
In cooperation with Furthur AG, the SWA offers a free helpdesk for social media issues:
Note: Support requests regarding "blocked accounts" or "missing access rights" are excluded.
