Social media in 2025: Go ALL IN or go ALL OUT
A week ago, preparing the Social Media chapter of my marketing audit course, I had a revelation.
In 2025, social media has become an ALL IN or ALL OUT marketing channel.
By ALL IN, I mean that to get results from organic social media (Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn), brands (read: marketers) need to work hard.
By hard work, I mean a 100% dedication to a social platform: 3-5 high-quality posts per week that can compete with big brands' social teams & digital creators.
As I argued in my LinkedIn post (now 60,000+ impressions OMG (βͺβΏβͺ)):
In 2015, social media marketing was an intern's job because the CMO was busy with strategy and paid ad campaigns. In 2025, social media is still an intern's job because the CMO doesn't know how to do it.
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The Great Complexification of social media marketing 2015-2025
β³ In the past 5 years, paid ads have become easier to manage as Meta and Google add automation. Meanwhile, the complexity of social media marketing has skyrocketed.
β³ Social media is now 10x more competitive v.s. 5 years ago. Think professional creators posting high-production videos, hyper-engaging brand UGC in Reels and TikTok, celebrity collabs, etc.
β³ People who started marketing careers in 2010 struggle to keep up with Gen Z social media aesthetics, discourse, lingo. It's become hard for 40y olds to talk the language of 18y old consumers. (I'm 31y and even I think it's hard...)
β³ In 2025, social media marketing is complex and high-value expertise that companies hire special talent & teams for.
RANDOM QUESTION
β»οΈ Let's link swap?
I'm doing a spring cleanup of my marketing blog and looking to boost my DA (Domain Authority).
If you have a website/blog with DA 60-80, and want to do a link swap, hit me up on LinkedIn or reply to this email.
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Ok, back to it...
Here are 5 brands winging the social media game.
Check out their IG profiles if you're not quite sure what "good social media marketing" means these days. Hint: lots of videos.
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Key changes for marketers
β³ As a small brand's marketing manager, you probably don't have the skill set of a seasoned social media marketing expert. So, it's quite hopeless to compete against big brands and professional creators on your own.
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ββ³ You just don't have the time to keep up w/ all best practices, come up w/ hyper-creative ideas, and create (write, film, design) high-quality social media content. You also don't have a video production team...
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Should you give up on social media?
Hold your horses. But do consider the ALL IN or ALL OUT approach.
β³ Go ALL IN for a 3-month test period. Although some social media agency people commented under my LI post that it should be a 6-month period, I don't buy it.
β³ Look at social media as a 3-month experiment into which you invest β¬3-5k per month.
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ββ³ Shift some paid ads budget to social media. Say you spend β¬10k per month on paid ads. Shift β¬5k of that budget to social media as an experiment for 3 months.
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ββ³ Hire a freelance social media expert or agency for that 3-month period and let them work their magic. They've got the knowhow, social-media-creative brain, and teams and tools to create high-quality content.
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ββ³ See how far the experiment takes you in 1-2 channels you've asked the experts to manage. You may as well see that this β¬5k is better spend on social media expert's fee than paid advertising. You can measure the results via general high-level results, blended CPA, and obviously social media growth KPIs.
This was my two cents β or 598 words β on the subject of social media marketing in 2025. Reply under the LinkedIn post and let's discuss!
πͺ‘ Needles in a haystack
Officially my new favourite section of Marketing Fix.
Things that cut through the internet noise + what I've been reading, listening, watching, liking, thinking.
πͺ‘ Did someone say "champagne?" πΎ π I stumbled upon a LinkedIn post starting with: "Last month, I paid $17,900 to send 100 champagne bottles to prospects, customers, partners and influencers." Obviously, I couldn't resist reading the rest β and wishing I were in that prospect list as well...
Apparently, sending high end champagne to people works. Who'd have guessed... The campaign generated over 40 demos in just a few days and hundreds of thousands in net new pipeline. But it also helped influence over $225k of open pipeline.
πͺ‘ Instagram launched new Testimonials feature. The new ad format lets creators get paid for testimonials in comments.
Creators write max 125-character messages that get attached to a brand's ads. The paid comments will be pinned to the top of the comments section. Via Partnership Ads, the "paid partnership" label is automatically attached. Read more in this TechCrunch article.
πͺ‘ SEO A/B tests reveal what actually moves the needle. Interesting LinkedIn post on SearchPilotβs SEO experiment wins & no-wins. Rewriting titles to match search intent drove up to +28% traffic. Adding FAQ/text targeting featured snippets improved traffic +25%.
πͺ‘ GREAT Meta ad campaign fixes by Marcus Burke in this LinkedIn post. Optimize on placement level, ad sets by ad type for diversification, stop relying on talking head UGC and more.
Film rec: Blow-Up (1966) IMDB β Antonioni was a genius. Also, watch the final scene of Zabriskie Point (1970) for a depiction of consumerism being blown up to Pink Floyd theme song. Beautiful chaos.
Book rec: Paris Trance by Geoff Dyer, link β In preparation to my weekend in magnolia-blossom Paris, I was glad to find on my bookshelf the Dyer book I'd long been planning to read. And it's a delight. Highly entertaining and amusant, the novel tells a love story of a young writer doing anything but working on the novel he came to Paris for.
Life rec: 1h lunchtime breaks β Spring has arrived in London and I now take an hour off each day to walk to a bakery, have lunch, and loiter around in the sun. I don't mind working 1h later in the evening. Breaking out of the hibernating spiral of home-office-home, for me, is all about tiny earthquakes that shake up the daily routine.
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Thanks for reading!
Have a good one, and stay clear of AI.
Karola