Social media leadership is more piloting than posting. Enterprise teams aren’t just managing accounts. They’re managing ecosystems. Between AI workflows, global teams, and savvy audiences, leadership has never mattered more.
It’s no surprise, then, that a recent IBM study found 69% of CEOs credit organizational success to having a broad group of leaders who deeply understand strategy and can make critical decisions. Social is no exception.
Here’s what top social media leaders are doing differently in 2026. And how you can build and measure those same skills.
Social media leadership skills are a blend of features, both learned and innate, that help leaders direct and inspire social media teams to succeed. These attributes often include:
- Strategic thinking
- Emotional intelligence
- Communication aptitude
- Adaptability
- Creativity and innovative thinking
- Collaboration and conflict management
A successful social media leader’s skills must go beyond social media management. A true leader understands how to delegate and guide in real time through an evolving industry and culture. They know how to use a social strategy to achieve business goals.
A strong social leader also knows how to:
- Navigate competing stakeholder priorities
- Translate data into stories executives care about
- Motivate teams to perform with both creativity and compliance
Shavivla Todd, a 4-time Shorty award-winning Social Media Strategist, says a great social leader must be “naturally culturally aware and in-the-know.”
“You don’t need to be chronically online. But you do need to be acutely aware of what’s happening as it pertains to current events and cultural moments.”
Cultural relevance isn’t just to stay ‘on trend,’ says Shakivla. It’s to “help lead your team through culturally sensitive moments. An exceptional social media leader should know how to read the damn room — everyone hates a tone-deaf brand.”
Defining social media leadership vs. management
Social media managers focus on executing a social media strategy. Their social tasks include:
- Creating and publishing compelling content
- Understand how social networks like LinkedIn, TikTok, or Instagram work
- Engaging an audience
- Analyzing and optimizing performance
- Maintaining brand voice
Social media leaders, on the other hand, set a direction and keep everyone working toward it. They:
- Shape the long-term vision
- Advocate for resources
- Build systems that allow their teams to move quickly while staying aligned
A manager might be optimizing a campaign’s engagement rate. A leader is the one asking how that engagement ladders up to revenue, reputation, and retention.
In social, business leaders have to stay flexible. The industry changes fast, and you need to be able to pivot, using new trends and real data, to build initiatives that actually move the business forward.
“Keeping up with the swiftness of social media is an Olympic sport,” says Shakivla. “I’ve learned to be comfortable with uncertainty, and I don’t get too attached to plans.”
Why leadership skills matter in enterprise social
Enterprise social media teams work in a complex space with lots of moving parts. A strong leader helps them navigate it and keep social aligned with the broader business and brand.
Enterprise social is like conducting a symphony where half the orchestra is in another time zone. And the legal department keeps rewriting your sheet music. A strong social leader brings harmony. They:
- Connect departments
- Align priorities
- Protect their teams from the constant ping of competing agendas
“You must know how to say no,” says Shakivla.
“Everyone will have an opinion, a request, an idea. There’s only so much a social media team can do. Sometimes it might feel like you’re the fun sucker. But my philosophy is that you don’t need to be everywhere, everything, all at once. That goes for viral trends and emerging social media platforms alike.”
Social media leadership skills matter because social media is critical, but the industry is chaotic. AI tools reshape workflows. Audiences crave brand authenticity. And algorithms change overnight.
Social leaders need to keep one eye on industry trends and the other on their team. All while balancing brand goals and organizational politics in their digital marketing strategy.
They’re juggling a lot of plates, like data, content, and the occasional ego. Without strong leadership, those moving parts start spinning in different directions.
Leading distributed teams across regions and functions
In today’s digital age, enterprise social teams are everywhere and nowhere all at once. You might have a London strategist, a Vancouver copywriter, and a content creator in Singapore.
Strong leaders build trust across time zones by:
- Setting clear guardrails so teams can create freely during their office hours
- Hosting regular syncs while keeping team culture alive
- Recognizing wins publicly because connection beats micromanagement every time
Protecting brand reputation at scale
Your brand’s reputation is tried and tested online. Strong reputation management involves systems that help your brand stay consistent, credible, and calm. Especially during times when the internet isn’t.
That’s why the best social leaders:
- Create clear crisis protocols so no one’s panic-drafting an apology post
- Empower frontline teams with the communication skills to respond to all comments, good and bad
- Invest in social listening tools to catch issues before they blow up
Hootsuite’s Amplify tool is great for social listening. You can monitor positive and negative sentiments at scale.
Community engagement is massive for building a positive brand reputation.
“At Bobbie, we hit a scaling challenge when social engagement exploded after my first year. DMs, comments, and ad interactions surged as the company doubled down on customer retention and loyalty,” says Shakivla.
While Shakivla initially proposed hiring a community manager, budget constraints meant she had to pivot.
“My team analyzed our message patterns and realized the majority of DMs were product-specific questions that our Customer Experience team was better equipped to handle.”
Shakivla partnered with the Director of CX to integrate social communications into the CX team’s infrastructure.
“We redirected product inquiries to the CX team’s workflow, kept non-product inquiries like influencer outreach and partnerships with social, and established clear handoff protocols and response templates for consistency,” says Shakivla.
“This restructuring let the social team refocus on strategic content while ensuring customers got expert help from the right people. Sometimes scaling isn’t about adding headcount — it’s about working smarter across teams.”
Driving growth and innovation through social media
The best leaders know that social can be used as a growth engine, not just a megaphone.
They drive innovation by:
- Encouraging experimentation with new formats (yes, even the weird ones)
- Partnering with other teams to tie social directly to measurable business results
- Turning data into direction
Staying compliant
Compliance doesn’t have to be the fun police. It can be the invisible framework that lets your team create with confidence. Leaders at the enterprise level know how to keep creativity flowing and stay on the right side of the regulators. They:
- Work closely with legal and risk teams early, not after the fact
- Build approval workflows that are fast, transparent, and easy to follow
- Train content strategy teams on evolving policies
Social leaders must focus on the tasks that actually move the needle and delegate the rest. That means zooming out for strategy. Zooming in for people. And keeping both hands firmly on the wheel for governance and collaboration.
Team productivity and growth are how Shakivla measures leadership success.
“Their wins are my wins! But beyond that, I look at a few key indicators: Is my team engaged and energized, or are they burned out? Are they developing new skills and taking on bigger challenges? Can they operate confidently without me micromanaging every decision?”
Strategic vision and goal setting
Great social leaders know how to support big business goals with social strategies.
That means:
- Defining clear KPIs that tie social metrics to revenue, retention, and reputation
- Keeping the brand grounded in purpose, not just performance
- Balancing chasing short-term wins like trendy content with long-term longevity, like a solid brand reputation
Team development and mentoring
Behind every strong social presence is a team that feels seen, supported, and empowered. Leaders who invest in their people build loyalty, foster creativity, and encourage resilience.
Smart leaders:
- Offer coaching and feedback dedicated to building up a team member
- Spot burnout before it hits and protect their team’s time and energy
- Celebrate the wins loudly
- Build pathways for career growth to keep your best talent
- Focus on their own leadership development
“I measure success by how well we’re saying no to the right things,” says Shakivla.
“If my team is constantly overwhelmed and reactive, that’s a leadership failure on my part. But if we’re being strategic, protecting our bandwidth, and delivering quality work that actually moves the needle for the business? That’s when I know I’m leading effectively.”
Governance, risk management, and compliance
Rules don’t have to kill creativity. But confusion always will. Give your team clear rules on your brand and style guidelines, accessibility standards, and all legal requirements.
The best leaders:
- Create playbooks for approvals, access, and escalation
- Stay ahead of regulatory changes and privacy updates
- Use tools that automate the boring parts so the team can focus on the brilliant parts
Psst: Save time with Hootsuite’s automation tools. Leaders love bulk scheduling and the best-time-to-post tool.
Cross-functional collaboration
Strong leaders can connect the dots between department silos. They:
- Partner with sales or customer experience teams to use insights in social strategy
- Align with HR and internal comms to build employee advocacy programs
- Work with product development teams so everyone has the right information
- Speak the language of the C-suite to make sure leadership knows the drill
Don’t sleep on community management
If content is the hook, community is the heartbeat. Show up where the conversations actually happen.
“Social leaders should focus their efforts on community engagement and management,” says Shakivla.
“People never really wanted brands on social anyway. They wince whenever they scroll past an ad. Which means the odds are stacked against us when it comes to creating thumb-stopping, outstanding content.”
Appeal to the few
Trying to please everyone is guaranteed to please no one. The smartest social leaders double down on the people who already care.
“Instead of trying to appeal to the masses, social leaders should focus on appealing to the few: your most engaged community members, the squeaky wheels, your biggest fans,” says Shakivla. “Show up for them in creative and bespoke ways. Think Stanley Cup and the car fire situation.”
Pro tip💡: Hire a community manager whose job is to respond to comments on all owned content and mentions across all platforms.
Source: Danimarielettering
No one wakes up one day, suddenly ready to lead an enterprise social team. Social leadership is a skill set you build. Sometimes, in a trial by fire.
You may want to grow your own skills. Or mentor someone else into a leadership role. You can use these tips and tricks to develop social media leadership skills.
Conduct a leadership skills audit
Before you can grow, you’ve got to know what you’re working with. A leadership audit is basically a vibe check for your management style.
Ways you can conduct a leadership skills audit:
- Ask yourself questions designed to uncover strengths and weaknesses. Can you list 5 ways you empower your team? Can you list 5 ways you hinder them? If your answers make you cringe a little, congratulations. You’ve just found your growth areas.
- Send out an anonymous internal survey. Ask your team how supported they feel. How clearly priorities are communicated. And where they think processes get stuck.
- Review past wins and misses. Take a retrospective look at campaigns that soared or stumbled. You’ll gain insight into how your leadership style works and the ways it can improve.
- Get peer feedback. Other department heads see how you show up in cross-functional spaces. Ask what’s working and what’s meh.
- Benchmark against the greats. Compare your approach with the habits of respected leaders in social or marketing.
Implement frameworks for decision-making and approvals
No one wants to be the bottleneck in a project. Know how to build structures that free your team to make their own decisions.
- Create simple, repeatable guidelines. Build playbooks, templates, and decision trees so your team knows the “how” without needing constant approval.
- Define clear boundaries and goals. Give teams autonomy within guardrails.
- Delegate ownership, not tasks. Assign people full responsibility for areas or outcomes so they can make decisions confidently and proactively.
Coaching, mentorship, and feedback loops
Even leaders need leaders. The best social heads surround themselves with mentors and peers who aren’t afraid to speak up.
To grow your leadership muscles:
- Find coaches (internal or external) who challenge you
- Build feedback loops with your team. Ask what’s working and what isn’t.
- Offer mentorship downstream, so you’re always developing future leaders
Stay curious
Great social leaders are curious. They ask questions, really listen, and create space for trust and new ideas. Stay curious about the world, not just social, and you’ll go even further.
“I pay attention to what’s happening not just in social media, but in culture, technology, and how people are communicating,” says Shakivla.
“That cultural awareness isn’t just about avoiding missteps. It’s about spotting opportunities and understanding where things are headed before they fully arrive.”
Fail often and fail fast
In social, perfection is a trap. Progress comes from testing, breaking things, and learning fast from your mistakes.
“I’m not afraid to experiment and fail,” says Shakivla. “Some of the best insights come from trying something, watching it flop, and understanding why.”
“Perfectionist leaders will struggle in this space. Or those who can’t handle the discomfort of not knowing if something will work. In social media, you have to be comfortable testing, learning, and moving on quickly.”
Know how to advocate for yourself
If you’re looking to grow into a leadership role, advocating for yourself is key. In a young field like social media, upward mobility can get stagnant.
“Those who want to grow into a leadership role often have to convince their company to promote them and hire someone new,” says Shakivla. “Start building your case early. Keep track of your successes and how they’ve positively impacted the business.”
Log your wins as they happen. Then, come performance review time, you have a folder of proven successes.
Social leaders don’t measure success by follower count. They measure it by impact. Your team’s performance and how people feel about your brand say far more than a vanity metric ever will.
But impact isn’t easy to measure, especially on social.
“I prefer to set expectations early about what success looks like on social media,” says Shakivla.
“It won’t always share the same 1:1 metrics as other marketing channels. The number of link clicks doesn’t always show how successful my team is at building brand love and trust online.”
KPIs and performance metrics for leaders
Great social leaders know strategy isn’t just about engagement rates or reach. It’s about what those numbers mean.
The best leaders show how the metrics tell a bigger story, like:
- Team efficiency: turnaround time on approvals, campaign delivery speed, and collaboration rates
- Brand health: sentiment, share of voice, and engagement quality. Social media tools like Amplify help track conversations.
- Strategic impact: social contributions to the sales pipeline, recruitment, or customer retention
These metrics show how your leadership style translates into real-world results.
“Show the numbers that matter — and lead with the biggest ones you have,” says Shakivla. “Focus on total impressions, follower growth, and engagement, specifically shares and saves, which signal that people find your content valuable enough to revisit or spread.”
“Compare those numbers to previous time periods and, if possible, to competitors to provide context.”
Link leadership to team and business outcomes
The most effective social leaders connect their performance to others’ success. If your team’s thriving, your leadership is working.
You’ll know you’re on the right track when:
- Your team makes confident decisions without constant escalation
- Other departments ask for your team’s input early on
- Social insights shape company-wide strategy, not just the content calendar
Show the qualitative data
It can be easy to ignore data that doesn’t translate neatly into percentages. But the real, human emotions your brand elicits are a crucial part of success on social.
“Screenshot every meaningful comment, DM, and Instagram story mention,” says Shakivla.
“Show executives the actual conversations happening around your brand. This is the stuff that doesn’t fit neatly into a spreadsheet but demonstrates real human connection and brand sentiment.”
Those conversations happening across the internet are valuable data. And often more compelling than any vanity metric.
Tools and dashboards for monitoring impact
You can’t manage what you can’t see. Great social leaders use data to guide, turning dashboards into compasses.
Leaders use social media tools to:
- Track campaign performance with Hootsuite custom reports
- Keep projects on track with tools built for workflows and timelines
- Spot trends early to anticipate opportunities or risks
- Translate complex data into executive-friendly insights
Pro tip 💡: Automate the data pulls, but humanize the story. Translating what your tools are telling you is key.
Hootsuite gives enterprise teams the visibility, control, and insights they need to lead with confidence.
Capabilities for team visibility and governance
The bigger the organization, the easier it is for things to go sideways. Hootsuite gives social leaders a bird’s-eye view of every post, profile, and person.
You can:
- See everything at once, who’s posting what, when, and where
- Set roles and permissions so everyone’s empowered to do their work
- Create governance frameworks that protect brand consistency across regions and business units
Approvals, workflows, and compliance features
Approvals shouldn’t feel like waiting for a carrier pigeon. Hootsuite’s built-in workflows make it easy to keep things moving while keeping the brand on point and the legal department happy.
With Hootsuite, leaders can:
Its structure without suffocation. Your team can move fast and stay in bounds.
Analytics, reporting, and enterprise dashboards
Every good leader knows that what gets measured gets managed. Hootsuite analytics turns social data into insights that actually mean something.
You can:
- Track KPIs across regions, teams, and campaigns, all in one place
- Visualize performance trends and benchmark success over time
- Generate tailored, executive-ready reports. These show how social drives business impact (and justify next year’s budget).
Social media leadership skills FAQ
What are social media leadership skills?
Social media leadership skills are a mix of strategy, communication, and emotional intelligence. These skills help leaders guide teams, protect brand reputation, and turn social into a business growth engine.
How do they differ from social media management skills?
Management is about execution. Leadership is about direction. Managers post great content. Leaders make sure that content drives company goals.
Who should develop these skills in an organization?
Anyone guiding people or strategy on social. Heads of social, brand directors, digital leads, and even execs or social managers who want to understand how social impacts the business.
How do leaders influence cross-functional teams?
Leaders influence cross-functional teams by building trust and creating alignment. The best leaders translate social insights and strategy into a language that other teams can understand and act on.
What tools help social media leaders succeed?
Platforms like Hootsuite make it easier to lead at scale with visibility, approvals, analytics, and governance all in one place.
How do enterprise leaders scale social media impact globally?
Enterprise leaders scale social media impact globally through consistency, not control. They set frameworks that empower local teams to move fast, stay on brand, and report results back in a shared system.
Save time managing all your social media with Hootsuite. From one powerful dashboard, you can plan, schedule, and publish content across every network, engage your audience in real time, track performance, and uncover insights with OwlyGPT and social listening tools. Try Hootsuite free today.
