Social media management: The 2025 expert playbook

Social media marketing used to be about what you posted. Now, it’s about how you work.

From team structure to tooling, reporting to resourcing, social media management has changed dramatically. And despite its ups and downs, it’s doing everything but slow down.

Expectations are higher, channels are noisier, and the path from post to profit is under more scrutiny than ever.

To show what high-performing social looks like today, we teamed up with four leading voices in the industry to share their advice, challenges, and predictions for the year ahead.

Meet our experts:

• Taylor Loren, Brand Marketing Consultant and Content Creator, formerly Head of Marketing at Girlboss and Head of Content at .
• Brandon Smithwrick, Creatorpreneur and Founder of Content to Commas, formerly Director of Content & Creative at Kickstarter and Head of Social at Squarespace.
• Elfried Samba, CEO & Co-founder of Butterfly Effect, formerly Global Head of Social at Gymshark.
• Jack Appleby, Creative Strategist & Founder of Future Social, formerly Creative Strategist at Twitch.

We also asked our partners Canva, LinkedIn, and Meta to shed light on the tools, data, and signals that top teams are watching right now.

Taylor Loren on what is social media management in 2025 (and how has it evolved)?

This section is contributed by Taylor Loren, Brand Marketing Consultant and Content Creator, formerly Head of Marketing at Girlboss and Head of Content at .

When I started in social over a decade ago, the job was relatively simple: write the post, hit publish, and monitor the likes. Now? It’s a whole different world.

Social media management is one of the most dynamic and high-pressure roles in marketing. It’s where creativity meets analytics, brand voice is shaped in real time, and performance is scrutinized from the comments section to the boardroom.

The role has evolved dramatically over the past few years, and despite the complexity of the job spec, we’re not slowing down. Between emerging platforms, algorithm shifts, AI tools, and rising expectations, it’s no wonder burnout is such a hot topic across the industry.

But for teams who have the right systems, support, and strategy in place, social media is also where brand magic happens.

How is the social media manager’s role changing?

Social media managers today are expected to do it all — and then some. You’re not just making content anymore; you’re shaping brand narrative, managing communities, jumping into analytics, collaborating across departments, and probably getting tagged in a Slack thread about some reactive TikTok moment at 10:30 p.m.

We get it, social moves fast. But we can’t overlook how strategic the role has become.

One of the biggest shifts I’ve seen is that social is no longer a standalone channel — it’s deeply connected to business outcomes. Whether the company is focused on brand awareness, product education, customer retention, or advocacy, social is involved at every stage of the funnel.

On any given day you could be shaping campaigns, as well as executing them. Writing captions and calming a crisis. Promoting a product and sharing customer feedback with engineers.

And wearing all these hats at work means you also need the varied skill set to go with it. You need creativity, of course. But you also need a strong grasp of data and a clear understanding of your audience. Most of all, you need cultural literacy and strong gut instincts — the ability to read the room online.

The best social pros know which trends to join and which to skip, what moments a brand has permission to comment on, and when a trend has already peaked.

Take Love Island US last summer: IHOP jumped on the “Mamacita” trend with a playful syrup-bottle post that felt surprising but spot-on. That kind of move works because it shows the brand “gets it.”

On the flip side, when everyone rushed to post using Taylor Swift’s engagement announcement, the content landed flat. It wasn’t original — it was just bandwagoning. Cultural fluency is what separates those two outcomes.

Looking ahead, I think the best social media managers in the industry will have mastered the balance of initiative and empathy — people who can spot opportunities, adapt in the moment, and still bring a clear, thoughtful perspective to the work.

That combination of creative thinking, curiosity, cultural fluency, and emotional intelligence is what makes someone thrive in this job.

We need to stop underestimating what social media managers actually do. It’s one of the most high-impact, cross-functional, and creatively demanding roles in marketing today. And it’s about time the rest of the business caught up to that.

How are new workflows and tools shaping how teams get work done?

The rise of social as a core business function has completely reshaped how platforms are built. Ten years ago, most tools focused on basic scheduling and previewing your feed.

Today, they look more like publishing and collaboration systems, built for teams that need speed, visibility, and accountability across every stage of a campaign.

From multi-user approvals to real-time dashboards, the features have evolved to match the weight social now carries inside organizations. When workflows are implemented well, the impact is huge.

Teams move faster, campaigns stay consistent, and leadership actually sees the ROI. When they’re missing, everything slows down. Expect creativity to stall, mistakes will creep in, and social could end up being treated like an afterthought instead of a driver of business goals.

It’s very easy to get swept up in trialling and testing every new tool that comes to market, which can be costly and a time drain. My advice is to start with your workflows. Once your systems and foundations are in place, the tool choice becomes much clearer.

👉 in this post, Taylor breaks down what to look for in a social media management tool and the tech stack she can’t be without.

How is AI redefining what social media management looks like?

AI is probably the biggest shift we’re all living through right now, and I know it can feel overwhelming. New tools launch every week, and just when you feel like you’re catching up, another update drops.

But here’s what I really want social pros to hear: it’s not too late. Nobody is behind. Because the tech is evolving so quickly, we’re all learning and relearning together.

I’m pro-AI, but I don’t see it as a replacement for human creativity. It’s a partner. The best way I’ve found to work with it is to treat it like your assistant — it’s only as good as the context you give it.

For example, I’ve trained ChatGPT on brand voice, customer profiles, and content strategy, so when I sit down to write video scripts or storyboards, I can brain-dump rough ideas, and it helps me shape them into polished drafts.

That saves me hours, but it also pushes my creativity further because I’m not getting stuck in the weeds.

Of course, there’s a lot of AI “slop” out there; it’s easy to spot these days and won’t move the needle. That’s why I always tell people: the more effort you put in, the better it gets. Upskilling in prompting, training, and experimenting is what separates useful AI workflows from noise.

For me, the exciting part isn’t that AI can speed up admin tasks — it’s that it’s making things more accessible. Video edits, mockups, even creative concepts that used to take specialist skills are now within reach for social teams.

That doesn’t mean the human spark goes away. It means we get to spend more of our energy on ideas, not just execution.

The social media managers who lean in, experiment, and upskill — instead of panicking about being replaced — are the ones who will feel ahead going into 2026.

Why is social media management more complex — but more impactful — than ever?

Social media management has never been more demanding than it is today. The expectations keep rising — bigger goals, tighter resources — and it can feel like you’re being pulled in ten directions at once. But here’s the flip side: social has never been more central to a brand’s success.

One of the hardest parts of the job right now is proving impact in a way leadership actually understands. It’s not enough to show views or likes. Executives want to know how social ties back to the business, and as social pros, we’re the ones responsible for translating that story.

Another layer of complexity is brand safety. A single off-key post can create a crisis — and often it’s the social manager on the front lines who has to respond.

I’ve seen how much emotional labor goes into this side of the role, and yet it’s still undervalued in so many organizations. Being the voice of the brand in good times and bad is a responsibility that should be recognized and resourced accordingly.

And then there’s the constant question of where to invest your time. Do you go all-in on TikTok? Split resources between Threads and LinkedIn? Explore every new feature the platforms roll out? No social team has infinite capacity, so making those choices is one of the toughest strategic calls we face.

The brands that take social seriously — with clear goals, smart tools, and the right people in place — are seeing real business results. Social isn’t on the sidelines anymore. It’s at the center of growth, reputation, and customer trust.

Brandon Smithwrick on how smart social media management supports business outcomes

This section is contributed by Brandon Smithwrick, Creatorpreneur and Founder of Content to Commas, formerly Director of Content & Creative at Kickstarter and Head of Social at Squarespace.

After ten years working across tech, fashion, music, and now the creator space, I can tell you one thing for sure: the brands that win use social as more than a megaphone.

Social isn’t here to make your brand look cool for a week. It’s here to support revenue, retention, and reputation. And the way you get there isn’t by posting more; it’s by aligning every part of your social media strategy with what the company is actually trying to achieve.

That’s how you turn “nice content” into business results.

How does social media management keep strategy aligned with business goals?

When I build a social strategy, I always start with the same framework:

Business goals → marketing goals → social goals → tactics and content.

That’s the chain of command. If the business is focused on revenue or retention, marketing sets the campaigns, and social defines the role it plays in supporting them.

Every post, every format, every experiment ladders back up to what the business is trying to achieve.

Sadly, too many teams skip this and start off chasing the competition. I’ve seen brands waste time copying whatever’s trending, and that’s the quickest way to lose direction.

If your social media strategy isn’t grounded in your business and marketing goals (and not your competitors’), you’ll spend more time imitating than driving impact.

At Kickstarter, for example, I used this framework to guide how social supported our campaign launches. Marketing’s goal was clear: increase pledges. Social’s role was to expand reach before a launch so that when the campaign hit, it landed on as many feeds as possible.

That meant designing “pre-hype” posts, like engagement focused content and Stories, to spike audience engagement and warm up the algorithm. By the time the launch post dropped, we had already primed the audience.

The other side of strategic alignment is balance; 80% should be structured content, 20% flexible.

Most of your calendar should be tied to the big-picture goals, but you have to leave space for creativity and trends. The random tweet that blows up or the TikTok that rides a trend at the right time? Those aren’t distractions — they’re KPI accelerators. They widen your reach and feed back into the funnel.

Smart social management doesn’t pick between strategy and creativity. It builds structure around the strategy and creates room for the creative sparks that keep your brand relevant and your business on the right track.

How does social content now support the full customer journey?

If you work in social, you’ll know (on a deep level!) that social touches every stage of the customer journey, from discovery, to consideration, to conversion, and even post-purchase loyalty.

That’s why every channel needs a role. Without that clarity, you end up spreading the same content everywhere and measuring success against the wrong benchmarks.

Instead, you need to align channels to both business goals and audience expectations. That way, you know exactly what each one is meant to do, and you can set fair metrics to track success.

At Squarespace, I used this framework to get everyone — from my team to leadership to cross-functional partners — aligned on why we were posting where, and what we expected it to achieve.

Here’s how we structured it:

• Instagram for awareness and discovery: Almost like a mobile version of the website, this was about reach and visibility, not direct conversions. Conversions occur from good content, but we didn’t goal IG to this.
• YouTube for unbranded search and consideration: A storytelling hub where we could build trust and answer questions that moved people closer to choosing us.
• X & Reddit for engagement and community: These channels acted like chat rooms, we created a space for community conversations, quick reactions, and cultural moments. The goal wasn’t sales, but connection.
• LinkedIn for conversion and brand amplification: Our decision-maker channel, where messaging leaned more professional and was designed to influence purchasing decisions and make professionals and entrepreneurs love our brand.

Defining roles like this meant we weren’t chasing the wrong results. If an X thread sparked conversations and reach but no clicks, that was still a win. If LinkedIn posts drove free trials, we knew our strategy was working.

Setting those expectations upfront made benchmarking easier, reporting clearer, and leadership buy-in stronger.

What tools make it easier to prove social media ROI?

Beyond the creativity of designing, writing, and sharing content across every platform, you need to be able to prove ROI to company leaders.

If you’re expecting to get a relative amount of creative freedom and autonomy on your social strategy, you first need to start by proving ROI. And the good news is that it’s easier than ever to do that.

From native reporting tools to social management platforms like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and Dash Social, I’ve tried them all. Often, no single platform answers every question on its own; so, mixing and matching reporting platforms can end up being the best solution.

No matter where the data comes from, I funnel it all into one place: a simple Google Sheet. That sheet becomes the source of truth — clear, trackable, and impossible to ignore.

💡Tip: If you want to follow a similar system, look for a tool that can export your performance data as a CSV file.

What matters most isn’t the tool itself, but how you set up the data. One approach I’ve found particularly effective is benchmarking by content format, especially on Instagram.

At Squarespace and Kickstarter, I tracked performance separately for each of Instagram’s different post formats: single-image posts, carousels, Stories, and Reels.

So when a carousel went live, I wasn’t comparing it to a Reel or a video on a different platform like TikTok or YouTube Shorts — I was asking, did this carousel outperform the last? That’s how you avoid skewing the data and chasing false “winners.”

I also put weight on the metrics most teams overlook. Saves, shares, and comments are harder to earn than likes — they show that content sparked a conversation or was valuable enough to be passed along. Those are the numbers I lean on to show leadership that social isn’t just filling feeds: it’s driving action and influence.

Today’s tools don’t just collect the numbers, they give you the raw material to tell the right story to the right people. And the way that story gets told is shifting fast.

How can collaboration tools improve social media outcomes?

Social doesn’t live in a silo anymore. The best teams use it as connective tissue across the business, feeding insights to product, supporting customer service, and giving paid and creative teams the fuel they need to move faster.

At Squarespace, I managed 22 social channels across multiple regions. The only way to keep everyone aligned was one simple source of truth: That same simple Google Sheet also became the content hub. It sounds basic, but it worked for us.

Paid could see what was coming down the pipeline and flag posts worth boosting. Creative teams knew which campaigns needed assets in advance. International leads could adapt content without being blindsided. Customer service could prepare for spikes in tickets tied to specific launches or social campaigns. That visibility cut down on back-and-forth and made collaboration natural instead of a chore.

At Kickstarter, collaboration looked a little different. Because the platform spans so many creative communities (filmmakers, tech creators, comic book artists) the role of social was to help each team understand how to talk to their specific audience.

Social became the early-warning system: we could surface what people were asking for, spot trends within sub-communities, and feed those insights back into campaign messaging and event strategy. It wasn’t about changing the product overnight, but it was about making sure the wider company understood the signals coming straight from the community.

But tools alone don’t drive collaboration, language does. At both Squarespace and Kickstarter, I quickly learned that different teams require different framing to buy into social media initiatives.

Paid media wanted to hear about impressions, revenue, and acquisitions. Creative teams respond to inspiration — show them what competitors are doing and challenge them to top it. Customer support needed clear playbooks for how to respond when conversations spiked.

That adaptability — being able to “speak the language” of each team — was my biggest growth hack. It wasn’t about forcing social into someone else’s process, it was about showing them how social could make their job easier.

When that clicked, doors opened and collaboration became second nature. Paid teams started asking us for content. Creative teams were eager to test new formats. Support flagged insights that directly shaped campaigns.

Whether it’s a shared Google Sheet, a Hootsuite dashboard, or something else entirely, the point is access. When everyone can see the plan, trust the data, and understand their role, social stops being ‘just marketing’.

Taylor Loren on choosing the best social media management tools for your workflow

This section is contributed by Taylor Loren, Brand Marketing Consultant and Content Creator, formerly Head of Marketing at Girlboss and Head of Content at .

There are more social tools out there than ever before, and it can feel overwhelming to figure out which ones are actually worth your time.

For me, the right stack isn’t about chasing what’s new or shiny — it’s about choosing tools that fit how you and your team actually work. A good setup removes friction, so you can spend less time wrestling with logistics and more time on the creative and strategic work that moves the needle.

What are the core functions of social media management tools?

When you strip it down, the best tools all serve the same purpose: they make the messy parts of social less chaotic. They give you visibility across projects, they cut down on back-and-forth, and they help you prove the value of your work without pulling numbers at midnight.

Here’s what I consider the core jobs:

• Scheduling & publishing: Queue posts reliably, tag correctly, and don’t make me babysit launches.
• Analytics & reporting: Go beyond vanity metrics. I need to see what drove growth, conversions, and shifts in sentiment and be able to share that with stakeholders clearly.
• Monitoring & engagement: Centralize comments, mentions, and DMs so you can actually listen and respond at scale.
• Collaboration & approvals: Clear roles, simple permissions, and the ability to comment right on drafts. That’s where teams save hours.

From a manager’s perspective, those basics matter even more when you’re juggling multiple brands, regions, or stakeholders. You need an at-a-glance calendar, quick approvals, and reporting you can trust.

Here’s how that plays out in my own stack:

• Planning & visibility: I run my content calendar and projects in Notion. Content ideas start as quick notes, then become briefs, timelines, and status views that the whole team can see.
• Creation: I work almost entirely in Adobe Creative Cloud. Premiere Pro for edits, Adobe Express for carousels and graphics. Keeping fonts and colors synced across apps saves hours. I also love Butter for experimenting with motion graphics, and Tezza is my long-time favorite for quick photo edits.
• File flow: Dropbox is my go-to for large video files and client shares. It keeps quality intact and avoids the dreaded “where’s that asset?” hunt.
• On-the-fly capture: The Notes app is where I brain-dump hooks, captions, and shot lists. The Reminders app (with Siri voice prompts) keeps deadlines and publishing moments on track.
• Enterprise reporting: With larger clients, they’ll often have a social media management platform like Hootsuite set up. For larger orgs, you often need a platform that can help dig into performance and spot growth opportunities before you plan the next cycle.

None of this is flashy. It’s dependable. The stack you stick with should make publishing predictable, reviews painless, and reporting obvious, so your team has more room for the work that actually creates impact.

All-in-one vs. specialized tools: What works best?

I’ve used just about every kind of tool setup you can imagine: full-stack platforms that promise to do everything, and scrappy mixes of niche apps stitched together. The “best” choice really depends on your role and your team.

All-in-one platforms like Hootsuite give you scale and visibility. If you’re leading a social department or managing multiple stakeholders, having everything — social media scheduling, reporting, listening, and collaboration — in one place is a lifesaver.

You get dashboards that actually make sense to executives, integrations across paid and organic, and approval flows that keep campaigns moving. At that level, simplicity isn’t just nice — it’s necessary.

But as a consultant, my priorities are different. I care more about ease of use and transparency. I want my clients to log in, see what’s happening, and leave comments without me translating a spreadsheet every week. Specialized tools shine here. They don’t always have “all the bells and whistles,” but they’re cleaner, easier to use, and make collaboration more natural.

Here’s how I think about it: the best tools meet teams where they are. They help creators create, help strategists see the big picture, and help leaders prove ROI. If your tool isn’t doing at least two of those things really well, it’s slowing you down instead of setting you up to succeed.

Over the years, I’ve also streamlined my own workflow. Instead of juggling five different creative apps, I now work almost entirely in Adobe Creative Cloud. Everything syncs across platforms with brand libraries, so my fonts, colors, and assets are always consistent.

Sometimes the smartest “stack” isn’t about more tools — it’s about finding the setup that makes you faster, keeps your brand consistent, and doesn’t get in the way of the work.

How are AI and automation transforming social media management?

AI is showing up everywhere in social tools right now — from auto-scheduling and caption suggestions to timing optimization and even sentiment analysis. But the question isn’t whether to use it. It’s how to use it in a way that actually supports your work instead of diluting it.

For me, AI is most valuable in the “messy middle” of content creation. The part between the brainstorm and the polished post where ideas get stuck. I’ll use it to draft a caption, spin out 10 different hooks for a TikTok, or turn a pile of social media analytics into a simple report. It’s like having an assistant who can get you 70% of the way there, so you can spend your energy on the final 30% that really requires human judgment, creativity, and brand voice.

Automation matters just as much. Instead of SMMs spending hours formatting posts for each platform, scheduling tools now handle that. Instead of manually managing the comments, AI can auto-respond to common questions in seconds. Automated reporting is another big win — what used to take hours pulling data now runs in the background, freeing up more time for analysis and planning.

AI isn’t here to replace social strategists or creators. It’s here to give us back time to focus on the work that moves the needle: shaping campaigns, building community, and spotting cultural shifts before they peak. The teams who learn to personalize and train these tools — not just take the default outputs — are the ones who will get real value.

What key features do high-performing teams rely on most?

The best tools aren’t the ones with the flashiest features — they’re the ones that actually keep your team moving. Over the years, there have been a handful of features I’ve come to see as non-negotiable:

• Approval flows: Nothing derails timelines faster than endless back-and-forth. A good approval system lets stakeholders review and sign off right in the platform, without clogging inboxes or slowing campaigns.
• Scheduled posting & auto-publishing: This is what keeps you from babysitting a launch post at midnight. Once it’s queued, you can trust it to go live correctly — tags, links, and all.
• Unified inbox management: Social is two-way, and if you’re not listening, you’re missing half the job. Having comments, DMs, and mentions in one place makes it possible to actually engage at scale.
• Sentiment analysis: This is one of the most underrated features. Engagement numbers tell you what happened; sentiment tells you how people felt. That context can completely change how you evaluate a campaign’s success.
• Analytics & reporting: I don’t just want to see what got likes. I want to know which posts drove followers, conversions, or website traffic — and just as importantly, why.
• Visual content calendar: Personally, this is the one I can’t live without. I love a color-coded monthly view because it makes campaigns, launches, and trends click into place at a glance. But the best tools let you toggle between calendar, list, or board views so every team member can work the way they process information best.

When these features work together, you stop spending energy on logistics and start putting it back into strategy and creativity. That’s when tools stop being a burden and actually become a multiplier for the work.

How can the right tools create smoother workflows and better processes?

The best tools don’t just help you post — they make the whole process of working together smoother.

Shared editorial calendars solve so many problems. When marketing, comms, and leadership can all see what’s coming up, it stops surprises and helps everyone plan around launches, campaigns, or even seasonal spikes. It also creates accountability: everyone knows what’s live, what’s pending, and where things stand.

Asset libraries are another lifesaver. Instead of digging through endless folders or Slack threads to find that one logo or campaign image, everything lives in one place. It makes repurposing content faster and keeps brand consistency intact.

Another area to look into is your approvals workflow. Nobody enjoys reviewing content when the process is clunky — it slows everything down. Shifting to a platform built for approvals sped up timelines for me, my teams, and my clients. Stakeholders could review, comment, and sign off without derailing the schedule, and the workflow became something people actually wanted to use.

When tools make collaboration this easy, they stop being just a way to “get posts out.” They become part of how the team operates; aligning people, saving time, and giving everyone space to focus on creativity instead of chasing files or approvals.

Which reporting tools prove ROI and inform strategy?

Reporting is where social media managers show that our work isn’t just “making content” — it’s driving business impact. The right reporting tools don’t just track numbers, they guide strategy.

For me, analytics are most valuable when they answer two simple but powerful questions:

• What’s working right now? So we can double down on it.
• What should we do differently next time? So every campaign is smarter than the last.

The features that make this possible are dashboards and exportable reports. They take raw data and turn it into insights stakeholders can actually understand. Instead of just saying “this post got 10K likes,” a good tool will show that it drove 2K website clicks or that sentiment improved 15% after a campaign.

That’s the kind of context executives care about, and it’s what secures social a seat at the table when decisions are made.

Templates and scheduled reports are also underrated heroes. They cut down the manual work of pulling numbers every week, which means more time spent on analysis and storytelling.

📊 Learn more about how pro SMMs are tracking and measuring performance later in this post!

How do you choose the right social media management tool for your team’s size and goals?

The way I think about it: solos need speed, mid-size teams need alignment, and enterprises need accountability. Matching your tool to that maturity stage ensures you’re not just checking boxes — you’re setting your team up to actually hit its goals.

For solo social pros:

Keep it simple. You don’t need a huge, complex platform that costs more than your monthly retainer. Look for ease of use, affordable pricing, and features that save you hours — like auto-scheduling, caption drafts, and lightweight reporting. A clean calendar view and a small asset library can be the difference between staying consistent and burning out.

For mid-size teams:

Collaboration is everything. This is where approval workflows, multi-user roles, and shared asset libraries come into play. You’ll also need stronger social media analytics because leadership will start asking the hard questions: “What’s the ROI?” or “How is social driving the funnel?” The best tools at this stage give visibility across the team so everyone’s working from the same playbook, without slowing things down.

For enterprise orgs:

Now it’s about scale, governance, and integration. You need robust permissions so global and regional teams can work without stepping on each other’s toes. Advanced reporting dashboards that executives can actually understand. Sentiment analysis to keep a pulse on how campaigns are landing. And integrations with your CRM or paid media platforms, so social data ties directly to business outcomes.

No matter the size of your team, the right tool should make your workflow feel lighter, not heavier. If it’s slowing you down or creating more work than it saves, it’s not the right fit, no matter how shiny the feature list looks.

How do the top social media management platforms compare in 2025?

I’ve used a ton of different platforms over the years because every client seems to have their own favorite. That’s given me a pretty clear sense of what each one does well.

For enterprise clients, I love working with Hootsuite. Their reports are a goldmine — I’ll often ask clients to export them before we even start so I can spot opportunities for growth. They also feel ahead of the curve when it comes to AI integrations and deeper analytics.

When I’m working with agencies, Planable is usually my go-to. The approval flow is so smooth, it feels like editing a Google Doc. Stakeholders can jump in, leave feedback, and sign off without endless back-and-forth.

For my own channel, I’ll be honest: I often post natively. There’s just something about pressing publish yourself and being online to answer questions right after. No tool can really replace that.

Looking ahead, I think the next generation of social tools has to do more than posting and reporting. They need to help us stay ahead of culture. That means:

• Influencer and UGC discovery built in. Social managers don’t have hours to scroll for creators. Tools should surface who’s driving the most engagement in your niche.
• Smarter content planning. Show me search volume, sentiment, trending hashtags, and competitor activity, not just a blank calendar to fill.
• Trend forecasting. Real-time monitoring is fine, but what if tools could predict what conversations will peak months from now? Imagine planning campaigns to land just as the wave crests.

The best tools aren’t just the ones that make posting faster — they’re the ones that make you smarter. They give you the context, insight, and foresight to show up in the right way, at the right time, for the right audience.

Measuring what matters in social media

The way you measure your social media marketing strategies can make or break its value inside your organization.

Choose the wrong metrics, and you risk isolating your team from the rest of the business. Or worse, being treated as a “nice to have” channel for brand visibility.

Choose the right metrics, and it becomes a driver of growth, customer trust, and long-term impact.

Speaking at Hootsuite’s recent webinar on content strategy, Lauren Freund, Social Media Manager at Canva, puts it simply: “Stop measuring virality. Measure value.”

And while “value” will look different for every business, the key is to move beyond top-line metrics and focus on how your content brings your audience closer to business goals.

“Value connects with people,” Freund explained. “Virality doesn’t always lead to action.”

It’s a sharp reminder that reach alone isn’t enough. Engagement should be purposeful and tied to outcomes that matter.

That’s why high-performing teams go beyond surface-level numbers. They focus on KPIs (key performance indicators) that connect directly to business outcomes.

Which KPIs matter most for social media management?

A word of warning: vanity metrics (likes, follower counts, raw impressions) might look impressive in a dashboard, but they rarely tell the whole story.

The real value comes from knowing why people follow you in the first place, what keeps them engaged, and how those actions connect back to bigger business goals. And those metrics might not be the first you think of.

“Attention is everything,” shares Ty Heath, Director at LinkedIn’s B2B Institute, speaking at Hootsuite’s content strategy webinar. “Dwell time is the strongest predictor of brand lift.”

In other words, the time someone spends with your content is a stronger signal of impact than a quick scroll or casual like.

Elfried Samba, Founder of Butterfly Effect and former Head of Social at Gymshark, put it another way: “One of the most valuable data sources for any brand is right in the comment section.”

Samba’s advice is to closely monitor your brand sentiment and look at mentions — both tagged and untagged.

“Knowing where your brand is turning up in conversations and threads helps ensure you stay aligned with what your community is actually saying as you grow,” explains Samba.

For Instagram, the same principle holds true. “The most powerful signal for evaluating Reels performance is what people are sharing,” explains Joana Rocha, Senior Technical Integration Manager at Meta at a recent Hootsuite event.

“Content that inspires people to share with their community is often the content driving the most value.”

Together, their shared experience highlights that the KPIs worth tracking go way beyond surface-level reach. The metrics that matter most are the ones that show whether content truly resonates and moves people closer to action.

If you’re looking to measure your impact on a deeper level, here are a few KPIs you can start monitoring:

• Engagement rate: Shows whether content is resonating with your audience, not just reaching them.
• Conversions: This can include signups, downloads, or purchases and demonstrate how social drives revenue or lead generation.
• Sentiment analysis: Helps gauge brand perception, especially important during campaigns or crises.
• Retention or repeat engagement: Signals long-term brand affinity, not just short-term attention.

The “right” social media KPIs will always depend on your goals. A nonprofit might measure success through advocacy actions or educational reach, while a SaaS company may look at free-trial signups or churn reduction.

The key is to focus on the metrics that tie back to business outcomes and keep a close eye on them, day in and day out.

How can you build stakeholder-friendly social media reports?

Data is powerful, but only if people can understand it. One of the biggest challenges social teams face is turning metrics into insights that resonate with leadership.

Executives don’t want a spreadsheet of numbers. They want a clear story about impact.

“When I present results, I tailor the deck to the audience,” reveals Brandon Smithwrick. “An SVP might need a high-level view of trends, while a creative team wants to see format details. But across the board, the goal is the same: turn data into a clear story leadership can act on.”

When Smithwrick pitched TikTok as a new channel at Squarespace, he created four separate presentations: one for the SVP of marketing, one for the VP, one for the CCO, and one for the creative team. Same data, different narrative. The creative team saw execution ideas. Leadership saw the business case. That tailoring made the ROI impossible to ignore.

Once you know what you’re tracking, the next step is knowing how to share it. Social teams have access to hundreds of data points, but not every number matters to every stakeholder.

For some, a quick Slack message with topline takeaways is enough. Others may expect a full deck with benchmarks and context. The key is making insights easy to digest and framed around the questions your audience is really asking.

But when it comes to choosing how and when to show off your results, Freund’s advice is clear: “Don’t make noise — build relationships.”

“Be timely, concise, and invite conversation. That’s how social works across the org,” she shares.

What tools support accurate and efficient social media tracking?

The right tools make it easier for teams to track KPIs in real time, uncover insights quickly, and share them with stakeholders.

Native platform analytics are a great starting point — they give you direct visibility into how content is performing on each channel. But high-performing teams often need more.

Social analytics tools like Hootsuite, combined with performance and revenue reporting tools like GA4 and Salesforce, are often used to help fill knowledge gaps, and help teams get a clearer view of performance across the board.

Other features like cross-platform dashboards, anomaly alerts, automated exports, and sentiment analysis, while quite technical, are also some of the fastest ways to streamline your workflow.

A few features worth prioritizing:

• Automated reports: Save time and reduce manual errors when sharing updates with stakeholders.
• Social listening and sentiment tracking: Monitor brand perception and catch small issues before they become bigger problems.
• Cross-platform analytics: See the full picture of performance across all channels, not just siloed results.

Building a strong reporting framework doesn’t happen overnight. Even the most established brands are constantly refining their reporting suites.

Start by getting comfortable with your analytics tools, it will not only improve your strategy but also give you the confidence to share deeper context when leadership asks about “that post that went viral”.

How high-performing teams are structured

Behind every standout brand social media account is a team — or sometimes a solo social media manager — who knows how to divide responsibilities, move fast, and work cross-functionally.

But as expectations rise and resources stay flat, high-performing teams are rethinking how they operate and are leaning on the tools and systems that help them scale without sacrificing quality.

“Resource shortages are real,” shares Freund. “At Canva, we rely on tools like Brand Kits for consistency and AI assistants to speed up content creation.”

Still, even with the best tech, it often comes down to the people behind the posts. The right team setup can make or break your ability to meet goals, stay agile, and keep up with demand.

Whether you’re a solo strategist wearing many hats or part of a global org managing dozens of channels, there are common models and lessons to learn.

How are top social media teams structured in 2025?

Social teams come in all shapes and sizes — but bigger doesn’t always mean better, and having a senior leader on the team doesn’t always make for a more effective department.

What matters is clarity: the strongest teams know exactly who owns what, and how those roles ladder back to business goals.

Before we dive into team structures, here are a few of the most common roles you’ll find on today’s social teams.

These roles form the backbone of most teams, but how they’re combined — and how responsibilities are shared — looks very different depending on the business.

A startup may fold all five into one generalist role, while an enterprise brand could split them across global and regional teams.

👉 in this piece, Elfried Samba digs into how new and niche roles are emerging and why those shifts matter for the future of social.

What matters today is less about the job title itself and more about how clearly responsibilities are defined and how each role connects back to wider business goals. Without that alignment, even the most talented team members risk working in silos.

Here are some of the most common team setups you’ll see in 2025:

• Solo generalist: One person covers strategy, content, publishing, and reporting. Common in startups, nonprofits, or local businesses. Success depends on prioritization and smart use of tools to save time.
• Content pods: Small teams organized around content creation and publishing. A typical pod might include a strategist, community manager, and content creator focused on one channel or campaign.
• Specialist teams: As companies grow, roles split into distinct specialities (strategy, community, content creation, data, and paid media). This allows for deeper expertise but requires strong coordination.
• Global/regional model: Enterprise brands often appoint a central strategy team with regional or market-specific leads. This structure balances consistency with local nuance.
• Hybrid models: Some companies blend in-house strategy with agency partners (for paid media or creative campaigns), creating flexibility without overextending headcount.

But what happens when headcount is frozen, but goals keep growing? That’s where employee advocacy programs on social media are proving their value.

More teams are investing in internal advocacy — equipping employees, execs, and subject matter experts to share the brand story in their own voice. Done right, these programs don’t just increase content volume — they expand your reach through people your audience already knows and trusts.

As Heath puts it: “Think about who delivers the content.”

Most traditional social setups rely on a single brand social media account publishing multiple times a week. But when employees start sharing, it dramatically scales your presence — without needing to scale the team.

“Our research at LinkedIn’s B2B Institute shows that if there are no employee connections to a brand, people respond positively only 37% of the time,” shares Heath.

“But if there are two or more employee connections, that jumps to 83%. So it’s really powerful. The people behind your brand matter.”

Whether it’s formalized through tooling and training or encouraged more organically, employee involvement on social isn’t just a “nice to have” — it’s a performance multiplier.

Org charts and job descriptions aside, there’s no perfect playbook for how a social team should be structured. What separates high-performing teams isn’t size or job titles — it’s clarity, collaboration, and a clear connection to the bigger picture.

Should you build in-house, agency, or hybrid social media teams?

One of the biggest questions companies face is whether to build a social team internally, outsource to an agency, or adopt a mix of both.

“The benefit of in-house is speed”, shares Samba. “You’ve got a social media manager in the room checking your ideas in the moment.”

Having a dedicated social lead embedded in the business means there’s always someone on the ground, owning the channels day-to-day and making sure activity stays aligned with wider goals.

“Of course, agencies and freelancers have their place, but for me, when it comes to brand control and pace, in-house is extremely beneficial,” explains Samba. “You need someone who understands your customer deeply and can connect the dots faster.”

That said, in-house teams aren’t always realistic for businesses with tighter budgets. Headcount comes with overheads, and when there’s a major campaign to deliver at speed, social agencies can fill the execution gap with creative firepower and extra bandwidth.

But outsourcing isn’t always the shortcut it appears to be.

“When you’re working with an agency, it’s a bit of work to prepare for the meeting — gathering notes, debriefing them, going through rounds of review,” shares Smithwrick, highlighting the importance of having an agency partner you know you can trust.

“You think you’re offloading, but often you end up spending more time than expected.”

For small businesses or startups, a hybrid system usually offers the best balance. Larger enterprises tend to invest in a strong in-house core while tapping agencies for scale or specialist projects.

Each model comes with tradeoffs, and the right choice will depend on your goals, budget, and team capacity.

Here’s a snapshot of what to consider:

How do leading organizations foster cross-department collaboration?

No matter the team model, social rarely succeeds in isolation. High-performing teams build strong connections across departments, using social insights to fuel business impact.

“Social is like passing the ball,” shares Smithwrick. “We’re not always the ones scoring, but we set up other teams to succeed. That’s how I explain our role to leadership.”

That mindset applies no matter how your team is built — whether it’s one person manages it all or a global department with regional leads — you need to collaborate with the wider company to meet shared goals. And in 2025, that means being adaptable: shifting your language and priorities depending on who you’re working with.

“For paid, I had to talk in numbers like revenue or acquisitions. For creative, I’d share examples of what our competition was doing and say, ‘I know we can do it better’,” explains Samba.

“You just need to speak their language. That was the biggest growth hack for me. We got so much done by being a pleasant team to work with.”

It’s a reminder that collaboration isn’t abstract — it plays out in the day-to-day ways social supports other teams. The more flexible and approachable social is, the easier it becomes to slot into different workflows and make an impact across the business.

Here’s how social typically supports departments outside of its own:

• Customer support: Social listening helps flag issues early and route them to the right support teams. A strong link here ensures customers feel heard in real-time.
• Sales and growth: Social media content can generate leads, spark product interest, and provide feedback on what messaging resonates. Close collaboration ensures campaigns support revenue goals.
• PR and communications: In moments of crisis, product launches, or major announcements, alignment between comms and social is critical to maintain brand trust.
• Product and community teams: Feedback gathered through comments, DMs, or mentions often reveals product opportunities or community concerns that other departments might miss.

When these connections are built — and when social teams stay flexible in how they work with each group — social shifts from being “just a channel” to being a real-time bridge between brand and audience, and a source of insights every team can use.

Elfried Samba on hiring (or becoming) a top social media manager

This section is contributed by Elfried Samba, CEO & Co-founder of Butterfly Effect, formerly Global Head of Social at Gymshark.

I’ve been in this industry long enough to see social shift from a nice-to-have channel to one of the most influential drivers of business growth. What makes someone succeed in social today isn’t the same as five years ago — or even twelve months ago. And that’s what makes this work so exciting, and so challenging.

If you’re hiring, or hoping to step into a social role yourself, you need to understand what separates the good from the great.

What essential skills define great social media managers in 2025?

When people ask me what makes a great social media manager, they usually expect me to rattle off a list of tools or technical skills. And yes, of course you need to know your way around analytics dashboards, short-form video, and scheduling platforms. You also need the soft skills — storytelling, adaptability, and the ability to build trust with a community.

But in my experience, those lists only scratch the surface.

At Gymshark, I worked with a team of almost 30 people, spread across community, content, production, and disruption. And what I saw over and over again was that the people who really thrived weren’t just creative or fast at picking up new platforms.

They understood people. They understood culture. They knew how to connect a brand’s voice with what their audience cared about, and they could do it at scale.

That’s why I started describing the skill set of a best-in-class social professional as an iceberg model.

At the top are the things everyone sees: content, campaigns, trends. But underneath are the layers that really matter — the ones that turn a social media manager into someone who can influence not just channel content, but the entire direction of the business.

Creativity (the minimum requirement).

Creativity is where everyone starts. Spotting trends, remixing ideas, pulling references from music, sport, film, or everyday life — that’s table stakes.

You can learn it by exposing yourself to as many influences as possible and experimenting with formats. But creativity on its own won’t make you stand out anymore.

As I’ve said many times: “Creativity is actually the minimum requirement. I don’t think it’s a differentiator; it’s something you should expect every social media manager to have.”

Platform mechanics (understanding how people behave on channels).

This goes beyond knowing TikTok favors vertical video or that Threads leans text-first. It’s about reading the behavioral psychology built into each channel. Why do people present themselves differently on Instagram than they do on TikTok? Why does TikTok feel like discovery while Threads feels like commentary?

Once you understand the “rules of play” for each platform, you can tailor content that feels native while still driving business results.

Psychology (human behavior at scale).

This is where good becomes great. Social media managers who understand psychology aren’t just creating content, they’re anticipating cause and effect.

Every post is a signal designed to trigger a chain of reactions: attention, emotion, action. That’s why I always pay attention to social media candidates who studied psychology or showed a real interest in human behavior.

If you don’t understand how people think, associate, and respond to triggers, you’re only scratching the surface. With psychology in mind, you stop thinking of a post as “just social media content” and start thinking of it as a domino that can spark a movement.

Social dynamics (placing the brand in culture).

This is the deepest level of the iceberg, and in 2025, it’s the one that matters most. Social media today is about where your brand stands in the bigger cultural conversation.

That’s the reason Ryanair can joke in ways British Airways never could. Same industry, same product, but entirely different audience dynamics.

The best social pros know how to place their brand within culture and society, and they know what their brand cannot say as much as what it can. That awareness — or cultural fluency — is what gives a brand credibility online.

Most people can handle the first two layers. They can be creative, and they can learn platform mechanics. But the ones who master psychology and cultural dynamics can truly move communities.

How can brands attract and retain top social talent?

One of the biggest mistakes I see brands make is treating social like a sub-department; a place to push out campaigns, or worse, a catch-all for anything “digital.”

In my view, social is the walking, breathing representation of your brand. If you want to attract and keep the best people in this space, you need to treat it that way.

At Gymshark, I used to describe social as Monaco to France: independent, but right in the middle between the brand and the audience. That’s where social should always sit — central, visible, and connected to every part of the business.

When talent feels like they’re at the table, they’ll rise to the challenge. When they’re sidelined, they’ll eventually leave.

The best way to keep top talent excited is to give them clarity and autonomy. At Butterfly Effect, we give new hires a two-page manifesto of where we want to be in 10 years, and a living 30-page deck that constantly evolves and shares the how and why of the changes we’re making as a business.

Instead of handing them a rigid job description, we say: here’s the vision, here’s where we’re going (and what we’re currently doing), now show us how you’ll help get us there. That clarity of direction, paired with trust, is what gives people the energy to stick around.

But it’s not just about vision. Talent also needs the tools to succeed (analytics access, content support, budgets), room to grow (pathways into strategy or specialist roles), and a culture that values balance. Flexibility, hybrid working, mentorship, and purpose-driven missions all play a part in keeping people.

Good talent, especially talent that hits all four layers of that iceberg, won’t stay long in an environment that burns them out. You need to give them the resources to thrive.

For small businesses, competing with big brands on salary or headcount will always be tough. But you can compete on clarity and opportunity. Don’t overload one person with six different jobs — give them a clear scope, freedom to experiment, and recognition for the impact they’re making.

I’ve found that top talent doesn’t just stay for money. They stay for growth, respect, and the chance to do meaningful work.

What are the latest career paths and compensation trends in social media?

Traditionally, the career ladder in social has had a ceiling. You start as a Social Media Manager, maybe move up to Head of Social, and if you’re lucky, you’ll land a Director role. But beyond that? Progression gets blurry. Chief Social Officers or Chief Community Officers are still rare, and that gap is costing companies their best people.

Because social is where trust is built, communities form, and customers decide whether they connect with your brand or move on. If you don’t value that at the highest levels of leadership, you’ll lose the people who can build it.

Which new roles are emerging — and why?

When I started, titles like Community Manager or Channel Lead were hardly a thing.

At Gymshark, we built teams around what the work actually required: community (not just reactive care, but proactive listening and insights), production (because social production is its own discipline), and even disruption (a group tasked with getting outside the bubble and innovating before someone else did).

At Butterfly Effect, I’ve created roles like Curation Lead, someone with the human eye to spot and shape what matters before it trends. We don’t start with legacy org charts; we start with the action.

That’s the future of social careers: jobs designed around outcomes, not tradition.

Why do businesses that don’t prioritize social leadership risk falling behind?

I’ve watched brilliant social leaders hit the wall. Once you’ve reached Director level, the career ladder ahead gets challenging if your company isn’t ready to support you.

Some of the smartest founders and CEOs are building the next rung, not just for their social team, but for the business itself.

Because when standout brand voices walk away, it hurts. It’s not always a bad thing for the individual — many go on to thrive as independents — but for the company, you can’t help but wonder why it happened. The people who built those reputations didn’t stop being valuable; the structure stopped making room for them.

When companies don’t create growth paths, top operators go fractional, start agencies, or launch creator-led businesses. They’re not impatient, they’re pragmatic. They know their skills are transferable, and they’ll take them where they’re valued.

If you’re running a business and you’re not making seats at the top table for your social leaders — in title, responsibility, and compensation — you’re taking a risk. You’re betting that the people who built your brand’s voice will stick around without room to grow. Most won’t.

Why does compensation and recognition still lag behind the impact of social roles?

Another challenge is pay and recognition. Too often, social roles are underpaid compared to the value they create — or overloaded with responsibilities that would be split across three or four jobs in another department.

I’ve seen companies expect one person to run community, create all their social media content, manage paid ads, analyze data, and report to leadership — all under the same title and salary. That doesn’t just burn people out, it signals that the business doesn’t understand the value of social.

If you want to keep your best people, you need to align pay and scope with impact. Benchmark social leadership roles against peers in brand, comms, or product — not just “digital marketing.” Make the responsibilities clear, and make the compensation match.

Why might the next generation of CEOs come from social?

The future won’t be led by people who can only crunch numbers. It will be led by those who know how to build communities, scale trust, and connect emotionally with people.

My prediction is that EQ (emotional intelligence) will be the differentiator. IQ can be rented. And AI can handle operations. But EQ, creativity, and the ability to understand people at scale? That’s where the next generation of leaders will come from.

That’s why I believe the next wave of CEOs and founders will come from social and community backgrounds. They’ll be the ones who’ve lived at the intersection of brand and audience, who know how to turn conversations into movements, and who understand trust as the ultimate competitive advantage.

If you want to keep top talent, you need to build real headroom. Focus on establishing new roles that reflect the work and value it brings, offer compensation that matches impact, and build a career path that doesn’t end at “Head of Social.”

And if you’re the talent? Don’t wait for permission. Your skill set is already bigger than a job title.

Jack Appleby on key trends shaping the future of social media management

This section is contributed by Jack Appleby, Creative Strategist & Founder of Future Social, formerly Creative Strategist at Twitch.

Social media management sure isn’t the same job as it was five years ago… or even five days ago? Hell, I think it means something different at every brand, agency, pro sports team, and company, but one thing remains true: we love these jobs. We’re close to the action, creative, and our work can reach millions! That’s the dream, isn’t it?

These jobs sure ain’t easy, though. The platforms are changing, the algorithms are shifting, AI broke through a wall like the Kool-Aid man, and we’re all left to scribble new playbooks overnight, all while doing our day-to-day work. It’s a lot.

That’s why I want to help make your Social Media Manager life easier. I’ve been working in social for over a decade now — agency side, in-house, and now as a creator myself. I’ve launched campaigns for brands like Microsoft, Beats by Dre, Verizon, and Community (six seasons and a movie!).

Keep reading to learn about how I see the future of Social Media Management evolving, what tools I think you should invest in, how to judge big trends from fool’s gold, and everything you’ll need to advance in your social media career.

Let’s jump in!

How are AI-powered social workflows changing how teams work?

Good news, social pals: AI isn’t going to take your job. It’ll actually just make you significantly better at your gig. This piece you’re reading right here? It’s dripping with all my personal ridiculous language, but AI built the outline so my weird brain can color between the lines.

There are so many easy places to incorporate AI into your social job, like:

• Writing caption drafts that you personally polish in your brand voice
• Suggesting hashtags based on your set strategies
• Auto-generating images, video scripts, even b-roll to support your content
• Predicting when your audience is most likely to engage

And the tools are multiplying: ChatGPT, Jasper, Adobe Firefly, MidJourney, Runway, and of course, Hootsuite’s own OwlyWriter AI (which straight up saves people hours by cranking out caption drafts and content ideas).

But here’s the important distinction: AI is Robin. You still gotta be Batman. 

Even if you dump all your brand docs into ChatGPT and ask it to do your job for you, it’s never going to have the human touch necessary to get the emotional resonance you need for likes, comments, shares, and purchases.

The best social media managers will use AI to handle the time-consuming, repeatable stuff, so they can focus on the high-value work only humans can do:

• Understanding cultural nuance.
• Knowing when a meme’s gone from funny to stale.
• Writing copy that hits the emotional core of your audience.
• Building relationships with creators, customers, and communities.

Think of AI as the world’s fastest intern. It’ll do the grunt work shockingly well, but it still needs your oversight and judgment.

What you should automate vs. what you shouldn’t:

Sure, automation can save you a ton of time — but not everything should run on autopilot. Here’s an easy guide to help determine what to automate vs not:

For example, remember Coca-Cola’s big AI play? They launched “Create Real Magic,” where fans used AI tools to design Coke-branded art. The campaign exploded because AI was used as a creative playground, not as a lazy shortcut. That’s the difference.

The takeaway

AI doesn’t even want your job! It just wants to make your life easier! 

Every SMM needs to invest real time into learning AI tools, if only because it’ll save you so much time down the road. Automation is real, it’s the resourcing you’ve needed (but never had budget for), and if you’re weird like me, it might even give you some life coaching? 

How are social search and SEO reshaping content planning and management?

YouTube loves to toss around the idea that they’re the second biggest search engine, but TikTok and Instagram are becoming big search hubs, too.

Google’s admitted that a huge chunk of Gen Z searches don’t start with Google. Want some hot new restaurant? Check TikTok. A new workout? Instagram. Style inspo? Don’t ask me, ask social media.

That means your social media captions can’t just be punchlines and half-hearted CTAs anymore. You’ve got to be keyword rich. 

You have to drop all the right words so the searchers find your content. You’ve probably got to write captions 2-10x longer than you’re used to.

What this means in practice:

• Your captions should be closer to paragraphs than one-liners
• Hashtags aren’t just shots in the dark, they’re searchable metadata
• Subtitles and on-screen text matter as much as captions because they feed discovery engines

The good news is that while SEO is certainly a practice that requires expertise, you can get the basics down pretty easily. You know which words do and don’t matter to your intended audience. 

For example, search “best pizza in Brooklyn” on TikTok right now. You’ll find thousands of videos with that exact phrase in the caption, hashtags, and subtitles (and as a New Yorker, I can say they’re all lying, because every New Yorker has a different answer). 

That’s not an accident. Restaurants are hungry for that social traffic… oh god, I made a food pun to teach a social lesson, I’m washed.

The takeaway

Every post is now an SEO play. Social media managers need to add “keyword research” to their skillset if they want their content discovered beyond their existing followers.

Which emerging platforms are redefining engagement strategies?

Every year, there’s a shiny new social network, and every year, every social media manager wonders if they’ve got to get their brand on Threads, or Bluesky, or Mastodon, or Substack Notes, or… you get the idea. 

My take’s a simple one: I’d rather be late to a new social network than early. In fact, most brands aren’t good enough at the existing social giants to even consider investigating a new platform.

The smarter approach:

• Always grab your brand’s name + @handle right away. I don’t want you posting content to that new network yet, but for brand safety, claim the name.
• Focus on content types that travel. You can’t win social media in 2025 without short-form vertical video, and that content type can be copied and pasted onto most major social networks.
• Focus on the biggies. Your brand should be winning on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter before you think about anything else. And per the last bullet, the same content can go on all five of those networks!

Those new networks don’t even have enough users to make them worth your time!

A good rule of thumb: I don’t really care about a social network until it reaches 20 million monthly active users. Of all the “next big thing” networks, only one reached that number and still flamed out… poor BeReal.

The takeaway

The best social media managers don’t just chase shiny objects. Be where your audience is, and I promise, more of your audience is on the current social networks.

Why is data-driven decision-making now a non-negotiable?

I really hope we all agree that being happy with bunches of likes isn’t deep enough for social anymore. We’ve got to show real data fluency within our creative. 

Social media managers have to think like business owners and know how their work affects the bottom line.

The shift:

• Old world: Likes, follower counts, retweets, general social metrics.
• New world: Click-through rates, conversion metrics, attribution modeling, customer journey impact, and everyone’s favorite acronym: ROI.

Why this matters:

Social teams don’t have time to wait on quarterly reports anymore. You need to know what’s working right now and how it connects to the rest of your marketing engine. You’ve gotta be able to track performance, spot trends, and adjust creative, and spend, and posting strategy, all at the drop of a hat.

That’s where tools like Hootsuite’s integrations come in handy. By syncing with platforms like Google Analytics, Salesforce, and HubSpot, social managers can instantly see how their content impacts real business outcomes — from clicks to conversions to pipeline.

It’s not just about reporting; it’s about reaction speed. When your data connects across your full marketing stack, you can make smarter decisions faster — and prove that social isn’t just awareness. It’s driving the business forward in real time.

The takeaway

If you’re a SMM, congrats! You’re also an analyst now. If you’re not learning analytics dashboards, attribution models, and ROI storytelling, you’re going to get left behind, fast.

How are collaboration tools redefining social team dynamics?

A social media manager’s day always starts with their tech stack, and everyone loves debating which tools work the best (just scroll LinkedIn).

The standard stack:

• Internal comms tools like Slack
• Project management tools like Monday
• Social media management tools like, you know, Hootsuite!
• Creative suite like Adobe

The bonus stack

Honestly, you’re going to need more than those. They’ll get the job done, but you’re a pro. I believe in you. Here’s a couple more categories to consider (all of which have third-party app integrations with Hootsuite!)

• Analytics: Panoramiq Insights
• Link tracking: OneClick.bio
• CRM integration: think Salesforce

How is content repurposing getting smarter and more scalable?

Here’s the myth: every post has to be brand-new. That’s exhausting, unsustainable, and flat-out wrong.

When you see a band play a concert, they don’t only play new songs. THEY PLAY THEIR BIGGEST HITS. Good songs are just content (sorry, bands, it’s true). And everyone wants to see good content, whether it’s been posted before!

And honestly, most of your audience missed it the first time anyway. Even strong posts only hit 12–32% of followers. That means 70%+ of your community never saw it to begin with. Reposting is using content you already know works to reach even more people.

And sometimes, reposting actually performs better. I’ve had a video with the exact same cut hit 1M views one year and 2.8M the next. The only difference? I had more followers the second time around.

Why repurpose?

• Reach new people: Most of your audience missed it the first time.
• Boost your big hits: If your audience has grown, get that content up again!
• Test and learn: A flop might just need a better hook, headline, or timing.
• Lighten the workload: Every repost = less pressure on your social team’s content treadmill.

Social media isn’t about reinventing the wheel every week. It’s about consistency, reach, and connection. If you’ve already made something people loved, why wouldn’t you give it another spin? Good content doesn’t expire. Play the hits.

Hot takes and best practices for social media management in 2025

Hootsuite loves to give me a hot take assignment, which… I get. 

I challenge our industry a lot, and I think we need a little more rigor overall. So, let’s do a lightning round of things I wish SMMs would and wouldn’t do.

I could go on and on, but this is already a long read and my carpal tunnel’s kickin’ in.

Final takeaway

Social media management in 2025 is unrecognizable from even five years ago. AI is rewriting workflows. TikTok and Instagram are the new search engines. New platforms come and go every month. Data is the language leadership speaks. Collaboration tools are your lifeline. Repurposing is survival. And best practices evolve every single week.

If you stay curious, keep experimenting, and build systems that scale, you’ll thrive in this job!

The future of social media management belongs to the managers who are part strategist, part analyst, part creator, and part project manager, all rolled into one. And if that sounds like a lot? That’s because it is. But damn, it’s fun.

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. Plus, amplify your reach with built-in employee advocacy features. Try Hootsuite free today.