Originally published on The Strategic Ampersand Substack · 7/8/26

Over the years, I’ve heard versions of the same sentence from a lot of smart, experienced people when discussing a brand’s digital strategy:

“My buyers don’t need social media.” “It doesn’t do anything for us.” “It’s full of noise and nonsense.” “Why bother? AI is taking over the whole thing anyway.”

In short the discussion is a personal opinion cosplaying as a strategic decision.

PERSONAL – OR SOCIETAL - BIAS IS NOT DATA

Almost everyone has a personal relationship with social media - and it’s rarely neutral.

Some people find it exhausting. Some enjoy it.
Some find it untrustworthy. Some use it to keep track of their favorite brands.
Some genuinely believe it’s a waste of time; full stop.
Some find it as the best way to stay up-to-date from trusted resources; full stop.

None of these are wrong. They’re just not evidence about what an audience needs or is looking for in a brand.

*Reminder: your strategy’s metric data-points have real lives with real interests. It’s the marketing strategy’s job to find the intersection of the two.* | *Photo by Federico Giampieri*

This is one of the harder things to learn in digital marketing: separating our own feelings about a platform from the actual behavior of the very people we’re trying to reach. Do I love every platform I run a campaign on or are part of a strategy? No - but that’s never been the question. The questions to ask are: where is the audience? Where is the potential audience? And how do they respond there?

“I don’t trust it” and “my audience doesn’t use it” are two completely different statements - and only one of them is testable.

WHAT GETS LOST WHEN BIAS DRIVES THE DECISION

When leadership’s personal feelings drive the strategy, social media gets stuck in a chicken-or-the-egg debate instead of a “if you build it, they will come” mindset. The latter provides a landing for data - the first is based on opinion.

And if it means a platform, or social media as a whole, is cut on vibes, instead of data, a few things tend to happen. The brand goes quiet, eventually disappearing, and in that empty space, competitors or other voices actively occupy it. The team stops measuring because there’s nothing left to measure. And when someone finally asks “why isn’t this working,” the honest answer is: “it was never really tried” because it was pre-judged as wasted time and resources, thus no effort was put toward implementing and executing the strategy as it was initially created.

I’ve sat across the table from leaders convinced their buyers, customers, or patrons were “locked in” and social media was irrelevant to them. Each time, the data told a more layered, nuanced story. It’s more along the lines of “If you build it, they will come” belief than a chicken vs the egg theoretical discussion.

The existing relationships were real and didn’t need replacing. But the audience - the next buyer, the people adjacent to the current one, the ones doing research before anyone picks up a phone - are already out there, forming opinions with or without the brand’s presence.

Personal distrust of a platform doesn’t make the platform disappear for your customers, buyer, or patrons. It just means you’ve decided not to show up where they already exist.

THE FIX IS SIMPLE. THE DISCIPLINE IS HARD.

Good marketing teams learn to ask different questions than simply “do I like this platform.” They ask:

Who is actually on the platform? (Demographics)
What do they do when they’re on it? (Engagement)
What does the data say happened the last time we showed up? (Metrics; the ramp-up curve, whether execution stayed intentional all the way through, and the resulting campaign impacts.)

That’s not about ignoring instinct - instinct matters. Having enough platform experience to understand the difference between instinct and bias, while learning how to read the data and translate it, and how to balance the two is what makes a marketing team great. Nor is it about finding the result to support bias. It’s about not confusing instinct with evidence. The two can point the same direction. They often don’t.

This is sonder applied to strategy: remembering your current and potential audience’s relationship with a platform is their own, shaped by their own context – their own experiences - not a reflection of how you personally feel about scrolling through it.

Your opinion of social media is allowed to exist. It’s just not allowed to be the basis of strategic outline or make the decision alone.

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