Using Social Strategy to Fix Your Content Dumpster Fire
TL;DR: Stop treating social as the last step in content strategy. I've built a comprehensive framework that puts social insights first—from brand assessment through sustainable implementation—because social moves fast, gets real feedback, and generates the strategic insights that should be informing all content decisions.
Most organizations develop content strategy in boardrooms, create campaigns in isolation, then hand the social team a finished plan and say "make this work on Instagram."
Screw that.
This approach is why so much organizational content feels like it was written by people who've never actually used social media. Social isn’t just a distribution channel: it’s where you get real feedback on what works and what doesn't from the most raw, honest audience in existence. That intelligence should be driving strategy, not executing it.
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For the vast majority of your audience, social media IS your brand. Not your website. Not your marketing materials. Not your carefully crafted brand guidelines sitting in some folder half your team has never opened.
Your social presence is where people actually interact with you. It's how they discover you, how they talk about you, and how they decide whether they give a shit about what you're doing. If your social content doesn't align with your brand strategy, you have a serious problem.
Since social media IS your brand experience for most people, every strategic decision about social content directly shapes brand perception. So before I build out content series or posting schedules, decide whether I want reels or carousels, I figure out what the brand actually wants to be known for. What are the core values? Competencies?
Then comes the audit: what's actually working now, what isn't, and where the audience is already leaning in. Not just on social. In emails, on the website, in person. What nuances can we beg borrow and steal from other talented members of the team?
From there, I set hypotheses, test with pilots, then scale what's sustainable. No fluff. No slide decks for the sake of it. Once I understand what the brand needs to accomplish, I can build systematic approaches that serve those goals rather than just filling up the content calendar.
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Once I know what the brand wants to be known for and who needs to hear from them, I don't just start posting. I build content series that systematically deliver on those goals. Instead of hoping random posts somehow add up to a brand strategy, I plot out different types of recurring content that each serve a specific purpose. (Or, if I'm really clever, two purposes.)
I could extol the benefits of serialized content for hours given the chance so I'll limit myself to bullet points:Repeatable formats eliminate the constant need to reinvent the wheel every day
Flexible structures allow you to drop any timely topic/business need into a proven framework
Consistently producing multiple content types ensures you're keeping the dreaded “algorithm” well fed
Quality is consistent because you're constantly optimizing established formats rather than starting from scratch
Your content calendar is always full because even when you don’t have an idea, you know in 20 days you need to fill a serial bucket and you have multiple rotating serials
Ultimately, serials allow you to focus more time on strategy and less time on tactics. Instead of asking "what should I post today?" you're asking "which strategic content function does this serve, and which format delivers it most effectively?"
The result: systematic content that adapts to whatever comes up.
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Since you're still here, let's dive deeper into how this actually works. You can't just serialize around your brand pillars and call it strategy. That ignores what your audience actually wants to engage with and what algorithms reward.
I figure out content functions based on audience behavior first—categories like educational, behind-the-scenes, soft sells, engagement farms. You can get a baseline on what your target audience actually likes from your own data (hopefully) and checking out what works for competitors. Then you need to make sure brand values show up within those functions, not instead of them.
But then it gets even more complicated. Each of these buckets should have standardized approaches for different formats. Educational reels, educational carousels, educational text posts. Behind-the-scenes photos, behind-the-scenes videos. Soft-sell graphics, soft-sell link shares. You'll want a systematic approach for every combination.
And then you're weaving multiple brand layers through all of this. Say you're a software company with the brand value of "transparency" and market positioning around "user-friendly design." Your educational carousel posts might show breakdowns of how interface decisions get made. Your behind-the-scenes video content could be honest looks at user testing sessions. Your engagement posts might admit when features don't work while showing user-friendly fixes.
The strategic complexity is that you need transparency showing up in carousels AND videos AND text posts, while also reinforcing user-friendly positioning across all those formats. You can't just do "transparency carousels" and "user-friendly videos.” Every piece needs to weave both brand elements together. Consistency across all these layers is what actually builds brand recognition. And most businesses have more than two things, so this can get a little unwieldy. (Or as I like to think of it: fun.)
Amidst all your decisions to produce 20% education, 20% engagement farms, etc, etc, just make sure to leave 20% for weird experimental stuff that might totally bomb. If you're not failing on social every now and then, you're not pushing yourself hard enough. And you're probably not having a good time.
It's a lot. But having frameworks for all these combinations means you can adapt without starting from scratch every time and keep you on track day-to-day.
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Here's where most content strategies fall apart: people set aspirational goals without doing the actual math on what's sustainable.
"I want to post 3 times a week because consistency is key!"
Cool. Do you have 156 pieces of content ready to go? Because that's what 3x a week for a year actually means. And if each post takes you 2 hours to create, that's 312 hours of content creation annually. Do you have that time? Really?
I can't stand strategies that ignore the reality of people's time. I've seen agencies hand over beautiful decks full of content ideas that would eat up a whole team, when in reality, you've got one overworked staffer or a student worker trying to keep things afloat. I don't do that. I build strategies you can actually run, with the resources you actually have.Strategies that ignore capacity aren't strategies. They're wish lists.
The sustainability assessment I actually do:
Step 1: Define your content pillars. What do you want to be known for? Maybe it's:
30% Educational content
25% Behind-the-scenes
25% Community/testimonials
20% Entertainment/trending
Or maybe your pillars are more like:
Introduce yourself (thought leadership)
Testimonial/soft sell (social proof)
Fun shit (engagement bait)
Whatever works for your brand and business goals.
Step 2: Do the actual math.
How often do you want to post? (Having aspirations is great, but be realistic.)
How long does each content type take to produce?
How many pieces do you need per pillar based on your percentages?
What formats work best for each pillar?
Step 3: Reality check against your capacity.
If you want 20% "sense of place" content and you're posting twice a week, that's about 20 posts per year in that category. Spread that out evenly, and you're creating one "sense of place" post every 2.6 weeks.
Sounds manageable, right? You have almost 3 weeks to plan, shoot, and edit each one.
But don't forget about your 3… no make that 5, no wait, 12… okay, 42 other projects.
Content doesn’t get created in a vacuum. You're also consulting on the website redesign, coordinating with five different departments, responding to the crisis that popped up Tuesday, planning next quarter's campaign, and trying to get approval on that budget request that's been sitting in someone's inbox for three weeks.
People plan like content creation is their only job. (It never is.) So if the math says you need every 2.6 weeks, plan for every 3-4 weeks. Build in buffer time because emergencies happen, approvals take longer than expected, and sometimes your brain just won’t cooperate. Give yourself some built in grace.
This isn't just efficiency—it's competitive advantage. While other teams might reinvent the wheel daily, I’m optimizing proven systems and using that extra bandwidth for strategic thinking.
I measure success through signs of real resonance: share rates, watch times, engagement rates. If people care enough to linger or send your content to someone else, you're winning. Call them proxy KPIs if you want; I just call them proof people give a damn.
Having established formats means I'm never
staring at blank calendars wondering,
"What should I post today?"
Examples in Action
Research Carousel
Reputation-building gallery posts that simplify complex topics for general audiences.
Monthly
Day-in-the-Life
Authentic student-life videos that leverage a classic social format to appeal to prospectives.
Every 3-4 Weeks
Multimedia Dumps
Beautiful gallery posts that leverage professional assets to offer a sense of place.
Biweekly
Hide & Seek
Gamified tour videos that invite a general audience to learn more about locations.
Bimonthly
Why Social Should Steer the Ship
If I had a nickel for every social caption I've written where I had to dig the actual point out of some dense source article, I'd be rich as hell. Most content gets handed down with no consideration for whether anyone would actually want to engage with it.
My motto is simple: "Why should anyone care?"
When you stop assuming you're the best thing around and everyone should just love you, your work quality tightens up fast. You start with audience behavior instead of internal assumptions. You test messages where people can scroll past you in half a second instead of hoping they'll read your 800-word blog post. You learn to hook attention before you try to hold it.
Social forces that discipline on every piece of content. It's the only channel where "this is important to us" isn't good enough. It has to be important to them, and they'll let you know immediately if it's not.
That's exactly the intelligence that should be driving all content strategy. Not just executing it.
And this isn't some future prediction—it's happening right now. Social strategists are becoming CMOs. Paid media teams are using UGC-style videos or carousel formats in their ads because they convert better. Even the stuffiest B2B companies are finally asking, "What would make someone actually want to share this?"
You are sitting on a goldmine of audience intelligence. Don’t drown in content calendars when you could be swimming in strategic insights.
Figuring out how to make it work in your specific context—that's where it gets really interesting.