- Use data to shape content, not just measure performance
- Continuous optimisation drives stronger long-term social media results
- Platform-specific strategies outperform one-size-fits-all content
- Clear calls to action turn engagement into meaningful outcomes
- Data-led creativity delivers stronger brand and performance results *
Ask most marketers why a social media campaign underperforms and you’ll usually hear the same story. The creative could have been stronger. Or maybe the algorithm gets the blame. Sometimes those things play a part, but they don’t get to the heart of why good campaigns struggle to take off over time.
In my experience, the real challenge usually rears its head after the reporting cycle. Performance data gets shared, the next month’s content is planned and somewhere along the way, the connection between what the data is telling us and the decisions that follow breaks.
It’s an easy gap to miss because everything looks like it’s working. Most social media campaigns already have reporting in place. The hard part is making sure those conversations actually change what happens next. When they don’t, creative takes the fall in trying to fix something it can’t.
Social media moves quickly, and agencies are built to keep pace. There isn’t always time to stop and ask a simple question: are last month’s results actually shaping what happens next?
A new approach
So over the past 10 months, we decided to try something different. Working with a client in the South African financial services sector, we introduced what we call an ‘editorial board’. Once a month, we looked at the performance data before a single new content brief was written.
Those conversations shaped what we did next. When the following month’s results came in, we could see whether those decisions had made a difference.
It wasn’t long before the impact started showing up in the data. Reach increased significantly, follower growth often beat its annual target ahead of schedule and share of voice moved from outside the top ten to inside the top three. Net sentiment also reached its highest recorded level during the campaign.
Looking back now, what stands out isn’t any single metric. It’s how much changed once every month’s performance became the starting point for the next month’s planning.
Run a campaign like this for long enough and you start to see patterns that strategy-level thinking tends to miss.
Consistency beats campaign chasing
Early on, the engagement numbers were pretty basic. By the second half of the campaign, they’d settled into a much stronger rhythm, with the final three months all performing above the 14-month average.
It wasn’t one standout campaign that made the difference. It was turning up month after month with content people genuinely wanted to spend time with. Over time, that consistency seemed to build a habit. People kept coming back, and the algorithm noticed too.
Every platform plays by different rules
Every platform measures success differently because people use them differently. Looking at one big set of numbers can hide what’s really happening. Looking at each platform on its own gives you a much clearer picture of what’s working, what isn’t and where your attention needs to go next.
It’s probably not the most exciting part of social media strategy, but it’s where a lot of better decisions begin.
The simple things still matter most
The content that consistently performed well wasn’t especially complicated. It had a clear purpose, worked for the platform it appeared on and made the next step obvious.
When people weren’t sure what they were being asked to do, they usually did nothing. A post might generate plenty of impressions or views, but those numbers don’t mean much if they aren’t leading to the behaviour you want.
By the end of the campaign, we realised that understanding what we wanted people to do before moving straight into creating new content changed the quality of the work we were doing.
One thing we didn’t expect was how quickly the conversation about brand and performance started to change.
They’re often treated as two different conversations, even though they’re both trying to understand the same audience. We found they became much easier to balance when we looked at them through the same lens.
What the audience was telling us
The brand still shaped the content, while the performance data helped us decide what to do next. We spent less time debating opinions and more time looking at what the audience was telling us. That shift also changed the way we thought about planning.
Every month started with what we’d learned from the last one, instead of beginning with a blank page.
If there’s one question I’d encourage marketing teams to ask, it’s this: What happens between your reporting meeting and your next content brief?
You don’t need a new platform or another reporting dashboard. Start by making sure last month’s performance genuinely influences next month’s work. Build that into the way your team plans, so reviewing performance becomes part of the creative process instead of something that happens after the work is done.
For us, that shift was the turning point. It didn’t replace the campaigns creativity, it just gave it a fighting chance.
*Summary created by AI
Dan Brocklebank is strategy director: content and editorial, at Second Rodeo.
