Why Your Marketing Planning Season is Already Broken Without Social Media

Traditional planning ignores social media teams or relegates them to campaign execution, and that approach leaves value on the table.

When I began my career in marketing, one thing drew me to social media more than anything else: the abundance of candid conversation.

I still remember digging through Radian6 for a government financial client, looking for insights to shape a website redesign. To my surprise, the internet was overflowing with conversations about pain points, desires, frustrations, and communal experiences.

That was my switch-flip moment.

I realized social wasn’t just chatter. It was an untapped source of qualitative truth — insights brands were desperate for but rarely captured. In the early days of Twitter, people thought they were tweeting into the abyss. But for someone like me, those random thoughts were gold. They told me who the customer was, what they cared about, and what they expected from the brands they engaged with.

That belief has shaped my entire career.

Marketing Planning Season with Social Media

And it’s why this time of year — Planning Season — has always been my favorite. Because when brands sit down to plan their year ahead, social should be in the room from Day 1.

Here are five truths I’ve learned in 15 years of working at the intersection of social media and brand strategy, and clear examples of why marketing planning season with social media is a vital component to success:

1. Social belongs at the planning table.

Too many organizations treat social as the last mile of execution: “We’ll make the campaign, and the social team can post it.”

But that’s backwards. Social is where customers interact daily with your brand. It’s not just a channel; it’s a listening device, a testing ground, and a feedback loop all in one.

When social is in the room early, your campaign ideas aren’t just bold — they’re relevant. And relevance is the difference between a campaign that lands and one that falls flat.

2. Your audience’s desires are not a mystery.

Marketers sometimes act like customers are an enigma. But they’re not. They’re leaving signals everywhere — in comments, shares, reviews, hashtags, and conversations.

If you’re paying attention, social data tells you:

• What frustrates them.

• What excites them.

• What trends they’re buying into.

• What values they expect from you.

Planning season is when budgets and big bets are made. Why gamble when you already have the playbook sitting in front of you in the form of social insights?

3. Social is your campaign canary.

Think of social as your early-warning system. If a campaign idea won’t resonate with your audience, you’ll see the red flags in social long before launch day.

• Are creators mocking a trend you’re about to co-opt?

• Does the language of your campaign align with your audience?

• Is sentiment negative around the theme you want to run with?

• Are early test posts falling flat?

These aren’t “maybe” signals. They’re stop signs — and they can save your brand from spending millions on a misfire.

4. Operations make insights stick.

Here’s the challenge: even when social has insights, they often stay siloed inside the team.

The real unlock happens when you build workflows and operations that push those insights across the org: to product, to customer experience, to PR, to leadership.

When you operationalize social in planning season, it’s no longer a “nice to have.” It becomes the connective tissue that keeps every team aligned around the same customer reality.

5. Social drives measurable business outcomes.

This is the piece leaders often miss: social isn’t just about relevance — it’s about results.

When you integrate social into planning season, you set yourself up for campaigns that are:

• More compelling (because they start with what customers care about).

• More efficient (because workflows reduce bottlenecks and wasted spend).

• More profitable (because campaigns that resonate, convert).

This is the business of social media — and it’s why ignoring social at planning season is more than a missed opportunity. It’s a competitive disadvantage.

Planning season is notorious: budgets, campaigns, forecasts, big bets. But in 2026, the brands that win won’t be the ones with the flashiest campaigns or the biggest media spends.

They’ll be the ones who put social at the heart of planning season — not as a channel to “activate later,” but as the business driver it has always been.

Over the next month, I’ll be sharing daily insights on how to make this shift inside your organization: how to bring social into planning season, operationalize it, and leverage it for revenue, efficiency, and brand protection.

Because here’s the truth: if you’re planning without social, you’re already planning behind.