Social media has given brands the ability to reach their consumers almost anywhere in the world. While that, at first glance, might make social seem like the golden goose, many are realizing that trying to be everywhere and reach everyone can negatively impact their performance. With finite resources, brands risk spreading themselves too thin in an attempt to be omnipresent. To address this, more and more brands are working to identify and focus on the areas with the greatest opportunity for growth, both on and off social media. Consequently, many brands are closing and consolidating many of their profiles, making a conscious choice of where not to be and not to focus. Tune in to this session to hear Casper Vahlgren, Senior Strategist at Falcon.io, outline how selectiveness and prioritization should be key components of the strategic process for any brand and the impact this can have on their social media ecosystem and tactics.

1. Welcome!

2. The idea for this session started with a concerning
statistic.
39% of marketers say they struggle to demonstrate the value of
social media to the rest of their organization.
Source: Sprout, The Sprout Social Index, Edition XV: Empower & Elevate, 2019

3. There is an ambition
to use social media to drive
business results.
70% want to use social
media to drive brand
awareness.
59% want to drive
sales/lead generation.
But we don’t
measure accordingly.
Only 41% use amplification
and brand awareness
metrics.
Only 50% focus on
conversion and revenue
metrics.
63% focus on engagement metrics to meet their
goals.
Source: Sprout, The Sprout Social Index, Edition XV: Empower & Elevate, 2019

4. So why do we focus so much on engagement?
My hypothesis: We are overstretched and spread too
thinly, trying to create content across too many markets
and platforms.
We simply don’t have the resources to drive - and measure
- business impact on every single platform and in every
market.

5. So why do we focus so much on engagement?
Engagement is the security blanket of the social media
manager.

6. It’s hardly surprising that we feel this way.
4.2bn
Active social media users.
8.4
Average social media accounts per Internet user.
Source: We Are Social, Digital 2021: the latest insights into the ‘state of digital, 2021

7. XX
And we constantly need to adapt to new
platforms.
Source: TechCrunch, Report: Social audio app Clubhouse has topped 8 million global downloads, 2021

8. And then what happens?
Local social media managers, marketing teams and
even fans start creating profiles to activate their local
community.
It’s in good faith, but they rarely (if ever) have the
resources.
And they usually don’t do brand compliance well.

9. Reebok’s 2012 Facebook audit.
616
company-related pages identified.
206
pages eliminated.
Source: AdAge, Reebok Edits and Refines Its Social-Media Footprint, 2012

10. Reebok’s 2012 Facebook audit.
33%
were created internally at Reebok
Source: AdAge, Reebok Edits and Refines Its Social-Media Footprint, 2012

11. Reebok made the case that markets
would benefit from the elimination
of local accounts.

12. Let this be a rallying cry:
Be selective around your social media presence.
If we try to reach everyone and be everywhere, we will be the
source of our own demise; we will never show the value of
social media.

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Source: EffWorks, The ten best charts from the work of Les Binet and Peter Field, 2018

14. XX
Source: EffWorks, The ten best charts from the work of Les Binet and Peter Field, 2018

15. Harsh truth: There is a snowball’s chance in hell of
driving long-term brand building for every brand, in
every market, through every platform.
There is a need for prioritization, to allocate the finite resources
and budgets in the best way, to maximize effectiveness.

16. PRESENTED BY @adweek @socialmediaweek @yourbrand
Even the largest brands
are accepting this
reality.
• Coca-Cola: Around 400 master
brands.
• More than half are small country
brands that account for 2% of total
revenue; the rest account for the
remaining 98%.
• “Yet despite their small size, they still
require resources, which […] is
pulling time and money away from
its bigger, more profitable
businesses.”
Source: Marketingweek, Coca-Cola to cut ‘zombie brands’ as it
looks to ‘weed out’ the poor performers, 2020

17. There is another reason to be selective,
beyond the lack of resources.
Short-termism is on the rise within marketing.

18. XX
Source: Marketingweek, Link between creativity and effectiveness ‘broken’ as short-termism rises, 2019

19. XX
Source: Marketingweek, Link between creativity and effectiveness ‘broken’ as short-termism rises, 2019

20. PRESENTED BY @adweek @socialmediaweek @yourbrand
Source: Marketingweek, Coke on how cutting brands will lead to
stronger innovation, 2020
Prioritization allows
for more resources to
be used on local
insights.
Coca-Cola CEO, James Quincey:
• “The reduction of the portfolio by
about half is going to allow us to
bring stronger innovation to the
table.”
• “This is not about less innovation
and less ability to tap into local
insight, it’s actually leveraging the
most successful vehicles to do that.”
• “It’s about combining platforms of
the global and regional brands to
connect to local insights. That is part
of the art of bringing [innovation] to
life.”

21. Selectiveness, prioritization and consolidation leads to
more innovation and creativity.
If we narrow our focus on social media and in marketing in
general, we can drive more creativity in the areas where it will
have most impact.

22. You don’t necessarily need to shut down the
profiles, just make a strategic choice around
where to allocate resources.
Adidas’ corporate strategy:
“We have identified six key cities in which we want to
over-proportionally grow share of mind, share of
market and share of trend: London, Los Angeles, New
York, Paris, Shanghai and Tokyo”.
Source: Adidas, Company Strategy

23. XX

24. These strategic choices should be made at a high
level.
Social media can provide valuable insights, though.

25. XX
Source: EffWorks, The ten best charts from the work of Les Binet and Peter Field, 2018

26. PRESENTED BY @adweek @socialmediaweek @yourbrand
• Facebook and Twitter’s own ad
managers can be used to gauge
the potential audience in a given
region or market.
• By filling out the targeting
criteria for the brand or product,
it’s possible to see the potential
audience on a given platform; all
those that currently match the
criteria.

27. XX
Sales outweigh both current
and
potential audience size.
Small existing audience and
little potential for growth.
Market is saturated, so
focus on engaging and
managing existing
community.
Audience size and sales
indicate an opportunity for
growth.
It would blow your
minds how many
brands have active
social media
profiles in markets
like these.

28. XX
Market
Fan
Growth (%)
Total Impressions Engagement Rate Existing audience Potential audience Saturation
Market A 0.41% 8,216 1.43% 4,248 867,000 0.49%
Market B -0.31 % 96,003 0.63 % 19,705 2,214,000 0.89%
Market C 6.13 % 152,549 2.11 % 14,715 272,000 5.41%
Market D 0.11 % 76,001 0.61 % 22,856 721,000 3.17%
Market F 1.99 % 339,962 1.03 % 26,747 165000 16.21%
Market G 1.87 % 257,985 0.92 % 66,411 1,410,000 4.71%
Market H 0.36 % 423,197 0.69 % 46,380 94,000 49.34%
Market I 6.45% 1,277 0,76 % 405 1,350,000 0.03%
Market J 1.05 % 316,536 0.89 % 25,021 1,310,000 1.91%
Market K 6.36 % 31,992 2.56 % 1,952 610,000 0.32%

29. XX
EXISTING
MARKET
NEW
MARKET
EXISTING CONTENT NEW CONTENT
MARKET
PENETRATION
The approach can be used for
markets that are either saturated
and should continue business as
usual or whose current content
strategy is working, generating both
engagement and significant fan
growth.
Increasing
risk
Increasing risk
CONTENT
DEVELOPMENT
For markets that have decent
growth potential but a low
engagement rate or saturated
markets that are reaching a lot of
users, but need to improve the
engagement rate of their content.
MARKET
DEVELOPMENT
This approach is for markets that
already generate good
engagement rates, but aren’t
reaching enough people. The
existing content should be used to
reach more users and there’s a
need to increase paid media to do
so.
DIVERSIFICATION
For this approach, we focus on
markets that aren’t saturated and
have a lot of room to grow, but are
currently struggling to generate a
sufficient engagement rate. These
markets require both new content
and a greater paid media budget
to drive more impressions.

30. Don’t forget the existing community.
Growth and penetration is critical, but you still need an engaged
community – and a happy customer.

31. To summarize…
1. The key to driving business impact on social
media is to prioritize and allocate resources to
the right channels and markets.
2. Selectiveness will provide more resources for
creativity and innovation.
3. The prioritization should be a high-level decision,
but tools like Facebook’s Ad Manager can
provide valuable insights and data for this
process.

32. PRESENTED BY @adweek @socialmediaweek @yourbrand
Q&A