Growing a genuine social media following comes down to three things: creating content people actually want to share, engaging with your community like a real person, and showing up consistently enough that algorithms reward you. There are no shortcuts that don’t eventually backfire — but there are strategies that compound over time and attract the kind of followers brands actually care about.

Why engagement rate matters more than follower count (and how brands measure it)

Full-funnel commerce media depends on social to create and amplify demand before shoppers ever search or browse a retailer. While retail media and paid search capture existing intent, social drives discovery, shapes brand perception, and influences research across platforms like TikTok and YouTube. When social is integrated into a commerce media strategy, it fuels search volume, improves retail performance, and strengthens results across the entire program.

With new networks dividing attention and unpredictable algorithm shifts impacting who sees what where, marketing teams struggle to reach and engage their target audience on social media. Marketers need deeper consumer insights to make the best use of their time and talent. Without them, brands risk over-investing in the wrong places with the wrong content, while leaving room for competitors to swoop in.

With questions about tariffs and the economic outlook persisting, brands are prioritizing a strong start to the year. The wrong plan can set them back and allow their competitors to get ahead, so it’s imperative that they find the right marketing channels to meet their goals. The best approach to creating a 2026 roadmap is to look at the trends that shaped 2025 spending and adjust accordingly. 

The ultimate goal of any influencer marketer is to use creator content to 1) boost brand awareness or 2) generate sales. But which social media platforms are best for each? Which content types? Which deliverables? And in partnership with which influencers? These are the questions we asked over 50 influencer marketers to understand which platforms, creators, content types, and deliverables are getting them the best results. Here’s what we found.

Social media is always changing. Blink, and new features, algorithm updates, and trends are completely different. The mainstay of social media is that everything changes — and trends come and go. Keeping track of it all is the key to success. Stay on top of trends is more than a full-time job, and it’s also what makes social media marketing so interesting and rewarding. To help make life easier, we compiled what we thought are the top 11 social media trends for 2026.

All kinds of turbulence surround marketing leaders’ planning process, from misalignment with C-suite counterparts to tough economic conditions and never-ending negotiations about where your organization should fall on the brand v. demand spectrum. To boot, customers aren’t just harder to reach, they’re redefining what it takes to capture their attention and keep their loyalty.

Sprout Social and LinkedIn developed this guide to explore the top social-first considerations CMOs need to make as they plan for the year ahead—from where to invest and how to best set up your teams for success, to how to prove the business impact of your work.

What is actually happening on social media right now? Which platforms grew this year? Where do people interact the most? What formats grab attention? Social platforms move fast, but data always reveals the truth. In our Social Media Study 2026, we reviewed more than 39 million posts from over a million real accounts. This report contains hundreds of pages that show what brands, businesses, and creators actually did on each platform over the past year.