When strategy kills social

here’s something i heard the other day that made me spill my coffee.

an agency wanted to charge £12k for a “strategy month” for tiktok. not production. not creators. not media spend. a strategy month.

now, look. strategy is important. we run social end-to-end, which does include strategy. we’re not about to throw our own business under the bus like a disgruntled intern before we’ve even started.

but sometimes, especially in social, strategy is the thing slowing you down.

because social media isn’t a five-year brand platform. it’s a feedback loop, and you need to move at the speed of social. you post something, people react to it, you learn, and then you do it again slightly better.

that’s it. that’s the whole system.

and the funniest part? the biggest creators and biggest social brands on the planet keep saying exactly this.

MrBeast has said it countless times: just post videos. learn from them. post again. not spend six weeks workshopping your content pillars. just post.

even Steven Bartlett, a man the internet has extremely mixed feelings about, repeats the same advice when it comes to social. make content, see what works, and do more of that.

which makes you wonder why so many brands are still treating social like it’s a tv campaign that needs a ring-binder full of planning before anyone presses record.

here’s the uncomfortable truth.

most social strategy decks are educated guesses. beautifully designed guesses, presented confidently, often accompanied by phrases like “cultural moments” and “owning the conversation.” but still guesses.

because the only people who actually know what works on social are the ones posting constantly and watching what happens.

creators understand this instinctively. they’ll post five videos a day. four will flop. one will work. then they’ll make twenty more variations of the one that worked with the same style.

no twelve-grand strategy month required. and a lot more month 1 wins to talk about. meanwhile brands are stuck in a workshop discussing whether their tone should be “playfully authoritative.” social doesn’t reward perfect planning. it rewards momentum.

you don’t need a 40-slide deck to start posting. you need a rough understanding of your audience, the willingness to experiment, and the discipline to double down on what connects.

that’s the strategy: post, watch, learn, repeat.

because the real danger isn’t having a strategy. the real danger is spending so long writing one that you never actually make anything.

if you’re sat there reading this nodding, you’re our sort of brand. because the last thing social needs is another £12k strategy month. it just needs someone to hit post… or the right agency to do it for you.