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How to stand out in social media marketing today
Posted by on January 13, 2026 at 8:04 pmAI should have you scared. It has me scared for my career. In the last few months, I've made it a point to become super proficient in social media management tools and best practices. I've read a bunch of content, tried 50+ tools, and have truly imersed myself in 2025 social media marketing. This is how you can stand out:
1. Be close to revenue: Meaning, when C-level people are looking to cut cost, you need to be a revenue-generator, not a cost center. In order to do this, master the tools that enable you to not only post the content, but automate DMs, create funnels, and drive actual revenue for the business. If you can prove you're bringing in more money than they pay you, you're all set.
2. Build community or email list: So many social media people stop in the platforms. Find ways to build an audience that engages with you on Insta/TikTok, but also via email or some community (Reddit?). I mean get people to sign up for a mailing list (something else you can do via AI DMs –> signup link), so that you don't just lose them on the social platforms. Bring them even further in towards your brand.
3. Master AI: Unfortunately, it's not going anywhere. Some of the gurus have proven to me that AI-generated image/video content actually performs better at this moment in time than """"real"""" content. Try those AI image and video generators. You'll get more engagement and save time.
4. Know the analytics: If you know how to use Google Analytics 4 or whatever analytics tool your company uses, you're future-proofed. You can tell your own narrative about the effectiveness of your work. -
1 Reply
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Haha I can tell some of the courses (ClickUp) and tools (Vista Social) you’re using. I’m using Vista for DM automation – it’s working quite well and I think they’re the only ones doing it.
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Using AI for social media marketing is just lazy. Sorry…but real organic marketing stands out amongst the sea of generic AI posts, automated replies, content that’s filled with AI. I’m not afraid of it at all and anyone who’s been Market organically isn’t either
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Being close to revenue is the whole game, and most SMMs still treat themselves like “content decorators” instead of growth people. The big unlock is mapping every action to a pipeline step: DM flows that push to a lead form, lead form to CRM, CRM to booked calls or sales, then tracking that inside GA4 or whatever BI tool your team uses.
A couple things that helped me:
– Build at least one simple offer funnel end-to-end yourself (lead magnet → email welcome series → soft pitch). Once you’ve done it once, you stop thinking in “posts” and start thinking in systems.
– Learn one outbound channel really well (cold email with Lemlist, Instantly, etc.) and one inbound one (SEO, Reddit, YouTube). Then your social work plugs into those instead of floating on its own.
On the Reddit side, I’ve used tools like Brandwatch and Mention plus Pulse for tracking buyer-intent threads and jumping in with actual answers, which drove way better leads than generic social posts.
Your main point is right: the SMM who can prove revenue wins every layoff round.
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