Huma Siraj
If you want to understand what the actual position of your brand is not theoretically but practically then please do not commission another brand audit. Take control of your company’s social media accounts for a month by logging in.
That’s it. No shortcuts. There are no dashboards. The feed, your brand, and you’re all that’s there.
What Founders Believe They Understand But Don’t
Founders want to be able to claim closeness to customers, even though they sometimes orbit far above the real conversation. They are not part of the event, but are getting updates, reports, summaries, and insights.
Everything’s happening in real time on social media. the perception gaps. the comments about the products. The shade, the hush, the applause. Most leaders will never get the chance to witness it in person and yet it’s the closest thing a brand will ever get to pure truth.
This is the front line. It’s where consumer attention is aggressively earned, trust is gained, and brand affinity is built. And you have blind spots if you haven’t lived there, even for a short time.
What You’ll Really Learn
More can be learned from your own social media accounts in a few weeks than from an agency report. You’ll start to notice:
- When your brand lands and when it doesn’t
- When the tone appears strange, too polished, or artificial
- What’s actually important to your audience-like it or not, it’s rarely what you think
- The amount of effort your team puts into making everything appear easy
The intangibles come next:
- You’ll feel the pressure of the scroll and desperate need to hook.
- You will start seeing content patterns, the signs of exhaustion, and the feeling of overdone trends.
- Your feel for timing, structure, and nuance will sharpen.
- It is beyond mere humility; it is pedagogical. The process of building a machine is transformed by being inside of it.
These days, social media is the brand.
Social media isn’t just a medium; it’s the everyday, living, breathing manifestation of brand identity.
The marketing intern isn’t qualified for it. It’s not a side project. That’s how people perceive you.
Social media is often the first-and sometimes only-place your audience will encounter your brand. It’s where allegiance is gained or lost, emotional connections are forged, and feedback loops are created.
Every video, every comment, every description becomes part of your brand architecture. And then the algorithms and society and attention spans keep testing that architecture.
The Significance of This Exercise
It’s not about micromanaging; it has to do with empathy.
You will be a better leader once you truly appreciate how hard it is to create, distribute, respond, adjust, and keep up each day. You’ll give better guidance. You’ll prioritize more discerningly. You’ll stop asking inappropriate things. It is the very thing you created that may make you fall in love again.
You’ll also notice that the social team does far more than just create content: they handle real-time brand exposure, drive strategy, protect your reputation, and sculpt perception. That work is ongoing, strategic, emotive, and reactive.
Yet, within the very top layers of leadership, it’s often misunderstood or undervalued. Doing it yourself may permanently change how you support those who do the work every day.
Typical Myths You’ll Let Go Of
Most founders who take on the role temporarily will let go of the following presumptions quite soon:
• “We need to post more often.” It’s about better, not more.
• “That post didn’t perform well, let’s delete it.” Performance isn’t always linear. Context is important.
• “Just repurpose it everywhere.” * Each platform has its own audience, language, and rationale.
• “Being social is simple. It only requires a few clicks”. That’s not at all simple; that’s storytelling under duress.
Perhaps most importantly, social strategy is distinct from business strategy. It isn’t. It is the most obvious way to communicate your perspective, culture, and voice in real time and in public.
Do it once and do it right.
You don’t have to do it forever. But get in the stream once, for a set period of time, a week, a month. Read the DMs. Respond to the comments. Write the posts. Understand the stress of the scroll. Handle the cultural shifts in real time.
You should keep your own brand secret
You’ll be more acute. Closer to your target audience. Closer to your group. Above all, close to your brand. Once you see what it’s really like on the inside, you can’t go back and lead the same way anymore.
