Your social media numbers are lying to you

By Diane Markovski, founder, Lit Agency

Every month, I sit down with a pile of social media reports, and I see the same thing: brands celebrating numbers that don’t mean what they think they mean.

As we head into 2027 planning, here’s what October’s data taught me about the gap between looking good and doing good.

1. Big reach, wrong country

One established FMCG brand I reviewed delivered 2.42 million impressions in October. On paper, a great month.

Then you open the demographics. 82% of its Facebook audience was in the United States. The brand sells in Australia.

That’s millions of impressions landing on people who can’t buy the product. Nobody flagged it, because the headline number went up.

Reach without relevance is just noise with a bigger bill.

2. More posts, less engagement

The same brand posted 35% more content than the month before. Interactions fell 54%.

This is the trap of the content calendar. Teams are measured on output, so they produce more. But the algorithm doesn’t reward volume. It rewards content people actually stop for.

Three posts that land beat thirty that don’t.

3. One video can carry a whole campaign

A challenger snack brand I work with launched an influencer campaign in October. Impressions jumped more than 1,200% in a month.

But dig deeper, and a single creator Reel delivered around 90% of a week’s views. The brand’s own organic posts reached roughly 84 people each.

That isn’t a failure. It’s a lesson. Creator content is now the engine, and brand-owned posts are the support act. The smart move is to buy usage rights early and put paid behind the winner while it’s still hot.

4. Static posts are quietly dying

A natural haircare startup I reviewed tells the same story from a different angle. Its Reels reached an average of 722 people each. Its static posts reached 42.

Same brand, same month, same audience. Seventeen times the reach, just by changing the format.

If your content plan is still built around tiles and carousels, your reach problem isn’t the algorithm. It’s the plan.

5. Real life beats the feed

My favourite result of the month came from a small, family-run brand. Its best-performing posts weren’t polished product shots. They were updates from a weekend pop-up, a thank-you post and the founder’s exhausted, happy recap.

People don’t follow brands for content. They follow them for stories they feel part of.

What this means for 2027

The dashboards are getting smarter, but the questions we ask of them haven’t kept up. Before you celebrate a number, ask four things:

• Who saw it, and can they actually buy from you?
• What did they do next: visit, click, follow or buy?
• Which piece of content did the work, and are you backing it?
• Why are you posting this much, and is anyone asking for it?

After 23 years in media, I’ve learnt that the most dangerous number in any report is the one that makes everyone feel good and nobody asks why.

In 2027, the brands that win won’t be the ones with the biggest numbers. They’ll be the ones with the right ones.