Anti-social behaviour.

Is social media the place where brand guidelines go to die?
A bit dramatic, maybe (but only a bit).

Often, a brand’s carefully considered positioning, distinct visual identity, tone of voice, audience research and messaging framework all seem to wander off when you get to its social feed.

Different colours. Different tone. Different image. Different point entirely.

The brief appears to be: “Do whatever you want, as long as it gets likes.”

I understand that social moves quickly. It rewards speed, nerve, humour and timing. There is value in that.

But there’s also a danger in confusing attention with effectiveness.

 

A like is not a sale. An impression is not intent. A viral post is not necessarily a useful brand interaction. It may create awareness, but awareness of what? And with whom?
If a million people like a post, how many are actually interested in the product or service? How many are the audience the brand has spent years trying to understand? How many remember the brand at all?

Kantar’s 2026 research into more than 15,000 pieces of creator-made branded content across TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram found that only 6% delivered both strong platform engagement and strong brand-building potential: https://www.kantar.com/press-center/fewer-than-1-in-15-pieces-of-creator-content-delivers-both-audience-engagement-and-roi

The thing social often aims for – engagement – is not necessarily the thing the brand actually needs.

And this becomes even more important when you look at consistency.

Kantar’s Marketing Trends 2026 report says coherent, cross-channel ideas are now 2.5x more important to campaign success than a decade ago, yet only 27% of creator content ties strongly to the brand: https://www.kantar.com/campaigns/marketing-trends

Which is slightly awkward.

Because brands tend not to arrive by accident. They have a position in the market. A carefully thought-out niche. A reason to exist, ideally. A tone of voice shaped to resonate with a specific audience. A visual identity designed to make them recognisable in a crowded world.

A couple of rogue social posts later, everything starts to feel a bit confused.

Social should absolutely have room to move. Nobody wants every post to sound like it has been approved by twelve people and a nervous lawyer.
But agility should not come at the expense of coherence.

The best social work is not “off brand but popular”. It’s brand fluent enough to move quickly without losing sight of the point.

Fast, reactive and culturally aware, but still recognisably from the same company. Still connected to what the brand stands for and still speaking to the people who might actually care.

Because if every channel says something different, the audience does not think, “oh, how wonderfully multi-dimensional”. They usually just think, “what do these people actually do?”