Danielle Bedin, Strategy Director at We Are SocialIf you are anything like me, you probably interject tasks – such as writing this article – with mindless phone scrolling time on social media. While trying to think of a pithy way to open this piece, I’ve saved a date ball recipe for toddlers, watched a Huntr.com post about an AED 2,500 Kaiseki in DIFC and found what seems to be a ‘Not on the High Street’ (NOTHS) for the UAE housing local makers and sellers called Beyond the Mall – wish I’d seen that in December.
You see, that’s the thing. In this region, where people keep switching between an average of eight social platforms and spend 3.5 hours a day on social media, the scroll is relentless. And, let’s be honest, the content on my discovery tab or for-you page (FYP) is nine times more exciting than staring at my laptop screen.
In this landscape of content churn, never-ending hidden spots and extremely well-dressed individuals, a sporadic campaign doesn’t just look cheap; it looks invisible.
A hard truth to swallow for marketers trying to drive return on investment (ROI) on social is that the concept of the campaign is a relic of the broadcast era. It implies a distinct start, a distinct end and a singular moment of high-impact activity.
But on social, the feed never ends. In an infinite, always-on environment, the finite nature of a campaign is a strategic vulnerability.
In 2026, we’re seeing a fundamental shift in how brand equity is constructed. It’s no longer built through high gloss, six-week bursts of activity. It’s built through serialised social storytelling. Campaigns rent attention; series build loyalty.
The high cost of silence on social
The first argument against the sporadic campaign model is purely mathematical. In the current algorithmic landscape, ghosting is toxic.
Recent data from Buffer (2025) quantifies exactly how much being ‘off’ hurts. Accounts that maintain a consistent content flow of posting three to five times per week see double the follower growth of those posting sporadically.
Going even further, weeks with zero posts don’t just result in stagnation; they actively degrade your account’s standing, causing growth to dip by 0.08 standard deviations below the norm. Essentially, when a brand goes dark between campaigns, the algorithm assumes the relationship is over.
You cannot campaign your way out of this deficit; you have to rebuild your relationship. We all know that this takes work, especially from the side that ghosted its audience for four months between its Ramadan and Back to School campaigns.
The power of episodic narratives
So, you’re probably thinking, well that’s all right. I have a content plan every month that covers my four pillars, and my agency churns it out easily. We’re third in our competitor set but our reports say we’re achieving great things.
The problem is: traditional social media planning of content pillars, one-off pieces and making sure we fulfill the ‘four carousel deliverables’ with one post going up every Friday still leaves you one step behind. And your top performing content every month will become a giveaway post.
Social that is driving true engagement, genuine save-ability and virtual ‘lols’ in direct messages (DMs) is not your one-off store walk through. It’s episodic, entertaining storytelling that turns brands from logos into worlds.
The algorithm rewards audience retention heavily. The latest data from a JoyByte case study suggests that episodic content, including videos that are part of a narrative series, are valued by algorithms up to 10 times more than one-off videos. They also performed eight times better in terms of views and engagement compared with standalone posts. Why? Because they drive high-intent return visits.
We did a similar exercise analysing Target’s social strategy over the last six months. This exercise was performed for a current client and our data revealed that when Target posted a content series, the brand outperformed a minimum of three times better in engagement rate (ER) per cent than one-off posts – with some series performing up to 14 times higher.
An argument for creativity on social
Okay, at this point in most client conversations we hear the argument for generating revenue and proving ROI – ‘How will I drive sales with content that is only built to tell stories?’ Well, the data says that you can. According to a pivotal study by System1 and the IPA on ‘Compound Creativity’, brands that commit to a consistent creative platform – such as recurring characters, consistent fluent devices and familiar scenarios – don’t just build brand love; they generate greater profits.
This is the ‘Compound Interest’ of creativity. When you change your creative style every campaign, you tax the consumer’s brain. They must re-learn who they are. When you use serialised and consistent creativity, you bypass their cognitive filters. You tap into ‘System 1’ thinking, which is fast, instinctive and emotional.
Not to mention that the most entertaining short-form social ad content drives a 39 per cent memory lift, two times higher brand awareness lift, 2.8 times higher brand image lift and a 50 per cent conversion lift compared with the least entertaining short-form content.
This is why leading with entertainment works. When you lead with entertainment and emotion, you lower the barrier to the sale. You aren’t telling people to ‘buy now’, you’re creating a feeling that makes buying inevitable.
The show must go on
Ultimately, neither the feed nor consumers cares about your marketing calendar. They only care about what’s next. By clinging to the campaign model, you are perpetually auditioning for attention you should already own.
The brands that will define the next decade in this region won’t be the ones with the loudest launch, but the ones with the most unmissable arcs. In a landscape of infinite scroll, you have two choices: continue to be the interruption or finally become the entertainment. It’s time to tear up the launch plan and renew the season.
Well, now that I have written this piece, I think I can reward myself with 10 minutes of phone zombie time.
By Danielle Bedin, Strategy Director at We Are Social
