Social media planning for 2027: Lessons from Lia Haberman

87% of social marketers say AI has improved their team’s productivity, according to Emplifi’s State of Social Media Marketing 2027 report. When Lia Haberman surveyed her own newsletter readers on whether AI had improved their social results, 44% said they’d seen no change in results such as engagement or conversions.

That gap set the tone for “Unpacking the state of social media marketing 2027 with Lia Haberman,” a live Emplifi webinar on November 4, 2026. Lia writes ICYMI, a weekly newsletter on platform and creator news for marketing pros, and teaches influencer marketing at UCLA Extension. Stephen Adams, Director of Digital and AI Marketing Enablement at Emplifi, hosted and took audience questions with her. Watch the webinar on demand.

What should social media planning for 2027 focus on?

Stephen sorted the challenges Emplifi hears from brands into three groups:

• Capacity: the workload, with more platforms to cover and AI tools that change every month.
• Control: governance, from AI policy to how much freedom creators get.
• Proof: the long-running job of showing leadership what social delivers.

Lia added the pressure she hears most from her readers. Many want a 2027 content road map and are struggling to write one, because platforms and AI keep shifting under them. “It’s like every morning we wake up and things are radically different,” she said.

Her hope for the year is a move toward depth. A couple of years ago, most teams chased short-form video and creators with huge audiences. Now platforms are adding room for long-form video and newsletters, which she reads as a chance to trade doomscrolling for expertise.

How should social teams measure the value of AI?

Measure AI by the business results it produces, since most teams already report a productivity gain. In the State of Social Media Marketing 2027 data Stephen presented, just 2% said AI marketing tools aren’t improving their productivity.

Lia questioned whether productivity is the right yardstick. She pointed to a memo Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel shared for the company’s 15th anniversary: as she put it, the time it takes to generate something has fallen to nearly zero, while the time and attention it takes to consume it has stayed about the same.

Lia Haberman on judging AI by business results, from the webinar.

She called the first wave of AI work “v1,” focused on output and policies, and asked teams to move to a “v2” focused on impact. In practice, that means using AI where it helps most, such as a first draft of a caption, and then adding the human voice before anything goes out.

Stephen shared a warning from a recent conversation with a brand that was using AI to write its Reddit posts. He expects Reddit moderators to see through generic AI-written posts within seconds, because the communities there expect real conversation. Lia put it in three words: “Don’t outsource conversation.”

Before you scale an AI workflow, pick the business result it should change and check it each month.

How do you get shadow AI under control?

Make the approved route the easiest one to take. In the State of Social Media Marketing 2027 report, more than half of social marketers (51%) use AI tools their company hasn’t approved at least some of the time, up from 42% last year. Only 37% of organizations have a fully defined AI policy for marketing.

Lia suggested treating shadow AI like any other workplace security risk, such as a phishing scam: plan for it and get every stakeholder on the same track. IT and brand leaders protect reputation and data. The people doing the work know which tools they’re using after hours to keep up. Both need to be in the room when the rules are written.

Stephen’s starting plan for that meeting:

• Find out which AI tools your team uses today, including the ones nobody has mentioned yet.
• Approve secure tools that do the same job, so the safe choice is also the fast one.
• Hand AI one repeatable workflow, such as weekly analytics reporting, with clear guardrails.
• Agree what needs a human review, then train everyone on that workflow before you expand.

Lia Haberman and Stephen Adams on bringing teams together and making the safe route the easy one.

Fuel AI gives social teams one governed AI layer, with brand guardrails and multi-stage approvals built in, and your team approves every change.

How should brands work with creators in 2027?

Audiences want human voices and real storytelling, so creator programs are growing. According to the State of Social Media Marketing 2027 report, 53% of marketers expect their influencer budget to rise over the next 12 months. 35% plan to increase collaborations with virtual or AI-generated influencers, down from 58% last year.

Lia wasn’t surprised. Virtual influencers have been around since about 2016 and haven’t taken over. She’d just seen an Instagram post from a baker that read “human made is the new luxury,” and she pointed to Prada and e.l.f. posting hand-drawn illustration and stop-motion work with behind-the-scenes footage that shows how it was made.

Anecdotally, Lia sees Gen Z and Gen Alpha warming to AI characters that are obviously synthetic, such as talking fruit dramas, which don’t try to copy the human experience. Stephen’s rule: if you use AI, say so.

Lia Haberman on why audiences want human-made content and quality storytelling.

Lia also sees more brands treating employees and customers as creators alongside digital creators, often with training and a toolkit of brand assets to help them post.

To get more from creators in 2027:

• Agree what each social media influencer partnership should deliver before budgets rise.
• Set the rules for brand safety and AI disclosure before anyone posts.
• Run a small pilot with clear success measures, then grow what works.

Which social platforms deserve more investment in 2027?

Instagram stays the anchor of most social plans, and Reddit is where investment plans are running ahead of current use. In the State of Social Media Marketing 2027 report, 74% of marketers use Instagram today and 55% plan to increase investment there, more than for any other platform. Reddit is the only platform where plans to increase investment (31%) exceed current use (28%). See the full platform breakdown in our analysis of social media marketing trends 2027.

Lia was surprised YouTube wasn’t a higher priority. She sees brands planning series and video podcasts, often creator-led and posted on both the brand’s and the creator’s channels. With Instagram adding long-form horizontal video, teams now have more than one home for long videos.

On Reddit, she urged patience.

Start with social media listening, which Lia called the first place marketers should go on Reddit. Brand accounts take more care to get right there than on Instagram or TikTok. She told the story of Fidelity’s subreddit: Reddit discouraged the idea at first, but Fidelity set it up to host community conversations and answer questions, and it became a success story Reddit now points other brands to. Our guide to building a Reddit marketing strategy covers where to begin.

Lia Haberman on YouTube’s long-form opportunity and why Reddit starts with listening.

Emplifi Listening spots patterns across subreddits, so teams see which questions and complaints keep coming up. Emplifi Community lets teams monitor subreddit communities and respond to them directly.

Who should own AI visibility?

Whoever owns it, Lia said, the social team needs a seat at the table. Social teams know the language of the internet and what people are looking for online, which is the raw material AI answers draw on.

Stephen noted that AI answer engines lean heavily on public platforms such as Reddit and YouTube today, and that Meta’s own AI plans could shift that mix. Lia sees AI visibility as an organization-wide priority that reaches from the SEO and social teams up to the C-suite. Discovery has moved from search engines to social search and now to AI search, and the results reach every team.

Her second point came from a live question about falling impressions. Retail and ecommerce teams she talks to now write content on their websites and social channels for two audiences: the people who buy, and the AI agents searching for “the best boots” on their behalf.

Stephen’s advice for 2027: name a champion for AI visibility and bring every team that shapes it, PR included, into one plan. Our guide to AI visibility through social media covers how to get your brand cited in AI answers.

See Fuel AI go from a prompt to a campaign plan.

How can social teams prove social ROI with less reporting?

Track the signals that show real intent, then cut the hours spent building reports. In the State of Social Media Marketing 2027 report, fewer than half of marketers (48%) say their team can confidently show social ROI to leadership.

Lia has watched the organic attribution debate run for more than a decade. One social leader she talked to summed it up: “paid social drives sales, organic builds legacy.” Paid social is easier to track, Lia said, but organic social is where Gen Z goes to research a brand before buying, so it builds reputation in the places people already gather.

Stephen now cares more about shares and saves than likes and comments, because they show someone planning to come back to a post or sending it to a friend. Lia still values comments when they’re real conversations, such as people recommending things to each other. A thread of emojis and “love this” tells you much less about community health. In the Q&A, Stephen added that a lot of the activity once counted as likes is moving into DMs and private shares, often called dark social.

Reporting itself eats the week. The same report found 62% of marketers spend four or more hours a week on reporting and analytics. Keeping your analytics in the same platform you publish from removes much of that manual work, and Fuel AI builds Unified Analytics reports from a plain-language request. Our guide to social media ROI covers how to connect social to business results.

Stephen’s challenge for 2027: reinvest the hours you save on reporting into work that drives revenue.

How do you protect a social team from burnout?

Protect the team’s time first, then automate the repetitive work. In the State of Social Media Marketing 2027 report, 77% of social marketers felt burnout at least sometimes this year. Asked what would make the biggest difference to their capacity, 39% name smarter automation or better AI tools, about twice the 20% who name more headcount.

Lia gets asked often to help teams make the case for headcount, and she expects that request to stay. Her advice to leaders is to guard their team’s time and make sure people have the tools and training to do the job. Stephen, in the middle of performance reviews, described his job as a manager as removing obstacles. His approach is to ask the team which repeatable tasks take the most time and automate those first. That keeps people on the work that needs their judgment.

One attendee asked how a social team of one should handle big company goals. Lia’s first answer was to protect your mental health. Then set realistic expectations and decide what you’ll do yourself and where outside voices, such as an agency or employee creators, can help. Stephen’s advice was to pick one platform and own it before adding another, since growth on one channel makes it easier to justify the next.

What are the key takeaways from the webinar?

Stephen closed with the ideas he’d put at the top of any 2027 social plan, and Lia added the one she’s been sharing with every team she advises.

Lia described that last point as the move from a brand-message-first feed to one where creators, employees, ambassadors and customers show up. If a brand’s feed doesn’t show their faces or their conversation, she said, it isn’t a community-first brand yet.

Lia Haberman on building a community-first social presence.

Final thoughts: plan your 2027 social strategy around people

A good first move for January: pick the repetitive workflow that eats the most hours each week and hand it to AI with a human review step. Use the time you get back on community and creator work.

Lia quoted a line she’d seen that sums up the year ahead: don’t confuse volume with value. Teams that make room in their feeds for the people who already talk about their brand will have more to show leadership than a bigger content calendar.

Ready to give your social team more time for the work that grows your brand? Book a demo with the Emplifi team to see how Fuel AI and one unified platform fit your 2027 plan.

About the data: Figures come from The State of Social Media Marketing 2027, a survey of hundreds of marketing leaders, from managers to executives, in the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand that Emplifi ran with Alchemer in September 2026. Comparisons with last year are directional, because last year’s sample differed. The 44% figure comes from Lia Haberman’s own survey of her newsletter community, as she described it in the webinar.