Salesforce sunsets Social Studio: How should marketers face this cha(lle)nge?

The Salesforce platform recently announced the sunset of its social media scheduling tool, Social Studio. Starting on November 18, 2024, customers will no longer be able to access the application.

Social Studio is a tool for creating, scheduling, and monitoring social media campaigns. Users can categorise social posts by brand, region, or team in a unified interface. Real-time engagement, rich engagement, and search engine analytics are among the capabilities of Social Studio.

Social Studio allows users to share content on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Customers will continue to have access to Social Studio until the end of their contract or November 18, 2024, whichever comes sooner.

Following the change, all associated users' customer data will be deleted in accordance with Salesforce's Trust and Compliance Documentation.

Salesforce recommends retrieving Social Studio data at least 90 days prior to the contract end date, or "sunset date."

Salesforce has indeed stopped selling Social Studio licenses. They have also stopped updating and improving Social Studio.

In the digital world, user-generated content and social proof add huge value to drive conversions for businesses. When audiences are hesitant to buy products from new brands, social proof serves as a vote of confidence that influences their purchasing decisions. Statistics show online reviews influence 97% of consumers' purchasing decisions. In that context, the role of social media platforms like Salesforce Social Studio is key to bridging the gap between businesses and audiences.

The sunset of Social Studio means marketers relying on this platform are going to suffer a lot.

Although brands can integrate any third-party social media platform such as Hootsuite or Meltwater, the ease of use and robust capabilities that Social Studio provides make it irreplaceable for users.

Also, the platform migration is not an easy route. It is notoriously difficult and scary. Even though Salesforce provides sufficient support for users to extract their Social Studio data so as to migrate to a new platform, there are numerous things that can possibly go wrong in the process.

Additionally, it forces marketers to move away from their comfort zones. It will likely require marketers to spend additional time searching for and finding the right alternative tool, adapting to it, customising it to their needs, and finding success through it.

However, right or wrong, to keep the ball rolling, marketers who rely on Social Studio must prepare to survive without it.

As a consequence of this major change, we believe marketers will find it hard to effectively manage their brand’s social media presence and end up revamping their social media marketing strategies.