Social media has long since ceased to be a place where brands only post updates. It is the place where reputation is created, customer expectations become visible and trust can grow or disappear. A complaint, a delayed response, a missed cultural moment or an unexpectedly positive experience can determine how people view a brand in a short period of time.
The key message from The 2026 Sprinklr Social Index Report is clear: organizations must move from thinking in channels to thinking in moments. The key question is not “how often do we post?” but “are we present in the moments that matter?”
Many brands are still transmitting too much
Many organizations are active on social media, but that does not automatically mean they are relevant. Teams often still work in silos. Marketing plans campaigns, customer service answers questions, communications monitors reputation and data teams look at dashboards. Meanwhile, the customer experiences one brand.
Therein lies precisely the challenge. Customers do not differentiate between a social post, a DM, a complaint under a post or a review on an external platform. To them, it’s all part of the same brand experience.
Sprinklr shows in the report that many brands are still stuck in a traditional model: campaigns are planned, budgets are distributed per platform and success is measured in output. But moments don’t allow themselves to be planned. They occur in real time, often outside their own channels, and require speed, consistency and context.
The Social Index: measuring how strong you are in the moments that count
To help organizations better understand their social media maturity, Sprinklr is introducing the Social Index. That index combines two perspectives:
Brand Index: how visible and active is your brand? Consider reach, frequency of publication and responsiveness.
Audience Experience Index: how do people actually respond? Consider sentiment, engagement, conversations about your brand and depth of interaction.
Together, these indices paint a picture of how well a brand performs in the social moments that influence reputation, trust and customer relationships. The report is based on research on 1,160 brands across five industries, with 1 million data points from X, Facebook and Instagram over the period January through December 2025.
From Broadcast to Convergence
Sprinklr translates the Social Index into a maturity ladder. At the bottom is Broadcast: brands that mainly transmit. They post, but hardly build interaction or trust.
Next are Presence, Interaction and Resonance: steps in which brands establish a more consistent presence, increase dialogue and ultimately build emotional engagement and advocacy.
The highest stage is Convergence. In that stage, social, care and intelligence are no longer separate disciplines, but one integrated movement. Every customer conversation, signal and interaction is seen as part of one customer journey. That is precisely where the real value is created: real-time listening, understanding, responding and improving.
What successful brands do differently
A clear pattern emerges from the report. Brands that win on social media don’t simply do more. They are doing it smarter.
They don’t just publish product news, but tell stories that connect to customers’ experiences. They don’t treat their public feed as a complaint hotline, but make sure service questions are handled in the right place. They look beyond their own channels and also track conversations that originate elsewhere. And they use data and AI to understand faster what customers feel, expect and need.
For sectors like retail, financial services, telecom, technology and CPG, the dynamics differ, but the common thread is the same everywhere: growth comes not from sending harder, but from being better present in meaningful moments.
Why this is also a customer contact issue
As such, social media is not just a marketing channel. It is a customer contact channel, reputation channel and intelligence channel all at the same time. A negative experience on social can become reputation damage. A well-handled complaint, on the other hand, can become visible evidence of trustworthiness. A much-discussed topic can provide input for product development, communication or service improvement.
Therefore, social media requires an integrated approach. Not only tools for publishing, but also listening, engagement, workflow, case management, AI support and reporting. Organizations need to know not only that something is happening, but also who should act, what the context is and what follow-up is needed.
Sprinklr and Pegamento: technology and implementation power
Sprinklr provides an AI-native platform that allows organizations to track, understand and serve customers across social, digital, review and media channels. The platform helps teams translate signals from the market into insights, actions and concrete customer follow-up.
Pegamento is a partner of Sprinklr. We sell Sprinklr independently to organizations that want to set up their social media, customer care and customer intelligence more professionally. In addition, we are implementation partners for Sprinklr when Sprinklr itself sells its services. In both roles, we bring our experience in customer care, process design, AI, automation and adoption.
Because technology alone is not enough. The real impact comes only when processes are set up properly, teams can work with them, and data is actually used to make better decisions.
From measuring to improving
Perhaps the most important lesson from the Social Index Report is this: you can only win the moments that matter if you make them visible first. Where do conversations arise about your brand? How positive or negative are they? What questions are recurring? What content really touches people? And where does the customer experience fall apart between marketing, service and operations?
With Sprinklr and Pegamento, organizations not only gain insight into those questions, but also the ability to act on them.
Those who continue to view social media as a collection of separate channels are falling behind. Those who see social media as a continuous stream of customer moments are building trust, relevance and lasting customer relationships.
Ready to increase your social media maturity?
Pegamento helps organizations connect social, customer contact and AI smarter. As a Sprinklr partner, we support consulting, implementation, setup and adoption.
Want to know how your organization can use social media as a full-fledged part of customer contact and customer intelligence? Get in touch with Pegamento.
