Media Pulse: The social middle class & the new rules of credibility

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Media Pulse: The social middle class & the new rules of credibility

February 13, 2026

Meta still anchors most plans. TikTok still commands attention. But the strongest returns right now aren't coming from either.

Platforms like Reddit and Pinterest aren't test budgets anymore. They're getting real money, and they're getting it because they perform. Not because they're trendy, not because someone wants to "test and learn." They just work.

At the same time, something else is shifting. Credibility is changing. It's less about who says something and more about where it shows up. The same message performs differently depending on the environment it lives in. The beauty of media planning, really. Why I'm here. But I digress.

This month's Media Pulse tackles two shifts reshaping social: where budgets are actually moving, and why trust is shifting from who says it to where it's said. Hope our Boom Scroll team doesn't mind us playing in their sandbox this month.

Trend 1: The rise of the social middle class

For years, social strategy felt binary. Meta or TikTok. Scale or experimentation.

That doesn't hold up anymore. Meta still commands roughly two-thirds of social ad spend, with TikTok taking another 12%. But Reddit's ad revenue grew over 60% every quarter of 2025, and Pinterest's CEO recently said the most sophisticated performance marketers in the world are now putting 5%-10% of their budgets on the platform. The money is moving.

Reddit and Pinterest have moved from "nice to test" to real line items for brands running multi-platform strategies. The major feeds are getting more crowded, short-form inventory keeps expanding, and advertisers are quietly moving money toward platforms that feel less noisy, more purposeful and more relevant to what people are actually doing when they're on them.

This isn't about abandoning Meta. It's about not giving it 80% of your budget just because that's how the plan has always looked.

And it points to something bigger: Reach by itself is no longer enough. Are you reaching new people or the same ones again? Are you efficient or just spending? Does the environment even make sense for what you're selling?

The Pulse

• If one platform owns 70%-80% of your social budget, ask why: That's probably habit, not strategy. Diversify your portfolio, people.
• Start measuring incrementality: These platforms often reach people who aren't seeing you on Meta or TikTok. Look at whether you're actually expanding your audience, not just whether the CPA looks solid.
• Your Meta creative won't work here! Reddit doesn't reward polished Instagram assets. Pinterest doesn't reward TikTok cuts. You have to make things that feel right for where they live. That's what makes them work.

OUR TAKE

The social middle class isn't a side bet. It's where a lot of the smartest spending is happening right now. The big feeds are competing on volume. The platforms built around intent and community are quietly becoming the ones that actually move the needle.

Trend 2: Why trust is shifting from who says it to where it's said

Placement has always mattered. But what's changed is which placements matter and why.

Here's some context: 26% of consumers now distrust influencer marketing, more than double the 11% who distrust advertising overall. Meanwhile, nearly 75% of agencies say smaller creators with niche audiences seemingly outperform celebrities in both engagement and ROI. The old playbook of buying reach and borrowing someone's audience is losing ground to something simpler: showing up in the right place.

And here's what makes this more than a media planning conversation. Content from community platforms is showing up in AI search results. Reddit is now the most cited source in Google's AI Overviews and Perplexity answers. Brands are dedicating entire teams to the platform because showing up authentically in a Reddit thread does more than reach that thread's audience. It feeds into the AI answers your prospects see when they search. Credibility built in one place compounds somewhere else.

The Pulse

• Where you show up shapes what people think of you: Placement quality matters just as much as creative quality. Start looking at your media plan through that lens.
• Test community before you scale celebrity: Showing up in the right context often builds deeper trust than borrowing someone's audience. Especially in categories where people are naturally skeptical. And it even helps when budgets are on the lower end.
• Think in quarters, not weeks: You won't see it in a two-week flight, but over a few months, it builds in ways that paid reach alone just can't.

OUR TAKE

Here's a callback for you: This is the other reason the social "middle class" matters. Beyond being efficient, these platforms make your message more believable. And right now, that's worth more than reach. So the next time you're reviewing a plan and every dollar is going to the same two or three places, ask yourself: Are we building credibility or just buying visibility? Because those are two very different things.

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About the author
Ashley Blais is Partner at FINN Partners, co-leading the Paid Media team, a group that spends most days navigating the fast-paced, fast-changing media landscape and figuring out what actually works. The team delivers a full suite of services, including omnichannel planning and buying, performance media strategy and management, and comprehensive measurement, resulting in award-winning campaigns that drive client success.

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POSTED BY: Ashley Blais