These Marketing Leaders Were Asked How They’d Spend an Extra $1 Million—and Their Answers Reveal Where Social Is Headed

We asked experts to dream big. Their answers point to where social media marketing is heading next.

BY ANNABEL BURBA, EDITORIAL ASSISTANT @ANNIEBURBA

Illustration: Getty Images

A few months ago, Inc. asked 16 founders and CEOs to share what they’d do if they found an extra $1 million in their marketing budget. The responses ranged from practical, with one founder saying he’d implement automated direct mail follow-ups for sales leads, to outlandish, with another saying she’d produce a reality show featuring real customers. 

Their ideas also provided some clues as to where marketing trends were heading. Several, for example, revolved around in-person events and activations, which have since emerged as major themes of 2026.

Impressed with their creativity—and their foresight—we decided to pose another question to a panel of marketing experts: If you had an extra $1 million to spend on social media and influencer marketing right now, how would you use it?

This time around, experts from companies such as L’Oréal, Evite, and Ruggable joined the conversation. Their ideas again share a few common themes, including in-person events, large-scale but low-lift influencer activations, and episodic social media content. Here’s what they said.

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1. Start a user-generated content (UGC) firestorm

The expert: Barik Chaudry, social listening and analytics manager at L’Oréal

The idea: “I would do a UGC firestorm. You could get 4,000 videos from creators that charge $250 per video, but I’d probably opt for closer to 1,000 videos and pay extra for well-known influencers to make UGC for me. The brief would involve current and evergreen social trends. 

With 1,000-plus pieces of content tested on the interest-graph algorithms, I would add a [call to action] to the best performing pieces of content and use them to drive conversions.”

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