Jessyca Dewey is the Founder of The Y Collective, a social-first digital marketing agency focused on CPG brands. With 16-plus years of experience in content and digital marketing, she has worked with brands like L’Oréal, Hasbro, and Califia Farms. Jessyca specializes in aligning social strategy with business goals, helping brands move beyond vanity metrics to drive meaningful engagement and real-world impact, especially in retail.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [01:20] Jessyca Dewey explains The Y Collective’s role as a social-first agency for CPG brands
• [04:51] How retail buyers and investors evaluate brands based on their social media presence
• [06:33] Jessyca explains why follower growth is an outdated metric in today’s algorithm-driven platforms
• [07:45] The growing emphasis on shares, saves, and sends as clearer signals of audience intent and content impact
• [11:21] Breaking down the difference between organic and paid social — and what each should accomplish
• [14:56] Common disconnects between social media audiences and actual target consumers or distribution regions
• [24:51] Why Jessyca stresses aligning social KPIs with business goals while adapting to constantly evolving platform metrics

In this episode…

Most brands still measure social media success using metrics that are easy to track but not always meaningful. Follower counts, impressions, and ROAS often dominate reports, regardless of whether they reflect real business impact. So how should brands rethink their KPIs to align with actual growth?

As a social-first digital marketing expert working closely with CPG and retail-driven brands, Jessyca Dewey explains that the key is shifting away from vanity metrics toward signals of real engagement and intent. She highlights shares, saves, and watch time as stronger indicators of whether content is resonating and building brand recall, especially in retail environments where attribution is limited. Jessyca also stresses the importance of aligning social KPIs with business realities — like distribution geography and target audience — so efforts actually support sales outcomes. In her view, effective measurement is less about immediate conversion and more about building familiarity that influences purchase decisions over time.

In this episode of The Digital Deep Dive, Aaron Conant talks with Jessyca Dewey, Founder of The Y Collective, to discuss getting social media KPIs right. Jessyca covers why follower growth is outdated, how engagement signals like saves and shares drive impact, and how to align social strategy with retail goals. She also shares insights on organic versus paid social and evolving platform metrics.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Aaron Conant on LinkedIn   
• BWG Connect  
• Jessyca Dewey on LinkedIn 
• The Y Collective 

Quotable Moments:

• “The reach and the followers are no longer connected in a way that they used to be.”
• “We recommend that our brands focus on shares, saves, and sends because those are mechanisms.”
• “If the goal is brand awareness, which then eventually, not quickly, drives retail velocity.”
• “We firmly sit in the belief that social media, specifically organic social media, is not a sales channel.”
• “Start with what your business objectives are, and then look to translate those into what your social metrics may be.”

Action Steps:

1. Shift focus from follower growth to engagement signals: Prioritizing metrics like shares, saves, and watch time helps identify content that truly resonates with your audience. These signals indicate intent and memorability, which are more likely to influence purchasing behavior over time.
2. Align social media KPIs with business objectives: Ensuring your metrics reflect your actual goals — like regional distribution or target demographics — drives more meaningful outcomes. This alignment prevents wasted effort on audiences or activities that don’t impact revenue.
3. Differentiate between organic and paid social strategies: Treating these channels as distinct allows for clearer measurement and more effective execution. Organic builds brand affinity, while paid drives conversions and keeps audiences moving through the funnel.
4. Prioritize content that captures attention quickly: Focusing on the first few seconds of content increases the likelihood of higher watch time and algorithmic distribution. Strong hooks improve visibility and ensure your content reaches the right audience more frequently.
5. Reevaluate and adapt your metrics regularly: Social platforms evolve rapidly, and so should your KPIs. Staying current with new data points — like watch time — helps maintain relevance and optimize performance over time.

About BWG Connect...

BWG Connect provides executive strategy and networking sessions that help brands from any industry with their overall business planning and execution. We network and knowledge share together to better understand and adapt to the newest trends, strategies, and pain points shaping growth in the digital space. BWG Connect, in conjunction with BWG Strategy, has built an exclusive network of 125,000+ senior professionals and hosts over 2,000 virtual and in-person networking events on an annual basis.

In addition, we have had 1x1 conversations with over 5,000 brands and have a real-time pulse on what digital strategies are successful and why. This in-depth knowledge allows our team to operate on the cutting-edge and provide our clients with best-in-class guidance on how to win in the digital world. We have provided free consultations and strategy sessions for companies of all sizes, from start-ups to Fortune-100, to enable growth, resolve issues and make curated service provider introductions that can impact your digital footprint.

We have held to the philosophy of providing high-level insights and actionable knowledge with no sales pitches in order to provide to our network the ability to listen, learn and act to improve themselves as well as their organizations. Our ultimate goal is to be the resource out there to help digital executives find the research they need to excel in the modern marketplace.

If you are interested in getting involved with any of our current or past events, you can find them here. If you are looking for help & would like to set up some time to chat with our team, you can schedule a time or reach out directly to Aaron@bwgconnect.com or Tiffany@bwgconnect.com.

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