You are Laura Cifuentes Parra, 27, and today is your first day as social media strategist at Bebidas Energéticas Andinas in Bogotá. Your boss wants the first-quarter plan on Friday: how to split COP 15 million across Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn.
The situation
It is Monday 5 January 2026. Andinas, founded four years ago, makes functional energy drinks with ginseng, guarana and Amazonian fruit, and presents itself as the Colombian, more natural alternative to the big brands. It sells in about 1,200 outlets in six cities: convenience stores, gyms, universities and supermarkets. 78% of its social media audience is between 18 and 32.
The brand has 150,000 followers on Instagram, 40,000 on TikTok and 5,000 on LinkedIn. The social media budget is COP 60 million a year, COP 15 million a quarter, with no room to ask for more: you do not decide how much to spend, only how. Your predecessor left a split of 45% Instagram, 40% TikTok and 15% LinkedIn. Sales attributed to social media start the year at zero.
Each network does something different. TikTok has given the brand far more impressions per post than any other, with a young audience that shares a lot. Instagram has the largest community and is where most of the sales the team manages to attribute come from, though its organic reach has been falling for two years. LinkedIn is small, but it is where the brand talks to gyms, universities and distributors. The general manager, Felipe Rincón, just wants the brand to "be seen everywhere". Your boss, marketing director Santiago Vélez, put it in one line: "We have 60 million for the whole year and nobody really knows where it goes."