Mediastreet
Author

editor

Browsing
In News

Beyond The Great Ad: The New Role Of The Creative

No Comments

By Monica Alvarez-Mitchell

When I first started in marketing, my observation was that often, a breath-taking ad was the hallmark of a successful brand launch. But in my experience, nowadays, that’s changed—that ad, that hook, that viral clip—they’re just moments.

Good ideas are a dime a dozen. Talk to a social media creator, and chances are, they can generate a good idea for a brand. As a result, I believe that recreating the “great ad” model is a high-cost gamble, especially in an age where many people say they’re dealing with information overload. Moreover, I’ve observed that the old metrics we marketers celebrated often don’t deliver predictable results, and more and more clients are looking beyond fleeting numbers and demanding something more durable: sustainable results.

The way I see it, the old model overvalued the spark when the real worth was in the strategy.

A viral moment doesn’t fix a broken purchase path; an optimized funnel does. A clever ad campaign doesn’t solve a talent acquisition crisis; a long-term recruitment strategy paired with a good campaign does. For us marketers, the goal should be to create an overarching plan of attack, not just a billboard that advertises hype that may or may not be able to be backed up. Marketing initiatives can successfully deliver business outcomes when there’s a strong strategic foundation behind them.

Collaborate, Create, Connect

So, what does this all mean for marketers?

In my experience, the old creative model of the “big idea” is eroding—it was a process filled with risks, because so much of its success arguably depended on a hunt for a single viral moment. In marketing, it’s paramount to rely on the intersection of good ideas and good data and to align what we do with the goals of the business we’re serving.

I see the most successful marketing campaigns of the modern age as following a three-phase framework. The first phase is to collaborate: to align business goals with audience news and authentic brand DNA. This flows into the create phase, which is the building of the permanent solution or operational asset. Finally, there’s the connect phase, which is the launch of that solution to build a loyal, measurable community.

If you’re a creative in this day and age, my advice to you is: Don’t just rely on your instincts, aesthetics or a single “big idea” to carry a campaign. Modern creatives should shift from being purely creative playmakers to being strategic problem-solvers. That means designing with data, grounding concepts in business objectives and building assets that can be measured, iterated and scaled. Whether you’re a graphic designer or a content strategist, you should understand concepts such as the definition of a customer funnel and UX best practices.

Instead of chasing ideas and rolling the dice, build a system where your designers can thrive. The pipeline from business alignment to decision-making to launching is, I’ve found, straightforward but effective. Turn creativity into a disciplined, repeatable system, aligning the client’s mission with the creative strategy of the agency. Ensure that every campaign outcome is traceable to business intent and customer insight rather than fleeting virality.

Additionally, think in systems, not one-offs. Think of solutions that can evolve with the brand you’re working with instead of peaking in a moment of virality. You should collaborate earlier, validate assumptions with real audience insight and treat every design as part of a repeatable framework.

As a modern creative, you shouldn’t just be an artist. You should be an architect of outcomes.

Strategic Design Ethos

Now, this is where we come to the new role of the modern creative. It goes beyond a new process or a different way to track success. This is a “strategy design and execute ethos” that redefines the creative director from a peripheral artist who is there to “make things look attractive” to an essential partner who is at the table every step of the way.

In my view, the creatives who thrive in this new landscape will be the ones who transcend their “art” to their clients’ success. They’ll have the courage to ask the hard questions before they start creating, and they’ll have the business acumen to understand the answers.

We must be as fluent in business as we are in aesthetics. To be anything less is, in my view, to misunderstand the job entirely. We are not just artists; we are strategic creative partners.

Feature image credit: Getty

By Monica Alvarez-Mitchell

Founder and CEO, Pulse Creative. Read Monica Alvarez-Mitchell’s full executive profile here. Find Monica Alvarez-Mitchell on LinkedIn. Visit Monica’s website.

Sourced from Forbes

Read More
By
In News

How to Market Your Business Without Spending a Dime

No Comments

By Deedra Determan Edited by Micah Zimmerman 

Marketing doesn’t have to drain your budget. With creativity and consistency, you can build momentum and attract customers for free.

Key Takeaways

  • Partnerships beat ad spend when you collaborate with people who serve the same audience.
  • Consistent, repurposed content builds visibility faster than polished, expensive marketing.
  • Real relationships and referrals outperform paid campaigns — momentum is the real marketing engine.

 

When I first launched my business, I didn’t have a marketing budget. But what I did have was creativity, time and a sense of urgency to get my name out there. You don’t need thousands of dollars to make a big marketing impact. You just need consistency, connections and a willingness to get a little scrappy. Some of the best marketing strategies don’t cost a lot of money — they just require a high level of intention and effort.

Here are five ways to market your business without spending money (or spending very little).

1. Build partnerships

Partnerships are one of the most cost-effective ways to grow your audience. Look for businesses that serve the same type of customer as you, but don’t compete with you.

If you’re a fitness coach, you can partner with a nutritionist or a local smoothie shop. If you’re a photographer, team up with a florist or wedding planner. Host a workshop together, share each other’s email lists (with permission) or collaborate on a giveaway.

When two businesses with similar audiences join forces, both brands win. You expand your reach and build community, all without paying for ads!

2. Use the power of free platforms

Social media is the great equalizer for small businesses. Currently, TikTok and YouTube Shorts offer the most organic reach and allow you to get in front of thousands of people without spending any money.

Don’t overthink your content. Film short videos sharing tips, behind-the-scenes moments with your team or what you’re up to in the community. Remember that authenticity often outperforms polished content.

One thing that has been helpful in my business is repurposing content. A 30-second video we make for a TikTok gets reposted on Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and LinkedIn. One idea can work four times harder for you!

3. Grow and nurture your email list

Your email list is the most valuable marketing asset because it’s all yours. Social media platforms can change their algorithms overnight, but your list gives you direct access to your audience through their inboxes.

Start collecting email addresses as soon as possible. Add a signup form to your website and social media bios, and offer something in return, such as a discount code, a free e-book or a mini course.

Once people are on your email list, stay consistent. Send regular updates, tips or insights that make them look forward to hearing from you.

4. Share your voice

Visibility builds credibility, and there are so many ways to share your expertise.

Start by pitching yourself as a guest on podcasts that reach your target audience. You’ll get exposure to new listeners and position yourself as an authority. Or, start your own show. There are free and low-cost hosting platforms to help you publish your podcast for under $100 a month.

If you prefer writing, contribute articles to local publications or industry blogs. If you’re more comfortable speaking, offer to speak at community events, meetups or conferences. These opportunities give you a captive audience and can drive new clients to your business. (Pro tip: end your presentation with a QR code that links directly to your email signup or freebie.)

5. Engage your community and encourage word of mouth

The most powerful marketing tool still comes down to relationships. Get involved in your community, whether that’s through volunteering, joining a local business group or partnering with a non-profit. When people know and trust you, they’ll naturally want to support you.

And don’t be shy about asking for referrals and reviews. Most happy clients are glad to share your name; they just need a little nudging. Send a quick follow-up email or text asking for a Google review or testimonial. Those words from real customers are more persuasive than any ad you could run!

You can even start a small referral program. Offer a discount or bonus for every new client someone sends your way. It doesn’t have to cost much, but it creates a ripple effect that builds loyal advocates for your brand.

At the end of the day, great marketing doesn’t always come from money–it comes from momentum. Every video you post, email you send and relationship you build compounds over time. Keep showing up in your community, keep adding value and soon you’ll realize you don’t need a big budget to make a big impact.

By Deedra Determan 

Deedra Determan is the Founder & CEO of D2 Branding, a top digital marketing agency recognized by Entrepreneur magazine. A business coach, speaker, and author, she helps female CEOs build personal brands for financial and time freedom. She also hosts the Do It My Way podcast.

Related Content

Edited by Micah Zimmerman 

Sourced from Entrepreneur

Read More
By
In Uncategorized

How To Choose The Right Creative Formats To Cut Through Content Overload

No Comments

Sourced from Forbes

With reels, stories, livestreams and immersive experiences competing for consumers’ attention, brands have to decide not just what content to make, but where to show up. Every platform promises reach and every format claims to be the next breakthrough, so deciding where to invest your creative energy can feel overwhelming.

To generate real ROI, marketing leaders must understand where their audience actually engages, which formats align with their message and how each channel contributes to broader brand goals. Below, Forbes Communications Council members explain how they evaluate emerging formats and determine which creative investments are truly worth the effort.

1. Start With The Outcome You Want

Chase outcomes, not formats. Start with the job to be done—awareness, consideration or conversion—and invest where your audience already spends time. We see the best ROI from content that is discoverable and allows for meaningful engagement. – Yael Klass, Similarweb Ltd.

2. Match Formats To Your Audience Behaviour And Message

Brands should focus on the formats that match their audience behaviour and message rather than chasing every trend. Short-form video continues to show strong ROI because it drives engagement and sharing. However, immersive or interactive content works best when it deepens brand storytelling and creates an emotional connection that leads to loyalty. – Maria Alonso, Fortune 206

3. Run Small, Concurrent Experiments And Follow The Data

With the pace of change, the process is the strategy. Apply agile methodology and run small, concurrent content experiments. Don’t follow trends; follow your data. The highest ROI comes not from a specific format, but from the speed at which you can pivot creative energy to meet customers where they are now. – Reyne Quackenbush, Thoughtworks

4. Deeply Understand Your Ideal Customer Persona

It starts with deeply understanding your ICP—their interests, pain points and motivations. People engage with content that reflects their world. When brands build creative around what their audience already cares about instead of what they want to sell, every format becomes more effective, authentic and worth the attention. – Cody Gillund, Grounded Growth Studio

5. Develop A Centralized Content Strategy With Clear Ownership And Analytics

The most effective brands today balance reach with engagement, using reels for discovery and stories for trust-building. The winning formula is simple: Test, analyse, optimize, repeat. A centralized content strategy with clear ownership and analytics ensures consistency. Long-form content builds depth while short-form video delivers impact. Voice-of-customer, contextual insights should guide format selection. – Anshuman Dutta, Cognizant

6. Balance Innovation With Consistency

New social media tools may be flashy, but proven methods can still drive lasting results. Focus your creative energy on balancing innovation with consistency, exploring brand-new tools while continuing to invest in those that you know already perform well. A strong strategy paired with ongoing performance analysis can help you pivot quickly and efficiently while maximizing your ROI. – Victoria Zelefsky, Anne Arundel Economic Development Corporation

7. Know How Your Offering Fits Into Your Audience’s Journey

When you become obsessed with how, when and where your audience seeks information and how your product or service fits into that journey, the formats reveal themselves. Reels, stories, immersive experiences or long-form content are just the vessel. ROI comes from meeting people where their intent lives, regardless of format. – Stephanie Bunnell, Local Language

8. Go Where Attention Is High And Friction Is Low

It’s not “reels versus stories versus VR”—it’s under priced attention. If your buyer watches 300 stories a day, what are the odds your two get noticed? Near zero. Go where attention is high and friction and competition are low: TikTok Live (real-time Q&A and conversion); YouTube Shorts around how-to searches; LinkedIn carousels for B2B; and triggered email and SMS. Test fast, kill losers and scale winners. – Sanel Mezbur, Juice Ai

9. Build One ‘Big Idea’ And Atomize It

Start with the audience and job-to-be-done. Map goals (awareness to conversion), run two-week tests and double down on winners. Short video for reach, search-led articles for intent, email and SMS for conversion and customer stories and webinars for high-consideration are paying now. Build one “big idea,” atomize into formats and kill low performers fast. – Heather Stickler, Tidal Basin Group

10. Address Human Wants And Needs Over Product Features

Our focus is on creating standout content and moments that escape the sea of sameness and address human needs and wants, versus a laundry list of product features. Custom, real stories, audio and imagery work best because no one else can tell your unique story. We’ve included our own team members in content. Those deliverables tend to generate the most engagement. Because remember: No one is you. – Melanie Draheim, Fox Communities Credit Union

11. Go Where Emotion Meets Attention

Great creative energy doesn’t chase every format; it follows where emotion meets attention. ROI comes from depth, not novelty. A reel that evokes feeling will outperform an AR gimmick that wows but fades. Choose platforms that amplify your story, not just your visibility. – Anand Sankara Narayanan, Finance House Group

12. Measure Performance With A Social Analytics Platform

If your team has heavily invested time and resources into a social media strategy, it is crucial to use a social analytics platform (which there is no shortage of in 2025) to measure. Actively monitoring social performance will provide key insights into which types of posts and channels are the highest performers. This data will guide you to getting the maximum ROI from your social efforts. – Alexi Lambert Leimbach, Xcellimark

13. Invest In What Moves Your Audience Closer To Action

The best format to invest in is the one that moves your audience closer to action. When you measure everything in one place, you see what truly works and stop solving for tactics or even individual channels—you start solving for a holistic experience. Connecting insight with measurement turns creative energy into a growth engine. – Paula Mantle, Branch

14. Focus On The Intersection Of Attention And Intent

Brands should focus creative energy where audience attention and intent intersect. Test formats—reels, stories, immersive—based on engagement data and conversion metrics. Short-form drives reach, and immersive builds depth. Real ROI comes from formats that move audiences from awareness to action while strengthening brand recall and emotional connection. – Namita Tiwari, Persistent

15. Ask Yourself If The Format Deepens Connections

We choose formats where emotion lasts, not just where attention spikes. ROI comes from resonance—when people feel something, they remember. We test new spaces, but always ask: Does this deepen the connection or just add noise? The best format is the one that turns a scroll into a pause and a viewer into a believer. – Barbara Puszkiewicz-Cimino, SUMMIT One Vanderbilt

16. Follow Consumers, Not Channels

Creative energy follows the consumer, not the channel. Content and medium choice must reflect brand architecture and the dimensions that build emotional, functional and experiential connection and identity within the product category. Coca-Cola’s 3D hologram wall with the Cincinnati Reds evokes joy. BMW’s live driving experiences channel performance and luxury identity. This is how brands drive equity. – Toby Wong, Toby Wong Consulting

17. Understand What Your Audience Is Doing When They See Your Content

Format follows context. The best use of creative energy starts with understanding what your audience is doing when they come across your content. Are they in browse mode, research mode or decision mode? Short-form video often works well for discovery, while carousels or long-form build depth. What matters is how well the format supports the behaviour it’s interrupting. – Christina Mendel, ChristinaMendel.com

18. Pick Formats That Let Your Essence Shine

Place your brand where its heart meets consumers’ heads—the “Heartbeat ROI.” Pick formats that let your essence shine where your people already live. Obsess over them—solve real needs or surprise them with needs they didn’t know they had. That sweet spot (Heart plus Head equals Heartbeat ROI) drives real attention and measurable returns. – Natalia Kowalczyk, The CXOnsiglieri Company

19. Mix Formats Intentionally

Focus creative energy where your audience actually engages, not on every trend. Short-form video (reels, TikTok) drives awareness and quick wins, while longer or immersive formats deepen storytelling and loyalty. Mix intentionally: Spark interest with quick hits, then guide audiences to richer experiences that convert. Test, measure, repeat. – Kurt Allen, Notre Dame de Namur University

Feature image credit: Getty

Sourced from Forbes

Read More
By
In News

Will AI Search Make You Throw Away Your SEO Playbooks?

No Comments

By Zak Ali

Okay, let me clarify: Your SEO playbook isn’t wrong…it’s just incomplete.

I’ve been working in organic search since 2016. I remember the golden age when a well-optimized page with decent backlinks could print traffic. I remember watching our rankings and traffic drop after the Helpful Content Update (HCU), and scrambling to follow Google’s guidance for recovery. And I still remember the process of coming to terms with the fact that search traffic wouldn’t be returning to pre-HCU levels.

Now, as we enter the LLM age, I’m seeing consultants and influencers pawn off ranking theories as fact and repackaging tired “SEO best practices” with buzzwords. Every week there’s a new silver bullet: “Chunk optimization!” “Schema markup is the answer!” “Bullets help you rank in ChatGPT!”

But beneath the noise, something fundamental has shifted. Instead of following every “hack of the week,” let’s acknowledge that no one has this figured out and shift to a longer-term strategy.

The Computational Realities Of LLMs

LLM-generated answers need to be trustworthy and valuable. But there’s a problem that every AI company faces and few SEOs acknowledge.

Running deep content analysis on every webpage on the internet for every query isn’t feasible. The computational cost and time required would be astronomical. So instead, LLMs use heuristics: educated shortcuts.

Take ChatGPT’s citations for instance. When it doesn’t use training data alone, it searches the web using existing search engines. What ranks on page one is what it scans to determine citations.

This is why people say good AI SEO is just good SEO. The distinction, however, is that where you rank in Google is seen more as a signal of your credibility for LLMs, not as the end game.

What Actually Drives Visibility

What really matters are authority and relevance, and how those definitions have evolved ever so slightly.

Authority

Traditional authority signals like getting cited by credible sites, demonstrating editorial standards and displaying trust signals like third-party reviews still work. Likewise, so do the entity connections between your business, authors and recognized authorities in your niche.

But what LLMs are doing is making authority become more real-time and contextual.

A site that published definitive content three years ago but hasn’t updated it? Less authoritative than a site actively engaging with current developments. An author with no digital footprint beyond their company blog? Less credible than one who shows up in industry discussions, podcasts and peer publications.

LLMs are pattern-matching machines. They’re looking for signals that you’re not just about a topic, you’re of it. Your brand should be woven into the conversations in your space.

This is where I feel SEO playbooks are falling short. People are still focused on optimizing for algorithms rather than optimizing for being genuinely known.

Relevance

In keyword-based search, relevance is straightforward. Does your page match the query terms?

In conversational search, relevance is contextual and cumulative. Consider the difference between these queries: “best credit cards” and “I have a 720 credit score, travel internationally twice a year for work, and want to consolidate my spending. What credit card should I get?”

The second query is specific, nuanced and assumes a back-and-forth dialogue. The user might follow up with: “What if I don’t want an annual fee?” or “How does that compare to others?”

So if search is becoming more conversational and less keyword-dependent, where does that leave keyword research? You still need to know what people are searching for. But keyword volume data won’t reveal the nuanced, long-tail conversational queries people ask LLMs.

Despite every chat-based search being unique and every answer personalized, your customers’ underlying needs remain constant. So if you need keyword data to tell you what those needs are, you have work to do.

No More Hacks

The problem with most “AI SEO” advice is that it’s trying to reverse-engineer LLM behaviour the same way we reverse-engineered Google’s. Find the pattern, exploit it, scale it.

But LLMs aren’t ranking algorithms in the traditional sense. They’re synthesis engines. They’re aggregating, weighing credibility signals, and constructing answers from multiple sources.

You can’t hack synthesis the way you could hack PageRank.

This is why chunking advice, schema recommendations, and formatting tips are marginal gains at best. They might help a little, but they won’t save a fundamentally weak content strategy.

The best strategy for SEO today is probably what we should’ve been doing all along.

A New SEO Playbook (That Isn’t Really New)

Get to know your customer on a deeper level. This is harder than plugging keywords into Ahrefs. It requires actually understanding your audience.

• Talk to your customers. Actually talk to them. What questions do they ask? What confuses them? What do they wish they knew before buying?

• Monitor communities. Places like Reddit, industry forums and comments sections can show you how real people articulate problems in their own words, not in “keywords.”

• Focus on intent, not keywords. Create content that addresses the full spectrum of questions someone might have around a topic, not just the highest-volume search term.

Then, start building up your authority.

• Build genuine authority. Not through link schemes, but through consistently showing up as a credible voice in your industry. Publish on platforms beyond your blog. Engage with industry conversations. Develop real subject matter experts, not just “content writers.”

• Create comprehensively useful content. Not 500-word keyword-stuffed blog posts, but resources that actually answer the full scope of what someone needs to know. Content that gets naturally referenced because it’s the best explanation available.

• Use first-party data. Use actual customer insights, from sales calls, support tickets and user research to understand what they’re trying to accomplish. Then turn those insights actionable in your content.

• Stay relevant and current. Plainly said, stale, outdated content is actively harmful to your authority.

Final Thoughts

The new SEO is anti-SEO. Stop trying to hack your way to the top. Start trying to be genuinely helpful to the people who are looking for a solution to their problems. The advantage will increasingly go to companies that do the hard work of building real expertise and communicating it clearly.

Feature image credit: Getty

By Zak Ali

Zak Ali is General Manager for Finder.com, a global financial comparison platform helping millions make better financial decisions. Read Zak Ali’s full executive profile here. Find Zak Ali on LinkedIn and X. Visit Zak’s website.

Sourced from Forbes

Read More
By
In News

How to build customer loyalty and relationships that drive repeat business

No Comments

Sourced from AOL

Many e-commerce businesses adopt complex loyalty programs to keep customers around, but these strategies don’t always perform as well in today’s market. Instead, making authentic connections is now the best way to create true customer loyalty.

E-commerce businesses must shift their focus from driving transactions to fostering relationships based on positive interactions. This new approach should stretch across your entire organization—from operations and fulfilment to delivery and post-purchase communications. Establish and maintain meaningful relationships with customers, and their loyalty will follow.

ShipStation highlights five powerful ways to build loyalty and turn one-time buyers into long-time customers.

1. Start with product excellence, not programs

The first and most essential aspect of customer retention is the quality of your product or service. No amount of advertising can convince a first-time customer to keep buying if your product doesn’t deliver on its promise.

“The best way to develop loyalty is by delivering a remarkable product in a remarkable way to the right audience. If that’s done, you’ll see customers come back on a regular basis,” said Eric Bandholz, the founder of Beardbrand during ShipStation’s recent Innovation Delivered summit.

The decline of loyalty apps and points systems
Many businesses still launch loyalty programs that reward customers for coming back. However, these aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Email marketing, automation, and other more recent marketing strategies have taken over much of the marketing space. As time goes by, customers lose interest in loyalty programs. The systems become less impactful or cost-effective, potentially hurting your organization more than helping it.

Effective loyalty apps and points systems should support your operational foundation. This way, your organization can deliver rewards and savings to customers without disrupting operations, inventory, or revenue.

For example, some online rewards programs offer customers free items with their next order. This encourages customers to make additional purchases, saving you the cost of packaging and shipping the extra items separately.

A new focus on automation
Automation has revolutionized online shopping, letting you retain customers with seamless repurchases rather than extra incentives. Now, shoppers can essentially subscribe to specific products—from pet supplies to home essentials—often at lower prices.

Beyond simplifying customer experiences, automation can also streamline your organization’s operations. For instance, based on how many automated “subscribe and save” orders you have, you can easily estimate how much inventory you’ll need each month for your regular customers.

That said, most first-time customers won’t subscribe or choose an automated delivery option, at least without significant savings. So, even with today’s best retention strategies, the quality of your product is the first place to focus.

“Your next step after that is achieved is to think about, ‘How do I automate the buying process? How do I make it so seamless that people have no friction points to coming back?’” said Bandholz.

2. Treat customers like family, not numbers

Customers are real people who want genuine relationships with companies. When it comes to retention, you shouldn’t just look at transactions as order numbers and revenue. Instead, consider the customer’s needs, motivations, and expectations, so you can meet them on their level.

“Make it about the client. All we’re trying to do is keep promises to people and make bigger promises to more people,” said Robert Metcalf, COO and co-founder of May Lindstrom Skin. “If you always stay focused on that, loyalty takes care of itself because you’re loyal to the customer, and they don’t need to protect themselves from you because it’s your job to serve them.”

Fostering strong relationships and trust with clients can motivate them to not only return, but to refer friends, family, and colleagues. One satisfied customer quickly becomes many. This trust should extend through all of your operations, not just your friendly customer service team.

Consider what you would expect if you were one of your customers. How would you feel if a delivery was late compared to how you’d feel if the package arrived early? What would you expect when purchasing your product? What obstacles could discourage you from completing your purchase?

How to foster genuine relationships over transactional exchanges
Trust isn’t developed overnight. It takes several transactions to nurture the connection and inspire customer confidence every time they consider buying from you again. Ultimately, you want customers to feel reassured when they see your company logo, making that “purchase” button even more enticing.

Establishing trust with customers doesn’t mean your organization needs to have a perfect record. That’s unrealistic. Shipping delays, manufacturer shortages, and other setbacks may be out of your control and can all impact your customers’ experiences, but they don’t have to define the customer’s final impression.

Setbacks offer excellent opportunities to increase trust. It all depends on how you respond. If a customer’s delivery is delayed, for example, you can strengthen the relationship and earn trust by notifying them as soon as the delivery runs behind schedule. Or, take it one step further and refund their shipping costs.

Similarly, if an item is out of stock, you can respond by proactively offering the customer multiple options, like alternate colour choices or a backorder at a discounted price.

Turn a negative transactional experience into a way to impress your customer with great service that maintains—or even bolsters—their loyalty.

3. Authentic brand storytelling that builds brand affinity and customer loyalty

Consistent brand storytelling lets you reach customers on a more meaningful level. When customers have emotional or personal ties with your brand, they’re more likely to trust you and share your story with others.

The right stories elevate you from “just another brand name” to one that customers remember.

“The initial hook is an accurate description of the brand value and the outcomes you’re selling,” said Michael Scholz, vice president of product marketing at BigCommerce. “If that content isn’t accurate, you face a lot of returns. It’s really important to tell a great story upfront.”

Being open and honest is a major component of authenticity, especially early in the buying process.

“It’s all about the transparency you have throughout the shopper journey,” said Scholz. “If you have multiple shipping vendors and shipping options, highlight those options and different prices during the checkout process. At the end of the day, it’s the shopper’s decision to pursue a specific choice.”

Framing an authentic brand narrative
Like any good story, your brand narrative requires a few key elements to build deep connections, and it all starts with the right framing device. Understanding the best ways to frame your brand storytelling helps you deliver your story in a way that captures customers’ attention and encourages them to act.

The most successful types of brand narratives include the following.

  • Founder stories: Share the story of your organization’s founding and key players. Discuss their inspirations for starting the business and the backgrounds that brought them to where they are today. Giving your brand a face can make it feel more personable, relatable, and approachable, which reinforces that your business is about more than making money.
  • Social missions: Discuss your brand’s goals and mission. For instance, did your organization begin as a way to serve the local community, fulfil a need, or carry on a legacy?
  • Case studies and success stories: Use positive quotes, reviews, and customer examples to add third-party credibility and validation to your message. The voice of the customer is an impactful way to share how your business and solutions have benefited real-life people and organizations.

4. How Fulfilment Operations Drive Customer Loyalty

Like the wrapping around a great gift, your fulfilment processes can seal the deal on customers’ experiences. Satisfaction can hinge on the customer receiving on-time deliveries rather than late deliveries, ones with missing parts, or other issues that harm the experience.

Seemingly small problems, like a third-party provider not being informed about a promotion and the expected increase in sales, can result in backorders and customers not getting their products on time.

Logistics providers, carriers, and other partners are often the ones behind the scenes making sure your package is delivered successfully.

“The experience starts from when they click on your website to when they receive the product,” said Matthew Carpentieri, strategic partnership manager at DHL Express. “We’re really supporting the merchant from behind the veil, and it’s really important for us to drive conversion for retention and not being the source of something that goes wrong.”

The 4 pillars of fulfilment excellence
Fulfilment excellence prevents customer service issues before they start by minimizing the risks of setbacks.

Is your fulfilment process up to the task? Here are some of the most crucial aspects of successful fulfilment.

  • Proactive communication: Be upfront with customers about shipping timelines and potential delays. Likewise, communicate with providers when anticipating sales spikes or creating promotions to align inventory with demand.
  • Thorough inventory processes: Accurate inventory bookkeeping gives you the best possible insight into your fulfilment operations and prevents customers from ordering out-of-stock products.
  • Strategic alignment: Make sure your loyalty programs, sales, and promotions align with your fulfilment operations’ needs and capabilities. For example, consider running clearance-style sales on overstock items, and avoid launching promotions on products you can only offer in limited quantities.
  • Return and exchange processes: Customers may be more willing to buy products they’re unsure about if they know they won’t have to jump through hoops to return them. A simple return and exchange process, such as at-home pickups or box less drop-offs, puts less burden on customers.

5. Post-purchase and personalized customer experience strategies

Post-purchase communication plays a vital role in turning a one-time buyer into a repeat customer. This might mean shifting your primary call to action away from simply buying products. Instead, you can encourage customers to subscribe to repeat purchases or sign up for notifications about deals. The best post-purchase customer experience strategy ultimately depends on what you’re selling and your unique audience base.

Whatever marketing strategies you choose, keep your focus on doing everything in your power to cultivate your relationship with customers.

Include personal touches in communication
Tailored messages directed to individuals show them you remember them and value them as customers when they return. Great real-life examples of a personalized customer experience include coffee shops that write customers’ names on their cups and pet stores that send birthday mail to pets.

“It’s actually people placing these orders,” said Bandholz. “They have lives and purpose, and realizing that is not only beneficial in the sense of loyalty, but you become a better business that serves them in better ways.”

Build community around shared interests
Beyond customers’ relationships with your organization, consider how you can empower relationships among customers. Social media or “refer a friend” programs can create a sense of community and keep people talking about your product.

“Ask yourself how you can facilitate those relationships. How can you create a community in ways that consider them more than just a number?” said Bandholz.

Follow up authentically after purchases
Reaching out to customers by asking about their purchase or requesting feedback shows you listen, care about their experience, and want to improve. However, it can annoy customers if overdone. The best approach depends on your specific offerings and audiences. For example, a home renovation will need an extensive feedback process covering different stages of the process, while a small, one-time purchase needs just a short and simple product review request.

Driving repeat purchases and customer loyalty in e-commerce

You can’t build a strong relationship with customers with a single transaction. Customer loyalty best practices should be incorporated in all areas of your organization—from the way you interact with customers to the product itself.

“I don’t ever wanna try to sell anything to anyone. I just wanna match what they want with what we have and prove them right the whole time,” said Metcalf.

This story was produced by ShipStation and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.

Feature image credit:  PeopleImages // Shutterstock

Sourced from AOL

Read More
By
In News

How BMW drives success with emotional branding

No Comments

By 

The brand sells heart over horsepower.

Emotion sells, and few carmakers have leaned into that truth (sometimes gracefully, sometimes aggressively) quite like BMW. Sliding into a BMW isn’t meant to feel like entering a machine; it’s meant to feel like slipping on an identity, an emotion, a story.

From its iconic car designs to its slick campaigns, BMW has spent decades engineering not just vehicles but vibes. Over time, it has perfected what many premium carmakers attempt but rarely sustain: an emotional brand world where the product is less about horsepower and more about aspiration, belonging, and that intangible spark known simply as “joy.”

BMW i4

(Image credit: BMW)

This festive season, BMW pushed that idea harder than ever. You may have seen the campaign insisting, “We didn’t invent the car… We created a feeling,” for the brand’s all-electric BMW iX3 – to a world increasingly defined by silent motors and software screens. It’s BMW trying to humanise the algorithmic future of driving, a future where “The Ultimate Driving Machine” risks being reduced to just another rolling gadget.

Of course, emotional storytelling isn’t new territory for BMW. Long before the tech-luxury wars, the brand was selling Freude am Fahren (joy of driving). Even the 1974 tagline “The Ultimate Driving Machine,” which at first sounds like a performance flex, was really a coded identity pitch: buy a BMW, and you become the kind of person who values mastery, confidence, the feel of the road.

The First of a New Era | Introducing the New BMW iX3. – YouTube

But that narrative has had to evolve. In recent years, BMW’s marketing has shifted gears from taking the driver-as-hero route to the softer sideroad of lifestyle-as-feeling. The brand no longer just sells torque curves; it sells a sense of freedom, empowerment, and success. From cinematic social shorts to immersive, multisensory showrooms, BMW engineers every touchpoint to reinforce the idea that owning its vehicles is an experience on a very human level, not a mere transaction.

This is the classic playbook of emotional branding, which connects with people’s desires, anxieties, and self-image. Customers buy the feeling they hope the product will unlock. And BMW has doubled down on this playbook, threading emotion through everything from its design language to its retail choreography.

But here’s the tension: in a market where EVs are quiet, digital, and increasingly similar under the skin, can a brand still sell emotion as a differentiator? When the visceral growl of a straight-six becomes an algorithmically tuned sound profile, does “joy” hit the same? It’s a contradiction BMW is actively wrestling with.

BMW advert

(Image credit: BMW)

Designing Emotion in Every BMW

Each new model is crafted to elicit a reaction, sometimes delight, sometimes debate. From sculpted lines to wraparound cockpits, BMW treats design not as ornamentation but as emotional triggers. The brand knows customers aren’t buying A-to-B transportation. They’re buying confidence, pride, and a little theatre.

This also explains the polarising design decisions in recent years, the giant kidney grille, for example, which sparked a miniature design civil war. But even that controversy shows BMW’s intent: emotional impact beats universal approval. BMW would rather make you feel something than nothing.

And when hardware isn’t enough, BMW turns to narrative. A 2023 electric-i4 campaign, “Father & Son. Freude Forever,” shows a father passing the joy of driving to his son. The nostalgia is dialled up deliberately: driving becomes family, freedom, legacy. Likewise, this year’s holiday film uses a child and a grandmother reconnecting through a BMW to argue that the joy of driving can bridge generations, even in an era of range anxiety and touchscreen fatigue.

It’s emotionally effective. It’s also a bit of a gamble. BMW is selling joy at a time when driving, especially urban driving, has never felt less joyful. Congestion, cameras, automation, and rising insurance costs all threaten the fantasy. The brand is essentially promising a feeling that the real world increasingly refuses to deliver.

A gif of the colour changing BMW

(Image credit: BMW)

What Designers Can Learn

For designers and brand strategists, BMW offers a compelling blueprint: build products that earn trust at a functional level, then build stories that elevate them to something people can feel. But the blueprint comes with caveats. Emotional branding only works when the product experience supports the claim. BMW’s engineering heritage gives it leeway here, but not infinite leeway.

Because if emotion becomes a veneer over a commodity product, people notice. And the EV era, flattening performance differences, muting mechanical character, makes this risk more acute than ever.

In that sense, BMW’s evolving strategy isn’t a departure but a recalibration. The machines are changing; the promise can’t. The brand seems determined to argue that even if the future is quieter and more digital, the feeling of driving doesn’t have to be, whether consumers believe that is the next chapter.

Feature image credit: BMW

By 

Simon is a writer specialising in sustainability, design, and technology. Passionate about the interplay of innovation and human development, he explores how cutting-edge solutions can drive positive change and better lives.

Sourced from CREATIVE BLOQ

Read More
By
In News

4 ChatGPT Prompts To Turn Your Business Idea Into Reality In 2026

No Comments

By Sarah Hernholm

MBO Partners’ State of Independence 2025 research estimates that more than 72.9 million Americans are freelancing in some capacity, accounting for roughly 36 percent of the workforce. That shift has people of all ages looking for faster, more innovative ways to test ideas without wasting time or resources. ChatGPT has quickly become one of the most effective tools for doing exactly that. It speeds up the early thinking, reveals blind spots, and helps refine ideas long before money goes out the door.

The four prompts below can help anyone, whether a teen launching a first project or an adult building a side hustle, pressure test and position an idea for success in 2026.

1. Use ChatGPT To Pressure Test Your Idea Before You Spend A Dollar

Ideas tend to feel brilliant in your head. They tend to feel less brilliant when they meet customer expectations, pricing realities, or existing competitors. Most early-stage entrepreneurs do not run enough pre-launch analysis. Teen entrepreneurs often skip it because they are unsure what to look for. Adults might ignore it because time is limited.

ChatGPT can step in and ask the hard questions you may not think to ask yourself.

Prompt: Act as a sceptical investor. Challenge my business idea from every angle. Identify the five most significant risks, the costliest assumptions, potential red flags, and anything that would make you pass on this idea. Then give me strategies to mitigate each one. Here is my idea: [insert idea].

Action steps after running this prompt:

  1. Take the risks ChatGPT flags and sort them into broad groups like customer, financial, operational, and competitive. It makes everything easier to see at a glance.
  2. Choose the one or two risks that feel most important and come up with small, simple tests that can show whether they are real concerns.
  3. Use what you learn to tweak your idea, then rerun the prompt to get a fresh read on where things stand.

This process forces clarity early on, when adjustments are still cheap, and momentum is easier to build.

2. Use ChatGPT To Unearth A Positioning Angle No Competitor Is Using

A business with unclear positioning is one that customers overlook. That is even more true now, when AI-powered solutions crowd nearly every category. People want to know why your product deserves their attention, their money, and their trust.

ChatGPT can help you identify the whitespace most new founders miss.

Prompt: Act as a brand strategist. Analyse competitors in my industry and identify gaps in messaging, pricing, target audience, and value proposition. Then create three differentiated positioning angles I could own in 2026, angles competitors are not currently using. My idea: [insert idea]. My competitors: [list competitors].

Action steps after running this prompt:

  1. Look at the three positioning angles ChatGPT gives you and see how they stack up against what you are already thinking.
  2. Pick the angle that feels the most realistic for your skills, your time, and the resources you actually have.
  3. Try folding that angle into your website headline, your pitch language, or even your social media bio so it becomes part of how you talk about the idea.
  4. Share the updated message with a handful of potential customers or peers and pay attention to what they react to or remember.

Clear positioning is not only about standing out. It is about helping customers instantly understand why you are the right fit for them.

3. Use ChatGPT To Build A 90 Day Launch Plan You Can Actually Execute

A lot of ideas never come to fruition because they stay abstract. A concrete plan changes that. It turns a vague desire to launch into something you can move on week by week.

ChatGPT is surprisingly effective at mapping out a realistic 90-day plan, especially for people who feel overwhelmed or unsure where to begin.

Prompt: Act as my operations and accountability coach. Turn my business idea into a realistic 90-day launch plan divided into weekly goals. Include market research tasks, product development milestones, an MVP plan, pricing tests, audience building actions, two marketing experiments, and metrics to track. End with a non-negotiable list for me as the founder. Here is the idea: [insert idea].

Action steps after running this prompt:

  1. Input the weekly plan into your calendar so each task has an actual place to live. Real dates make it harder to ignore.
  2. Look for the first few actions that will give you momentum, whether that is talking to potential customers or putting up a simple landing page.
  3. Check in with the plan each week and make small adjustments based on what is moving you forward and what is not.

Momentum builds when you know exactly what to do next, not when you are still thinking about where to start.

4. Use ChatGPT To Craft The Pitch That Gets People On Board

Whether you are pitching investors, potential collaborators, early customers, or your own family, the success of your idea often comes down to how well you communicate it. Many pitches fail because they bury the most compelling part of the story.

ChatGPT can help refine your narrative into something punchy, simple, and memorable.

Prompt: Be my business pitch coach. Turn my idea into a 90-second pitch that is clear, compelling, and memorable. Include the problem I’m solving, why existing solutions fall short, my unique approach, early evidence or insights that validate the opportunity, and the call to action. Then write versions for investors, customers, and social media. My idea: [insert idea].

Action steps after running this prompt:

  1. Read each version of your pitch out loud. You will quickly hear which one feels the most natural to say.
  2. Share that version with a few people you trust and ask them what they remembered or what caught their attention. Their reactions will tell you what to adjust.
  3. Spend a little time with your opening line. Once that first sentence feels solid, the rest of the pitch usually comes together more easily.

Clarity builds confidence, and the higher your confidence, the better your chances of follow-through.

Why These ChatGPT Prompts Work For All Ages, All Stages, And All Ambitions

Shifting work patterns and the rise of side hustles have created a moment where people are more open than ever to building something of their own. These ChatGPT prompts do more than spark ideas. The prompts can help you identify gaps you might have missed and sort out what you need to do right now. Once you have that, taking the next step feels a lot less overwhelming.

Feature image credit: Getty

By Sarah Hernholm

Find Sarah Hernholm on LinkedIn.

Sourced from Forbes

Read More
By
In News

9 Apps You Should Never Install On Windows 11

No Comments

By Levin Roy

We all know that pre-built PCs come with a bunch of bloatware that needs to be uninstalled, but what about the apps you install yourself? Are there any commonly installed applications that you could do without? Plenty of them, actually. Many applications rely on huge marketing budgets to appeal to users, promising a bunch of features that are misrepresented or not needed at all. These apps then proceed to slow down your PC by running a bunch of processes in the background, often to collect user data. Even if you trust the companies in question, allowing them to collect your data presents a security risk, as their servers can be compromised.

Then there is the expense. Most such software comes with a monthly subscription model, costing you quite a bit over time for no real reason. Usually, they are loaded with advertisements for other apps and services on top of a premium subscription, forcing you to deal with annoying pop-ups even after paying through your nose. So let’s look at some apps you should never install on Windows 11.

McAfee

mariakray/Shutterstock

McAfee is one of the most well-known antivirus software suites out there, with a long history that has cemented it as a household name. It is also infamous for the dramatic life of its enigmatic founder, John McAfee, but that controversy doesn’t have much to do with the software itself. No, the antivirus is dragged down by its own poor performance and shady practices.

Let’s start with the main reason anyone gets a third-party antivirus: security. While McAfee was a decent antivirus program in the days of Windows XP, it doesn’t quite hold up anymore. But why then does it come bundled with so many pre-built computers? Because the company pays the manufacturers to include its software, not because it is a great application that secures your system. McAfee is often installed by new PC builders as well, enticed by limited-time offers, only to be constantly beset by pop-ups selling you additional plans and services. And since all of these are sold as subscriptions, you end up racking up a significant monthly bill for software that doesn’t add anything of value. Do yourself a service and avoid installing McAfee antivirus on your computer.

Norton

IB Photography/Shutterstock

Norton is another well-known antivirus behemoth that often comes installed on PCs and markets aggressively on media platforms. And just like McAfee, it is not worth the price. Heck, it is not even worth the free trial. The reason is poor performance. Norton antivirus has a reputation for slowing down your PC as it runs in the background, impacting your PC’s performance. Even that might be acceptable if it boasted perfect PC protection that could safeguard your data, but it does not necessarily work any better than Windows Defender.

This is the sad reality of most of these antivirus applications these days. Many verge on bloatware sold by an insane marketing push. Microsoft’s Defender has come a long way from the days of Windows XP, and handles most features of a proprietary antivirus by default, including virus definitions, real-time protection, and an aggressive blocklist to prevent exploits. This leaves less for a third-party antivirus to do, so they resort to shady marketing to continue making money. Norton is one of the more visible examples of this, but you should consider avoiding installing any third-party antivirus on a modern Windows computer.

ExpressVPN

T. Schneider/Shutterstock

VPNs are the next big category of heavily marketed software that users install on new systems. ExpressVPN is one of its biggest and best-known names, backed by a huge marketing campaign and a long history of success. Except that the ExpressVPN of today is very different from the software that it started as, and might actually be spying on you instead of safeguarding your privacy.

The early iteration of ExpressVPN did its job pretty well. You could use it to bypass regional website restrictions and access web content that was blocked or priced differently at your real location. But as the VPN business boomed, ExpressVPN was acquired by Kape Technologies, a massive conglomerate. And the app started pivoting more toward marketing rather than performance, buying up review websites to help sell itself.

There is also a problem with the basic premise of how VPNs are sold. VPNs are good for getting past regional controls, but the marketing pushes them as a privacy and security product. In reality, browsers already encrypt your data, and some VPNs concentrate your data on their own servers. This leaves your personal information vulnerable to hacks, even if you trust the company itself not to profit off it. Case in point is ExpressVPN’s owner, Kape, which made a fortune collecting user data and making adware. A better option might be to use a VPN-enabled home router.

Honey

GrandAve/Shutterstock

The problem with online shopping is that there are so many sites selling the same things. You often buy a product at one site, only to discover later it was available at a much lower price on a different platform. Shopping extensions like Honey offer to solve this problem by checking around for the best deals whenever you add an item to your cart, saving you the effort of manually checking. The problem is that an extension like that gets access to far more data than you should be comfortable sharing, and isn’t completely honest in its recommendations, either.

Privacy is always a major concern with a shopping extension, since it monitors your purchases, and the data it collects can be sold to advertisers. This is particularly alarming here because you are also entering your payment details while shopping, and don’t want any application monitoring that. And this is before we get into whether they are scamming you entirely.

Honey, for example, shows you alternative buying links before you are about to check out, ostensibly giving you a better deal. But it was exposed for pushing its own affiliate links instead, earning it kickbacks without saving you a penny. So steer clear of shopping extensions like Honey and instead do your own research when buying a product. It takes time and effort, but that’s the only way to confirm you are not being taken for a ride.

CCleaner

Sharaf Maksumov/Shutterstock

Windows XP was a very successful operating system, but it had its issues. This gave rise to a class of PC cleaning and optimizing applications that would remove these unneeded files and speed up the PC’s performance. CCleaner was one of the first apps in this category, and quickly established itself as the market leader, with great effectiveness in cleaning up system files and registry entries. It was safe to use, making it a must-have for every PC.

But in 2017, it was acquired by Avast, the antivirus company. This is also around the time when Windows 10 started phasing out Windows XP (actually Vista, but that was a disaster). One of the major improvements in Windows 10 was the optimization. No longer did Windows need third-party applications to clean up temporary files or mess with the registry; The default system services could do it just fine. At the same time, Avast started turning CCleaner into a software bundle to sell its antivirus and other utilities alongside it. The result is a bloated, unnecessary mess.

CCleaner cleans nothing and slows down your computer, all the while trying to sell you other apps you don’t need. It has been hacked in the past as well, resulting in leaks of user data. Avoid installing this app on any PC running Windows 11.

WiFi Speed Boosters

Simpson33/Getty Images

The concept of a software being able to boost your WiFi speed is tempting, even though it is completely bogus. Your wireless internet speeds are dependent on factors that cannot be controlled through software. Things like the network conditions, the router technology, and even the version of WiFi supported by your network card decide the quality of the internet you get. And of course, your Internet Service Provider (ISP), including what plan you are on.

But if you go online, you will come across apps that claim to be able to boost your WiFi speeds. They claim to be able to achieve this by optimizing your networks and selecting the right channel. The problem is that these are functions that modern routers perform by default, making such software redundant. All these WiFi boosters do is throttle services to conserve bandwidth, often blocking useful applications like downloads you left running in the background. The worst ones are just sitting there collecting data on your PC, while trying to sell you additional premium services and ads to make a quick buck.

There are better ways to increase your internet speed. If your PC has an antenna, make sure it is installed, and try to place your router in a position where it can reach your whole house evenly. Depending on the situation, it might be worth investing in a WiFi range extender or plugging your PC directly into the router through an Ethernet cable instead.

Crypto mining software

Joseph Christanto/Shutterstock

There was a time when cryptocurrency mining was all the rage. The idea that you could put your gaming PC to work and earn yourself some money while you slept was very enticing, even if the logistics didn’t quite work out for hobby miners.

But times have changed. Bitcoin mining has reached the point where you need a massive server farm to turn any profit, and cryptocurrencies like Ethereum have switched to a different model entirely, ditching the computationally intensive mining process. This means that there is no viable way of making money on the side by installing cryptocurrency software on your PC. The legitimate mining applications changed to reflect this reality, recommending specialized mining computers for enthusiasts.

And yet, there are still cryptocurrency mining applications online that claim to be able to mine from your home PC and make you money. Some will say they mine using the cloud (but will pay you for some reason) while others still pretend that mining in the background is possible. In truth, these tend to be malware just looking to infect your system and steal data. Even Android is rife with such crypto mining scams. Some variants will actually mine cryptocurrency on your system, using up all your resources to make the hacker some crypto bucks. So, whatever you do, never install any crypto-mining applications on your computer.

Razer Synapse

iama_sing/Shutterstock

Razer is a market leader in gaming peripherals, most famously for its gaming mice and keyboards. Since gaming devices usually come with RGB lighting, Razer also offers a proprietary software for managing these lighting profiles, along with adjusting keybinds for special buttons, called the Razer Synapse. Just as dedicated drivers made by a device’s vendor tend to be better than generic drivers, you would expect a dedicated app to work best with Razer devices, right? Wrong. It doesn’t work well at all.

The major issue with Razer Synapse is performance. An application like this is meant to be lightweight, running unobtrusively in the background with minimal system impact. The Synapse, on the other hand, causes a very noticeable FPS drop while playing some games. Even in games without performance issues, the basic functions of the software work inconsistently. Keybinds don’t trigger correctly, fan profiles revert to default when you minimize the app, or it fails to recognize your devices. Not to mention the software takes up too much disk space for a simple task.

To be fair to Razer Synapse, this is often the case with company-specific software like this, even from other manufacturers like MSI or Logitech. You may be better off sticking to universal software like SignalRGB, which can manage most of these devices from a common platform.

NVIDIA

Nwz/Shutterstock

NVIDIA is the GPU company, and it’s likely your PC uses an NVIDIA graphics card. Chances are also good that the company pushed you to download the NVIDIA app during driver installation. It is optional, but most users pick yes because the idea of a dedicated app for managing your GPU settings and tweaking them for every game sounds good. Except it cannot quite do that.

When you open the NVIDIA app, it greets you with a list of all installed games on your system, and then proceeds to show you graphical settings that you find in-game. Trying to change the universal settings just changes the very options you can see in the standard NVIDIA control panel on the taskbar, giving you nothing new. Worse, the NVIDIA app can negatively impact your PC performance, usually due to unoptimized overlay or malfunctioning game filters.

Another reason you might have installed this app is to record gameplay, as the previous GeForce Experience was dedicated to this function, and worked without a major drop in performance. But the new NVIDIA app struggles with this function as well, with the instant replay switching off randomly, or being unable even to take screenshots. For now, it’s better to stick with GeForce Experience or switch to something like OBS rather than installing the NVIDIA app.

Feature image credit: Alex Photo Stock/Shutterstock

By Levin Roy

Sourced from BGR

Read More
By
In News

Google is desperate for us to forget the simple joy of the original internet: Links

No Comments

By 

We have to go back.

Until I found the website ooh.directory last year, I hadn’t really understood, completely, how malnourished my internet diet had become. I still had some bookmarks I visited everyday, and the social media feed I checked (too often) for breaking news and interesting stories. But only when I made a conscious effort for the first time in a decade to fill up an RSS reader with bloggers, critics, news sources, and even webcomics did I realize that I’d lost track of the original, primal joy of the internet:

Clicking a link and finding a whole new world unfurl before me, as fast as my dial-up modem or DSL connection could load it in.

I realize in hindsight that that was the really magical part, not knowing what I would get when I clicked. Finding a site wholly born from the passion and personality of someone I’d never met was as much the point as the information that site contained.

For 20 years Google has been trying to kill this version of the internet that I loved. At first I think it was with good intentions: the internet just seemed so vast back then (ha!) that a search engine that could truly crawl all of it to surface the “best” stuff was amazing. Then, of course, Google took over the entirety of internet advertising and tightly integrated it with search. It took over browsing with Chrome so it could control the standards websites would have to adhere to. It made it so you could search without even going to Google.com.

(Image credit: Yahoo via Internet archive)

Google itself has become the final form of “Saved you a click,”

It started auto filling what everyone else was searching for, so that it could precisely tailor those results pages (and all the lucrative sponsored links at the top—$198 billion in ad revenue last year!). For years now we’ve watched Google rip more and more information out of the websites it once presented as promising, useful links and act as though it’s done us a huge favour.

Why should you click on George Clooney’s Wikipedia page (the first result when you search his name) when a snippet of it is right there in the sidebar? Surely you want to know “Is George Clooney richer than Brad Pitt?” and the answer is right there for you in the “People also ask” widget, sandwiched between the links.

Surely when you Google “Does Master Chief have sex?” you just want the answer to that pressing question as quickly as possible, right? Google is doing you a great service with its new AI Overview, then, which summarizes “Yes, Master Chief has sex with a human Covenant spy named Makee in a specific episode of the live-action Halo TV series.”

Mister Chief

(Image credit: Frank O’Connor)

It graciously provides a source for this information with a link to the 2022 YouTube video Master Chief Lays Pipe in the Halo Show.

But Google would really much rather entice you to click a button it highlights with swirling RGB lights titled “Dive deeper in AI mode,” where it promises to provide more context. As much context as you want. Endless context. I click it to see what insights it can offer. Master Chief “is often jokingly referred to by fans as a ‘big green virgin,'” Google tells me. Sure!

We all know that Google has, for years, been trying harder and harder to stop helping us navigate the internet and instead be the internet, with the answer to any and every thought or query right there at the top of the results page.

We can all feel in our bones that this convenience has become more and more a hindrance, every search weighed down by paid results and shortform videos and SEO’d-to-hell listicles as autocomplete funnels us to the lowest common denominator results.

And yet the infection eating away at Google’s core goes deeper than “search sucks now.” Google’s AI overviews aren’t just leeching traffic away from the very websites it’s happily pilfering from, with no fucks given in the halls of big tech about fracking the internet’s core until the whole thing collapses in on itself. The rot is spiritual.

Google’s AI overviews demonstrate with diamond clarity that Google views the trillions of links it crawls as nothing more than information—data to be surfaced in any form, the more immediate and convenient the better. Google itself has become the final form of “Saved you a click,” a 2010s Twitter phenomenon that writer Charlie Warzel once succinctly analysed as fighting less against clickbait than “the premise of simply reading.”

“In @SavedYouAClick’s”—or, now, Google’s!—”perfect world, information doesn’t just want to be free, it demands to be right in your face in its entirety—showmanship, gimmicks, and creativity be damned. Your time is, quite simply, too precious.”

Google Discover headlines rewritten by AI

(Image credit: The Verge)

AI overviews and everything about the modern Google experience view the totality of the internet as nothing but questions and answers. The same goes for ChatGPT, Grok, whatever—they’re not just offensive because they’re built on stolen material and wrong half the time, but because they don’t even recognize the actual value in what they’re stealing. How else should we interpret Google now deciding to rewrite our headlines with AI, turning this:

  • ‘Child labour is unbeatable’: Baldur’s Gate 3 players discover how to build an army of unkillable kids through the power of polymorph and German media laws

Into this?

  • BG3 players exploit children

What could the point of these AI headlines possibly be, other than to convince you that all the ‘information’ you ‘need’ is contained within Google’s feed in its most easily digestible form? Don’t waste time clicking away! Rest assured that all flavour will be hewn from the bone and discarded before serving so that you’re left with nothing but a flavourless content broth, so calorie light you can scroll-slurp it forever without interruption.

The thing is: Showmanship, gimmicks, and creativity? That’s what living is for, man! That was the whole original joy of clicking on an old website with no idea what you were going to get; whether it would start auto-playing a midi version of the Star Wars theme or dazzle you with a tiled 32×32 pixel tiled background of the Zelda triforce or a dancing baby.

Search and “AI” … have become so focused on serving up the known that they no longer bear any resemblance to the version of the internet that cherished discovering the unknown

Remember cursing when you landed on a Flash website because it would take so long to load, but then being like damn, this looks cool?

Remember joining a message board because you really liked a website’s Final Fantasy 7 guides and then, I don’t know, marrying someone else who posts there?

Okay, that was not an experience too many people had. But some did! And you sure as hell would never even crack open the door leading to that wholly unpredictable path through life if, in the year 2025, you Googled “what’s the best materia in Final Fantasy 7,” read the AI overview, and never clicked a thing.

(Dumbshit AI can’t even give you the right answer which is that obviously Knights of the Round is the best materia because it’s cool, more practical choices be damned).

Image 1 of 4
Eyes on Final Fantasy fansite in the early 2000s
(Image credit: EyesonFF.com via Internet Archive)

There are a million yeah, buts we could get into here: sometimes headlines really are misleading, sometimes websites are so stuffed with ads that reading them kinda sucks (sorry, but I remind you again that Google monopolized the ad market), sometimes search results pages are useless because the few human writers still eking out a living are fighting against a million spammy content mills to win a popular search term Google has told everyone to type in. Sometimes you do just need a quick answer to a quick question.

But Google has made us forget how much more nourishing clicking a link can be—how much beyond mere information could await you when that page loads. Search—and really any sort of “AI” that can answer your every question—have become so focused on serving up the known that they no longer bear any resemblance to the version of the internet that cherished discovering the unknown.

(Image credit: Ooh.directory)

So now, every few months, I find myself back on ooh.directory, clicking around at random. I love the front page, where it shows me a blog that is celebrating its 25th birthday today.

I click the random button and learn there’s a guy out there named Robert X Cringely (wow).

I land on the personal site of a game developer who worked on Doom 2016 and Deer Avenger 4: The Rednecks Strike Back and has created 1,450 pieces of Javascript art (so far), each in under 140 characters of code.

Javascript sunset

(Image credit: KilledByAPixel)

Without it I never would’ve started reading Sandwich Tribunal, a blog trying to review every sandwich listed on Wikipedia. They’ve been at it for 10 years. Never in my life would I have possibly typed the words “Rou Jia Mo, the Flatbread Sandwich of Shaanxi Province” into Google.

But now I know that there’s a sandwich out there that marries two culinary traditions dating back 3,000 years and 1,400 years, respectively—a sandwich I must eat before I die.

We’ll all need something like a Rou Jia Mo to sustain us during the internet nuclear winter that Google is eagerly creating, and once AI has fully destroyed search you’ll have to look for it the old fashioned way. Go out there, and find your own.

Feature Image credit: Future

By 

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he’ll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he’s not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it’s really becoming a problem), he’s probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).

Sourced from PC Gamer

Read More
By
In News

The LinkedIn Update That Will Crush Your Reach Unless You Adapt Fast

No Comments

By Jodie Cook

LinkedIn just made a decision that’s about to destroy most creators’ reach. The platform decided faceless education is dead. That means generic business advice gets buried. Safe content gets ignored. Yet most people keep posting like nothing changed.

When I visited LinkedIn’s New York headquarters in September they told me something that should have been obvious. People don’t come to LinkedIn for Wikipedia. They come for connections with real humans who happen to know useful things. The algorithm now reflects this reality. If you don’t adapt, your content becomes invisible.

Stop hiding behind your content: LinkedIn’s new reality

Your face beats your frameworks

I tested this with two identical posts. Same exact advice about scaling a coaching business. One had my face. One had a pretty Canva graphic. The face post got 4x more views. LinkedIn’s algorithm now prioritizes posts where people can see who’s talking.

Upload a simple selfie with your next post. Not a professional headshot. Just you, being you. Show people the human behind the advice. When someone scrolls to your content, they should recognize you instantly, not just your brand colours.

Turn teaching into entertainment

Remember when LinkedIn was all “5 tips for better leadership” posts? Those days died. The platform wants productive procrastination now. People need to be hooked by your content but should feel good about scrolling, not guilty. You’re a teacher, a gameshow host, and their cheerleader.

Share your morning routine disaster that led to a business breakthrough. Tell them about the client call where everything went wrong before it went right. Make them laugh before you make them think. Educational content wrapped in entertainment gets 10x the engagement of straight advice.

Lead with why they should care

Your credentials matter more than ever. Not because you need to flex, but because people need to know why to listen. LinkedIn shows your content to strangers now, not just your network. They don’t know you’re the coach who helped 100 founders scale. Tell them in line one.

“After coaching founders through $50M in raises, here’s what I know about pitch decks.” Beat that. “I spent 10 years making these LinkedIn mistakes so you don’t have to.” Perfect. Skip the wind-up. Get straight to why your voice matters.

Make your quirks your superpowers

Generic Gerald posts about leadership. Boring Barbara shares motivational quotes. Meanwhile, Anna who collects vintage typewriters and relates every business lesson to her collection? She’s memorable. Your weird hobby, your strange morning ritual, your controversial opinion about your industry. These are connection points.

Pick three personality markers that make you, you. Maybe you start every day with fantasy novels. Perhaps you dictate all your content while walking. Whatever makes you different, weave it into your posts. Give people reasons to remember you beyond your expertise.

Create binge-worthy content series

LinkedIn rewards creators who keep people on the platform through rabbit holes of connected content. Think Netflix for business content. One post should make them want to check your profile for more.

Start a weekly series only you could create. “Startup lessons from my disastrous kitchen experiments.” “What my toddler taught me about negotiations.” “Bad marketing emails I got this week.” Make it specific to your experience. People find one post in your series, then they hunt for the rest.

Become the expert people actually remember: LinkedIn in 2026

Enough of the frameworks, hot takes, and platitudes. Your audience craves real connections. They want to learn from someone they’d grab coffee with, not another faceless expert. LinkedIn finally caught up to what humans always wanted. Connection first, content second.

Stop posting like a content machine. Start showing up like the expert you actually are. Be more weird. The algorithm rewards humanity. Your perfectly polished posts are losing to someone’s messy Monday confession that happens to include brilliant advice. Choose which side you want to be on.

Feature image credit: Getty

By Jodie Cook

Find Jodie Cook on LinkedIn. Visit Jodie’s website.

Sourced from Forbes

Read More
By
Load More