By James Mayo

How AI is being used to clean ‘dirty’ data

As personalized and user-centric offerings become a necessity for modern organizations, utilizing data is a critical component to understanding customer and stakeholder needs. From public sector bodies and healthcare providers to financial institutions and software suppliers, it is now imperative for organizations to collect, store and organize data effectively.

Yet, unfortunately, many organizations are struggling to maintain clean, actionable data. In fact, a recent survey found that two-fifths (39%) of organizations have little to no data governance frameworks1. Years of inconsistent data practices and working in silos have left many departments with ‘dirty’, inadequate data that cannot be actioned.

This ongoing lack of effective data governance has resulted in organizations missing the valuable insights that would otherwise help them become better service providers.

Organizations, across sectors, as well as public sector bodies, urgently need to take decisive action to mitigate against any further damage their current data collecting practices may be having. In addition, they must instil values that make data governance a priority. This would ensure the information they collect, and store, is not only clean but also actionable.

How has this happened?

The manifestation of ‘dirty’, disorganized, data stems from a multitude of factors. From collecting duplicate and incomplete records to a lack of integration, too many organizations have unfortunately failed to manage data effectively. According to 2024 research, 44% of financial firms struggle to manage data stored across multiple locations2. This has hit their bottom line, with many incurring inflated costs. However, where, and how data is stored is not the only problem.

In organizations where data governance remains a concern, data is often fragmented and inconsistent across departments. Instead of having integrated systems that deliver a single, dependable, database, teams are working in data silos. For instance, separate sales and marketing teams at a digital bank may want to reach out to the same customers, or prospects, but have their own isolated data sets. In a borough council, the social housing and waste collection teams may need to contact the same residents, yet they do not share their citizens’ records.

This disjointed approach causes ‘dirty’ data that is not only difficult to use because the information is incorrect but also challenging to clean and then maintain. What’s more, ‘dirty’ data leads to conflicting insights, impacting decision-making, customer experience and overall business efficiency.

Commercial organizations risk falling behind competitors who can adjust their product lines in accordance with customer and market demands. Meanwhile, public sector bodies may not be delivering crucial services to the right citizens.

Who is responsible for ‘dirty’ data?

Poor data management comes in many forms, but perhaps the most prominent reason for ‘dirty’ data revolves around ownership. While many heads of departments perceive data governance as a responsibility of an organization’s IT team, it is their department colleagues who actually use data on a day-to-day basis. An IT team can offer support by ensuring software and systems are working properly, but they are not the ones utilizing information to interact with customers and stakeholders.

After all, it is the departments, such as finance, sales and marketing, that need customer and stakeholder engagement to succeed and that benefit from clean, actionable data. The same can be said for local authorities. For example, the social care and education teams need clean data to ensure they can identify the residents that qualify for their services. With this in mind, it is then reasonable to suggest that the prime beneficiaries of clean data should be the ones managing it. Fostering a culture of data responsibility, driven by a desire to create a single view of customer or citizen information, while investing in staff training, is the first step to resolving the human aspect of effective data governance.

Keeping data clean

The technical aspect involves adopting appropriate solutions to help with the initial clean up and then maintaining data accuracy. While having the right intentions is fundamental to establishing effective data governance, introducing appropriate technology allows departments to put their drive for change into practice.

The sheer volume of data that organizations need to collect, store and process has led to legacy, or rules-based, software being no longer fit for purpose. Instead, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, have been developed to notice patterns and inconsistencies in data. Newer tools can handle larger volumes, so they are deployed to irradicate data duplication and are even at the stage to offer predictive data modelling.

These technologies maintain clean data and support the generation of actionable insights so organizations can accommodate customers’ and/or citizens’ present and future needs. Successful adoption will happen gradually but once this is achieved, automated data cleansing will boost productivity. By automating the manual processes that eroded people’s time, organizations can empower humans to prioritize and fulfil the tasks they do best.

Benefit from actionable insights

The responsibility for data governance cannot rest solely with IT teams. It must be a shared priority across departments, where those who rely most on data take an active role in ensuring its quality.

The benefits of clean data go beyond having the easily accessible information that is always in the right place, at the right time. Breaking down data silos allows better cohesion and collaboration, which then in turn helps deliver actionable insights. From personalized marketing campaigns and optimizing supply chains to issuing council tax bills and allocating social care budgets, clean data allows organizations to run more efficiently.

By investing in both technology, such as AI-powered automation tools, and a more responsible, and proactive, culture, companies can develop robust data management practices. Ultimately, the organizations that thrive will be those that treat data not as a by-product, but as a strategic asset.

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Feature image credit: Shutterstock / Ryzhi

By James Mayo

James Mayo is Senior Business Development Leader at Version 1.

Sourced from techradar.pro

By Natalie Fear

It claims to have the “capabilities of an award-winning creative team.”

AI has been a perpetual looming threat to the creative industries, with the technology developing faster than we can regulate it. With AI advertising and VFX corner-cutting becoming more normalised, it’s an uncertain time for the community, but now a new opponent has entered the ring, legitimising fears that AI could replace human talent.

Meet Lovart, an AI co-pilot designed to meet all your design and branding needs. Supposedly equipped with the “capabilities of an award-winning creative team,” Lovart slithers onto the scene as a sleazy alternative to hiring traditional design agencies – and with a $90 per month price tag, it’s a corner-cutting all-in-one service with an undeniably accessible edge.

San Francisco-based Lovart AI was immensely popular in its beta, attracting over 800,000 testers. Its mission was simple: “generate six-figure or higher branding and advertising campaigns using nothing more than a single text prompt.” The co-piot tool is powered by a “proprietary creative reasoning engine, MCoT (Mind Chain of Thought),” allegedly capable of analysing the brand’s business context and audience requirements, all while remaining “on par with top-tier Creative Directors and professional-grade visual assets.”

Despite it essentially being a robo CCO surrogate, Lovart boasts its human-like interactivity, with user recall, workflow learning and prediction, and “Autonomous Design Intelligence” that guides you from conception to finalised output with “unexpected, witty, and human-like flair.” It’s unique “Chat Canvas” is optimised for creative collaboration between man and machine, while business is taken care of by specialised AI agents that each manage a distinct creative task.

“At Lovart, we don’t have product managers. We have designers who teach AI how to think, in a way that you might expect from a Creative Director,” says Lovart’s CEO, Melvin Chen. “The canvas is the desk. The agent is your teammate. Together, they recreate the most natural way design happens that captures nuance, emotion and brand essence within a single prompt, enabling anyone to bring their creative visions to life, even without a design background.”

I find myself struggling to digest Chen’s claims, given there’s seemingly nothing “natural” to be found in prompt-based AI design. While Lovart undoubtedly makes large-scale design projects more accessible for small businesses, it’s uncomfortable that the nuance of human talent is being lost to the machine.

Human-made design is imperfect, it sparks conversation, it brings joy, and it celebrates raw creativity, something that’s lost in the churn of AI image generation and machine co-piloting. While Lovart naturally concerns me, I can only hope it’ll prove the value of investing in design agencies – iconic design isn’t made by AI; it’s born out of an authenticity only possible through the human experience.

Feature image credit: Lovart

By Natalie Fear

Natalie Fear is Creative Bloq’s staff writer. With an eye for trending topics and a passion for internet culture, she brings you the latest in art and design news. Natalie also runs Creative Bloq’s Day in the Life series, spotlighting diverse talent across the creative industries. Outside of work, she loves all things literature and music (although she’s partial to a spot of TikTok brain rot).

Sourced from CREATIVE BLOQ

By Ryan Christoffel

Apple has released a new video advertising Apple Intelligence on the iPhone 16, with one feature spotlighted: Clean Up. The humorous message of the video? Be careful what you remove from photos.

Clean Up should not be used to remove beloved pets, says new ad

Clean Up is an Apple Intelligence feature that lets you remove unwanted objects from photos.

Available inside the Photos app, Clean Up lets you easily alter an image to get rid of any visual distraction that’s unwanted.

But per Apple’s new video, you probably shouldn’t use it to remove your partner’s beloved cat.

Clean Up is available on all iPhones compatible with Apple Intelligence, as well as supported iPads and Macs.

By Ryan Christoffel

Sourced from 9TO5 Mac

By Daniel John

How many stereotypes can you fit in 80 seconds?

When the trailer for Dear Erin appeared online and in cinemas this month, Irish viewers were appalled – if not entirely surprised. The trailer for the ‘film’ managed to pack an impressive number of clichés into its 80-second runtime, including Irish fiddles, flat caps, Guinness, whiskey and, of course, the name Paddy. “What did we Irish people ever do to you to deserve this?” one of the top YouTube comments laments. But it turns out all was not as it seemed.

All of those stereotypes were, on this occasion, entirely deliberate. Epic, the Irish emigration museum in Dublin, has revealed itself to be behind the trailer, releasing an extended cut in which actor Peter Coonan breaks character and decries the stereotypes on display.

“As long as Hollywood has been making movies, they’ve been telling the same story about the Irish. At our best we’re simple, hopeless romantics with a quiet, rural life. At our worst we’re drunken, violent, dirty, law-breakers. Either way, we’re almost always a joke or a punchline. You’d think by now, we’d be past this. But if you’ve seen some of Hollywood’s recent depictions of Ireland, you’d understand why someone had to say something,” Epic explains in a statement.

From Wild Mountain Thyme to Irish Wish, there’ve been no shortage of stereotype-laden ‘Irish’ films released in recent years, often complete with dodgy accents and characters who mostly just drink and fight.

Perhaps the most impressive – and damning – thing about it the Dear Erin trailer is how believable it is. Indeed, most of the comments on the original trailer are from viewers complaining about those stereotypes. As one commenter puts it, “Christ could they not find a leprechaun to complete cliché bingo.”

“We thought it was time to call it out. We created a trailer for a film that we hope never gets made, and filled it with all of the tired, clichéd portrayals of Irish people often seen in Hollywood movies. At EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, we tell the real stories of the Irish—gritty, inspiring, surprising, and true. If you want to understand who we really are, come see for yourself.”

Feature image credit: Epic

By Daniel John

Daniel John is Design Editor at Creative Bloq. He reports on the worlds of design, branding and lifestyle tech, and has covered several industry events including Milan Design Week, OFFF Barcelona and Adobe Max in Los Angeles. He has interviewed leaders and designers at brands including Apple, Microsoft and Adobe. Daniel’s debut book of short stories and poems was published in 2018, and his comedy newsletter is a Substack Bestseller.

Sourced from CREATIVE BLOQ

Sourced from CNBC

Want to get ahead and open yourself up to new opportunities? A strong personal brand might be just what you need.

With the rise of digital platforms, personal branding is more powerful and essential than ever. A well-crafted personal brand helps you stand out professionally, expand your network, and open new doors in every area of your life.

Building a personal brand can feel intimidating, like something reserved for influencers or CEOs. But the truth is, we all have a brand, whether we choose to use it to our advantage or not.

Smarter by CNBC Make It’s new online course, How To Build A Standout Personal Brand Online, In Person and At Work, is a practical guide to taking control of your narrative and putting it to work for you. From discovering what truly sets you apart to expressing it confidently, you’ll learn how to build a brand that both creates opportunities and authentically represents who you are.

Plus, we’ll share actionable tips to build a cohesive LinkedIn profile that attracts hiring managers, clients, and more.

This course is for anyone looking to grow their presence, from job seekers aiming to stand out in a competitive market to professionals striving to enhance their reputation and unlock new career opportunities.

Led by three personal branding and marketing experts, this course offers real-world advice to amplify your presence both online and in person.

This course will help you:

1. Define your personal brand and learn how to use it strategically
2. Identify what sets you apart and communicate it with clarity
3. Develop the ability to showcase your values, experiences and perspectives that AI can’t replicate
4. Build a digital presence that boosts your discoverability and credibility
5. Create a portfolio or online profile that best reflects your skills and potential
6. Use your brand to land better jobs, grow your network, or launch your own business

What you’ll get:

• 100 minutes of instructional video content, broken into digestible lessons

• A workbook with summaries and exercises

• Instant access to watch and read at your own pace

• Entrance to an exclusive online community to discuss progress and pitfalls in real time

Learn from three top experts:

• David Rosenstein, a nationally recognized personal branding expert and career thought leader. He’s traveled across the U.S. helping thousands of professionals, from students to senior leaders, build standout digital identities that unlock real-world opportunities. With a background in career coaching, David combines actionable advice with 15+ years of performance experience to deliver workshops that are equal parts energizing and practical.

• Jenny Fernandez, MBA, a brand strategist, executive, and team coach who works with senior leaders and their teams to become more effective, cohesive, and resilient. She repositions leaders for success. Jenny is a LinkedIn “Top Voice,” TEDx speaker, and professional development facilitator. She is a Columbia Business and NYU faculty member, a Gen Z advocate, and a former CMO.
• Kait LeDonne, a New York‑based personal‑branding strategist and instructor. She turned her corporate day job into an in-demand personal brand and now teaches executives, professionals, and consultants how to turn their expertise and personality into seven‑figure businesses. She leads programs like Brand Launch and publishes the weekly “Build a Brand” newsletter, which provides branding frameworks to over 53,000 professionals. Kait is also a keynote speaker and frequent media commentator on LinkedIn growth and thought leadership.

Sourced from CNBC

By Charlie Skinner

In a nostalgia-filled world, is it ever okay to completely disown your past?

If last year’s Jaguar debacle taught us anything – other than the fact that Miami Pink really divides opinion – it’s that a wholesale brand reinvention should never be taken lightly. And that it’s only an option when the brand in question is failing to support the wider business ambition.

What we see from the likes of Jaguar, Aberdeen (formerly abrdn) and Royal Mail (formerly, famously briefly, Consignia) are examples of brands carelessly dumping their heritage – and feeling the heat as a result.

For the most part, brands under pressure to modernise are better advised to think about revitalisation rather than reinvention (i.e. refreshes vs rebrands) – going back to their brand origins to make themselves relevant again, and holding onto their equity, rather than dumping it. Doing this preserves hard-won brand equity that takes years to build up and that can be extremely valuable.

Where wholesale brand transformation can go awry

Big brand changes can be dangerous. Think back to the early 2000s, when Tropicana famously did away with its existing packaging. The pack changed so much that consumers couldn’t recognise it on the shelf; sales plummeted as a result, and a more familiar pack was quickly reinstated.

Then we have Royal Mail rebranding to Consignia, again in the early 2000s. People didn’t understand the reason for the change; it was widely ridiculed and a quick U-turn from management followed.

Two takeaways: first, denying or distancing yourself from your heritage makes people suspicious. It implies, in some way, that there’s something wrong with your past.

Second, brand codes and associations take years to earn – Tropicana’s were playing a valuable role in helping consumers locate it on the shelf, Royal Mail’s were equally powerful. And in doing away with its brand, it underestimated the power of its rich heritage.

Then you have a more recent example: abrdn, which came under fire for appearing to try too hard to modernise (it recently reneged on its controversial name change). At the time, there was a feeling that the rebrand was something of a fig leaf to cover underlying business issues, with one commentator telling The Guardian the rebrand was “ill thought-out” and the new name “could be pronounced ‘a burden'”.

Striking the balance between reinvention and revolution

It’s absolutely possible to reinvent yourself as a brand without losing your heritage. Mini and Lucozade are two such examples: in 2015, Mini reinvented itself as a fun, adventurous car brand – global but with British roots. But it kept hold of its most valuable brand codes: its name, the Mini dashboard, its proportions and the brand’s cheeky spirit.

Lucozade, for many years associated with being ill (or at least overcoming illness), hitched a ride on the energy drinks train and found a new audience with a younger generation. Its reinvention saw it sidestep into an emerging category while keeping hold of its essence and heritage.

There are many ways in which brands can rejuvenate themselves – on a smaller scale:

Carlsberg, a famously green brand, turned itself red – temporarily – to celebrate its sponsorship of Liverpool. Its green code being so firmly established in the culture that it could confidently play with the colour.

Cadbury’s Dairy milk regularly plays with its long-established brand codes to keep its brand fresh and lively.

When is it okay to part with your past?

I’d suggest two situations when a complete, throw the baby out with the bathwater reinvention is needed.

1. In cases of extreme emergency

If your brand’s heritage has become overwhelmingly negative and is dragging the business down, it might be time for a rebrand. A recent example of this would be Hermes rebranding to Evri in 2022 – this followed hot on the heels of a damning 2021 Times investigation, which concluded that Hermes was the UK’s ‘worst’ courier.

2. When there’s been a shift in business ambition and strategy

The other scenario when it’s worth parting with your heritage is when you’ve changed as a brand and become something different. National Express Group rebranding to Mobico Group is a great example. The new brand prompted a re-appraisal – internally and externally – and spurred the company onwards.

Other examples include Spotify modifying its positioning to include podcasts as well as music, and Lululemon rebranding itself as a holistic wellness (rather than fitness wear) brand.

Taking all this into account, Jaguar’s 2024 rebrand remains baffling. In terms of brand equity, it was guilty of forgetting to check the rearview mirrors; it disowned 100 years of heritage and seemed to either want to distance itself from a negative past or conclude that nothing in the past held value for their future direction. For a brand with such a rich and storied heritage, this felt like a risky move.

The takeaway for brand leaders? If you’re thinking of making a clean break with your past, think carefully before you do so.

Feature image credit: Lucozade/Pearlfisher

By Charlie Skinner

Sourced from CREATIVE BLOQ

By Rachel Wells

By 2030, almost 40% of today’s workplace skills will be irrelevant, according to the World Economic Forum.

And yet, although these skills are expected to change, many job-seekers are still submitting resumes that don’t make any mention of the core skills of the future at all–skills like AI.

That makes you…irrelevant.

You could be applying to hundreds of jobs, yet still get ghosted, while the candidates who have AI certifications and skills have an advantage over you because employers want them more.

In fact, employers have made their sentiments very clear: about 92% have plans to hire this year for positions that have Gen AI skills as a requirement, according to a new AWS survey.

What Are The Best AI Certifications For Beginners?

In this short article, you’ll discover five beginner-friendly AI certifications that you can include in your resume and leverage them to land the job offers you deserve.

1. AI Essentials For Business, By HBS (Harvard Business School)

What you’ll learn:

• How to manage business risks and ethical implications of AI
• Skills and frameworks to shape your organization’s digital transformation strategy as they adopt AI
• Business use cases for AI across your organization/business

Cost: $1,850

2. AWS Certified AI Practitioner

What you’ll learn:

• Foundational concepts of AI, ML, and generative AI
• AI frameworks and AWS technology

Cost: $100 for the exam; training costs can include $29 for the subscription to course materials

3. AWS Generative AI Applications Professional Certificate, Coursera

What you’ll learn:

• AI fundamentals and AWS services, including how to implement responsible AI practices and select appropriate models for business needs
• Prompt engineering techniques and practical application development using Amazon Bedrock, PartyRock, and other AWS tools
• How to transform business ideas into AI applications

Cost: Seven-day free trial, then $59/month or $399/year

4. Microsoft 365 with Generative AI Professional Certificate, Coursera

What you’ll learn:

• How to build AI-powered workflows, even as a newbie
• Using Copilot with Microsoft applications to boost productivity
• How to use AI-driven insights and data analysis tools

Cost: Seven-day free trial, then $59/month or $399/year

5. Snowflake Generative AI Professional Certificate, Coursera

What you’ll learn:

• Go from beginner to knowing how to build AI applications
• How to fine-tune or train an AI model
• Prompt engineering techniques for Llama, Mistral, and Anthropic models

Cost: Seven-day free trial, then $59/month or $399/year

These courses teach a wide variety of high-income skills with the potential to pay six figures as a freelancer or even as an employee, from building and deploying your very own AI tools, to creating custom workflows that boost productivity and reduce costs.

Do You Need Coding Experience To Learn AI?

No you don’t. These certifications prove that you can build AI skills within a month (if studying for 10-15 hours a week), or even three to six months at most (if studying alongside a busy schedule), even if you’re a complete beginner.

How Do You Add AI Certifications To Your Resume?

Here are some creative ways to include AI certifications in your resume:

• Have a separate professional certifications section
• Include the AI skills you’ve learned in these courses, through your skills/competencies section
• Talk about how you’ve implemented the skills you’ve learned from AI certifications, in your work experience section

The future won’t wait for you to be ready. AI implementation and rollout is happening right now as you’re reading.

AI certifications boost your relevance and value in the labor market

getty

So, if you want your career to thrive in this new future of work, you’ve got to develop the skills that matter the most. Binge-watching a Netflix series won’t do much for your career. But using that time to develop yourself professionally through an AI certification? That’s time well-spent, and it will boost your income potential forever.

Feature image credit: Getty

By Rachel Wells

Find Rachel Wells on LinkedIn and X. Visit Rachel’s website.

Sourced from Forbes

By Natalie Fear

The ‘it-girl’ fantasy is wearing thin.

In today’s digital age, great visual branding is essential – get the right look and you can have customers emptying their pockets en masse. As a design journalist, it’s something I analyse daily, but I’m ashamed to admit I’m not immune to the allure of sexy branding with a killer campaign. In the past, I’ve fallen into the trap, but for some reason, I couldn’t seem to get enough.

Looking back at some of the most iconic brands, you’ll start to see it’s much more than clever design – great branding sells a fantasy. While the concept is nothing new, the online obsession with generational divides and micro-aesthetics is ripe for targeted branding that appeals to a desire for identity. This curated exclusivity often comes with an elevated price tag, yet we still yearn to be part of the design cult, no matter the cost.

Branding has always been about capturing a ‘vibe’, whether it’s Chanel’s heritage luxury or BrewDog’s gentrified bloke core aesthetic. I found myself settled in the elder Gen Z camp, desperate for branding that fed me the illusion of counterculture – something grown up without feeling stuffy or matronly. Enter brands like Estrid, Wild and Grind (to name just a few).

Monosylabic, minimalist and (seemingly) made for me, these stripped-back brands created a fantasy of attainable luxury in their unfussy design awash with matte pastels and understated typography. Subconsciously, I knew the design was targeted to me and yet I was more than happy to splash out on these products, not necessarily because they were better, but because the design brought the promise of some intangible ‘it girl’ status.

The sad truth is that great branding has the power to make a £30 bag of coffee beans feel like a chic purchase, rather than daylight robbery. Throw in a little bit of greenwashing and a £10 razor became a radical act of environmental conscientiousness. Who really cares if the products are on par with that slick design? I was blinkered by branding, infatuated with the fantasy these brands had spun.

Today I find myself at a moral crossroads, fed up with being flogged formulaic branding at undeservedly high prices. I staunchly believe we should pay for quality design. What irks me is how cut-and-paste design has become.

These minimalist brands are a post-luxury figment – an appropriation of refined high-end brand aesthetics quirkily repackaged for the Zillennial. While I have no issue with targeted branding, I find myself longing for something that feels authentic and original. Good design is worth investing in, but when everything looks the same, it’s increasingly difficult to define what’s ‘good’, and what’s simply an empty aesthetic ploy.

While I don’t see this branding aesthetic dying out anytime soon, I’ve certainly become more attuned to it and the fantasy is finally wearing thin. I’ll always be a moth to a flame when it comes to good design, but at least now I can look beyond the brand. For some quality design inspiration, check out Matheson Food Company’s classy packaging or take a look at why you need to adopt a ‘fix and flex’ approach to branding

Feature image credit: Wild/Estrid/Grind

By Natalie Fear

Natalie Fear is Creative Bloq’s staff writer. With an eye for trending topics and a passion for internet culture, she brings you the latest in art and design news. Natalie also runs Creative Bloq’s Day in the Life series, spotlighting diverse talent across the creative industries. Outside of work, she loves all things literature and music (although she’s partial to a spot of TikTok brain rot).

Sourced from CREATIVE BLOQ

By Jonathan Schwartz

With over 5 billion people on social media, platforms like Instagram, Facebook and TikTok aren’t just places to scroll—they’re places to sell.

As consumers spend an average of 141 minutes per day on social channels, these platforms are high-impact touchpoints for brand awareness, customer loyalty and, ultimately, sustainable business growth. However, reaching these outcomes takes more than just sporadic posts. Success hinges on a data-driven social media marketing plan that aligns with broader business goals and amplifies brand identity.

What Is A Social Media Marketing Plan?

A social media marketing plan is a focused framework that guides how your brand engages with its audience across social networks. It connects your broader digital marketing plan to tangible business outcomes, whether that’s improving brand recognition or increasing customer acquisition.

When built around clear objectives and purposeful content creation, a social media marketing plan becomes a catalyst for visibility, engagement and conversion, helping your business:

• Set clear and measurable marketing goals

• Identify and interact with target audiences

• Establish a recognizable online presence

• Promote content and drive website traffic

• Foster brand loyalty and customer trust

Why Creating A Plan Is Vital To Business Growth

A social media marketing plan lays the foundation for consistent messaging and meaningful connections that fuel business growth. It can mean the difference between ineffective and intentional marketing, ensuring that every platform reflects a unified brand identity and uniform business goals.

A comprehensive social media strategy also keeps marketing and sales teams aligned and eliminates content that doesn’t serve long-term objectives.

A well-structured plan can directly support three key areas of growth:

Increasing Brand Awareness

A consistent, cohesive social media presence helps businesses reach more potential customers. Both paid ads and organic content play a crucial role in capturing audience interest.

Building Customer Loyalty

With nearly half (48%) of consumers interacting with brands more often on social media now than in the past, timely and purposeful engagement helps build lasting relationships. Creating opportunities for genuine interaction fosters trust and long-term loyalty.

Boosting Conversions

More than 80% of consumers say social media already influences spontaneous purchases several times per year. A data-driven social media marketing plan empowers brands to launch targeted campaigns tailored to each stage of the buying journey, increasing both relevance and results.

How To Create A Social Media Marketing Plan

Building a results-driven social media strategy means grounding every step in data and intent.

• Set SMART goals. Define specific, measurable and time-bound goals. They also should support broader business strategies, such as boosting engagement or brand visibility.

• Identify key platforms. With users spread among so many platforms, conduct research to learn where your audience is most active.

• Tailor content. Determine your content pillars—core topics you will post about regularly—based on audience interests and your business’s expertise. For example, a skincare brand might focus on education, product highlights and customer testimonials.

• Create a content calendar. Take the guesswork out of your posting schedule and keep your brand top of mind with a structured cadence for content creation.

• Track performance metrics. Monitor your progress to evaluate what’s working and what’s not to keep your social media marketing plan tied to outcomes.

Best Practices For Maintaining A Successful Plan

A social media marketing plan demands ongoing maintenance. Long-term success relies on consistent execution, timely content creation and a proactive approach to engagement.

To remain competitive (and top of mind), focus on the following best practices:

• Adapt to trends. Over 60% of social media marketers use social listening tools to stay on top of emerging trends. Influencer partnerships can help, as these creators often shape platform trends.

• Create content with mobile in mind. Now that nearly 94% of U.S. internet users go online via smartphones, mobile-first content is no longer optional.

• Engage with your audience. Around 73% of social media users will switch brands if they’re ignored on social media. Outbound tactics like commenting on others’ posts can boost reach and foster a stronger community.

Measuring Outcomes And Adjusting Your Plan

A successful social media marketing plan is far from static; it must evolve with audience behavior and platform trends, which you can track with analytics tools.

Analytics tools reveal which efforts are driving measurable outcomes across objectives like brand visibility and conversions. Monitor key performance indicators such as engagement, reach and click-through rates to gauge the success of your strategy.

By continuously assessing performance and adjusting your strategy, your teams can make more informed decisions, reallocate resources more effectively and remain more relevant to consumers.

Turn Social Media Planning Into Business Performance

Social media is more than just another marketing channel; it’s a vital component of business success. A well-developed social media marketing plan builds brand visibility, deepens customer relationships and contributes directly to business growth.

Feature image credit: Getty

By Jonathan Schwartz

Find Jonathan Schwartz on LinkedIn and X. Visit Jonathan’s website.

Sourced from Forbes