The future belongs to performance-first strategies.
Traditional advertising, as we know it, will be dead by 2030.
A harsh prediction, maybe, but the truth is that today’s modern buyer has evolved and so must our industry. Now, more than ever, we are witnessing a signficiant shift from passive exposure to performance-based engagement, from reach to relevance, and from assumptions to intelligence. Traditional marketing and its old model built on impressions, eyeballs, and generalized awareness, is out. Performance marketing is in, as the go-to marketing approach. Here’s how we’ll continue to see this evolution take shape.
Move from just a tactic to a mindset
Let’s clear up an incorrect assumption: Performance marketing is not a bottom-of-funnel activity focused on lead generation, paid media, or last-click conversions.
It’s also not about chasing clicks. It’s about driving business outcomes using data to make smarter decisions, engaging accounts with the right message at the right time, and constantly refining the approach based on what’s working and what’s not. And it’s doing all of this while still building the brand. When approached this way, performance marketing transforms from a tactic to an operating system and mindset for driving growth by empowering marketers to prove value, accelerate outcomes, and align every effort to business performance.
Prioritize precision and personalization at scale
If you’ve been in this industry for decades like I have, you’ll have seen a number of performance marketing versions, e.g. database, direct, and one-to-one marketing. And although the name has changed, the core of performance marketing has not. It has, and always will be, about efficiency and about getting the most return for every dollar spent. However, effiency doesn’t necessarily mean automation for automation’s sake.
In the age of intent data, AI, and multi-channel orchestration, it means smarter targeting, more relevant messaging, and engagement that actually resonates. This is important in today’s performance-driven world where relevance is also vital for today’s buyer.
When orchestrated and implemented correctly, the highest-performing marketing programs:
Use real-time data to prioritize in-market accounts
Personalize content messaging to real-time behaviors
Reach all buying group members across trusted touchpoints
Measure influence at the account and buying group level—not just the lead level
When done right, performance marketing allows brands to scale without sacrificing precision and deliver the kind of high-value experiences that build trust and moves business forward. It’s how we move from noise to relevance—and from campaigns to conversations.
Remember that brand still matters, but it must perform
In this evolved model, performance marketing isn’t about chasing the lowest cost per lead—it’s about driving full-funnel impact.
Brand and performance are no longer separate. Brand creates demand and performance captures it. This is also known as branded response. Every piece of thought leadership, every display impression, every awareness ad must ladder up to a larger objective: building momentum with the right audience. Every communication both builds the brand and elicits a response.
A strong brand strategy helps open doors, but performance marketing ensures those doors lead somewhere. It’s not just about being memorable; it’s about being measurable. Great branded response campaigns can, and should, be evaluated based on their ability to influence pipeline, move buyers through the funnel, and ultimately impact revenue.
The marketers who understand this will be the ones who future-proof their programs. They won’t treat brand as a “top-of-funnel” checkbox, but as a foundational layer that supports and amplifies performance across the entire journey.
Brand done right fuels performance. Performance done right amplifies brand.
Measuring without context is misleading
We’re swimming in data, but too often it’s disconnected from real outcomes. A spike in engagement means nothing if it doesn’t translate to progress. A “lead” isn’t a measurement of success if the buying group never converts.
We can no longer afford to celebrate empty signals. Effective marketing requires aligning performance metrics to business outcomes, not just channel-level outputs. True performance marketing moves beyond vanity metrics with attribution models that reflect how buying decisions are made: collaboratively, over time, and across multiple touchpoints.
The future belongs to performance-first marketers
Marketers today are under more pressure than ever to prove their value. But that pressure also presents an opportunity to reframe performance not as a siloed function, but as a strategic lever for growth.
As B2B buying continues to evolve, the marketers who succeed won’t be those chasing the lowest cost per lead. They’ll be the ones building intelligent, data-driven programs that connect, convert, and contribute to real business outcomes.
That’s why traditional advertising as we know it won’t survive. The future belongs to performance-first strategies that deliver relevance, speed, and ROI in real time. Marketers who embrace this shift won’t just survive the next decade—they’ll define it.
Let’s stop chasing clicks and start delivering outcomes. Real performance marketing is just beginning.
Working with creators is no longer a bolt-on marketing tactic in digital commerce; creators are the strategy. As we move through the second half of 2025, I’m seeing three big creator-led trends transforming how consumers discover and how brands must respond to stay ahead. Whether it’s in store aisles or on TV screens, creator content has become a powerful driver of discovery, trust and conversion.
1. Creator-Generated Content Is The New Standard
User-generated content (UGC) was once the golden ticket to authenticity, but now, many consumers want trusted voices with taste, and that’s where creators shine. Research from Matter Communications found that 69% of consumers trust recommendations from creators, alongside those from family and friends, more than branded content.
Shoppers now expect a personalized experience that feels authentic, relatable and tailored to their preferences. And creators are delivering.
Creator content is also extending beyond digital. According to our recent study (download required), three in four consumers want to see creator contentwhile they shop. They’re engaging with creator content at nearly every step of the path to purchase, eveninside the store. A staggering 92% of our platform users say they’ve made an in-store purchase based on a creator’s video, and they would prefer to engage with creator content in four key ways while shopping in store: looking up content on social media, checking brand websites in real time, scanning QR codes and viewing content on in-store tablets or signage.
For brands, this means that integrating creator content into the full shopping journey, both online and offline, is no longer optional. It’s essential. Start by partnering with creators who authentically align with your audience, and then map their content to key decision moments like trending videos to spark discovery or a product demo in-person to bridge the gap between online and offline.
2. Bigger Screens, Bigger Impact
A Pew Research Center study found that 83% of U.S. adults are now using streaming services, and a study by Shopsense AI and EMARKETER found that after being inspired by something on TV, almost three-fourths of viewers (registration required) search online and consider a purchase, make a purchase or do both.
As streaming platforms are becoming storefronts, creators can play a significant role in messaging. According to a Deloitte study, 49% of Gen-Z and 40% of Millennial consumers say they want to see their favourite online creators in TV shows and movies.
Sixty-one percent of our platform users report being influenced by trends they see on streaming shows, and then searching for and purchasing those items through creators. The connection between entertainment and commerce is accelerating, and creators are the bridge.
This shift presents a massive opportunity for brands: Integrating creator-led content into streaming and connected TV not only boosts visibility but also can build deeper emotional connections. As Gen-Zers increasingly rely on creators for recommendations, integrating creators into what they’re watching feels more like a natural extension of entertainment than an ad, and that’s where the magic happens.
To successfully integrate creator-led content into streaming and connected TV (CTV), start by identifying top-performing creators and content for your brand or category.
Once you’ve partnered with a creator, don’t script the CTV spots. Instead, provide a brief that includes front- and back-end branded bumpers delivering the opening and closing, and allow the creator to deliver their message in their own voice, similar to their top-performing content. Or pull their top-performing content directly and edit it down into the spot format.
Once the spot is complete, align CTV to your audiences with characteristics similar to the creator’s followers.
Establish a clear window with no CTV in advance of airing the spot for a period of time equivalent to the time the spot will run, and also provide a clear window with no spots for the same length of time as the CTV air dates. Compare performance during the run and the next period for engagement versus the initial clear window period.
3. Welcome To The Era Of ‘Me Media’
Today’s consumers aren’t just looking for inspiration; they’re looking for themselves in the content they consume. We found that 67% of our platform users return to search for the same creators again and again. Why? Because those creators reflect their style, preferences and even their zip code.
This hyper-personalized, identity-driven behaviour is fuelling what can be called the rise of “me media”: content that reflects each consumer’s personal style, values and daily life.
The connection between consumers and creators is increasingly local as well: 58% of Gen-Z consumers trust gift recommendations from local or micro-influencers.
The takeaway here? Relatability has become the new reach.
What All This Means For Brands
Brands that want to win in the second half of 2025 need to do more than just work with creators. They need to build and scale with creators, and embed them across multiple consumer touchpoints—from creator collaboration campaigns to digital and social ads, streaming and CTV, audio and retail media network channels and in-store merchandising.
To do that, start identifying all touchpoints and assets across your complete customer journey. Then, work with creators to develop messaging to test in collaboration campaigns. Identify which creators and messages generate the best response and engagement. Once you’ve identified the top performers, go back to those creators to expand the winning content across the customer journey in the correct formats and length, with the right messaging.
As we enter the busiest retail months of the year, creators aren’t just influencing what’s trending. They are the trend.
COUNCIL POST | Membership (fee-based). Rodney Mason is Head of Marketing Brand Partnerships at LTK with extensive creator, marketing and research experience for leading brands. Read Rodney Mason’s full executive profile here.
AI is the new social media intern, even if it isn’t creating the posts and images we see on our feeds.
You don’t have to be chronically online to know that generative AI has infiltrated nearly every part of our online lives. Social media is no exception: Meta’s AI chatbot pushes its way into search on Instagram and Facebook, and Grok offers chat and content creation on X. AI video generation features have emerged on Snapchat, YouTube and TikTok.
Beyond its reach to users, artificial intelligence is increasingly significant behind the scenes as a professional tool for social media brands and creators.
According to a new global survey from the social platform management company Metricool, the majority of social media managers (96%) use AI tools to help them with their work. Nearly three-quarters of social media marketers use AI every day.
“All of us are trying to figure out the best way to use [AI], the right tools, and how to really hone it into our own brand voice,” said Anniston Ward, US PR events and education manager for Metricool. “Everyone’s trying to understand the best way to use it.”
While AI can bring time-saving benefits to the people behind the posts, generative AI comes with worrisome risks in shaping our online and offline realities. As our favourite brands and creators find new ways to harness AI, it’s bound to reignite the debate around how to take advantage of valuable AI use cases while prioritizing human connection.
An AI-enabled social media future also raises concerns around deterring AI slop — mass-produced, junky and superficial content that clogs up the web and social media accounts.
Here’s how creators are using AI and what pitfalls lurk.
How AI is used in social media marketing
In many cases, social media jobs involve several roles in one: content creator, customer service representative, data analyst, trends spotter, and external communications. As teams and budgets shrink, social media professionals are bound to feel more stretched, as they face high expectations to post multiple times a day on several different platforms. The industry is no stranger to burnout.
And therein lies the great appeal of AI, which promises to speed up workflows and automate mundane tasks.
“The reality is, if you’re managing multiple accounts and churning out endless content, you do need an extra pair of hands. I think AI has basically become that extra pair,” said Matt Navarra, a social media industry expert and founder of the Geekout newsletter.
AI can be thought of as a “super-powered intern,” Navarra said.
According to the Metricool survey, the most common use of AI is content idea generation or brainstorming (78%), followed by writing posts, captions, and copy (72%), and adapting existing text for different tones or channels (68%). Reflecting those use cases, most of the popular AI tools are chatbots. ChatGPT nabbed the top spot, followed by Canva, Gemini and Perplexity.
Professional photographer Gissel Arbelaez relies heavily on social media to reach new customers for her business in Buenos Aires. To make sure those channels are picture-perfect, she uses AI to correct and improve her English.
“Since English is my second language and around 70% of the people I work with are English speakers, I need to make sure my grammar is spotless. Nothing goes on my social media without being checked by AI first,” Arbelaez said via email. She also occasionally turns to AI editing tools in Adobe Creative Cloud, like generative fill and remove.
AI has also come into play among bigger teams focused on social media and marketing. Alba Benítez, director and founder of marketing firm Plural Agency, said her team uses AI to unify their knowledge bases and files to “save us from the small frictions” and streamline processes.
“[AI] has freed up mental space for creativity. I can now dedicate more energy to developing fresh projects and pushing our communication further, instead of being stuck in the noise of operations,” Benítez said.
Creating original content through photo and video shoots can be expensive and time consuming. AI can help stretch or adapt one piece of content to work for multiple channels, whether that’s clipping a video, resizing visual assets or generating different versions of the same message to match the tone of each platform’s audience.
This behind-the-scenes AI usage isn’t immediately apparent in the feeds of scrolling viewers. Just as AI can alleviate administrative burdens for creators, it can also elevate our social media experiences, if managed appropriately.
When (and why) not to use AI
AI is not always suitable or useful for social media professionals. Quality is a big concern, with 45% of Metricool’s survey respondents reporting it as the primary reason they hold back on AI.
Quality issues can range from chatbots hallucinating and making up false information to more dangerous things like replicating biases in their training data. A content creator wouldn’t use an AI-generated product image if the program misspelled the company’s name, for example.
“There’s a constant battle of ‘Is AI-generated content the same quality as human voices?'” Ward said.
Even if AI tools improve accuracy and match content quality, maintaining a unique voice and personality is key for big brands and small creators. If they rely too heavily on AI for content creation and editing, they risk losing their individuality. As Navarra put it, AI can draft, but humans must polish.
“If a brand sounds the same because they’re all using the same [AI] model, social media becomes incredibly boring and ceases to be a platform for connection,” said Navarra.
If the entirety of your X or Instagram feed is AI-generated garbage, you’re more likely to miss posts you find valuable and eventually be persuaded to ditch the platform. Even as social media gets more fragmented, we’re still looking to be informed, entertained and connected. Badly done AI threatens that.
Reputational harm and backlash
Apart from AI slop, which is pretty widely hated, there’s an inherent risk in using the tech at all. Generative AI is controversial, from worries about job security to legal, ethical and environmental concerns. Using AI for content creation or marketing comes with the risk of alienating an AI-wary audience, especially since not all platforms require labels to be added to AI content, and many can’t flag AI usage on their own. It’s not just low-quality, biased or misleading AI content that can upset users; it’s more subtle AI usage and a lack of disclosures.
Recently, Duolingo announced an internal AI initiative, prioritizing AI over human translators. Vogue included a Guess ad in its July print edition, and readers later learned that the model wasn’t real but created with AI. Followers and fans of both brands immediately took to social media to tell the brands directly why they were so unhappy with those pivots to AI.
“We’re all in this limbo period right now where we’re pressured to use AI. It does help a lot with the content ideation and generation, but I think there are some missing gaps in how to use it thoughtfully,” said Ward.
Those gaps can quickly become obvious and detrimental to a brand. To put it in perspective, Arbelaez said all her social media efforts are to build trust with potential and existing customers. Any social media expert will tell you that it’s easy to lose an audience’s trust and much harder to earn it back.
Finding the right balance of AI for everyone
Every creator I spoke with highlighted places in their work where they wouldn’t use AI. The specific tasks varied, but the common denominator was drawing the line before AI could infringe upon or replace human creativity. Strategy, decision-making and sensitive communications are areas where AI has no place, Benítez said. Navarra echoed that sentiment, adding that AI might be the intern, but it shouldn’t be the creative director.
We’re in a new reality where the internet seems to be as much human as AI. While AI slop is pretty widely hated, there is a new spectrum gauging how much AI we will tolerate on our feeds. A big part of that is if we know AI is being used, whether the platform labels it as such or the creator discloses it themselves.
There is a not-small segment of social media users who won’t tolerate any AI. Some are totally pro AI. Finding the right balance is the challenge for social media managers.
For the rest of us, we have to hope and trust that brands and creators understand that we don’t want them all to sound and look the same.
“Social media’s always been about connection, and I think AI can help with the media part, but the social part, the trust, the humour, the empathy, that’s still human,” said Navarra. “Brands that remember that will be the ones that serve their customers well and win.”
Feature image credit: Andriy Onufriyenko via Getty Images
To find the best influencers for your affiliate marketing program, look for posting frequency and links, not likes and followers, says Mike Balducci (general manager affiliate, e-commerce and payment solutions, CreatorIQ).
The skyrocketing growth in e-commerce that took place during the pandemic is over.
After enjoying 20%+ growth rates for over five years, e-commerce activity is falling back to earth, forecast to sink into the single digits thanks to a combination of a post-pandemic shift back into brick-and-mortar stores and an overall pullback in discretionary spending due to a pending recession.
As a result, marketers of all stripes are under pressure to deliver results tied to the bottom line, what some call “performance marketing.” In the creator-led marketing space, that means expanding the goal of creator-led campaigns from general awareness to lower-funnel results – specifically, sales.
Creators to the rescue
One tactic gaining traction is merging creator-led campaigns with affiliate marketing programs, using publisher partners who can promote a brand’s product and earn a commission for the sales that result. Our recent trends report found that 69% of brands incorporate discount codes and other affiliate links in connection with influencer collaborations, and 84% found this to be either a very or somewhat successful strategy.
So while brand awareness will always play an important role and drive tangible value, justifying investment in creator-led campaigns will require more, like ROAS and other metrics that directly correlate to performance outcomes like sales and revenue.
What’s more, social commerce is expected to pose a significant challenge to traditional e-commerce channels. A January 2022 report from Accenture predicted that the global social commerce industry could grow three times as fast as e-commerce, from $492bn in 2021 to $1.2tn by 2025. Driving that growth is the primary audience for creator-led campaigns Gen Z and Millennials — which the same report says will account for 62% of social commerce spending worldwide by 2025.
Fans over followers
But what drives these trends are still organic, authentic experiences generated by creators with loyal, engaged followers. That reality is dictating how brands execute creator-led affiliate campaigns.
For instance, historically brands would evaluate creator partners based on their content and number of followers. But as we examine the results of successful creator-led affiliate campaigns, that’s no longer the primary metrics to evaluate potential creator partners. When it comes to affiliate creator partnerships, other social media metrics have a stronger correlation with sales results.
Our data consistently shows that the smaller the following, the more influence the creator has over their audience and the more likely that associated affiliate campaigns will succeed. Put another way, working with one mega influencer with millions of followers will ultimately net lower affiliate link clicks than working with 100 influencers each with one-tenth the following. The smaller the creator, the better they will likely perform as an affiliate publisher.
We’re talking absolute numbers here, not relative to total following. Some of the top performing creators fall into that nano category with less than 10,000 followers. They’re producing tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales results through their affiliate partnerships. They might not have the most followers, but they frequently produce video content that gets viral distribution on Instagram and TikTok. And the more frequency and reach of video on those platforms, the more sales results you get.
Links over likes
When diving deeper into the social metrics for top-performing affiliate influencers across our platform we see some other surprising results. The average number of likes and comments a creator gets on posts typically is the least important factor for affiliate performance. More important is the number of recent posts and the creator’s willingness to work with brands as evidenced in their past posts.
Most traditional influencer marketers will quickly pass over a creator profile containing lots of recent posts with some sponsored posts mixed in, but a very low engagement rate. Yet this could be exactly the kind of high-performing creator profile that affiliate marketers should be inviting to their affiliate creator program, because frequency of posting content and links are a bigger indicator of affiliate performance than follower counts, likes and comments.
What this means for brands pursuing affiliate creator campaigns is the need to work with a powerful influencer discovery tool that can also help manage and partner with hundreds if not thousands of creators at a time based on an affiliate partnership model.
This requires a number of things.
Transparency and integration
First, it requires the ability to integrate your creator management platforms with your affiliate marketing platform so that there’s consistent tracking between them. Tracking clicks and sales is all well and good, but to scale and replicate that success requires granular visibility into what’s driving those sales and clicks. The only way to achieve that is by owning and operating a complete, end-to-end affiliate/creator network yourself.
Affiliate platforms will tell you which creator drove what sale so you know who to pay a commission to. But it can’t tell you much more than that. If all you’re doing is tracking sales, you’re not learning much about how they’re achieved.
A full-funnel view of the complete picture requires integrating your affiliate and creator platforms. Seeing what creators are doing across different social platforms, how they’re promoting your content, and then tracking the results of that activity gives you a much broader view of the social media activity that is driving your conversion results.
It combines the upstream activity of social media activity, publishing, reach, frequency and awareness of the creator’s content, with the lower-stream view of their clicks, sales and performance. That’s full transparency.
Finding and managing creator partners
Second, it means using the intelligence gained from these integrated platforms to discover and recruit more creators to your affiliate effort. Once you’ve identified the creators and the content that drive sales, then you can use creator discovery tools to find other creators with similar audience and social profile characteristics and recruit them into your affiliate creator program.
Remember, it’s a volume game. Working with 100 nano-influencers rather than one mega-influencer requires more search, discovery, and management, but as the numbers show, that effort pays off. The more creators in your program, the better.
But competition is going to be fierce. Recruiting creators is like acquiring customers: they only work with the few brands they love and use every day. Many, if not most, nano-creators are hobbyists. They have loyal followers, but they’re not professional publishers, and they’re certainly not professional affiliate marketers.
They’re not joining affiliate networks and looking for brands to work with, and those who might try are unlikely to succeed. There are too many unfamiliar questions, and confusing interfaces. They don’t know how to find and work with brands inside the affiliate network environment.
Integrating an affiliate network with a creator management platform that’s built with a creator-first mentality not only eases these frictions, but provides a better experience for the brand, the creator, and ultimately the customer. It simplifies and centralizes all the technical components required to deliver a successful creator marketing program for performance objectives, giving brands an easy way to measure and validate creator marketing and grow the number of creators they work with.
By Mike Balducci
General Manager affiliate, e-commerce and payment solutions
This content lends brands much-needed authenticity, says creator economy expert Keith Bendes.
TikTok, Instagram, and X posts are familiar sights in text conversations, news articles, and even Slack messages. Soon, they’ll also become mainstays of TV and billboard advertisements, according to creator economy expert and Linqia chief strategy officer Keith Bendes.
“We’re entering influencer 3.0,” he says. During the first era of influencer marketing—which Bendes calls “1.0”—companies started paying content creators to post branded content on their popular social-media pages. Influencer 2.0, he says, came about once brands started posting creator-made content on their own pages and paying to promote it.
Bendes characterizes the third era of influencer marketing as brands realizing creator content does better than their own “in basically every single channel” and starting to use it “literally everywhere.”
Some brands have already done this. Better-for-you soda maker Poppi put flattering X posts on billboards for its “Soda’s Back!” campaign in 2023. McDonald’s debuted a TV commercial in Switzerland last year made “entirely” from TikTok videos about its limited-edition sauce containers, according to advertising agency TWBA, which created the campaign.
Bendes adds that Dunkin’, luggage brand Away, canned water brand Liquid Death, and social-media management platform Hootsuite have also used social-media content for real-world ad campaigns.
He says brands are using this content as “social proof of, like, these people really love our product. They’re talking about it online—like you should do—they look just like you, they act just like you. These aren’t hired celebrities.”
Anticipating demand for this kind of ad campaign to grow, Linqia recently released a tool that helps businesses leverage creator-made content across different mediums. TikTok introduced a tool with a similar function in 2023.
“The world wants more authenticity,” Bendes says. “Trust of brands is at an all-time low. Trust of creators and influencers is at an all-time high. Brands realize, ‘OK, maybe I want to put people on every screen that look and act more like the everyday person.’ ”
When someone searches on social, what do they really want? Annaleis Montgomery at Tug Agency explains how AI is helping brands to deliver on customer expectation.
Social search has moved beyond just a concept and into an actuality that agencies are fighting to nail. It’s becoming a primary way audiences discover brands and products, with search behaviours shifting from traditional engines like Google to platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. In fact, according to a study by Tint, over 75% of consumers have used social media to search for or discover new brands and products.
AI is at the heart of this transformation. Gone are the days when a simple keyword match was enough to surface relevant content. Today, AI delves into the very essence of user intent, context, and human emotions to deliver a more nuanced, effective experience. This shift means marketers can’t afford to stick to traditional SEO strategies, but need to embrace an intent-focused approach to authentically connect with audiences at all steps of their user journey, which includes social searches on social media platforms.
Deciphering intent
A sophisticated interplay of data analysis ius needed to go beyond surface-level queries. AI reviews user behaviour, engagement patterns, and content to paint a big picture. AI can detect user intent in a number of ways.
One of these is through sentiment analysis. This allows AI to understand the emotional tone behind a user’s language. Are they expressing frustration, curiosity, excitement, or a need for information? Sentiment analysis identifies nuances in phrasing, emojis, and even the pace of interaction to infer underlying emotions and ultimately intent.
Then there are contextual cues. AI doesn’t just look at individual keywords; it considers the surrounding conversation, the user’s past interactions, and their demographic information. If someone consistently engages with content about sustainable fashion, AI understands their ‘search’ for a new pair of jeans isn’t just about finding a piece of clothing, but likely one that aligns with their eco-conscious values.
And lastly, there’s behavioural data. Every click, like, share, comment, and reach provides valuable data. AI algorithms analyse these engagement patterns to understand what resonates with a user. If a user consistently watches long-form videos on a specific topic, AI learns they prefer in-depth content for that subject, influencing future search results.
Although keywords still play a role in the initial analysis, they can’t capture the fluidity and complexity of human communication on social platforms. A user searching for ‘best coffee’ might be looking for a local cafe, a recipe for brewing at home, or even a review of a new coffee machine. Traditional keyword matching would struggle to differentiate these intents, leading to less relevant results.
Content for intent
Given this strategic evolution, marketers must shift their focus from stuffing keywords to creating content that truly resonates with diverse user intents.
What exactly does this involve? Firstly, SEO teams need to understand the ‘why?’ behind the search. Instead of asking what users are searching for, they need to focus on why they’re searching for it. What problem are they trying to solve? What aspiration are they pursuing? What emotions are being expressed?
Secondly, thorough user journey mapping needs to happen. Teams need to acknowledge that users have different needs, questions, and intentions at different points in their search journey. Because of this, different stages of the user journey require different types of content. For example, a user in the awareness phase might need informative blog posts, while another in the consideration phase might be looking for product comparisons or testimonials.
And lastly, there needs to be a prioritization of value and empathy. Content that provides genuine value and demonstrates empathy for the user’s situation will perform better in an AI-driven search environment. SEO teams must focus on solving problems, answering questions, and inspiring action.
Measuring success requires moving beyond traditional KPIs. SEO teams now need to look at metrics like sentiment shifts (as mentioned earlier, we’d want to prioritize content that had a ‘positive’ sentiment), as well as the more classic metrics like comments and shares that help understand engagement. We can draw similarities between a ‘like’ and a ‘click’, which we use to measure SEO performance, and ‘estimated reach’, which is similar to an organic impression, as it shows how many unique users have seen the content without it being paid for.
Like SEO, social search comes with a whole host of performance metrics and touchpoints we need to understand to help us pinpoint gaps, opportunities, and instances of growth.
Stay relevant
AI-driven social search is the new way to connect with users by understanding their deeper motivations. To truly succeed, marketers need to know how to achieve this. Traditional marketing and SEO no longer accurately represent a user’s search journey. Going beyond the norm and exploring other organic search methods, as well as using AI-powered searches, can help us understand a user’s intent and facilitate that journey to conversion.
If your content isn’t optimized for this intent-driven AI, you’re essentially invisible to a significant portion of your target audience. Users are increasingly interacting with search in conversational ways, expecting immediate, relevant answers, often directly within the search interface itself. Additionally, if your brand isn’t producing content that AI can ‘feature’ – such as structured FAQs, how-to guides, or comparative analyses – you’re sacrificing your visibility.
For Tug, understanding and leveraging this shift is paramount to keeping our competitive streak and clients happy. Our proprietary Helpful Content Tool allows us to audit content at scale, score helpfulness, and identify areas to optimize in line with how AI search algorithms reward helpfulness with greater search visibility. Providing users with a specific scoring criterion, the tool helps overlay content optimization efforts with search and business performance KPIs.
As we look forward, social search is no longer a prediction but our reality. By embracing the evolution of AI-powered search and adapting our strategies, marketers can unlock opportunities to connect with their audiences on a deeper, more meaningful level.
AI chatbots are not created equal. Chatbot developers at competing companies often place a different emphasis on what gets suggested, the sources that are used, and how they intend the user to act on the information presented. In a new report, SEO consulting firm BrightEdge dove into the differences between Google’s AI Mode and ChatGPT. While both gave similar responses to basic comparison questions, they took different tactics when users asked for actions.
“AI search is no longer one thing—it’s splitting into at least two distinct philosophies,” BrightEdge founder and CEO Jim Yu says in the report.
When asked for advice to accomplish a certain task, BrightEdge found that Google tends to surface more things to read and learn from. ChatGPT, meanwhile, often suggests tools and apps to do the task. For example, with a prompt asking how to find a doctor, Google provided directions to a hospital. ChatGPT suggested users try Zocdoc, an app with medical professional listings and information. When asked how to learn Python, Google directs users to GitHub and Medium blogs, while ChatGPT suggests online course site Udemy. And a query on how to make a budget has Google sending users to NerdWallet research and blog posts, while ChatGPT suggests financial apps including Mint and YNAB.
BrightEdge also looked into the differences between results from Google’s AI Overviews—the curated information that shows up at the top of several search result pages—and Google AI Mode—the new button to the right side of the search bar. AI Overviews are constantly changing, but showcase brands in 43% of queries. They also can include 20 or more inline citations. AI Mode, on the other hand, surfaces brands in 90% of its responses, and it’s 3.8 times more likely to feature a unique brand.
What does all of this mean for marketers? As a practical matter, you should continue to hone your AI strategy. It’s time to go deeper than just having content. How does your content show up in an AI search, and what do you want users to do once they find it? Should you concentrate on broad content that helps others learn, actionable solutions, or both? It’s also important to remember that the number of people searching on a particular platform can shift. Search leader Google is quickly rolling out AI Overviews, but AI Mode may become more of a default option. And ChatGPT could see its search fortunes grow through strong performance or a well-placed agreement with an operating system, browser or device.
Regardless of how people find content online, once it’s out there, it can serve as content for everyone in the world—part of a global content strategy. There are many nuances between a winning global strategy and a successful local one. Nataly Kelly, CMO at market research platform Zappi, recently co-authored a book about it with Katherine Melchior Ray titled Brand Global, Adapt Local: How to Build Brand Value Across Cultures. I talked to Kelly about the two strategies. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.
BIG DEALS
Photo illustration by Cheng Xin/Getty Images
The long-pending $8.4 billion Paramount-Skydance merger was approved by the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday following several actions that suggested the new combined company would further the interests of President Donald Trump. Right before the merger went through, Skydance Media said in FCC filings that it would conduct a comprehensive review of Paramount-owned CBS News, which would include adding an ombudsman to evaluate “any complaints of bias.” Skydance also announced it would end any diversity, equity and inclusion programs—including removing goals to hire a certain number of women and minorities. The company said new management for Paramount would guarantee news and entertainment embody “a diversity of viewpoints across the political and ideological spectrum, consistent with the varying perspectives of the viewing audience.”
In recent weeks, Paramount has taken other steps that Trump praised, purportedly in the name of getting the FCC’s approval for the merger. The company paid $16 million to settle a lawsuit the president filed against CBS News, which claimed that the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris improved the way she sounded. Days after the settlement, which The Late Show host Stephen Colbert called “a big fat bribe,” Paramount announced it was cancelling the long-running show next May. While Paramount said the decision was purely financial, critics speculated it was because Colbert is a frequent Trump critic.
In remarks to CNBC, Trump-appointed FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said the deal shows that “President Trump is fundamentally reshaping the media landscape,” writes Forbes senior contributor Andy Meek. Journalists and critics agree, especially because it appears that some of CBS’s independence might be erased in the merger. However, the deal also includes Comedy Central, which features news and political commentary program The Daily Show. Also on Comedy Central is South Park, which skewered Trump and the Paramount-Skydance deal in its season premiere last week, the first episode in a five-year deal that made the show’s creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone billionaires, writes Forbes’ Matt Craig.
The merger, scheduled to be finalized next week, will put movie producer David Ellison on top of the mega media company. Ellison’s father is centi-billionaire and Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, who controls the majority of voting and equity shares in the holding company acquiring the majority stake in Paramount, writes Forbes’ Phoebe Liu.
IN THE NEWS
LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault gives a speech in April. THIBAUD MORITZ/AFP via Getty Images
Luxury brands have seen sales slowing across the board for the last year, so it’s not especially surprising that conglomerate LVMH reported a decline in sales for the first half of 2025. Forbes contributor Mari Sato writes that analysts expected LVMH’s first-half sales growth to drop more steeply—it was down only 3%, as opposed to a projected 7%.
However, the overall sales decline was driven by the fashion and leather goods segment, which generated about half of LVMH revenues last year, writes Forbes senior contributor Pamela Danziger. Danziger writes that the luxury conglomerate is likely to press forward with new innovations and an increasing focus on quality. Christian Dior and Loewe recently added new fashion directors, who might be able to pull up sales once they become more influential in the brand collections, while Louis Vuitton has the opportunity to improve quality at lower price levels. Dannziger writes that LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault told the Wall Street Journal that adversity tends to be a catalyst for luxury innovation: “In periods when the economic climate is more difficult, when the market slows down, which is the case today, we tend to come out stronger.”
SOCIAL MEDIA
FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images
As new regulations aimed at stopping foreign interference in elections are set to go into effect in the EU, Facebook and Instagram parent Meta has decided to stop serving political, electoral and social advertising on its platforms there, writes Forbes senior contributor Emma Woollacott. Meta said the decision “won’t prevent people in the EU from continuing to debate politics on our services, or stop politicians, candidates and political office holders from producing and sharing political content organically. They just won’t be able to amplify this through paid advertising.”
The new regulation goes into effect in October, and deals with transparency and targeting of political advertising around elections and EU or member state legislation. Under the new law, political ads require a transparency notice, and targeted ads are only allowed if an individual user has given explicit consent.
Last year, Google decided it would also opt out of political ads in the EU because of the new law. The company said the law defines political advertising too broadly, and that there’s no reliable election data that can accurately identify all of the ads and campaigns that may be subject to the law.
ON MESSAGE
Why There’s No Such Thing As Just One Marketing Strategy
Zappi CMO Nataly Kelly and the cover of her new book. Zappi
Today, many products and brands are expanding to global consumers, and marketers should take note of the competitive landscape and consumers in each market. Market research platform Zappi CMO Nataly Kelly recently published Brand Global, Adapt Local: How to Build Brand Value Across Cultures with storied marketer and UC Berkeley lecturer Katherine Melchior Ray, which analyses this issue. I talked to Kelly about what CMOs need to know. This conversation has been edited for length, clarity and continuity.
How are cultural touch points and localization strategies important?
Kelly: It’s really important to have the ability to adapt—the freedom within the frame. But then knowing how exactly you adapt is about getting close to your end customer in each market. A lot of brands rely on local agencies or team members to channel what the customer wants, because every market is slightly different: ‘Customers in this market really like this flavour, or this colour, or we’re not going to launch that campaign on that day because that’s a bad luck day in this market.’
It’s down to the detail of what do customers really value in that market? What’s our competitive situation in that market? And also, what is our goal in that market? Your goal is not always the same in every market. Even though ultimately our goal as marketers is to help drive sales and revenue for products, it might be slightly different in each country because it might be: This product is doing well, but this one isn’t, and we need to increase sales of that specific product, whereas in another country that might be your flagship. The local strategy has to tie to the local business goal and how it rolls up to the global strategy.
It gets very complex inside companies when they are trying to determine how to map the global strategy to the local ones. That’s where communication breakdowns often happen. But staying close to the customer is the ultimate best practice.
Asking the customer directly is the No. 1 best way to get feedback. I happen to be a little biased here because I work for a consumer insights firm, and that’s what we do. We help our customers in many markets capture feedback and data directly from consumers all the time. The No. 1 way to succeed in any market, whether it’s local or global, is to be customer led, customer driven, and really at the heart of where your customers are.
Companies have had to manage the dynamic between global and local strategies for decades, but now we’ve got social media, creators and everything immediately being everywhere. How has that changed what marketers need to do?
I talk a lot with my own team customers about marrying offline and online. As we are digitizing, online is becoming more important, whether it’s mobile apps, social media, or influence. Where you are commercializing your product, and where are you engaging with customers. The number of spaces has dramatically increased. It’s multiplying like gremlins. The more of those we have, the more complex it gets for marketers.
When you’re online, you’re global first. When you’re offline, you’re local first because your physical presence on the ground matters more. But when you’re online, you have to think about global reach no matter what.
In my view, online requires global for strategies and offline requires local for strategies. But it’s not that they don’t also require each other at every touch point, because you are going to want to capitalize on local reach with TikTok, Instagram or whatever social channel you’re using. Those influencers have a local, targeted, curated following.
This marriage of online and offline—and local and global—is becoming very interesting and harder than ever for marketers to parse. It all comes down to segmentation, and knowing, ‘Okay, I’m using this influencer for this strategy. I know she’s very popular in the U.S. market, and I know that she’s got millions of followers.’
What a lot of marketers might not do is get the breakdown. What percentage of your followers are in the U.S.? What percentage are in Europe? What countries in Europe? What languages do they speak? What’s the engagement rate by market, by country? And you can determine: Is this a global play, or is it a U.S./U.K. play? Is it English-speaking markets only, or does this person speak Spanish, too? If so, maybe it’s the U.S. Latino market and Latin America because she’s got reach in multiple countries and languages.
There’s almost no such thing as one country and one language anymore, because the second you’re online, you reach a global audience. I often say it’s like throwing a rock in a pond: Are you going to throw it in a big pond, or are you going to throw it in a small pond? Are you going to throw a bunch of pebbles, or are you going to throw one big rock? It’s really about what kind of reach do we want? What kind of penetration do we want, and how are we going to make that happen?
What do marketers not know about global strategies, local strategies and how to make them work?
There are two things. The first is how different they need to be by market, as we all come with our own assumptions about our home market that we live in. People always assume that there’s more in common than there is, and they assume that things will work similarly when they might not. The No. 1 reason that they don’t work similarly is time in market. You almost always start in one market at a time. What ends up happening is the next market you go into, you’re at a different place in terms of penetrating that market.
You may be the No. 1 brand in your category in the U.S. market. People assume, ‘I’ll just take this exact campaign in the U.S. and put it in the Canadian market because it’s a smaller market and speaks the same language.’ Actually, there’s more than one language in Canada, and there might be very different buying behaviours there, and there’s different competitors there.
The second one is what I would call proximity bias. We are constantly seeing, hearing, watching the news, driving by advertising, walking on the street, and we forget that they’re part of our collective knowledge about our own country and local market. We just assume everybody else knows those things, and it’s underneath the waterline.
In the book, we have this concept of the iceberg of culture. On the top is the basics of culture: We speak different languages. We are in different parts of the world. It’s a different economy. But when you go underneath it, there’s all these other things, like: Who are the competitors in this market? What are the representations of gender in this market? How do people purchase things? What’s the right price point? Do they expect a freebie gift with purchase in this market versus another? I hear this all the time from friends who go to Korea or Japan: ‘I got two bags of free things and I only bought one product,’ whereas in the U.S., they’re very stingy about that.
COMINGS + GOINGS
Workforce solutions firm ManpowerGroup tapped Valerie Beaulieu-James to be its first chief growth officer, effective August 1. Beaulieu-James joins the company after more than two decades at Microsoft in senior leadership roles, including chief marketing officer for Microsoft U.S.
Precision component manufacturer NN, Inc. appointed Timothy Erro as its new vice president and chief commercial officer, effective July 22. Erro most recently worked as vice president of global sales and new business development for Commercial Vehicle Group, Inc.
Enterprise software provider Appfire announced that Catherine Solazzo would be its chief marketing officer. Solazzo steps into the role after working in leadership for Syntax, Tech Data/TD SYNNEX, and IBM.
STRATEGIES + ADVICE
Social media is ablaze with controversy around American Eagle’s new jeans ads featuring actor Sydney Sweeney, with some saying the ads sound like they were written by a white supremacist, while others claim the controversy is proof people are “too woke.” Here are five lessons from the controversy to inform future marketing campaigns.
Professional wrestling icon Hulk Hogan died last week. His life and persona was a master class in branding. Here are some lessons you can learn from his decades of fame.
QUIZ
Nostalgia reigns supreme in the entertainment world. Which of these popular cartoons appealing to adults from decades past is returning with new episodes?
I’m a staff writer at Forbes writing the C-Suite newsletters. Previously, I was a reporter at Industry Dive covering CPG food and beverage and technology in the space. I have also worked as a homepage editor at The Washington Post, and was a reporter at The Virgin Islands Daily News.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT dominates the competition in weekly active users ahead of the release of ChatGPT-5
Whether you like AI or not, 2025 really feels like the year it’s gone mainstream. Chatbots are becoming integral to work, study, and daily life for hundreds of millions of people.
Beyond personal use, these tools are now embedded in business and government. What we’re seeing is no longer just technological innovation, but a race to see which AI assistant can scale the fastest, integrate the deepest, and stay ahead of the curve.
ChatGPT’s is dominating the space with no signs of slowing down
Sam Altman testifying before the US Congress. (Image credit: Getty Images)
ChatGPT is on track to hit 700 million weekly active users in August 2025, up from 500 million in March, marking a 4x year-over-year increase.
Claude’s Anthropic model is estimated to have 300 million monthly active users as of Q1 2025, marking a 70% increase since the same quarter in 2024. It’s gaining ground through enterprise integrations, with partners like Slack and Notion helping to expand its reach.
While Grok isn’t yet competing with Claude or ChatGPT in scale, it has carved out a solid foothold with 35 to 39 million monthly active users, thanks in large part to its integration with Twitter (X).
The AI race is far from over and isn’t going anywhere
AI adoption is accelerating across every sector.
ChatGPT is leading the race for now, with ChatGPT-5 launching imminently. OpenAI is aiming to expand its lead even further.
Another important thing with these AI models is the context windows, with Claude Sonnet 4 supporting 200K tokens, compared to GPT-4o’s 128K. Even more impressive is Gemini’s 1 million tokens with its 2.5 Pro model. Tokens determine how much information a model can handle at once; this is known as the context window (The larger the tokens, the better).
Despite context windows being an important factor, at this point, it also feels like trust, usability, and speed are becoming just as important as raw model quality. OpenAI itself faced recent backlash after accidentally exposing shared chat logs to Google search indexing, making me feel like security and privacy may soon be what tips users toward other platforms.
AI adoption is accelerating across nearly every sector. Personally, I find open-source models like Meta’s llama or Qwen the most exciting.
Local deployment is still limited by device power for most people, myself included, but the potential of running a powerful model on personal hardware is an appealing prospect and one I’m following very closely.
Adam is a Psychology Master’s graduate passionate about gaming, community building, and digital engagement. A lifelong Xbox fan since 2001, he started with Halo: Combat Evolved and remains an avid achievement hunter. Over the years, he has engaged with several Discord communities, helping them get established and grow. Gaming has always been more than a hobby for Adam—it’s where he’s met many friends, taken on new challenges, and connected with communities that share his passion.
Marketing can’t buy trust — but showing up in your community can
You bought the franchise or launched your business. You have the signs, staff and systems in place. But there’s one critical element many overlook: visibility where it truly counts — in your own community.
Maybe you’ve noticed your leads have flattened, referrals have dried up and you’re left wondering, “What happened?”
Here’s a surprising truth: Consumers aren’t loyal to brands anymore. They’re loyal to people. In today’s crowded marketplace, the businesses that thrive are the ones with owners who are visible, relatable and genuinely invested in their neighbours’ lives. Not flashy influencers or TikTok famous — just present, authentic and connected.
Humanizing your business requires a mindset shift. Your future customers want to know the real you. What drives you? Why did you start or buy this business in their neighbourhood?
I get it. You’re thinking, “I’m not a marketer, and I have zero time for social media.” But here’s the secret — when you push past the fear of putting yourself out there and start showing up consistently, the results will surprise you. You’ll wonder why you didn’t start sooner.
Don’t overcomplicate it. Let your involvement flow naturally from your passions and life. Share simple weekly tips based on your expertise or sponsor your kid’s local sports team. These small, authentic actions have big ripple effects on referrals and reputation.
This isn’t about becoming a social media star. It’s about stepping out from behind your brand and showing up as yourself — in your neighbourhood, your industry and in the lives of your customers.
When people think of the services you offer, they should think of you by name — not because you spent a fortune on ads, but because you’re a familiar, trusted presence where it matters most.
Show up where your community already gathers:
Sponsor local sports teams.
Greet homeowners personally when you arrive on site.
Attend ribbon cuttings, block parties and community events.
This isn’t “networking.” It’s about being known and trusted because you show up consistently.
Pro tip: Hate marketing? Great. Just do good work in your neighbourhood, and let that be your marketing.
Your personal brand keeps you in the game
Your franchise or company name opens doors, but how you show up keeps you there.
If you’re a local service provider, don’t let your team handle the job without you making a personal appearance. Meet your customers at the final inspection. Shake hands. Thank them. Recognize your crew in front of the client. Small gestures of appreciation build lasting loyalty and generate powerful word-of-mouth.
This approach doesn’t need a complicated content calendar — just genuine, consistent connection.
Pro tip: Share stories about your team, community involvement, or customer successes rather than hard sales pitches. When people respect you, you don’t need to sell.
Use storytelling to make your business memorable
People remember stories, not slogans.
Want to stand out? Share why you started your business, how customer feedback changed your approach or lessons learned while serving your neighbourhood. Real stories create emotional connections, build trust and drive referrals.
Ways to share your story:
A short video about your journey.
A blog post or LinkedIn article with a valuable lesson.
A talk at local clubs or service organizations—no sales pitch, just connection.
Brief posts on social media celebrating milestones.
Pro tip: Keep a running list of meaningful customer experiences to turn into stories when the moment is right.
Stop being invisible — start being known
Flat leads, stalled growth, and dry referral streams aren’t always about the economy or competitors. Sometimes, it’s simply that no one knows who’s behind the business.
Here’s the fix: Get involved locally. Join service clubs, attend chamber events, support neighborhood charities and festivals. Meet other business owners, refer them and let them refer you.
When people know you, they trust you. That trust multiplies, and your reputation grows exponentially. Get your whole team involved — each person becomes an ambassador who extends your reach.
Pro tip: Don’t treat every interaction as a sales opportunity. Just be someone people want to support.
Get out there and show up
Marketing requires time and money, but so does community engagement — and one feels authentic, the other doesn’t.
Stop hiding behind your brand. Invest in your neighbours’ lives. Stop chasing attention and start earning it.
You don’t need to be a social media rock star. You just need to be present and known in your corner of the world.
VP Brand Communication. I’m Jimi Gibson, the vice president of brand communication at Thrive Agency. We’re a full-service digital marketing agency that offers everything from web design and content writing to SEO, social media, paid media and email marketing.
Your LinkedIn profile is your digital storefront not just a job board.
Are you going to LinkedIn to find a job or build your brand? Well if you focus on building your brand – you will get more than just job opportunities knocking on your door.
Think of LinkedIn as your digital storefront. It’s the first impression you make when you’re not in the room and it’s often the difference between getting noticed or getting overlooked.
Whether you’re job hunting, building your personal brand, growing your network, or just showing up more intentionally in your industry, your profile can be your most powerful tool, if you use it well.
The 5 LinkedIn Basics Everyone Should Have For a Compelling Profile.
Lead With A Clear Headline: Your headline should reflect more than just your job title. Use it to communicate your value and expertise. Don’t be afraid to state your mission or the problem you solve.
Write A Compelling About Section: This is your story, make it personal and make it clear. Who are you? What do you do? What are you passionate about? What kind of opportunities are you looking for? This is your chance to show, not just tell, what do you uniquely bring to the table?
Use A Professional Photo and Banner: People connect with people. A high-quality, approachable photo matters. Take it one step further: use your banner image to visually showcase your brand, business, or impact. (Your book cover, tagline, awards, podcast, media features, etc.)
Show, Don’t Just Tell: Use the Featured section to add media, links, or articles that demonstrate your expertise. Post consistently about what you know and how you help others. That’s how you build trust.
Grow Your Network Intentionally: Your network is your net worth. Add value through thoughtful comments, meaningful DMs, and engaging with other peoples content. Don’t just wait until you need something, build before you need it.
To build a credible and engaging LinkedIn profile, consistency is key. Aim to post at least 5 to 7 times per week, using a mix of formats such as:
Text-only posts where you share thought leadership, industry insights, personal experiences, advice, or even simple productivity hacks.
Story-driven content that reveals real behind-the-scenes moments, early challenges, or personal milestones. Transformation stories in particular tend to resonate deeply, especially when paired with a compelling image that enhances the emotional impact.
To make your profile truly stand out, consider developing a signature post format—a repeatable and recognizable style that builds familiarity and trust with your audience. These posts create consistent engagement patterns, foster anticipation, reduce content fatigue, and make content creation more efficient.
If you’re wondering, “What should I post?”, don’t worry. Spend just 30 minutes creating your content pillars, 4 to 5 core themes that serve as your go-to categories for content ideas.
Questions to define your content pillars:
What topics matter most to my audience?
What are their most common questions or pain points?
What kind of content are they sharing most often?
What inspires or motivates them?
For example, If you’re a real estate agent, your content pillars might include:
Educational content – to inform and empower your audience.
Inspirational content – to motivate and build connection.
Lifestyle & community highlights – to showcase local flavour and relatability.
Promotional content – to drive engagement with your services
By aligning your content with these pillars, you’ll always have a strong foundation to draw from, making your LinkedIn presence both strategic and sustainable.
LinkedIn’s Impact on Your Personal Brand
People do business with people they trust, your digital presence can build that trust before the conversation even starts.
LinkedIn is your most powerful platform for shaping your personal brand. With over one billion members globally, it offers unmatched access to decision-makers, industry peers, and potential collaborators. What you post, how you engage, and the way you present your expertise directly influence how others perceive your credibility and value. Whether you’re sharing insights, showcasing your work, or engaging in thought leadership, every interaction contributes to your digital reputation. In today’s professional landscape, where visibility is tied to opportunity, LinkedIn is the stage where your story gets told, so make it count.
Questions to define your content pillars:
What topics matter most to my audience?
What are their most common questions or pain points?
What kind of content are they sharing most often?
What inspires or motivates them?
For example, If you’re a real estate agent, your content pillars might include:
Educational content – to inform and empower your audience.
Inspirational content – to motivate and build connection.
Lifestyle & community highlights – to showcase local flavour and relatability.
Promotional content – to drive engagement with your services
By aligning your content with these pillars, you’ll always have a strong foundation to draw from, making your LinkedIn presence both strategic and sustainable.
LinkedIn’s Impact on Your Personal Brand
People do business with people they trust, your digital presence can build that trust before the conversation even starts.
LinkedIn is your most powerful platform for shaping your personal brand. With over one billion members globally, it offers unmatched access to decision-makers, industry peers, and potential collaborators. What you post, how you engage, and the way you present your expertise directly influence how others perceive your credibility and value. Whether you’re sharing insights, showcasing your work, or engaging in thought leadership, every interaction contributes to your digital reputation. In today’s professional landscape, where visibility is tied to opportunity, LinkedIn is the stage where your story gets told, so make it count.
