There is so much noise right now about how the ultimate hack to getting your brand featured in AI results is simply to ensure it is all over Reddit.
The popular advice is to make sure you’ve got a number of posts mentioning your brand across the right topics and, BOOM, ChatGPT will be your number one lead generator and biggest brand advocate.
But is Reddit really the one place you should focus your AI Visibility efforts to get results?
Let’s get the quick bit out of the way. Reddit DOES play a role in the knowledge gathered by the Large Language Models (LLMs), and therefore, it does impact which brands are included in their answers.
We know this by looking at LLMs themselves. OpenAI have been transparent about their partnership with Reddit since last year, Gemini leverages Google’s existing Reddit partnership and Perplexity are currently being sued for scraping Reddit to train their LLM.
It is true that User Generated Content, and particularly Reddit, is rapidly growing in momentum as one of the major sources of data used by AI tools when deciding who and what to surface in the answer.
There is also a growing pile of evidence that tells us Reddit is important in shaping AI’s decision-making. From a recent analysis of a quarter of a million Reddit posts, Semrush found that Reddit is among the most cited sources by the major LLMs.
This is the big question. Pretty much every major brand across the globe (at least every brand that’s even remotely switched on) is currently scrabbling to make sure that they are the brand that AI tools are recommending when their target audience asks their favourite LLM which product or service to use.
Right now, the data shows us that this will likely get results, so this should be part of your strategy. But this comes with two important caveats.
Actually, no.
This is exactly why we came up with the concept of Earned Visibility (EV) as our approach to brand discoverability in a world of AI search.
Whilst this may sound self-promoting, it’s not (well not, really). The whole point of EV is that AI optimisation isn’t just simply the next generation of SEO.
Why? SEO as a discipline has often focused on tactics that are more likely to get results. This works when there is only really one major search tool, and they only make major algorithm updates a few times a year.
The dawn of AI search is a seismic shift. Consumer behaviour has fundamentally changed, with ChatGPT now seeing 5.8bn monthly site visits and AI search now used by half of all consumers.
But, and this is an important but, there is still no dominant tool, and each LLM has a different algorithm that will prioritise different sources.
Even if that wasn’t the case, the speed of evolution in the AI game is significantly faster than it was with search. Chat GPT launched their best model ever (5.1) in November, and then they launched their even shinier and better 5.2 barely one month later.
As tools evolve, how they make decisions – and the factors that shape which brands are included in the answer – will change.
The upshot of this? If you put all your eggs in the Reddit basket, you may see returns now, but you are also highly exposed to risk and could see an equally rapid negative impact from this as the models evolve.
The point of the Earned Visibility approach is to treat AI search tools as if they were a smart consumer – which is what they are effectively all striving to be.
Instead of focusing on one area, it’s important to consider your brand presence in the round. Don’t think “how can I game this AI tool” but instead ask “what are the factors that a consumer would look for” and layer this into your AI visibility approach. If you’re only considering one channel (or worse, one tactic) you’re missing the bigger picture.
Things like authoritative media coverage, credible third-party citations, genuine community discussion, high-quality content that demonstrates expertise, consistent brand signals across platforms, strong technical foundations, reviews and recommendations, and clear entity information in trusted data sources are all important.
When it comes to deciding where to focus your efforts for AI visibility, you need to consider how you are performing when it comes to all of the above – and make your action plan on the back of this.
Want more? Sign up to our fortnightly AI brand discoverability email – three or four quick bullets about what’s going on in the space and one or two recommendations on what to do.
That, or drop [email protected] a line and ask me whatever you want directly.
Why reach beyond English?
Everybody sort of knows about translation: books by international authors, certificates and diplomas for immigration purposes, even those cheap electronic gadget user manuals that sound like they were written by aliens from outer space… But what about business?
If your company is based in an English-speaking country, it feels natural to use English in business and to target English-speaking markets. As for creatives, so much of their work is tied with culture and words, that they feel more at ease operating in their mother tongue.
And yet, there is a world out there. So, gaining more visibility, and more customers, is worth the effort to reach beyond English.
Visibility abroad and new client profiles
While still using English in day-to-day business relations, all kinds and sizes of businesses can use translation to reach a bigger audience. Let’s look at a few examples:
An independent travel writer can pitch their articles for publication in more travel and in-flight magazines if they can also include the destination countries they write about.
Video game devs will get more players by having their games localized into key market languages. Or if sticking to English for the in-game content, there’s multilingual community management.
In film and video, foreign subtitles and dubbing open up new audience bases.
For artists, photographers, musicians, production companies, applying for an international award or exhibiting at a festival abroad will be a real visibility booster.
And agencies that are translation-capable are able to compete on a bigger stage: a lot of international groups and global charities need to work with PR, web and marketing agencies that can handle copy in multiple languages.
How best to approach your translation project
Once you’re clear on why you want to use translation, comes the how? question.
Choosing the best fit between a translation agency and freelance translators will depend on your project’s specifics: do you need a lot of different languages or only one/a couple? Is consistency in quality and tone of voice important? Do you need additional services like DTP and graphic design? High volumes translated with a short turnaround time? Or shorter, recurring pieces of copy where a long-term relationship will help?
Whatever the form your translation team takes, keep in mind these three essential tips.
Need translation help?
For help adapting your public-facing content for a French audience, or defining the scope and workflow of your translation project, get in touch for a chat (in English or in French): https://bristolcreativeindustries.com/members/sandra-mouton-french-translator/
We are delighted to announce a major expansion with the launch of Varn and Varn Health in London. This strategic move integrates an expert content team uniting deep technical search and data expertise, with world-class specialist content, strategy and account management capabilities.
As the landscape of search shifts, driven by AI Overviews, complex algorithms, and Google’s increasing demand for E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) brands can no longer view content and technical SEO as separate silos. The launch of Varn and Varn Health London is a unified solution combining our reputation as “search & data innovators” with a London based team, renowned for producing impactful and engaging content.
“2025 has been a year of real momentum for our agency, as we help our clients navigate a very fast moving SEO and search AI visibility space. Investing in our new expert London team, we are accelerating our momentum and raising the standard of what clients can expect from a specialist search consultancy. Our standout achievement has been onboarding 40 brand new clients, whilst delivering brilliant results for our existing partners with an outstanding retention rate of 94%. Looking ahead to 2026, we are ambitiously focused on being the market leader in AI search, SEO, and data. Expanding with the launch of our new Varn London team is a critical part of that vision.”
Rob Wilde, Managing Director at Varn and Varn Health
For our specialist Varn Health team, this expansion of expertise addresses a specific market need: the ability to produce compliant, expert medical content that also performs technically in search engines. It strengthens our capability to deliver search led healthcare content across websites, campaigns and digital channels, from patient and HCP engagement to conversion focused and AI search ready content that supports performance today and future proofs visibility tomorrow.
Find out about our new Content Marketing services
Formerly Head of Content and Business Director at Wallace Health, we have appointed Stephanie Mackay-Stokes as Strategy Director. Steph has previously led multiple complex content and digital programmes for global businesses. Her team’s experience spans large-scale website transformations, multi-channel content strategy and search-led digital marketing initiatives.
“Joining the Varn and Varn Health team allows us to expand our expertise and get our high-quality, informative and engaging content in front of our clients’ target audiences with a ‘search everywhere’ approach. Clients often struggle to get their creative content to rank and, increasingly, to get it cited on new AI search platforms. Or their SEO content is generic, lacks authority, original thinking and a brand voice to drive meaningful engagement and action. By aligning the team’s content heritage with Varn’s technical innovation, data specialism and AI visibility expertise, we are perfectly positioned to solve that challenge and drive commercial growth for ambitious brands.”
Stephanie Mackay-Stokes, Strategy Director of Varn and Varn Health
“For our healthcare and pharmaceutical clients, this strategic expansion is a significant development. We know that in a regulated environment, trust and accuracy are non-negotiable, yet to compete for visibility in the age of AI search, that content must also be technically structured and optimised. With Varn and Varn Health London, we are bringing ‘compliant creativity’ and ‘technical excellence’ under one roof. It means we can now offer a seamless service where deep medical writing expertise is powered by our data-led SEO and search strategies. This ensures our clients aren’t just publishing content, but are building genuine authority and trusted content that not only ranks and informs, but also engages, converts and drives patient outcomes.”
Tom Vaughton, CEO of Varn and Varn Health
Our Varn and Varn Health London team are now operational, working in close collaboration with the team HQ in Bradford-on-Avon.
If you need content that attracts the right audience and delivers measurable growth, find out how our content marketing team can help.
Find out about our new Content Marketing services
A solid content marketing strategy is the foundation for meaningful results and long-term success.
A content marketing strategy is a plan for creating and sharing content that appeals to your target audience and helps you achieve your business goals.
Whether you’re a start-up trying to make your mark or an established brand wanting to stay ahead, having a clear content marketing plan can be a game-changer. At AMBITIOUS, we’ve helped many businesses turn content into business growth by integrating it within the broader PR and digital marketing landscape.
This guide will walk business owners and marketers through the essential steps to create a content marketing strategy that drives growth and keeps your brand competitive.
We’ll cover everything from defining your goals and understanding your audience, to planning content types, mapping the buyer’s journey, setting SMART goals, and measuring results.
By the end, you’ll have a clear roadmap to build a strategy that delivers real business impact.
A content marketing strategy is a blueprint. It outlines the groundwork for the types of content you will produce, the topics it will cover, and the formats and channels you’ll deliver in.
You could think of it as a game plan for winning over potential customers and keeping them coming back for more… and that wouldn’t be incorrect. When viewed in isolation, a content strategy absolutely supports sales.
But, for the most successful brands, content marketing and content strategy do so much more than support sales. A content strategy keeps your brand fresh and your insights timely and valuable.
In short, it helps you remain relevant in a fast-changing market.
Now that we’ve covered what makes a strategy successful, let’s look at the key components that go into building one.
Building a content strategy involves several key components, each of which plays a crucial role in ensuring your efforts are effective and aligned with your business objectives.
To quote Simon Sinek, ‘Start with Why.’
Before you create a single piece of content, you need to understand why you’re doing the things you’re doing. Not just from a content perspective, but from an entire sales and operational perspective.
In his book,Start with Why, Sinek puts forward that the most successful brands put the why at the heart of everything they do. Taking a purpose-led approach allows you to approach subsequent strategies from a position of authenticity.
So rather than coming from a starting point of pure economics, put your mission and your vision at the heart of your content strategy.
You wouldn’t show up to a black-tie event in flip-flops… right?
Well the same principle applies to your content.
If you want to effect change and impact consumer decisions; you need to understand your audience, inside and out. Creating detailed buyer personas that go beyond basic demographics of age and geography can be incredibly valuable here.
What are their aspirations? What keeps them awake at night? What are the main pressures and challenges they’re facing?
Someone’s age, location, and job title isn’t going to give you great insight. By going beyond just demographics, you can establish what kind of content your audiences are engaging with the most.
With deeper, more detailed audience insights, you can create content that resonates with your audiences on a much more personal level.
You can then use existing audience insights and customer feedback to further refine your personas, curating your content to better address their needs.
You have your mission, your vision and your customer profiles.
Next, it’s time to understand the buyer’s journey.
The buyer’s journey typically includes three stages: Awareness, Consideration and Decision.
In this sense, every business is different, and as such, strategies and tactics must adapt. Content strategy and content creation aren’t a one-size-fits-all approach.
An FMCG brand will have a much shorter customer journey compared to a business that makes diagnostic machines.
A few blogs and some social posts aren’t going to make a quick conversion if your customer’s buying journey is traditionally 12 to 18 months or more. In cases like this, it’s about creating content strategies that are heavy on touchpoints and reinforcing your brand through much longer periods of awareness and consideration.
On the flip side; shorter journeys with bigger audiences – like FMCG – get to decision stage making much faster, so require content to match this cadence. It’s much faster, much more fluid and in the moment.
Creating content is all about matching audience and intent; you need to make sure that you’re putting the right content, in the right places, at the right time.
Your brand voice holds power, so use it wisely.
This is the real-world reflection of your mission, vision and brand values. Are you the wise mentor? The innovative disruptor? The friendly neighbour? Whatever your brand voice, consistency is key.
Also, people don’t just buy products; they buy into brands they can relate to. A strong brand identity, guided by clear brand guidelines, ensures consistency in both visual and tonal style across all content and marketing materials, strengthening brand recognition.
Maintaining a consistent brand voice across social media platforms is crucial for establishing and maintaining brand loyalty, which is key to amplifying your reach and engagement over time.
With a brand voice established and a firm understanding of your audiences, you can answer the question: what kind of content shall we produce?
There’s a lot of format options to choose from, including:
You don’t need it all to succeed. The key is to select the types of content that are most likely to resonate with your target audience. This will then inform the most appropriate channels upon which to activate those assets.
Generally speaking, having your own on-site content like blogs and articles is a universal must.
Whether you’re selling MRI machines or barefoot shoes, having on-site content that pulls through into search engine results pages and AI search platforms is going to be a major part of your content strategy.
So owned content has to be a foundational pillar of any content strategy.
Beyond your own channels, it’s about selecting the content types and channels that resonate with your target audience. If one of your prime audiences is NHS procurement teams, then you’re going to want to focus your efforts into channels like LinkedIn—with a mix of written thought leader content and video-led content marketing to catch their attention.
A fast-fashion brand would find more value in focusing on TikTok, with its in-built shopping API and fast-moving, trends-focused nature.
Important note: there’s a reason why we don’t classify social media platforms as ‘owned’. The reason being, that while the account itself is yours, you don’t own the channel itself. If TikTok or Instagram went under, then that channel is gone. Anything that is not 100% within your complete control, is classed as shared.
There are two more universal must-haves: video and direct-to-consumer content.
Whatever platform or channel you’re activating – whether it’s YouTube, LinkedIn, or TikTok – video content is the primary focus. So you need to account for video production in your content marketing strategy.
Then there’s direct-to-consumer content. Or in simple terms, email marketing.
Personalisation in sales and marketing is booming. With the sheer number of brands competing for attention across every channel and platform, the space has never been louder and more competitive. It’s incredibly easy for consumers to simply become overcome with brand fatigue and when that happens, they just start switching off.
But if you can successfully leverage a direct line of contact via email marketing, that can be a powerful thing.
Now that you have a sense of the key elements, let’s explore how to activate your content across multiple channels and formats for maximum impact.
The most effective and impactful content strategies take place across multiple channels, in multiple formats. By choosing the right mix, you can ensure your content reaches and resonates with the people who matter most.
To make this as effective as possible, combine owned elements, like on-site blogs and articles and your email channels, with the right mix of shared channels for your audience for maximum reach and effectiveness.
Look to ways you can repurpose content across different channels and formats.
Uou may want to conduct a piece of industry trends research. That piece of research becomes a designed whitepaper. That whitepaper can become a valuable sales asset, in both digital and print formats.
But it can be more.
It can then be broken apart, with news stories and releases created to generate earned media. Key elements of the whitepaper can then be created into shorter social assets, which can be activated across company and personal LinkedIn channels.
It can also be created into various blogs, summarising your findings and offering the whitepaper as a download. This gives you a lead magnet and a means of generating valuable consumer data.
You can activate these findings in your newsletters. You could even take it one step further and bring it into interactive formats like webinars, which can be especially effective for audience engagement. Those webinars could then be repurposed as further video content to be used on LinkedIn and even YouTube.
When taking this kind of integrated approach, the ultimate aim is to connect as many dots as possible.
When distributing your content, consider a broad mix of marketing channels from email marketing, social media accounts, video, digital and print design, even paid advertising like Google ads to create the greatest possible reach and impact.
With your content now planned and distributed, it’s essential to keep your strategy organised and on track.
A content strategy without a plan is like a road trip without a map. Chances are you’ll have fun, but you’ll most likely get lost.
This is where your marketing strategy and plan intersect with your content strategy. Through your marketing plans, create schedules and roadmaps, outlining campaigns, moments, and activations. Detail this with the outputs and assets you’ll need to create, with time-bound goals, to help keep you on track.
In the day-to-day, content calendars can keep everything on track and on schedule, particularly if you’re having to manage complex production schedules for video.
This will not only ensure consistency but also help you allocate resources, raise issues and delays effectively, and adapt to any required change. This helps ensure all team members and freelancers are on the same page, maintaining alignment and efficiency throughout the entire production and content creation process.
You want to stay on track and you don’t want to bite off more than you can chew. To manage expectations, it’s crucial to set SMART goals. These are:
SMART goals help you to achieve a few things.
Firstly, they’re built on solid foundations of goals. For example, instead of saying, “We want more website traffic,” a SMART goal would be, “We aim to increase website traffic by 20% over the next six months by publishing two blog posts per week.”
This helps join all the dots and create content production processes with firmly established timelines and completion journeys. This clarity ensures everyone on your team knows what you’re aiming for and how to get there.
They also help you outline what’s achievable, given your organisation’s current production capacities and capabilities. For example, you may not be in a position to be able to produce your own video content, either through lack of capacity or capability.
So SMART goals can also help you identify areas where you need to bring in extra resources and skills in order to achieve these goals.
These goals act as your guiding star, helping you focus your efforts and measure the success of your content marketing efforts.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are the metrics that help you measure the success of your content marketing strategy.
These are ultimately showing how well your overall strategy is performing, relative to your original strategic goals and aims.
For your website, look to metrics like:
While overall impressions can give you a picture of the general reach of your site, actual on-page data is going to be much more valuable when analysing your content.
Social media platforms offer a different set of metrics. Here you’ll be looking at:
But you’ll also need to monitor sentiment on social. 1,000 comments look like a good number on a report. But if 950 of those comments are negative in sentiment, then it’s far less positive than the numbers show.
The reason why we establish KPIs isn’t to dictate any success or failure further down the line, it’s more about identifying progress, tracking what’s working, and most importantly, what isn’t.
Ongoing auditing and analysis help shape tactical, strategic, and creative decisions.
One of the biggest self-imposed flaws you can bring into your marketing strategy is to only review your activity once per year.
Ongoing auditing and analysis is a crucial step, not only in creating a content marketing strategy, but evolving it in real time.
Review your existing content to see what’s hitting the mark and what needs improvement. Determine which types of content are the most effective. Then, put plans in place to create more content which matches this.
You need to identify what isn’t working and establish why. If something doesn’t work once, try it again in a different way. But if something isn’t working over long periods of time, then continuation is likely not worth it.
By doing this, you can identify gaps in your content. Look for opportunities to repurpose content into new formats, maximise the value of your existing content, and remove anything that is low-value and surplus to requirement.
Rather than doing this once a year, do it with more focused regularity. More regular content audits provide valuable insights that inform your ongoing strategy.
With your strategy organised and performance measured, let’s look at how data can become your superpower.
We know that optimising your content for better visibility in search is crucial to ensure it reaches a wider audience, improves your rankings, and ensures your content stands out in search results.
But competing for keywords, intent, and eyeballs is more than just a challenge in creative writing.
It’s about leveraging the right data and insights and using tools like Google Analytics, SurferSEO, and SEMRush to give you the edge.
The same applies to social media platforms. Proprietary analytics, or third-party tools such as Hootsuite, let you see what’s working in real time.
But don’t just collect data… act on it.
You need to be prepared to adjust your strategy based on these insights. The best content strategies are the ones that adapt.
With data as your guide, you can confidently plan and adapt your strategy for ongoing success.
There’s no silver bullet for successful content. What makes a content strategy successful is two-fold.
Firstly, it’s about strategic planning, critical thinking, and creativity. You need to be able to hone in on audiences, demographics, messaging and narratives, and understand the buyer’s journey and how you can subtly influence it in your favour.
Great content strategy establishes these foundational elements, meaning you can have great creative outputs underpinned by strong data and insights. So before you’ve even drafted a word of copy, or shot a second of video content, you need to have this understanding.
But you also need to be able to react and adapt.
A framework is great. It gives you guardrails. But a dogmatic approach to your strategy could do more harm than good.
Things may not work as you predicted, attitudes change, behaviours adapt, trends come and go, and algorithms change the way content is delivered and consumed.
If all you’re doing is staying within the lines of your strategy, chances are you’re missing out.
By following these steps, you can build a content marketing strategy that is structured, effective, and adaptable.
Having a documented content marketing strategy is crucial to guide your efforts and ensure success.
Whether you’re looking to increase brand awareness, generate leads, improve your search ranking, surface in generative AI responses, or create personalised marketing content for your customers, a robust content marketing strategy underpins these goals and gives you the roadmap to achieving them.
But a winning content strategy isn’t just about creating more and more content. It’s about creating the right content, for the right people, and putting it in the right place at the right time.
At AMBITIOUS, we’ve seen firsthand how a content strategy can transform businesses. It’s not just about getting likes or shares; it’s about building relationships with your audience that last and deliver real results.
Get in touch to talk about how we can help you develop a strategy that’s as unique as you are.
Milsted + Strange, a Bristol-based strategic marketing duo, is celebrating its first year in business after supporting a range of local companies with brand positioning, marketing strategy and better-performing websites.
Founded this time last year by Bristol residents Tom Milsted and Pheobe Strange, the pair offer something unusual in a crowded market.
They are not another marketing agency and not a pair of freelancers who happen to work together. They’re a hybrid model, working as a team to keep costs down and results rocketing. They give growing businesses agency-level expertise at freelancer costs.
Over the past year, Milsted + Strange has supported hospitality businesses, like Bristol Eats, as well as property firms and even local authors across Bristol. More than half of the duo’s clients sought their expertise because their marketing wasn’t bringing in the business they wanted, but they didn’t know why. In almost every case, the issue wasn’t the marketing tactics but unclear messaging.
Tom Milsted said:
“Our clients have told us they’re tired of working with expensive agencies that churn through customers without any real care. They want robust solutions, and don’t have the time to manage multiple freelancers, so they pick us. They like that we’re local and genuine, and we don’t let work out the door unless we’re both 100% happy it’s the best it can be – and we know our stuff.”
Pheobe Strange added:
“We care about Bristol businesses. We’re from here, we started our families here, and we wanted to build something that supports the city in a more accessible way. We’re also proud to be part of the thriving Bristol creatives community. Working locally means we often get to see clients in person, hold brand workshops face to face, and feel more connected to the work we’re doing for them.”
The duo’s story is rooted in Bristol.
Tom’s family has deep ties to the city. During the Second World War, his grandfather survived a nearby explosion that blew him out of his bed above a pub on Gloucester Road. After serving as a tank commander in Italy and North Africa, he met Tom’s Bedminster-born grandmother on a train.
They were soon married in St Mary Redcliffe, his grandfather working in sales for Heinz, and his grandmother teaching children in local schools. Tom’s dad grew up on Woodside Road, Downend, but moved to Marlow Bottom, Buckinghamshire, in the 80s, where Tom grew up.
In 2017, Tom and his newly married wife, Kate, were looking to buy a house, and had fallen in love with Bristol’s unique mix of urban culture and natural parks, and booming independent business scene through lots of visits to family and friends. After Tom’s grandparents passed away, they decided to continue the Milsted legacy in Bristol, moving into a house in Brislington, near the old Heinz factory where his grandfather had worked.
Pheobe grew up in Downend, raised by her dad, Russell Strange, a Kingswood-based commercial upholsterer, and her mum. She attended a nearby school, then decided to study English Literature at the University of Bristol. This is where she developed a love for words and copywriting. After graduating, she has spent her entire professional career working for Bristol organisations and marketing agencies, writing compelling words and making brands stand out.
Tom and Pheobe met whilst working in communications and marketing at Unite Students. They bonded over a passion for writing and a shared work ethic. Pheobe left Unite to work for a local marketing agency, before feeling an itch to set up her own business whilst on maternity leave with her first child.
Tom, with two young boys of his own, was made redundant at the end of 2024. It wasn’t long before he picked up the phone to Pheobe and asked if she wanted to go into business together, and it took even less time for her to say, ‘yes!’, and Milsted + Strange was born.
Both Tom and Pheobe bring a mix of strategic, creative and narrative-led expertise drawn from their backgrounds, and both care deeply about the work they do and the local businesses they do it for – they truly are a marketing power-duo.
As they enter their second year of business, the pair are expanding their work with Bristol-based SMEs, start-ups and freelance consultants looking to grow in 2026.
They have clearly priced and defined marketing and website packages for any budget on their website, but can also build bespoke packages and work with clients who need ongoing support.
They are currently offering local businesses a free 20-minute call to uncover what might not be working for their marketing, or a free mini-web audit that focuses on actions they can take to convert more web visitors into customers.
For more information or to book, visit www.milstedandstrange.com, or email [email protected] and [email protected].
With an estimated 5.6 billion people using social media worldwide, you’re probably aware that maintaining your brand’s presence across multiple platforms is critical if you want to compete in this ever-progressing digital landscape.
A strong social media presence not only offers new opportunities for leads and sales, but also strengthens customer loyalty, enhances your networking, and opens the door for more partnerships and customer feedback – all the while driving traffic to your website and raising awareness of your brand.
However, the steps needed to assert or improve your presence on socials may feel unclear. Many businesses assume that social media management is easy to take on at first, due to the deceptively simple user experience on most platforms.
But in actual fact, it’s a very different, more intricate experience than managing a personal account. And, if handled incorrectly, it can even have a detrimental impact on your brand.
So here are seven steps that any modern business can take to ensure their brand is making the most of social media.
By monitoring the performance data of your competitors, you can gain insights into what works and what doesn’t, driving smarter decision-making and building a more robust strategy.
Researching and analysing competitor behaviour means you can stay one step ahead and be inspired by new ideas. You can detect any threats to your business by identifying gaps in your strategy, emerging trends, and missed opportunities.
After all, why reinvent when you can circumvent?
There are a number of social competitor analysis tools you can use to do this, including FanPageKarma, Awario, Brandwatch, and Iconosquare. You then need to decide which audience, engagement, and content metrics are useful to you.
Some of those metrics might be percentage of engagement per media, followers gained, follower growth, comments, likes, the most used hashtags, average posts per day and so on – whichever insights will help you define your own goals.
If you don’t know who your social media audience is, how can you serve them the content they want to see? It’s important to learn your audience’s needs and motivations, as well as their behaviours. What social media platforms do they use? When and why do they use them? And what are they looking for?
With the answers, you can tailor your content to ensure you are serving the right message, at the right time, in the right place.
Different audience demographics – for example age, gender, geographical location – will exhibit different behaviour online. So knowing who uses which platform aids your researching, advertising and marketing decisions, and ensures you’re providing the most relevant content to achieve your business goals.
Once you have an understanding of your audience’s needs and preferences, as well as those of your competitors, it’s time to select which social media channels are most suited to your audience, products/services and business needs.
Each social network provides unique delivery opportunities for you to entice your audience. For example, Instagram is a highly visual, creative platform. It can be a great place to showcase your products and services in a more imaginative or artistic manner.
It’s also considered to be less formal than other platforms– perfect for showing off your brand personality and company culture. Similar with TikTok: this is a platform popular with Gen Z, so it’s a great place to share fun, short videos.
LinkedIn, on the other hand, is arguably the most useful social platform for B2B marketing or targeting a professional demographic.
Consider your channel selection carefully to ensure your messaging is broadcast in the most effective way, reaching the right prospects and generating leads.
It’s common for marketers to spread themselves too thin, so bear in mind your staff resources as part of the selection process. If you have only one team member, attempting to establish a brand presence across six different social media channels may be unrealistic.
Your presence on social media is an extension of your brand. It should, therefore, align with all your other brand messaging. Maintaining a consistent voice across every platform helps your brand strengthen its trust and reliability, creating a distinct personality among your competitors.
To help you adhere to this, developing brand guidelines can be a helpful tool when maintaining consistency in your tone of voice. Consider why your brand exists, what its values are, and how you want customers to feel when interacting with your brand.
The overuse of internet terms or trendy slang can actually damage your reputation, making you appear out of touch or ‘cheap’, and subsequently hurting engagement.
In your guidelines, you may consider creating an emoji palette or limit their use if your tone of voice is less playful. Without such consistency, there’s a lot of room for error.
A content calendar is also a good way to ensure you’re maintaining consistency. Viewing all your upcoming posts at once will give you a sense of how they fit together. Plus, it ensures you’re posting regularly enough that your audience (and, importantly, the algorithm) don’t forget about you.
Arguably the most important aspect of social media strategy is your willingness (or availability) to engage with your audience.
Posting regularly and capitalising on customer interest is a necessity in today’s social climate if you want to keep your followers invested in your brand – and it’s crucial for the growth of your business. As we all get more and more used to interacting with generative AI and chatbots, human to human engagement and community building will help brands stand out and retain share of voice.
No one wants to receive an automated message or talk to a robot. So, interacting with customers and responding to them quickly is essential if you want to humanise your brand, nurture relationships and increase customer loyalty.
Ensure your account looks active with real-time updates, through Instagram stories or updated YouTube videos, for example. Avoid cheesy iStock imagery, and instead opt for authentic, original content that reinforces your brand personality and culture.
In order to remain active and engage, you’ll need to monitor your channels as often as possible, at least daily, and post regularly. There are plenty of social media management tools that can help you do just this. Pre-scheduling social posts is a huge time-saver, rescuing you from posting manually at all hours of the day.
It’s also good practice to keep your ear to the ground, through social listening. Social listening is the process of monitoring social media channels for mentions of your brand, product, competitors, and more, providing the opportunity to track, analyse and respond to conversations.
Understanding how people feel about your brand helps you keep your marketing and product/service development efforts on track.
Without social listening, you might be missing out on a big piece of insight about your brand or industry that people are talking about.
It also allows you to outline pain points, and better your crisis management tactics by responding right away to negative posts (should there be any). It can also help you identify social influencers, providing opportunities for partnerships and advertising.
The final step in any digital marketing campaign is measurement. As with your initial data-gathering exercises, measuring the effectiveness of your social media marketing activity will help you to optimise your approach and guarantee ongoing success. And luckily, there are a range of analytics tools you can use to gain these insights.
Social media is a vital tool that all businesses should take advantage of in order to maintain optimum brand loyalty, reach, and engagement.
If you would like to fine-tune your business’s social media activity, boost your reach and get noticed, get in touch with us today at [email protected].
GenAI video has been causing quite a stir recently: whether it’s backlash over the tide of AI slop, something being decried as an AI fake (whether it is or not), or an agentic AI business formula that’s made ‘millions’ overnight. Oh, and the ‘ultimate’ prompt-writing masterclass? You’ll have seen all the ads…
But look a bit harder and there’s some really interesting work out there:
One thing is undeniable: AI is going to affect digital industries – the debate around the extent and exact timeline gets far more complicated.
With all that in mind, we wanted to use our yearly Xmas video as a test bed of GenAI, to see what it could do and, importantly, what it couldn’t. And we thought we’d bring you along for the ride…
It all started in August (don’t judge). We had just ironed out our company-wide AI training roadmap and we were updating our AI usage policy. As a creative agency, it felt like we were taking real leaps forward. But it also gave our creative studio a lot to think about. We each mulled over our own questions around authenticity and the future of creative production (the part of our job many of us love most of all).
So we got our heads together and talked about how we should be doing things. What we arrived on was that creative thinking, sketching, scribbling, chatting, tinkering, and FUN should all be ring fenced and given the time they deserve. That’s why we decided to collaborate on a brief so ambitious and outlandish it simply had to work.
It should no longer come as a surprise that typing a basic prompt into AI engines only leads to AI slop.
So, before we even touched a computer, we came up with a basic concept – the ultimate tongue-in-cheek pastiche of Christmas perfume ads – and then had a mass brain-storming session where we asked the whole company for their craziest ideas. And boy did they deliver!
In a short space of time, we had suggestions ranging from a simple Xmas magic box to rivers of gravy, something about a unicorn that didn’t quite make the final edit, and the perfect name – ‘Sléj’ (pronounced as ‘slay’, obviously).
Our copywriters pulled the ideas together into a script, using a knowledge of Christmas-related puns that took a lifetime (or previous life editing rather niche magazines) to develop.
This isn’t the place to be overly reliant on AI. Allowing people free reign to throw stuff at the page works well. Importantly, don’t shut down ideas too early. The most unlikely suggestions can get workshopped into something surprising and brilliant.
This could turn into a whole blog by itself. More than any other, this stage will determine the look of your film so the more references you can include the better.
It’s crucial to find references that you have rights to both use and pass to a third party – in this case, an AI model.
For this reason, we used Generative AI to generate our reference images, feeding the output images back into the AI multiple times and asking for tweaks and refinements.
This produced a combination of a storyboard and multiple accompanying style frames (high-quality images that give a good overall feel for what the video will look like once animated).
You’re aiming to find references for each part of the shot you want to generate, for example the setting, tone, pose, character and composition etc. You want the AI to have as much information as possible and limit how much it figures out by itself.
We quickly learnt that there isn’t one AI model to rule them all, with different options performing better for different tasks. We’d highly recommend experimentation here to find which works best for your requirements.
Using detailed prompts and the bank of reference images we had gathered for each shot, we generated our footage. Prompts were written in a similar way to how we’d add
notes on a storyboard, i.e. ‘camera push in’, ‘talent to walk across frame left to right’, ‘high-key lighting’ etc but they also included additional things that wouldn’t usually be directable without heavy VFX work, i.e. ‘swirling wind kicks up dust behind legs’.
The point here is to think like a filmmaker and art director, you need to be able to supply image references but, just as importantly, you need to be able to articulate what you want to see in the frame. Playing AI like a slot machine will lead to slop.
In the same way that you rarely edit footage together straight out of the camera, generative video will almost always benefit from some post work. Again, this is a place to add further human touches that a text box often doesn’t offer. This could be reframing, changing the colour, or in/out painting of items in the scene.
Editing and sound design is another area where, as far as we’re concerned, humans just can’t be beat (not yet). Editing – the process of deciding where to push and pull those beats and gaps – and sound design are very much a process of creating a feeling and mood.
As with traditional film making, have in mind what you want to see. Those hard-won post skills still have lots of value.
It would be remiss not to briefly discuss some of our thoughts behind the ethics of our experiment.
The ethics of AI are extremely complicated. As with most things, a simply binary choice may feel tempting, and at times compulsive, but this rarely does justice to the many nuances of a topic. There is so much for every individual and organisation to consider, and I’d argue the often-discussed environmental and job-replacement angles are just the beginning.
For further information I’d highly recommend:
For me, I think After Effect’s AI roto-brush sums up a lot of the debate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXMTHe8z6Tw
So, how do I feel about the finished video? I think the team have done a great job of making a whimsical and audacious Xmas vid with just the right level of self-awareness. And with a level of production that, prior to GenAI, our budget simply wouldn’t have stretched to.
I also hope it’s as clear to you, as it is to me, that we couldn’t have come anywhere close to the result without the thought, skill, talent and humour that went into it from right across the agency.
And how do I feel about AI? It’s complicated…
If you want to really know how customers really think and feel, it’s important that you understand customer psychology. Here at UWE Bristol, we have therefore designed a new course to give you psychological insight into customer behaviour, whether you’re leading campaigns, shaping brand identity, or engaging audiences directly.
Funded by the West of England Combined Authority, we’re calling this course our Digital Marketing Strategy Skills Bootcamp. We want to help marketers apply behavioural science using practical digital tools, combining academic insight with real-world marketing experience.
This course is specifically aimed at individuals who are looking to develop their career in digital marketing through their current employer. For example, you might currently be a Marketing Manager, Consultant, or Head of Marketing, with a pathway to more senior roles such as CMO or Marketing Director. This is also ideal for business owners or anyone working in a customer-focused or growth-driven role within an SME, agency, or third-sector organisation.
The course starts in January, but you’ll need to register in December. To find out more, please go to https://courses.uwe.ac.uk/UMKT3U00E/strategic-digital-marketing-skills-bootcamp
Words aren’t the only way to communicate. But they’re a huge part of how the vast majority communicate. So, when it comes to marketing, words should be the first thing you think about.
Whether you’re marketing your products and services, or defining your company or brand, words are powerful.
They should be respected, chosen purposefully, and understood.
Yet, many people believe that ai can do words better than they can.
I have a dream
Words so powerful, they’re remembered decades later.
I find it strange that, as a collective, we’ve devalued words.
We throw them away on social media, we give them to a robot to write for us, we assume any words are better than the right words.
Don’t choose words, choose the right words.
We wouldn’t take our pet robot to that big networking event. We wouldn’t roll it in to negotiate a contract or talk to Sandra at the water cooler. We wouldn’t carry it with us on lunch or bring it to a fundraising pitch.
So why would we use it for something as powerful as words? Why would we choose organised letters in place of communication, strings of word-based code in place of communication?
The problem with robot words is that everyone starts to sound the same. And when everyone starts to sound the same, nobody listens. And if nobody is listening, what’s the point? Silence has the same effect.
The evidence is out there and it’s as clear as day. A quick glance at the comment threads on a media outlet’s social posts tells you that people are fed up and sceptical of ai content. Survey Monkey found that top consumer complaints centre around trust: 29% think it’s not authentic and 16% think it’s not accurate.
One thing’s for sure, in a world saturated by well-organised letters, words have never been more powerful.
Thunderwolf helps thoughtful experts turn complex ideas into clear, human communication, so their work can be understood, trusted, valued, and desired.
From brand copy to impact reports, every word is distilled with accessibility and inclusivity in mind – so your message isn’t just heard, but understood.
Send us a message to find out more, or share a passion for word-based marketing.
You post daily, share behind-the-scenes content, and your analytics show people are actually seeing your work.
Here’s what’s really happening: your audience is watching you, but they’re not connecting with you. And the problem isn’t your posting schedule, your hashtags, or the algorithm. The problem is that you’re broadcasting at people instead of connecting with them.
Let me explain what I mean by that.
You post daily, share behind-the-scenes content, and get decent engagement.
You’re not bad at content creation. You’re just talking at people instead of with them.
Here’s what I see happening:
You’re broadcasting at people, not connecting with them.
The difference? Broadcasting assumes everyone needs the same message at the same time. Connection recognises that your audience exists in different relationship stages with you and they need different things depending on where they are.
Most creators fall into what I call “megaphone marketing.” They stand on their digital soapbox, shouting the same message to everyone within earshot:
It’s not personal. It’s not strategic. And it’s definitely not connecting.
Broadcasting treats your audience like a crowd at a concert, faceless, interchangeable, all wanting the same experience. But your audience isn’t a crowd. They’re individuals in different places, with different needs, at different stages of relationship with you.
Some just discovered you yesterday.
Others have been following for months but haven’t bought anything.
Still others are loyal clients who’ve worked with you multiple times.
Broadcasting assumes they all need the same thing. Connection knows better.
Connection happens when you recognise that your audience isn’t one homogeneous group, they’re individuals at different stages of relationship with you.
Some people just discovered you yesterday. They’re curious but cautious, need quick proof you understand their world.
Others have been following for months but haven’t bought anything. They’re building trust, evaluating whether you’re the real deal.
Still others are loyal fans who’ve worked with you before. They’re ready for your advanced insights and premium experiences.
Same audience.
Completely different needs.
Yet most creators treat them all the same.
Here’s what this looks like in practice:
Broadcasting: “Here’s my 5-step morning routine for success!”
Connecting: “If you’re struggling to start your day with intention instead of immediately checking emails…”
Broadcasting: “Everyone needs to invest in personal branding!”
Connecting: “For those of you who cringe every time someone says ‘build your personal brand’, I get it, and there’s another way…”
Broadcasting: “Buy my course and transform your business!”
Connecting: “I know some of you have been following me for months but haven’t taken action yet. Let me share what’s probably holding you back…”
Broadcasting: “This strategy works for all entrepreneurs!”
Connecting: “If you’re a solopreneur feeling overwhelmed by advice designed for teams of 20…”
Notice the difference?
Broadcasting makes assumptions.
Connection acknowledges reality.
Most creators fall into broadcasting because it feels safer. Talking to everyone means you don’t have to risk alienating anyone. But here’s the truth: when you speak to everyone, you connect with no one.
The irony? The more specific you get about who you’re talking to and where they are in their journey with you, the more people feel seen.
In a world of AI-generated content and mass automation, this human recognition becomes your competitive advantage. Your audience can get information anywhere. What they can’t get everywhere is the feeling that someone truly sees their specific situation and cares enough to meet them there.
But here’s what’s interesting: Even when creators understand this concept, they often end up attracting the wrong people anyway. People who want quick fixes when they’re selling transformation. People who want free when they’re selling premium.
Why does this happen?
That’s a different problem entirely and it’s what we’ll explore next.
This week, audit your content through this new lens:
The shift from broadcasting to connecting isn’t about overhauling everything. It’s about awareness. Small changes in how you think about your audience create massive changes in how they respond to you.
Because when people feel seen, they stick around. When they feel like just another face in the crowd, they scroll past.
With courage and conviction.
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