Step 1 Building a content framework with actual, useful content Not to bang a familiar Earnest drum, but these days far too much content doesn't have any actual... content. So for Vodafone we concentrated on creating an integrated digital campaign built on a foundation of engaging and useful information that demonstrated Vodafone's grasp of the issues facing executives today. This earned Vodafone executive attention and allowed them to build relationships based on real empathy.
Having announced that over a million channels used YouTube's AI creation tools daily in December, the platform recently launched Ingredients to Video in Shorts and the YouTube Create app. YouTube Ingredients breaks down what's helping a video perform well-things like format, topics, and creative elements viewers respond to. It's designed to give creators practical guidance on what to keep, tweak, or test next so they can make videos that are more likely to get views and engagement.
The digital publishing environment has been changing at a high pace, and the creation of content is no longer a human endeavor. Artificial intelligence is being incorporated into the editorial processes of businesses today to support the increasing content demands without sacrificing depth and consistency. This has transformed AI blog writing for business to become a strategic asset instead of an innovation.
Traditional thought leadership is losing impact. Long reports and gated content no longer capture attention in today's zero-click world. As a result, thought leadership is entering a new phase - experiential thought leadership. Engaging formats like interactive webinars, immersive events and podcasts make ideas felt and memorable rather than just consumed. Success depends on cross-team collaboration, testing and building experiences around real audience understanding.
I have zero sense of direction, so when I travel, I rely heavily on my Google Maps app. Before I take a road trip, I mark the points where I need to go, where I will stop for breaks, and how long it will take to get to my destination. A content strategy is the same premise. Content is created to guide users on where they need to go, the stops they need to make along the way, and the destination they should arrive at.
Capturing your audience in the perfect moment with the perfect content to produce startling results is the ultimate goal of creative content marketing. But the real magic happens when creatives and performance marketers work closely together. When creative experts join forces with performance specialists, you are building a winning formula to achieve maximum impact for your campaign investment. So, the million-dollar question is: how do you create content that achieves your goals and cuts through the noise, across every touchpoint of the customer journey?
LinkedIn is one of the most-cited sources by AI chatbots. A study from SEMrush has found that, in many cases, LinkedIn is cited second only to Reddit, and that AI Mode consistently cited LinkedIn in nearly 15% of its responses. Specifically, AI chatbots typically cite long-form LinkedIn Pulse articles. This signals that the thought leadership content that typically dominates LinkedIn articles is being trusted and promoted by AI, which offers a huge opportunity for business owners and freelancers to get more visible online.
A lot of businesses make the mistake of treating YouTube like a digital attic-a place to simply store videos they embed elsewhere. But you need to look at it differently: YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world, and it's owned by Google. If you are already investing in Google search, you should be investing in YouTube. The strategy isn't to just broadcast information; it's to answer the specific questions your potential customers are already asking.
But now, communicating with perfection and polish signals a lack of value. It signals that you used AI. Speaking to Instagram influencers, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri last week announced the dawn of this new world. In posts on Instagram and Threads, he said that, "Deepfakes are getting better and better. AI is generating photographs and videos indistinguishable from captured media. The feeds are starting to fill up with synthetic everything."
Content plays a central role in how we acquire and educate customers. It needs to perform across the full funnel and work for both classical search and modern, LLM-based discovery. This requires a combination of technical SEO, strong content strategy, and hands-on content creation. As Senior Content Strategist (m/f/d), you own our content system end-to-end. You are responsible for defining the strategy and technical foundations, while also contributing directly to the creation of high-impact content such as articles, guides, case studies, and video-based formats.
AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity-powered by large language models (LLMs)-are emerging as parallel gatekeepers. They're quietly reshaping which brands get recommended long before a buyer ever reaches a search results page. In my previous article, I discussed how Google's AI Overviews are intercepting traffic (even for top-ranking sites). But there's another shift that many businesses haven't recognized: Search engines are no longer the only place where your customers' questions get answered.
Google Search Console's "Insights" section no longer shows click trends for individual keywords. It now displays trends for keyword groups, once available only to high-traffic sites. Selecting any group of keywords takes you to the Performance section with the regex filter activated to show details. Many marketers believe the future of organic search monitoring is keyword groups. Consumers' queries are becoming longer and more diverse as they interact with genAI platforms such as ChatGPT and Google AI Mode. Hence tracking individual words is becoming ineffective.
Social media marketing has become one of the most valuable tools in the modern real estate agent's tool kit. Just ask the 39% of active agents who rank social media as the top technology for attracting high-quality leads, ahead of customer relationship management tools and even the local multiple listing service (MLS). Effective social media content has the power to shape first impressions and influence buying decisions long before a lead schedules a showing, but success doesn't come from posting at random.
Don't get me wrong; the people who launched those 53 channels are surely talented creators who deliver clever or entertaining content-I subscribed for some reason, after all. But at this point, I couldn't tell you what most of them are truly about because there's nothing there to draw me back. I don't know who the creators are, and I don't return to their channels, because they're not building worlds I want to be part of. They're just...posting.
"The first thing you should be doing right now is running visibility reporting for your brand or organization," he said. Lamp will speak on this topic at AI Horizons Conference during the session, "AI Search Workshop: Turn GEO into ROI with an AI-First Content Strategy." The method isn't complicated, he said. It's a back-to-basics audit designed to help organizations understand when people ask AI tools about your brand how you're showing up.
LinkedIn just made a decision that's about to destroy most creators' reach. The platform decided faceless education is dead. That means generic business advice gets buried. Safe content gets ignored. Yet most people keep posting like nothing changed. When I visited LinkedIn's New York headquarters in September they told me something that should have been obvious. People don't come to LinkedIn for Wikipedia. They come for connections with real humans who happen to know useful things. The algorithm now reflects this reality.
Social media has become an essential marketing channel for entrepreneurs, yet finding time to maintain an active presence remains a major challenge. For busy business owners, the constant pressure to create engaging content, respond to comments, and stay visible across multiple platforms can feel overwhelming. The reality is that effective social media engagement requires strategy, not just sporadic posting. Many entrepreneurs struggle to balance social media management with their core business responsibilities.
As content demands continue to skyrocket, marketing teams are under increasing pressure to produce more, faster, without sacrificing quality or team well-being. From repurposing assets to leveraging AI and modular design systems, sustainable scaling requires creativity, structure and focus on what truly drives value. Balancing innovation with efficiency can help brands stay consistent and authentic even at high volume. To help, 18 members of Forbes Communications Council share the best strategies for scaling creative output while protecting both quality and your team.
Too often, we pick formats because they're "hot" (hello, TikTok and AR lenses) rather than because they align with our brand's outcome. As marketers, we must reverse the lens by asking what business objective we're pursuing-awareness, consideration, conversion, retention-and then choosing the format that best fits that objective. For example, if your goal is top-of-funnel reach with a younger demographic, then short-form immersive reels or stories might make sense.
