One of the first questions that usually comes up: Who should we include--and how do we identify those people?

The answer is different for every company. But if I were leading social for a midsized or large company right now, here’s the criteria I’d use, in rank order:

1 -- Time and interest level. This is #1 for a reason. If someone doesn’t have the time or interest, they simply won’t do it. And remember: In many cases, you’re asking employees to take on additional work without additional pay. That's a pretty big deal (and could involve legal with some organizations).

2--Content instincts. They don’t need to be professional photographers or writers. But they should have some feel for what makes interesting content—and some level of comfort in creating it.

3 -- Connection to strategy. Who you choose should depend heavily on what you’re trying to accomplish. A creator program designed to support recruiting might involve very different employees than one designed to generate B2B leads.

4 -- Some history of posting. I’m not looking for someone who posts 2-3 times a week—that person can be really hard to find, believe me. But someone who has posted semi-consistently over time has already demonstrated a willingness to show up and share.

5 -- Existing engagement and followers. Notice how far down the list this is. I care about these numbers a little, but they’re certainly not determining factors. Get the right people creating useful content consistently and those numbers should grow over time.

One other thing: Start small! I usually recommend starting with 10-15 employee creators, learning what works and scaling slowly from there (if at all). Because the reality is, most employees aren’t creators—and they really don’t want to be.

PS: The pic above is so funny isn't it? I mean, what is happening in this photo?!? I got it when I typed in "Employee Creators" in Unsplash. Apparently, employee creators have dance parties in the office!

I’m not a professional speaker. I don’t speak all that often anymore—maybe 3-4 times a year. And when I do, it’s usually to smaller groups—a PRSSA event with 10 students; a non-profit meeting with 30 attendees; or even a Social Media Breakfast event, which usually draws 100 people or so (I think?).

But a couple weeks ago I spoke in front of the biggest group of people in my 18 years of doing this at the Digital Summit. My topic: Social media trends. We talked about the new LinkedIn Ecosystem. The fact that engagement is dying at a key KPI. And the rise of employee creator programs.

Had a fantastic time—big thanks to Kayal Rajendran and all the folks at the Digital Summit Series for putting on a great event. I only wish I had more time to attend more sessions (drove my daughter to school that week—see below—so everything got crunched!).

Nobody ever asks “How can I increase Direct Traffic?”

Andy Crestodina (who was just at the Digital Summit here in Mpls), says this is the least asked, but most important question in digital. He might not be wrong. I’m not a search expert, but I do touch search a lot in my social work and I don’t think I’ve heard a client EVER ask this question!

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What counts as a video view in 2026?

Did you know: Facebook counts a “view” on Reels after a follower has watched your video for one whole MILLISECOND?!?!? In fact, a view is counted by no more than 2 seconds across any major social media platform. By the way, this gets at my notion of tracking average watch time as a key video metric vs. views. ONE MILLISECOND!

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For 3 years I've driven by this sign on our way to dropping off one of our kids at college in Colorado. It's a bit of an iconic sign, so I've always wanted to stop, but just haven't. Until last weekend when I convinced my daughter to take this pic with me on our way to Fort Collins.

I'm not big on documenting my life on social media anymore. I rarely post on Insta or Facebook. But I have been big on capturing these little moments lately--even if I don't share them publicly (in this case I am, but mostly I do not). Because the moments are slowly slipping away. My son will be graduating in the spring. My daughter is already a sophomore. In a couple years, both may be out of the house completely! So I'm acutely aware of how precious these "moments" now are.

This summer, I tried to soak in a lot of those moments: a trip to Banff with our daughter; a Jon Pardi concert with my daughter; a Treaty Oak Revival concert with both kids in Des Moines; nightly walks with the dog and my daughter; a porch beer with my son while listening to some music.

I don't have a big piece of social media advice this week. I'm just hyper-aware of how fast time is going now--and it seems to go faster the older our kids get. At this point I'm just trying to slow that time down! As a result, I'm holding on to these moments are much as I can.

We’ve heard so much about how AI can help us be more efficient and improve processes (including, sadly, the writing process). But when your end goal is building trust, authority and reputation, the last thing you want to do is create content that might even come close to encouraging someone to hit the new “This feels like AI slop” button on LinkedIn.

In fact, in some of our coaching sessions, we will talk specifically about how we make the post sound like it could only come from the executive. We think about patterns AI-written posts take and we try to do almost the opposite. For example, many AI posts have a structure you’ve probably seen many times. The dreaded “one sentence” structure. So, we’ll go out of our way, for example, to create longer paragraphs. It’s definitely not the most important approach we take to convince people this exec is not using AI to write—it’s just one example.

This is all why I found this article so interesting and help this week—it talks about 14 red flags that make your writing sound like AI. Basically, things to completely avoid in your writing. I found it useful—hope you do, too. Happy non-AI writing!

There’s few things in life better than going to a concert with your kids. I’ve been to multiple concerts with each of my kids one-on-one. My son and I saw the Foo Fighters at Target Field (outstanding). We saw Royal Blood at The Fillmore (even better!). My daughter has seen the Killers with me (my favorite band) and we just saw Jon Pardi a few weeks ago at a wonderful outdoor venue in northern Minnesota.

But I haven’t been to a single concert with BOTH kids—until this past weekend when we saw Treaty Oak Revival (fantastic live band). To make the event even more fun, we traveled to Des Moines to see them! And we all got Treaty Oak merch!

It was a bit of a YOLO moment. And one I have exactly zero regrets about. Sure it was a fairly spendy 24-hour period. But I don’t have many chances to see concerts with both my kids, so it was 1,000% worth it and I would (and will) do it again in a heartbeat. In fact, I’m already looking at concerts in the Denver area (RED ROCKS!) where they both go to school to see shows this fall/next spring.

My professional point to all of this? That YOLO attitude applies to your business decisions just as much as it applies to your personal decisions. I’m living proof!

Roughly 18 years ago, I made the decision to go out on my own. I made that decision with no idea of whether I would succeed or not. And I made that decision with a one and three-year-old at home. Total YOLO. But my thought was this: If I fail, I can always go back and get a full-time job. Might take a while, but I was 37 at the time—I figured I could fine something.

I took a big risk—and it paid off. And I would encourage you to embrace a similar mindset in your professional life. OK, so I’m not saying quit your full-time job and become a solo consultant (although, if you want to pursue that, give me a call and I’d love to talk/help!). What I am saying is take risks. Go for that big job you think you might be under-qualified for. Apply for that job with your “dream company.” Avoiding and managing risk is natural—it’s kinda what we’re trained to do. So taking those big risks feels weird. But it can pay off in ways you can’t even comprehend now.

Now, I’m going back to finding that Red Rocks concerts I can attend with both my kids this fall!

Will AI agents run company social media accounts soon?

A company called Planable recently ran an experiment: Hand over a fictional chocolate brand to seven different social media managers—3 run by actual humans and four run by AI. The results? Human management dominated engagement.

Not super surprising for where we’re at right now. But I can’t help but wonder, as the technology improves, will brands turn to AI agents to manage their accounts? You know there are going to be brands that try!

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Is Manychat making comment sections less fun?

I found this LinkedIn post (and subsequent comment thread) fascinating. I don’t play in the retail-y space where Insta dominates all that often, so while I’ve heard of Manychat, I haven’t done a super deep dive. But clearly Rachel and the commenters have—and the conversation is an interesting glimpse into the quandary brands face with authenticity vs. scale when it comes to social media.

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For example, when asked “What did you check before paying”, 43% of students said “reviews somewhere else online.”

When asked “What scenario would make you buy or try?” 34% said “positive comments.”

And when asked “which type of post from a brand is most likely to make you buy?” 35% said a “detailed review.”

ALL of the data in this post points to one interesting conversation starter: Attention is still won via entertaining and useful posts, but when it comes to actually purchasing an item, college-aged students are looking squarely at comments and reviews.

And where it really gets interesting is this: Where do we spend most of our time as social media marketers? Capturing attention, right? And what kinds of content do we usually post when it comes to closing the sale? Probably promotions and sales/offers, right?

But that’s not what this data is telling us. It’s telling us that validation is what tips college students from awareness and consideration to purchase. And most brands are spending very little time in that validation space.

What’s more, many brands are actually doing the opposite in the comment threads. When asked “What brand response to criticism builds trust?” 38% said “fixing is publicy” and 32% said “an honest answer admitting a flaw.” When was the last time you saw a brand do either of those? Rarely is the right answer. Why? One word: Legal. Attorneys will usually fight tooth-and-nail to stop social media teams from either admitting fault or fixing a problem or error publicly. Both lead to lawsuits. And executives don’t love lawsuits. But yet, the data is right there. Screaming at us. People want honest and transparency from brands.

Now, you might be thinking—this is great data, but it’s focused on college-aged kids. We target an older demographic. And you may have a point. I doubt people older than me (55+) are checking comments religiously to validate purchases on social. HOWEVER, think about the B2B sales funnel. You don’t think people aren’t looking for validation when making a big-ticket B2B purchase? I mean, that’s been happening for YEARS! Asking colleagues if a certain firm does good work. Looking at the company’s LinkedIn page to see what they talk about. Sifting through the Glassdoor reviews. The B2B sales funnel is full of examples.

I guess my point is that this study points out a very real conversation many of us should probably be having. Are we focused too much on capturing attention? And not enough on validation? I think that’s a very interesting discussion that may drive some big social media marketing decisions as we start looking ahead at 2027.

About a month ago, I launched a new Substack called “NextUp”. It’s aimed at younger professionals (under 30) and my goal with it is simply to create a way for these young people to stay connected, learn from each other, hear about opportunities and hopefully make a few valuable connections along the way.

In each issue, I share advice—usually advice I wish I would have received when I was 20-30 years old. Here’s what I shared last week. And if you have a young person in your life you think might benefit by subscribing, I’d love if you shared the NextUp newsletter with them.

Next Up

Jobs. Connections. Career advice. For Young Professionals.

By Arik Hanson

“It took me almost 15 years in the work world to realize one thing I wish I had known a lot earlier: your most important professional asset isn’t your writing prowess, or your speaking skills or your ability to lead a team. Those all matter in your day-to-day work, but over time (actually, fairly quickly) those key skills become commoditized. At some point, almost everyone is a capable writer. Lots of people have solid presentation skills. And numerous folks can lead a team.

But far fewer have vast network of professional connections they can turn to for advice, resources and job help, when needed.

I’ve seen this first-hand over the last 18 years as a solo consultant. Virtually every lead I’ve ever got was due, in some way, to my network. And that’s no small thing. Essentially, that means someone I know said to someone else “hey, you should call Arik. He can help with that.” They’re vouching for me. Which is a very big deal and it’s built on years of trust.

I’ve been having coffee with people now for more than 20 years. Used to be 2-3 times a week, but these days it’s more like 1-2 times a week. Regardless, that’s a lot of in-person time with people. 2 times a week for 52 weeks is 104 meetings a year (and that’s a conservative estimate for many years). 20 years of networking leads to 2,000+ one-hour coffee meet-ups. And that doesn’t even count more informal networking—concerts, Wolves games, skiing, golf. Those all count, too, because many of those things I do with people I know through work. That’s a huge investment of my time. But, not only has it paid off with leads and work over those 20 years. It’s also lead to happiness and satisfaction. After all, some of those people I met for coffee initially turned into friends!

One quick story: I first met Kevin Hunt around 2013. I had wanted to meet him for a while since he worked in social at General Mills and knowing people who run social for the big companies in town is part of my business. After that first coffee meet-up, we started to talk about doing a podcast together. That led to 10 years of meeting once a month to do that podcast. That also led to a great friendship. We now share Timberwolves season tickets together. We’ve seen many concerts together. We watch Vikings games in the fall. Kevin has become a good friend. And I know he’s most likely to thank for at least two pieces of business over the years (referrals). So, he’s helped me professionally in many ways. But again, more importantly, he’s become a good friend.

And that’s what makes this whole networking thing so great—and completely worth your time. Yes, it will definitely help you professionally. Like I said, it will be, without question, your biggest professional asset over time. But it will also lead to you meeting interesting people and, most likely, a few good friends.

I’m now 53 (soon to be 54) and I can tell you without hesitating that you cannot put a price tag on that.”

You turned off the comments. You should have turned up the courage.

As someone who’s worked with a number of city governments and State of Minnesota agencies, I can tell you this is a big issue. And no, not all government agencies are turning off the comments. But the topic does come up often. And some definitely are.

I definitely understand the case for turning them off. Hate speech is prevalent. People get off topic. Government agencies often lack staff required to adequately manage social media pages. But I also tend to agree with the author—I think we need to keep the comments on and face the music, even if it is hard.

This particular section of the post I thought was the most poignant—and sums up a lot of the argument to keep the comments on:

“Social media was not invented so institutions could broadcast. That job was already taken. We had press releases. We had the six o’clock news. We had the podium and the prepared statement and the spokesperson who took no questions.

What social media offered, for the first time in the history of government communication, was the reply. Ordinary people could stand in the same virtual room as their police department and say something back. Ask a question. Push back. Say thank you. Say you’re wrong. The entire premise of these platforms, the reason they conquered the world, is access and connection. Not distribution. Conversation.

When a government agency joins a social platform and then disables the one feature that makes it social, it hasn’t modernized anything. It has dragged the old press release into a new building and hung a sign on it that says “community engagement.”

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Attennas are up for “AI slop”

In just the last week, two major social media platforms have taken a pretty big stance against “AI slop.” First, Substack announced its using Pangram to better detect AI slop on its platform.

Then, last week, LinkedIn unveiled a new “Seems like AI slop” button that will train LinkedIn’s AI to identify this slop better (funny, if you think about how LinkedIn was actively pushing users to use its tools to create content WITH AI not too long ago).

This is a useful reminder: Be careful how you’re using your AI tools. Use them to brainstorm. Use them to improve processes. Use them to collate data. There are so many use cases. But, it’s becoming more obvious every day that people (and now, as a results, the platforms) do not want you to use AI to create content.

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Two years ago, I don’t think I ever asked that question! But, a recent post and study by Pangram confirmed many of my suspicions claiming 41% of long-form content on LinkedIn is AI-generated. That’s 4 in 10 long-form posts you read on a daily basis. Wow. But also, not surprised.

All this AI-generated content in our feeds has clearly had an impact on us. How many times a day, when looking at your feeds, do YOU stop and ask yourself “wait, is that real of AI?” Like I said, for me, it’s happening constantly. And I know from looking at social with my kids, it’s happening with them, too.

It’s also starting to impact our work. I worked with an executive this spring on her LinkedIn presence and one thing we called out, talked about and practiced was making sure her content absolutely didn’t come across as AI. We’d write in long-form paragraphs. We’d embrace sentence structure that wasn’t perfect. We kinda sought out a little imperfection because it was proof the content wasn’t built by AI.

And I think that’s a glimpse into the very near future.

The trend isn’t necessarily “authenticity” anymore—it’s proof of that authenticity. Essentially, it all goes back to building trust. And that takes time and effort. It means sharing a lesson from a team meeting that happened yesterday. It means, from time to time, admitting a mistake. It means posting a hard-to-read, messy whiteboard instead of a polished graphic. It might even mean recording a quick video instead of publishing another perfectly formatted carousel( even though, I know, video can obviously be deepfaked via AI, too).

I know some people will come back and say “does it really matter if the content was generated by AI if you found it useful/helpful?” But I would say “yes”, at least for me. It definitely matters if the content is AI generated. Let me give you an example. I’m looking for a subcontractor to help with social media and I see two people: One is generating content consistently, but I can easily tell he’s using AI to do it. It’s good content, but he’s probably using AI to create it. The second person’s content feels unmistakably human. The words she uses are different. The structure is clearly not something AI would use. You can just tell. Would you want to hire the person who used AI to create all the content to market themselves or the person who shared real opinions and didn’t get any “help” from AI? That’s an easy decision for me.

So yeah, I think the proof piece is going to matter. We’ve all heard about how we should be more “authentic” the last few years. But that suddenly feels like yesterday’s advice. Tomorrow’s big challenge is going to be proving that authenticity. Because in a feed increasingly filled with AI-generated content (Pangram’s data is proof), people won’t automatically assume there’s a human behind the words anymore. They’ll be looking for proof.

Typically, I'm perfectly happy if summer is a little slower as a solo consultant.
Because, you know, GOLF!

But this summer has been anything but slow. Over the last few weeks, I've started work with four new clients:

* Essentia Health — social media strategy and content support
* Hunt Electric — social media audit and strategy
* Snap Fitness — employee creator program development
* Patterson Dental — social media strategy and recruiting support

Essentia Health and Patterson Dental are both boomerang clients--love that! There's no better compliment than having a client come back. I met my client at Snap Fitness during final student presentations at St. Thomas this spring and then again at my first SOCIAL//IRL workshop in June. And my contact at Hunt Electric is someone I got to know after a Timberwolves game last spring.

Now, I just need to figure out how my golf game figures into all this... 🤣

The pendulum is swinging back to real life

Admittedly, I’ve never been the bigger Gary V fan. However, lately, some of his LinkedIn content has been pretty intriguing—like his most recent post talking about the pushback to IRL events/stuff. This is a trend I highlighted earlier this year in my social media trends prezo, so I tend to agree with Gary here.

More specifically, what I find interesting here is that people aren’t spending a lot less time on social, but they are spending a lot more time with IRL activities like concerts and run clubs. I think about what Isabelle Olson is building (or really, HAS built) locally with her Sunday Morning Club. IRL experiences supported and promoted via social. Or, the example I used in my deck earlier this year: the All-American Rejects doing house party concerts (AWESOME IRL experience!) and promoting those via social (it was the ONLY way to find out about them!).

I don’t see this slowing down anytime soon. People continue to gravitate toward IRL experiences—but, they’re still also spending time on their phones. It’s both. And you have to account for both, and how they interact, when you’re planning your social media marketing campaigns now.

One of the questions I get asked most about short-form video is surprisingly difficult to answer: "What's the industry benchmark for a good average watch time?"

For the last year or so, average watch time has become my go-to video metric. As engagement rates become less useful (wrote about this Monday), I'm paying much closer attention to how long people actually watch the videos we create and share.

But most conversations eventually leads to the same question: "What's the industry benchmark?" And to be completely honest, I haven't found data I completely trust.

I've seen reports suggesting a good average watch time is 50% of a video's length. That seems realistic if your videos are 10–15 seconds long (which, they probably should be in 2026). But if you're publishing 60-second videos (which many brands still are), an average watch time of 30 seconds feels *really* high.

Across the client work I've done over the last few years, my experience has been different. Most short-form videos seem to fall somewhere around 4–8 seconds of average watch time (no matter the length). Getting consistently into the 10–15 second range has felt like a meaningful stretch goal for many brands.

That's not industry research—just what I've observed working with clients.
So I'm curious... Have you found any credible benchmark data for average watch time? Or are you developing your own internal benchmarks based on your own content performance?

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At that time, it made perfect sense. People were primarily seeing content from friends, family and brands they had chosen to follow. Facebook feeds were full of conversations and Twitter felt like one giant discussion thread (remember THAT? Wonderful.). If people were commenting and sharing your content, it usually meant you had struck a chord.

But in 2026, I’m starting to wonder if engagement deserves the same place on our monthly and quarterly dashboards. Not because it isn’t valuable, but because the way people use social media has fundamentally changed.

Over the last few months, I’ve had several conversations with clients about measurement. Almost every conversation eventually circles back to engagement.

My response has been the same each time: I think we’re putting too much weight on it. Three major landscape changes have pushed us here.

1 - Video has become the dominant format.

Video encourages viewing far more than commenting. Most people scroll, watch for a few seconds, and move on. They may remember what they watched and may even search for the brand later. But they often don’t engage publicly.

2 - The interest graph has replaced the social graph.

Our feeds are no longer built around the people we know. They’re built around what algorithms think we’ll watch. We all know this, of course. As a result, we’re consuming far more content from complete strangers than from people we’ve actually chosen to follow.

3 - Trust has eroded.

This, to me, is THE story. Recently I read an article describing someone’s strategy for navigating today’s feeds:

“I’d hold my hand over the screen, covering everything except the name of the person or group that posted. If it wasn’t from a real human connection, I kept scrolling.”

Doesn’t that feel familiar? It does for me. Much of my own feed is filled with creators I’ve never heard of, recycled clips, anonymous accounts, AI-generated posts and content I definitely don’t trust.

Of course, some of it is entertaining. I do laugh a lot while watching Insta these days. Some of it is even useful (I hear about concerts and events this way, often). But a surprising amount of it feels disposable. And I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this way.

So, if people trust less, they engage less, right? That’s the discussion. When we become skeptical of what we’re seeing, we’re less likely to publicly associate ourselves with it. That doesn’t necessarily mean we aren’t consuming content. But it does mean we’re becoming much more selective about what we react to.

And if that’s true, engagement starts becoming a less reliable proxy for influence. A post that generates relatively few comments may still shape perception, build awareness or influence a future purchase. Meanwhile, a post with hundreds of comments may simply have sparked an argument. Those aren’t the same thing—and we see them both ALL the time.

So, the big question right now: What should we measure instead?

I don’t think we abandon engagement altogether. But I do think it should become a smaller piece of the measurement puzzle. Increasingly, I’m asking the following questions:

• Did people actually watch our videos? For how long?

• Did they search for us afterward?

• Did they subscribe?

• Did executives create meaningful conversations? Who commented?

Those feel like healthier indicators than simply chasing likes, comments and shares. Because the landscape has changed. And now our KPIs should change with it. The way we discover content has changed. The way we interact with content has changed. And probably most importantly, the way we decide what deserves our trust has changed.

If we’re still measuring success the same way we did ten years ago, we may be optimizing for behaviors that are becoming less common.

If there’s one trend I continue to see in 2026, it’s this: More companies want their executives to be active on LinkedIn.

We’ve seen a big uptick in executive activity since COVID, but even now, six years later, demand continues to grow. I regularly hear from PR and communications teams asking the same question: “Can you help one of our executives become more active on LinkedIn?”

Just last week, the topic came up multiple times in one of the two mastermind groups I run. At the same time, I’m continuing to get inquiries from PR and communications teams asking if I can help support one of their executives on LinkedIn. And, of course, we’re all seeing more executive content in our feeds every day.

In fact, I point to McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski as one of the biggest examples of just how important these profiles have become. If executive LinkedIn profiles weren’t such a big deal, McDonald’s probably wouldn’t have found itself in an almost-crisis situation earlier this year when Chris posted about testing one of the chain’s new burgers. Whether you agreed with the reaction or not, it was a reminder that executive LinkedIn posts can quickly become news.

Executive LinkedIn profiles aren’t just “nice to have” anymore. For many organizations, they’re becoming an important communications channel. The challenge isn’t convincing executives to participate. It’s creating a system they can actually sustain month after month.

What are the best ways to go about doing that? Here are a few simple ideas that have worked well for my clients:

1. Keep the posting cadence consistent—but minimal.

I always recommend starting with one post per month. Just one. But one post EVERY month. Once that becomes a habit, work up to two to four posts per month if it makes sense. Most executives don’t need to post any more frequently than that.

2. Focus on simple, repeatable content buckets.

I usually start with three: events, employees and major company news.

Summarize an event or site visit. Shine a spotlight on an employee or colleague doing great work. Share perspective on an important company announcement. Most executives won’t need much more than those three buckets to maintain a valuable presence.

3. Encourage your executive to spend five minutes a day commenting.

That’s it—five minutes. Even the busiest executives can find five minutes.

Show them how to find posts from employees, company leaders and the brand itself. Those small interactions add up over time, and people absolutely notice.

I always think about former H&R Block CEO Jeff Jones. He routinely commented on employee posts, and people noticed. Week after week, those small interactions added up. I have to imagine that shaped how employees perceived him as a leader.

The companies seeing the most success with executive LinkedIn programs aren’t asking their leaders to become influencers. They’re simply making it easy for them to consistently show up.

Social media trends for Q2

Love Rachel Karten’s quarterly trend reports. My only critique would be they tend to lean fairly retail/B2C. That said, I still always walk away with insights and ideas I hadn’t considered before. This quarter, here’s what stood out to me:

• The “Kalshi Hell” item is interesting. Yes, it has been interesting to watch some of these bigger brands flood the zoon and completely dominate the conversation on social (without disclosing in some cases).

• Social AEO. Sounds like more social teams are getting pulled into this discussion, which makes sense. I do like hearing that marketing, PR, social and even search teams are getting together to discuss this issue right now. Collaboration FTW!

• Burner accounts. This is one of those “trends” that feels very consumery, but also super interesting! I don’t see a lot of my B2B clients adopting these stunt or “burner” social accounts anytime soon, but it’s intriguing what more consumer brands are doing with this approach.

What stood out to you? Full report here. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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I'm launching a new off-shoot of SOCIAL//IRL this fall called SOCIAL//IRL Labs. Instead of an all-day workshop (which is what the original SOCIAL//IRL was in early June), these would be smaller, highly interactive sessions (2 hours) where we'd roll up our sleeves and work through one topic together.

Much like the first event, there won't be a keynote. There won't be a 145-slide presentation. Instead there will be practical ideas, discussions with peers, and hands-on exercises you can immediately apply when you're back at work the next day.

So, if you could attend ONE lab, which topic below would you choose?

Now, some of that has been needed and some of that is critical to our work as social media marketers. But over the years we’ve gone way too far in making processes where processes aren’t always needed. In othe cases, we’ve just over-processized things that probably need a little less process. Like the modern day social media content calendar.

Do we need content calendars to plan our work? Absolutely. But do we need to plan and map out every piece of content months in advance? No, we don’t. Yet this is now the industry standard. If you’re not planning content out a minimum of one month in advance you’re seen as a team that’s not adhering to “industry best practices.”

But let’s take a closer look at the modern day social media content calendar, shall we? How are we using these tools and what’s our process like to plan out content for social media channels in 2026?

For starters, many conversations within teams begin with “what do we want to talk about?” Isn’t that right? What do WE, the brand, want to say to the customer and potential customers who follow us? Very few of us ask the question: “what do our customers want to hear about?” which is the much more important question to be asking. No, the content calendar has always been about us. And that’s where things start to go wrong.

You also probably have at least a few posts you schedule every month that are promotional in nature. These are the posts that promote your products and services. We all use them. We try to make it seem like they’re not ads. We try to get creative. But these are still ads. Obviously, this is more of us talking about our stuff to customers.

And finally, by its very nature, the content calendar usually involves scheduled content. It essentially forces us to create and share content for the sake of creating and sharing content because, well, we need to get something up on social media! How many times have you had this conversation: “We only have 8 posts for August. We need a few more to round out the month. What else can we talk about?” I know I’ve done that over last the number of years.

Do you see the challenges here? What started with good intentions (we need a way to organize our content) has become something entirely different in 2026. We’re not in tune with our audiences anymore. We’re not listening. Instead, we’re almost solely focused on ourselves. And that’s the big problem. And it’s probably time we changed that.

So what if the content calendar evolved? I don’t think we’re getting away from the traditional content calendar entirely. At least not for most brands. But, what if we just changed the formula a little?

For example, let’s say you were planning for 12 posts for your August content calendar for LinkedIn. Instead of asking “what do we want to talk about in August?” as I mentioned above, what if you broke your content out differently?

What if four of your posts for August were regularly scheduled, evergreen (even promotional) posts? This gets at what the brand wants and is mostly what we’re doing now.

Now, what if four other posts were focused on content that speaks directly to what customers are talking about? On LinkedIn this could include talking about case studies customers are talking about in your industry. Or, job search approaches people are discussing. Or maybe you study comment threads on creator posts in your sector to identify topics. Lots of options to uncover these topics to talk about here.

And finally, what if four other posts were just left open to create content that speaks to cultural moments that pop up organically? With one additional caveat: You don’t have to use all four of these posts. If something doesn’t pop up that you want to create content around, you don’t create any content. Simple as that. You could also throw your creator- or employee-driven content in this bucket. Feature an employee creator in your feed. Or work with an industry creator to develop content that speaks to your audience in a far less promotional way (as creators are wont to do).

It’s not a perfect solution. It’s not drastic. But it gets us out of the “what do we want to talk about this month?” discussion which is pretty tired at this point. It’s time for the modern day social media content calendar to evolve.

I first spoke at the Digital Marketing Summit in 2021—right after COVID. I remember it was the first big event that really came back in a somewhat meaningful way. Some people were still wearing masks. I remember attendance not nearly being what it was pre-pandemic. But, I also remember it was so great to be out and seeing other people again!

I’ve spoken at a few Digital Marketing Summit events since that and I’ll be speaking at the next one here in Minneapolis on August 12-13 on social media trends.

These Digital Marketing Summit events are good because they seem to attract a little different crowd. It’s not the usual people you might see at Social Media Breakfast or a MN PRSA event. It’s marketers I’ve never met. It’s digital folks that are new to me. And it’s even some different social media folks. I don’t know what it is, but each time I’ve attended or spoken at these events in the past it just seems like I meet a lot of new, interesting people.

If that’s not enough of a hard sell (lol), I think it’ll be pretty interesting to hear DoorDash’s Zaria Parvez speak after this whole T-Pain/World Cup stunt. Not sure she’ll talk about it, but she is also probably a top 5 voice in social media marketing, so I’m excited to meet her and hear what she has to say.

Hope to see you in a few weeks—you can register here and get $150 off with the code SPEAKER150.

The future of search might be AI—but should it be AI?

Brands are starting to do what brands typically do—game the system. Just read this 404 article that talks about how easy it is to insert short copy bursts into Reddit posts and comments and then see those brand messages pop up as gospel in LLM search results.

I often think about a quote from Jurassic Park when it comes to a lot of things that are now happening in our industry right now: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

That Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum) line feels especially relevant in today’s social media and AI landscape. There are approaches, like the one described in the article above, that brands can absolutely take. They will work (for now). They will achieve the necessary results. But the question is should you be employing these types of approaches?

Ethics matter. Obviously, not to everyone. But to myself and I would guess many of you reading this newsletter, ethics definitely matter. And when we’re making decisions about what kind of approaches to take with our digital and social media marketing activities, there needs to be a checkpoint where we ask each other “should we really be doing this.” It’s a checkpoint I wonder if the DoorDash people took when creating their recent T-Pain/World Cup campaign. And it’s a checkpoint we should all take when thinking about these AEO and GEO strategies that are resulting in crazy strategies like what you see here.

They know people are searching there (and have been for years). They know AI tools are increasingly referencing YouTube videos. And executives keep asking about it.

I think the increased citations from LLMs and AI tools is the biggest driver. But, it’s also part traditional search, part creator economy and part YouTube Shorts that is also driving all the interest.

And for those reasons, the interest is warranted. I believe YouTube does matter more than it did just a few years ago. But again, the question: “what should we do with YouTube in 2026?”

I’ve been thinking about a three-pronged approach:

1 - The Search Angle

This is probably the play for most companies given the lack of resources and time most social teams face. If most companies simply reviewed their existing videos and optimized the titles and descriptions of those videos, that would be a major upgrade. Of course, there’s much more than just that—but for most companies, that would be a great start, and that’d be where I’d start.

2 - The Repurposing Angle

This approach has been discussed ad naseum, but if you’re already creating good short-form video on Instagram or TikTok you can simply repurpose that content on YouTube as Shorts and again, that represents a significant upgrade.

But, if you have time, I wouldn’t stop there.

I would think about repackaging existing content differently. Maybe combining several YouTube Shorts into one longer explainer video. Or, maybe turn webinars into shorter clips for Shorts. Or, maybe take long-form podcasts and make clips for Shorts.

The larger strategy is pretty simple, but effective: Make those long-form assets work much, much harder.

3 - The Investment Angle

If you see more audience demand on YouTube, have an internal capability (someone has to have the time and ability to create these social-first videos) and data that proves YouTube adds real business value (can you justify putting a big resource against creating all these videos), you could consider investing in creating original YouTube content.

And yeah, that’s a lot of “ifs.” Which is why I don’t think most companies will get to this point. I’m usually not the consultant that recommends adding platforms. I’m usually the one recommending expanding ecosystems.

In other words, if YouTube becomes important for your business, don’t immediately double-down on creating more original video. Instead ask: What content already exists? What can be repackaged? What does our audience actually search for? And what can we realistically sustain? Those are the key questions I’d ask myself right now if I were getting questions about YouTube internally.

In fact, maybe you have a short checklist. Like “before we invest heavily in YouTube…”: Are we already producing video we can cut up into Shorts? Do we have someone who has the time and talent to create original content on YouTube? Can we publish consistently? What questions are customers searching? Can we measure success beyond just views?

If you can’t answer those questions, then I think you go with Angle 1 or 2 above.

I started a little experiment earlier this month.

As I wrapped up another semester as an adjunct at the University of St. Thomas last month, I found myself thinking about all the students I’ve had the opportunity to teach over the last eight years.

Many have graduated and have already had very successful starts to their careers. Others are still in school. Some are working in marketing roles. Others in communications, PR and social media. A few of these young people I still see regularly. Others I haven’t talked to in years.

But one thing I know for sure: this group is full of smart, talented, wonderful people.

At the same time, I spend most of my workdays talking with marketing and communications leaders, business owners, recruiters and hiring managers who are constantly looking for great young talent and always wondering what young people are thinking.

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized I could probably do a better job connecting those worlds. So earlier this month I started a new community called "Next Up."

My goal is pretty simple: create a way for former (and some current) students to stay connected, learn from each other, hear about opportunities and hopefully make a few valuable connections along the way.

Future editions of this Substack will include:

* Job and internship opportunities
* Networking and industry events
* Practical career advice and job search tips
* Young professional spotlights and news

I’d also love to bring people together a few times each year—some virtually and some in person. I’m thinking two virtual meetings and two in-person meetings (probably happy hour-type things; targeting July or August for our first one!).

For now, I'm just going to start it.

So, if you're a young professional (20-30?) or know a young professional who would benefit from this kind of thing, please consider sharing this link with them: https://nextupmn.substack.com/subscribe

Remember, most people are still lurking

I’ve talked about this a lot with clients and friends lately, but here’s more evidence (if we need it) to potentially move away from engagements as our leading social media metric. I had seen this Morning Consult report a while back, but noticed it again last week.

Notice the top two activities—both involve watching or viewing content passively. And it’s a BIG drop to the third activity (reacting to polls/stories) at just 47%. Translation: Most people are just watching Reels and Stories on Instagram, the most popular and effective brand social media channel (according to a recent Rachel Karten survey).

Of course, we know this. But I thought it was a nice reminder as you make your plans for the second half of 2026. Very few people are engaging with brand content on Instagram anymore—but people are watching! Adjust your goals and KPIs accordingly, if you can.

Today, however, that approach isn’t enough.

Your LinkedIn brand page is still important, but it’s no longer the center of your LinkedIn universe. Instead, it’s one part of what I call the LinkedIn Ecosystem—a network of voices working together to build visibility, credibility and engagement.

That ecosystem is made up of four key components:

1. Brand Voice (your company page)

2. Executive Voice (leaders and executives)

3. Employee Voice (employee creators and advocates)

4. Creator Voice (external LinkedIn creators)

Why does this big shift matter? Because LinkedIn has increasingly become a platform where people trust and engage with people—not brands.

This was a big topic of discussion during the SOCIAL//IRL workshop I led last week with 16 social media marketers. Based on the conversations we had throughout the day—and the feedback I heard afterward—it’s clear many organizations are actively rethinking how they approach LinkedIn for the second half of 2026.

Let’s look at each component.

1. Brand Voice

The company page definitely still matters. It’s where people go to learn more about your organization. It’s where many prospective employees, customers and partners get their first impression of your company. And it’s often the central hub for your LinkedIn presence (kinda like your web site).

But it’s no longer the primary driver of visibility for most organizations. Increasingly, I believe brand pages should focus on two areas:

• Culture and people stories (employee recognition, community involvement, awards, etc.)

• Major company news and brand moments (significant company milestones, new exec hires, etc.)

The brand page still plays a critical role. It just doesn’t need to carry the entire burden of your LinkedIn strategy anymore.

2. Executive Voice

This is where many companies still have tremendous opportunity. For most midsized and large organizations, I believe there should be at least three to five executives actively participating on LinkedIn.

And by “actively participating,” I don’t mean posting every day. I mean maintaining a modern profile and publishing thoughtful content at least once or twice per month. That’s a realistic expectation for most leadership teams.

Why is this important? Because executives often have the ability to reach more people (and build more trust) than the corporate brand page itself. People want to hear from leaders. They want that leadership perspective. And they want to understand what executives are thinking about and where the company is headed.

Organizations that invest in executive visibility are often rewarded with stronger reach, engagement and credibility.

3. Employee Voice

If there’s one area I expect to see significant growth over the next few years, it’s employee creator programs. It is, in my view, the biggest opportunity for companies right now.

I helped one organization launch an employee creator program last year and will likely be working with one or two additional companies this summer to do the same.

The interest is growing quickly. The challenge? There aren’t many established playbooks yet. If you’re considering building an employee creator program, I’d suggest starting with three key principles:

First, start small. A pilot group of even just five to ten employees is more than enough to begin.

Second, provide ongoing support. Training, content prompts, coaching and encouragement are key. Programs will fail not because employees aren’t interested, but because they aren’t supported consistently.

Third, create practical guidelines and governance. Establish expectations, clarify legal considerations and make sure employees understand both the opportunities and responsibilities that come with representing the organization online.

The companies that figure this out early will have a significant advantage.

4. Creator Voice

The final component is one many marketers are talking about, but not acting on…yet: LinkedIn creators. While still emerging, this is an area worth watching closely.

One example I often point to is 3M (client). Over the last number of years, they’ve partnered with creators, like 13-year-old Taylen Biggs, to co-create content on LinkedIn. What’s particularly interesting is that many of those creators didn’t build their audiences primarily on LinkedIn. They built them on Instagram and TikTok. 3M simply found ways to collaborate with them on LinkedIn content. It’s a smart approach and one I suspect other companies will begin testing.

LinkedIn itself is investing heavily in this area through initiatives like its Creator Marketplace, another signal that the platform sees creator partnerships as an important part of its future.

I don’t expect every company to jump into creator partnerships immediately. But I do expect more organizations to begin exploring the opportunity over the next 12 to 18 months.

The Bigger Opportunity

For years, many social media teams have treated LinkedIn as a brand page strategy. Increasingly, the organizations seeing the most success are treating LinkedIn as an ecosystem strategy.

Because activating voices around your brand page is now the key. The brands creating the most impact on LinkedIn aren’t relying on a single voice. They’re now building an ecosystem.

I’ve been publishing some version of this newsletter for 14 years now.

Most of you probably don’t remember, but it originally started as “The HAPPO Report.” HAPPO stood for “Help a PR Pro Out,” a project I started with Valerie Simon and a group of communications professionals from around the country during the post-recession years. Back then, the goal was simple: help people find opportunities and support one another in a tough job market.

Over time, the newsletter evolved. It became more focused on my work, my observations and the social media and communications industry. Eventually it moved from Mailchimp to Substack and became what you’re reading today.

Now I think it’s time for another evolution.

The truth is, there are already plenty of smart people curating links and social media news each week. People like and do that exceptionally well. Rather than compete there, I want to focus more on where I can offer a unique perspective: the intersection of social media, communications and the work happening inside midsized and large organizations.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be working with my intern, Nora Boehle, to rethink this newsletter—from the name and format to the types of content I publish. My goal is simple: make this newsletter more useful, more distinctive and more valuable for you.

I’ll share more as we go. For now, I’ll see you back here next week.

Are you writing for the robots first, too?

Yep, this chart below surprised me.

According to recent research, marketers at large companies are increasingly creating content with search engines and LLMs in mind—sometimes even more than the people they’re ultimately trying to reach!

On one hand, this makes perfect sense. The search landscape has changed dramatically over the last few years. What used to be mostly about Google is now a three-headed monster:

• Traditional search (Google)

• Social search (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok)

• AI search (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and others)

If your brand isn’t showing up in those environments, you’re missing opportunities.

And let’s just be completely honest here: organic social media has become much, much harder. Reach continues to decline. Driving traffic from social platforms to corporate websites has become increasingly difficult. Meanwhile, more people are using AI tools to answer questions that previously would’ve started with a Google search.

Given all that, it’s not surprising that marketers are paying more attention to search and LLM visibility. What surprised me was the size of the gap. Because while I definitely think marketers need to consider search and AI when creating content in 2026, I’m not convinced they should become the primary audience.

Customers still buy products. Employees still choose employers. Key stakeholders still form opinions. Humans still make decisions. Search engines and LLMs may help people find your content. But they aren’t the ones consuming it, sharing it or acting on it.

The best content strategy probably isn’t choosing between people and machines (not saying that’s what this chart is saying, but…). It’s creating content that’s useful enough for humans that search engines and LLMs want to surface it in the first place.

That’s a subtle difference—but an important one. Because if we’re not careful, it’s easy to spend so much time optimizing for the robots that we forget who we’re actually trying to reach.

But, the most interesting piece of the day—by far—was the discussions. I set the training up that way so that it wasn’t a ton of me talking AT people, but instead more real-life conversations and hands-on exercises. And I thought that worked really well. And what I heard from attendees was that a lot of them are facing the same, or at the very least similar, challenges.

Here were five themes I heard from the group—do any of these sound familiar?

“What do I do when I can’t drive traffic from social to my web site anymore?”

Obviously, social referral traffic has dried up for brands. And when I say “dried up” I mean social is probably driving less than 2% of all traffic to your web site. At least that’s what I’ve seen in the 30+ audits I’ve completed over the last 5-6 years. So what do we do when we can’t drive traffic to our blog posts or podcasts from social media? That was a big topic and one almost everyone is dealing with.

“Our LinkedIn brand page is actually the smallest piece of our LinkedIn ecosystem now.”

I actually built a full hour-plus session around this topic because I believe it’s so important right now. Yes, you still need a brand page. And we talked about the kinds of content to post to that brand page and the frequency at which you should post. But we also talked, at length, about the other three pillars of your LinkedIn ecosystem: Leaders, employees and creators. Those three areas are all playing a much bigger role in your LinkedIn success than your page is right now. And that’s a big shift. I’m actually thinking about another SOCIAL//IRL event just around this topic for the fall (maybe a 2-3 hour training?).

“How do we manage all these channels with the limited resources we have?”

Not surprisingly, this was a huge challenge for almost everyone in the room. And it’s a challenge I hear routinely come up in the two Mastermind groups I manage, too. Social media teams are already small, and now with cuts, they’re getting smaller. Budgets are being cut, too. Meanwhile, our executive partners are asking for bigger results. They’re asking when we’re going to start that TikTok channel. Or, what our Reddit strategy is. We talked a lot about prioritization during SOCIAL//IRL and how it’s OK to pause or stop certain channels if they’re not performing or you think your audience is no longer spending time there. This was probably one of the topics we talked more about.

“How do I manage this shift from traditional search to traditional search+social search+AI discovery?”

A huge—and rapidly evolving—issue that came up in a few conversations during the day. Sadly, we didn’t cover this all that much—we only had 8 hours! But, looking back now, I probably should have built at least a half hour into the day to talk about this more. Part of the challenge here is that these three areas above often live with different teams. AI is sometimes owned by comms, but other times owned by IT. Or innovation. Traditional search often sits in marketing, and social search is obviously owned by the social team. Getting all those teams on the same page is going to be a big lift for a lot of midsized to large brands.

“How do I create content that drives meaningful actions (engagement, views, etc.)?”

Another prominent topic throughout the day—but one we did cover fairly extensively with multiple writing exercises. It’s easy to say, simply “create more engaging content.” It’s much, much, much tougher to do that. So, we practiced the art of writing hooks. We tried rewriting posts in a bolder way. And we experimenting with the art of the “cold open.” Throughout all these exercises, one thing I heard loud-and-clear from attendees was this: It just take a few minutes to brainstorm a better idea. Often, I think many of us (me included!) get caught up in our day-to-day processes of creating content. What did we do last year? Copy and paste. You know the drill. But, if we just took 20-30 minutes to brainstorm new hooks and new ideas, we’d probably all be very surprised with what we’d come up with. That was definitely the sense I got from the group.

So SOCIAL//IRL 1.0 is in the books, and I’m already hard at work mapping out what SOCIAL//IRL 2.0 looks like. I’m thinking about offering the full-day workshops (although shrinking the day a bit) 2-3 times per year and also offering 2-3 hour workshops on niche topics like the LinkedIn ecosystem. I’m thinking about ways to keep the cohorts that go through these trainings together. And I’m thinking about how these workshops work with the other areas of my business like my Mastermind groups and this Substack.

For the last 8+ years I’ve been running a Mastermind group made up of senior-level communicators at the biggest and most recognized companies in town—Toro, Life Time, U of M and Marvin among others. A few years later, I started another Mastermind group comprised of social media leads at many of those same companies.

We meet once a month—often virtual—to talk best practices, trends and share case studies. And a few times a year, we get together in person. Last week was one of those times as members from both groups attended a St. Paul Saints game! And thanks to social media mastermind group member, Elizabeth Gaule, we watched the game from the wonderful Securian suite.

Other things I have coming up this summer that I’m excited about:

• A number of new potential client engagements including one with a major Minnesota health care organization, a national electrical design, build, and maintenance contractor and a dental product and equipment distributor.

• Starting work, officially, with Nora Boehle, today! Very excited to see what she will bring to the table, as well as opportunities I can provide to her that will enhance her chances of ultimately finding a full-time position.

• Speaking at the Digital Marketing Summit in mid-August on social media trends—one of my favorite topics. Haven’t been to DM for a couple years, so excited to get back!

• Exploring new opportunities in my role between young professionals and students and the business world. I know there’s something there—just not quite sure what it looks like yet. Is it an “Emerging Talent Network” made up of current students or recent grads? Or maybe a “Student Advisory Group” that gives companies direct access into how Gen Z feels about certain topics and marketing approaches? Or (and this is probably the one I like most), what about a “Creator Fellowship” made up of a small cohort of students/recent grads who help with client work, create content, attend events with me, network and learn the consulting world. Lots of ideas!

Do leader LinkedIn profiles really matter? We’re about to find out thanks to Target.

Before the pandemic (you know, like 100 years ago), I was one of those people who was trying to convince executives to be more active on LinkedIn. It was a lonely endeavor. I got a ton of pushback. There weren’t a ton of examples of leaders doing a great job on LinkedIn. Believe me, I looked—a lot. In fact, I remember looking at Target’s exec team to see who was out there. Surprisingly, I remember only seeing one key exec with any kind of meaningful profile: Laysha Ward.

Brian Cornell, who was CEO at the time: No profile at all. John Mulligan, former CFO an COO, had a profile with almost zero activity. Mark Tritton, chief merchandising officer—again, almost no activity. Mike McNamara, CIO—nothing. I remember saying in multiple prezos how Laysha Ward was effectively Target’s chief voice on LinkedIn. And I always wondered if that was purposeful, or if it was just that Laysha was the only one willing to put herself out there.

Recently, I got curious about Target again, so I looked up the exec team, because I knew it would largely be a whole new group of people given what’s been happening with Target over the last couple years. And man, how things have changed!

Starting right at the top, New CEO, Michael Fiddelke not only has a profile (46,000+ followers) he’s also pretty active averaging about a post a week.

Chief Stores Officer, Adrienne Costanzo (7,691 followers) averaging about one post a week, too (and multiple reposts).

Chief Community and Stakeholder Engagement Officer, Kiera Fernandez has 5,800+ followers and is posting multiple times each week

CHRO, Melissa Kramer has 13,000+ followers and is posting sporadically.

Chief Operating Officer, Lisa Roath has 12,000+ followers and is posting sporadically.

Chief Merchandising Officer, Cara Sylvester has almost 10,000 followers and seems to be posting almost weekly.

Chief Digital and Revenue Officer, Sarah Travis, has 8,000+ followers and is posting once a month.

And Chief Information and Product Officer, Prat Vemana has 19,000+ followers and is posting weekly.

To recap, almost the entire Target executive team is now active on LinkedIn—a complete flip from where this team was at 6+ years ago when exactly one person was active. Wow.

The big question now: Will this all make a difference for the big red bullseye? We’re about to find out! But I would argue a hard “yes” for a few big reasons:

• It should definitely help recruiting. One of the things Target is known for is being extremely insular. You don’t see Target people speaking at industry events all that often (we could never get a Target rep to speak when I was on the boards at PRSA and MIMA). You don’t see them out actively networking that often. I know that’s a blanket statement, but I’ve found it to be largely true. And in the 2010s, when very few Target leaders were active on LinkedIn, it was hard to know what it was like to actually work there other than through good old-fashioned word-of-mouth. With all these execs out there much more now, that should change. And it will be interesting to see how that shapes the viewpoints of potential employees.

• It should help (slowly) repair Target’s reputation. Target’s not in a great place right now from a reputation standpoint—especially here at home in Minnesota. But, I do think these execs have a fantastic opportunity to start reshaping and telling the Target story—again, something no one was doing before. The only leader I can ever remember really out there telling the Target story was Jeff Jones when he was CMO (and he brought that LinkedIn visibility he built then to H&R Block where he was CEO where I’m sure it was a huge asset).

• It should help with media and AI visibility, too. Now, Target probably doesn’t need a ton of help on the media side, but we know reporters are scouring LinkedIn for tips and leads for stories. This is another way Target can get visibility with media and hopefully, encourage them to write about them. What’s more, we know AI is grabbing info from LinkedIn—increasingly so lately, it seems. So, these leader profiles are going to be critical from that perspective, too.

So yeah, I do think these leaders being more active on LinkedIn is going to pay off for Target. It might take a while to show results, but I do think there’s tremendous value in that leader visibility for Target right now—especially given the reputation hole they are digging themselves out of right now. Here’s to hoping we have a wonderful LinkedIn leader case study on our hands a couple years from now!

And while there’s truth to those concerns, no doubt, I keep finding myself thinking the same thing: We’ve been here before. Maybe not exactly here. Every job market is different. But difficult job markets definitely aren’t new.

In 1996, when I graduated from college (wow, why did I say that out loud?!?!) and entered the workforce, jobs weren’t exactly just being handed out. I remember applying for position after position and hearing absolutely nothing back. I ended up taking two unpaid internships just to get my foot in the door.

Fast forward to 2009. The economy was in rough shape, if you’ll remember. Many young professionals couldn’t find work and companies froze hiring. Layoffs were again, fairly common.

But people adapted. And they got creative.

I remember one young woman creating a PowerPoint presentation comparing herself to Disney princesses and explaining which traits she shared with each character. It sounds kinda lame now, but at the time it was incredibly memorable. The presentation spread across the then-emerging social web because it was different. People found ways to stand out.

And that’s exactly what I think we’ll see happen again now.

A recent Guardian article highlighted how Gen Z job seekers are increasingly turning to social media and unconventional tactics to get noticed. Some are creating content on Insta and TikTok. Others are building personal brands on LinkedIn. Many are finding ways to showcase their work publicly rather than waiting for recruiters to discover them. That doesn’t surprise me at all.

In fact, the tougher the market becomes, the more creative people seem to get.

And before we completely buy into the narrative that young people are doomed, it’s worth remembering that many are also finding success right now. Last month, I invited four former students into my University of St. Thomas class as guest evaluators. One had just accepted a larger role at Renewal by Andersen after spending a number of years at Andersen Corp. Another is working as a media analyst at Ovative. Another is building a career in sales with Learfield Sports. Another works in sales with a midsized agency and recently told me she and her husband bought a house!

Are all young people having that experience? Of course not. But these stories matter because they remind us that opportunities do still exist. They just might be harder to find right now.

Over the last year, I’ve also stumbled into a new niche helping clients identify, hire and train social media talent. It’s been fascinating because I’ve had a front-row seat to both sides of this tougher market. Here’s what I’ve noticed.

First, even senior-level social media roles increasingly require hands-on execution. Teams are lean. Organizations aren’t looking for strategists who only build PowerPoints. They want people who can think strategically and actually do the work.

Second, candidates who make their work easy to find have a real advantage. Portfolios and real-life examples matter. Hiring managers, increasingly, want proof.

And third, networking still works. Not because attending an event automatically gets you a job. But because people notice the professionals who consistently show up, contribute ideas and stay engaged in their communities.

The irony is that many people wait until they need a job to start networking. By then, it’s often too late. The strongest candidates are usually building relationships long before they need them.

So yes, the job market is difficult. But difficult doesn’t mean impossible. We’ve seen tough markets before, and we’ll definitely see them again. The people who tend to emerge and perservere through these difficult markets aren’t always the smartest or the most experienced. They’re usually the people who are well networked and know how to adapt.

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from teaching college students over the last eight years, it’s this: Don’t underestimate this generation’s ability to figure things out. Believe me—they’re a lot more creative than many people give them credit for.

I haven’t hired an intern in 15 years. In fact, over 18+ years as a consultant, I’ve had exactly one intern—and she was absolutely wonderful. But after that experience, I never continued the program for one big reason: my mindset around it wasn’t quite right.

At the time, I was prioritizing speed, client work and building the business. And honestly, some of that made sense—I was trying to grow quickly and convinced myself I didn’t have the time or space to really mentor and coach someone early in their career.

But over the years, that mentality has shifted. Big time. Mentoring, coaching and teaching are now a core part of not only my business, but who I am. Coaching and training have become a much bigger part of my consulting work the last few years. I’ve now been teaching at the University of St. Thomas for eight years. And last month, I started serving on the marketing committee at Bolder Options (an org whose sole mission is to help young people).

I’m also super excited to welcome Nora Boehle as the new Social Media Intern for Arik Hanson Social Media this summer!

I spent a couple weeks in early May talking with a number of incredibly impressive candidates this spring (including a few Tommies), but Nora stood out because of her blend of: Short-form video instincts; Content creation experience; Strategic thinking; Real-world experience (including internships with Mall of America, the St. Thomas Office of Study Abroad, and Second Harvest Heartland); And maybe most of all, her initiative and can-do attitude, which came through loud and clear in our conversations.

Not surprisingly, this won’t be a “traditional” internship. Nora will be jumping directly into real client work involving brands like Dairy Queen and Essentia Health, helping with: Social content creation; Short-form video; Reporting and analytics; LinkedIn strategy; And probably a few things neither of us can predict yet!

I’m especially excited because this will absolutely be a two-way learning experience. I’ll hopefully be able to share a few things I’ve learned after 18+ years in social media and 30 years in marketing/communications—and I also fully expect Nora to push my own thinking, especially around content and video.

Really excited to get started next week!

Social insights fail to reach decision-makers: Here’s what the numbers say

Key quote: “Using social media as a data collection tool, or social intelligence, is considered an important factor for growth by 93% of industry professionals, but just 36% use it regularly to inform business decisions outside of marketing.”

Another one: “33% of survey respondents saying their organization didn’t react to or completely missed cultural shifts in the past 12-24 months due to the misuse of consumer insights.”

And finally: “Additionally, 23% of respondents say social media is viewed by their organization as a communications channel, not a data collection tool.”

These aren’t great stats, but they’re also not super surprising. Not for anyone that’s worked for a midsized or large company in social media marketing. Those are the companies I’ve been working with for 18+ years now and these stats, sadly, make sense to me.

Why? Two big reasons. First, as that last quote alluded to, social media is largely seen as a marketing and communications tool—not an intelligence tool. Big distinction. Plus, social media teams are stretched really thin right now—social intelligence gathering and sharing usually falls toward the bottom of the task list.

Second, some of this has to do with data analysis. Most social media marketers I know are creatives, writers and artists—they’re not analysts. Another big distinction. That means analyst work like this? Those same people who are already stretched are going to push it down the priority list because it’s work they don’t necessarily enjoy doing.

Social intelligence continues to be a huge opportunity for organizations—I’m just not sure most teams are set up to take advantage right now.

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Two days from today 17 people will be joining me in this room to talk about:

• What’s actually working in social media right now

• How AI is changing search and content discovery

• Building better content (with plenty of hands-on exercises)

• The new LinkedIn ecosystem

• Measurement and reporting

• And a whole lot more

It will also be a chance to connect with other social media and communications professionals who are navigating many of the same challenges you are.

Just a few spots remain if you’re a last-minute decision-maker. You can register here.

Hope to see you Wednesday!

I first heard about Little Joy in Rachel Karten’s Link in Bio Subtack—essentially how they were using short-form video to build episodic series’. But, the lesson I take away from Little Joy’s success isn’t so much that (although they are great at that), but it’s how much value they wring out of a very, very small team (and I would venture to guess a very limited budget).

I’m guessing, but Little Joy probably employs somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-15 people. And, I would also guess most (if not all) of those employees’ jobs revolve around making coffee and serving it to their customers. Translation: no full-time people devoted to marketing or social media.

Now, from this recent Star Tribune article, we do know the owner, Cody Larson, has a creative flair and an interest in videography. He’s the engine behind the deep dive on the video front. And, Little Joy manager, Serena Walker, is the on-air talent. So, they do have some advantages, but I would argue today’s social media marketing team demands similar skill sets. You DEFINITELY need some adept at short-form video production and editing. And, for many brands, you also need someone (or multiple someone’s) willing to go on camera.

Those are just table stakes for successful social media marketing in 2026. Especially in the retail space.

But, it’s the subtle and not-as-obvious-as-you-might-think approaches Little Joy has taken recently that have led to its huge success.

For starters, they’ve created a content studio. Now, granted, that content studio doubles as a coffee shop. But Larson has also bought an SLR camera and lights and tripods to build his in-house studio. This might seem obvious, and we have seen some brands start to adopt this approach, but having that studio is almost a must for many brands now. Having “a place” where you can shoot at least some of your content in a semi-controlled environment is important. And if Little Joy can make it happen, your company can, too.

Second, Little Joy is quick to experiment and pivot. In the Strib and Link in Bio articles Larson talks about his willingness to try new things and not get stuck on an idea if it isn’t working. Just recently, when it’s now-famous Raspberry Danish Latte took off, Larson decided to create a video talking about how they not only gave away the recipe to anyone who wanted it, but that they were also going to start a map and pin every coffee shop AROUND THE WORLD who used the recipe.

Which leads me to my third point. Little Joy has capitalized on a central belief I’ve long had that is key to social media success: the notion of giving away content vs. “gating” it. In this case, “giving away content” was Little Joy giving away its recipe to the Raspberry Danish Latte. It’s their best-selling drink and they just gave away the recipe to anyone who wanted it. What’s more, Larson designed an entire content series around “Should you buy it at Little Joy or should you make it at home?” That’s an interesting idea for a coffee shop, right? Isn’t the whole point to get people to COME TO THE COFFEE SHOP and buy a drink? Yet here is Little Joy telling people they can make some of their drinks at home and it’s a better deal. It’s all about trust—and Little Joy is building it in droves right now. And it’s a big part of their success.

Real-world experience. It’s something I try to bring to the classroom as much as possible each spring at University of St. Thomas. One of the biggest ways I do that: Students spend the whole semester building a full social media marketing plan for an actual client—and then present it during the final week of class just like an agency would.

That’s exactly what six teams of students did last week as they presented their recommendations to Anytime Fitness and Snap Fitness and their clients Giuliana Clanin, Suzanne Haag and Kate Conroy.

This project started back in February. They met the client. Asked questions. Conducted social listening and research. Built goals and strategies (usually the hardest part!). Developed tactics (including some fun videos!). And ultimately created a deck they could confidently present to the client (and use as a key portfolio piece AND hopefully share here on LinkedIn!). We even spent time talking about the presentation itself—body language, storytelling, pacing, slide design and how to communicate ideas clearly and confidently.

It’s not easy getting up in front of 24 classmates to present your ideas. Then you add: real clients, former Tommies serving as guest evaluators (thanks Thomas Aragon-Menzel, Sylvia Revoir, Paige Peplinski and Brynn Wilson), and a semester’s worth of work on the line.

But the students handled it with confidence, creativity and professionalism. And I couldn't be more proud. One of my favorite parts of teaching each year is watching students grow into their confidence over the course of a semester. A lot of that happened last week.

Social search, traditional search and AI aren’t competing—they’re co-existing

I’ve written about this before, but there are a number of challenges to the new three-pronged approach that is the search game now. Namely that “search” typically sits with digital or web within most organizations and social is a completely different team (and who know who “owns” AI at this point!). The bigger picture is you should have your eye on all three now. Social search is no longer a “nice to have”, it’s table stakes. And AEO/GEO—same thing. It’s a lot, for sure. But, when it comes to product or service discovery there’s just too much at stake to ignore the second and third pieces to the search puzzle.

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Fewer young people want a career as an influencer (thank goodness)

A recent YouGov poll says that only 5% of Gen Zers said they wanted to become digital creators or influencers. Of course, this is only one poll, but that data flies in the face of what we’ve been hearing for years and a Morning Consult survey that in 2023 claimed that more than half of Gen Zers wanted to become influencers.

To this news, I say “thank goodness!”

Better yet, young people seem to be looking for career paths that are lucrative and successful, but far less visible. 18% of Gen Zers said they wanted to become a successful but non-famous tech entrepreneur, 17% a professor; and 14% a doctor. I talked about this very topic on the now defunct Hanson & Hunt Podcast a few years ago and lamented how kids weren’t aiming for careers as doctors, nurses, teachers and other key societal professions. Now, it seems the mood has shifted (again, thank goodness!).

I’m sensing this more in the classroom, too. The desire to “be famous” or “go viral” is waning. In fact, I actually get the sense many students and young people are pretty resistant to that kind of internet fame that once held such great sway. It’s an interesting shift that I believe has been happening for a while. It doesn’t mean these young people aren’t still paying attention to influencers and creators—they’re just choosing much different career paths and life options for themselves.

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If you’ve been thinking about signing up for SOCIAL//IRL, this is your nudge.
We’re now almost two weeks away from June 3 and I’m starting to finalize plans. This won’t be a sit-back-and-listen kind-I'm-going-to-talk-at-you-for-six-hours kind of workshop.

It’s going to be:

• Hands-on work on your actual content
• Real-time feedback (from me and the group)
• Pressure-testing your strategy—not just talking about it

Which is exactly why I’m very purposefully keeping it small. And I’ve already seen a lot of great interest (up to 14 participants!) and a number of people signed up that I’m excited about.

If any of that sounds interesting or useful, you sign up right here.

The question now seems to be: does clipping have a future in the social media marketing world?

It definitely has a future in politics and sports. In fact, if you consume any content on the internet in those two areas, you’re already very familiar with clipping as it’s probably how you consume a decent chunk of your content (think short NBA highlights you see on Insta the day after a game).

The goal of this whole clipping strategy is usually to drive attention and awareness in a crowded environment that’s now being clogged by AI-generated content. In fact, according to one agency owner quoted in this Marketing Brew story, brands are using clipping to “manufacture and create virality” by attempting to mimic what creators are doing.

That sounds like a very dangerous road to go down for many brands. Social media marketers have spent YEARS talking executives and leaders off the ledge of attempting to “manufacture virality.” I mean, how many leaders have asked you to “just make it go viral” over the last 10 years? Now you’re telling me social media marketers want to attempt to manufacture that virality with clipping? I’m not sure I’m buying that.

What’s more, let’s loop back to the comparison with politics and sports. Again, clipping has been a key strategy in getting exposure for those two industries for a while now. But, let’s think about those two industries for a minute. In both, people are EXTREMELY emotional about their sports teams (GO WOLVES!) or parties—this we definitely know. For brands to think they can employ the same strategy and see even a small percentage of the same results politics and sports see with clipping seems almost laughable.

And, to be fair, most brands probably aren’t comparing themselves to politics or sports. But it still seems like a dangerous comparison. “Hey, it works for the NBA, maybe we should give it a try.”

Lastly, the cost. From what I’ve read, these clipping campaigns can range from $25,000 to $100,000. Now, I’m sure that’s for a big, national campaign. There are probably more cost-effective ways to do this. But still, that’s a big investment. Especially at a time when we’re being asked to justify those big investments even more. Guessing the “we’re going to make our content go viral” justification probably wouldn’t carry a lot of weight with the CMO.

So, does clipping have a real future in our industry? I’m a little skeptical. I'm sure some brands will experiment with this approach in 2006, just as Ramp and Skittles have so far. But for the lion’s share of companies, this feels like a reach. It’s a decent-sized investment. There’s a limited track record of brands doing this successfully. And it feels like we’re chasing the wrong goals with this. Instead of focusing on building much-needed trust and loyalty, chasing virality definitely feels like the wrong goal for 2026.

Growing up in Woodbury, Minn., it felt like half my friends’ parents worked at 3M. The company has always been a big deal on the east side of St. Paul. So over the last couple years that I've been working with the 3M team, these opportunities have taken on a particular importance for me.

Last week, I had the chance to speak again at the 3M Experience—this time on employee advocacy and how employees can become true advocates for the organization (a topic I’ve been spending a lot of time on lately).

Big thanks to Kirsten Salmanowicz, Brandon Chan, Joline Mostert and Tricia Fitzl for pulling it all together. A tremendous event as always!

Could Facebook be making a big comeback?

According a recent post by Link in Bio’s Rachel Karten, the answer might be “yes.”

Engagement levels are up. Facebook is courting creators. And trends are back on Facebook (all according to Rachel’s article).

And while I’m not questioning the data presented here or Rachel’s reporting (continue to LOVE Link in Bio), this doesn’t pass the eye test for me. In talking to friends from across different age groups and walks of life, NO ONE mentions Facebook anymore. In looking at client sites and in my competitive research, I haven’t seen the spikes (or even increases) in engagements presented here. And, to be completely honest, Facebook, to me, still seems like the place older people hang out (and there’s much fewer of those old people hanging out there than there was 5-6 years ago). That’s not a bad thing at all—but it is a pretty narrow demographic.

Case in point: this recent Social Media Today article that gets at a lot of how I feel about Facebook.

That’s just my observation—I’d be curious if you’re seeing evidence of this Facebook comeback in your feeds?

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Why TikTok’s comment section is driving the majority of first purchases now

Key quote: “Today, top-performing content on TikTok falls into two buckets: comments by users, and educational content posted by creators or the brand or retailer.” For retailers, especially, a solid comment strategy seems like a must-have right now.

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If you’ve been thinking about signing up for SOCIAL//IRL, this is your nudge.
We’re now less than a month away from June 3 and I’m starting to lock in the format for the day. This won’t be a sit-back-and-listen kind-I'm-going-to-talk-at-you-for-six-hours kind of workshop.

It’s going to be:

• Hands-on work on your actual content
• Real-time feedback (from me and the group)
• Pressure-testing your strategy—not just talking about it

Which is exactly why I’m very purposefully keeping it small. And I’ve already seen a lot of great interest and a number of people signed up that I’m excited about.

If any of that sounds interesting or useful, you sign up right here.

That’s the impact DICK’S Sporting Goods new Varsity Team Creator Program had in 2025. And this year, they’re doubling down on the program and making it even bigger. If you’re considering a creator or employee creator program right now, you could learn a lot from what DICK’S has done the last five years.

For starters, DICK’S has made its creators feel very valued. Just look at what these creators get to be a part of the program in 2026:

• Money—DICK’S is paying its creators for the work they do (Note: Would be curious to hear how they’re handling this for employees)

• Experiences—DICK’S just finisned up an exclusive, all-expense-paid 4-day Orientation experience in Tampa, Florida.

• Exclusive stuff—DICK’S sends its creators quarterly ‘Trend Boxes’ featuring the latest products from the hottest brands at DICK’S. They also get early access to select product launches, VIP events and celeb appearances.

• Other opportunities—Obviously they have the chance to be featured on DICK’S social media channels (other other marketing materials). They can also participate in “Coaches Corner” sessions where creators connect with DICK’S influencer marketing team and agency for insights, coaching and trends.

I mean, that’s quite the list. And I know not every brand has access to some of this stuff, but most brands have something. If you think hard enough, you probably have some sort of experience people would want to be a part of. You have information or data employees would want access to. Or, you have swag or “stuff” they would covet.

DICK’S program started in 2021 and man have they grown it since then. This year, according to this Digiday article, 10,800 people applied to be a part of the program for around 60 spots—that was up from 5,300 last year for 50 spots. Wow!

And given the list of perks above, you would think DICK’S would be looking for creators with huge followings and big engagement numbers. Not the case. DICK’S claims to be looking for all sorts of creators with the key being creators who “are people in sports that are showing their life behind the scenes, not just the game-day highlights.” That same theory could apply to employee creator programs—don’t just engage the people with the biggest communities. Look for creative talent. Look for employees who “get” social.” Employees who know how to create content that speaks to people.

Finally, I’ve always said these employee creator programs should start small and build from there. That’s exactly what DICK’S has done. They started the program as an employee creator program in 2021 with JUST ONE employee. In 2023, they hired an agency to help them build the program—that year, they grew it to it to 18 employees after receiving applications from 700 employees. And again, this year they received more than 10,000 applications for 60 spots.

And so far the results speak for themselves. Last year, the Varsity Team generated 2,500 pieces of content with a total of 40 million organic views.

At a time when AI is flooding our feeds and trust in brands seems to be plummeting, this creator program approach by DICK’S seems to meet the moment. And the authenticity these creators are bringing to the brand? You really can’t put a price tag on that.

Most summer internships are already filled. But I found one that isn't: MINE!

I’m hiring a part-time Social Media Intern to work with me on real client work from late May/early June-August.

I realize I'm late in posting this, but I earned some new work that starts in June and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to 1) Provide an opportunity to an entrepeneurial student, and 2) Help mentor a young person, and 3) Get some much-needed help for the summer!

Now, this won't be a “sit in meetings and observe” role--mostly because I don’t sit in that many meetings anymore! This will be more of a “create, edit, publish and learn by doing”-type role.

We’ll focus heavily on:

* Short-form video
* Capturing content
* LinkedIn writing
* Real-world brand work

It’ll be: 10 hours/week, flexible (meet IRL once a week), and pays $25/hour.

Again, I know it’s late to be posting about summer internships, but if you (or someone you know) is still looking for a hands-on opportunity to build a real portfolio this summer, please send me an email (arik@arikhanson.com) that talks about why you’re interested and a few examples of your work (with a focus on short-form video and social content samples). I'm going to take applicants through next Wednesday (5/6) because I want to move quickly.

PS: Full disclosure, I'd love to hire a Tommie!

I’ve been playing golf since I was about 8 years old. And last week, I finally made it to Pebble Beach.

And funny—it somehow exceeded my extremely high expectations. As part of our trip, we played Pebble twice (best decision ever). But also played Spyglass, Poppy Hills and Pasatiempo (sorry--probably only golf nerds will know those names). Our caddy (who was also a highlight of the trip) also invited us to play his club (TPC of Monterey) one day which was super fun.

It was, without question, an absolute dream golf tip.

But while the golf was unbelievable (I'm running out of descriptors!), the part I’ll remember most was doing it all with my oldest friend Eric Rislove. We've been playing golf together for probably 40+ years. Played high school golf together. Played college golf together (a little). And now play at the same club in Woodbury. That's a whole lot of history--and that's just the golf part!

Sure, playing #7 at Pebble was beyond incredible (parred it the second time!), and I definitely have many Pebble holes etched in my memory. But the best part was playing all these wonderful courses with a good friend--and the time in between. Exploring dive bars in Monterey and Carmel (Mulligans was awesome). Going to a Journey cover band concert (super great--they played all the bangers!). And just hanging at the Inn at Spanish Bay (which was absolutely incredible).

Grateful doesn’t every begin to cover it. A trip I will remember for the rest of my life. All thanks to an invite from my friend.

Does your boss have AI brain?

Real interesting article here from Rachel Karten where she includes snippets from many folks she interviewed about how their bosses and teams are using AI. And while I haven’t heard nearly the negative feedback Rachel has about leaders over-using AI to drive creative and decision-making, I can definitely understand how it can happen—especially at smaller and midsized companies which is probably the folks she was talking to in the interviews (it feels like her readership leans this way).

The bigger picture here is the tail end of the article where Rachel talks about the complete lack of change management programs around AI rollouts. That’s very real. And I am definitely seeing that, too. And that strikes me as very odd. As communicators, we have change management platforms for almost everything—why wouldn’t we have one for one of the biggest technological disruptive changes of our professional lives? That’s what I see—and it’s definitely what I’m hearing from people much smarter than me who work in AI.

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Is Vine making a comeback?

A social media platform stiff-arming AI-generated content? Imagine that! Now imagine that platform includes an archieve of more than 500,000 archived Vines and you have a recipe for a potential win with Divine.

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Data shows delay between gated content download and consumption

Some good data here on the age-old debate: to gate or not to gate. Put me firmly in the “not to gate” camp, where I’ve resided for years. More than ever, content marketing is all about building trust and nothing screams SALES more than gating all your content. A few pieces of the data in this survey seem to support my hypothesis.

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If you’ve been thinking about signing up for SOCIAL//IRL, this is your nudge.

We’re almost a month out from June 3 and I’m starting to lock in the format for the day. This won’t be a sit-back-and-listen kind-I'm-going-to-talk-at-you-for-six-hours kind of workshop.

It’s going to be:

• Hands-on work on your actual content
• Real-time feedback (from me and the group)
• Pressure-testing your strategy—not just talking about it

Which is exactly why I’m very purposefully keeping it small. And I’ve already seen a lot of great interest and a number of people signed up that I’m excited about.

If any of that sounds interesting or useful, you sign up right here.

If you pull back a little, this visual highlights something much bigger for social media marketers: Mass reach on social is basically gone.

What used to be broad, shared spaces are now fragmented ecosystems. For example, here's what it looks like right now:

X/Twitter = politics (heavily leaning right), sports, real-time news, more broadcast
Threads = culture (arts + book people), journalists (heavily leaning left), community-based
Bluesky = emerging niche communities
TikTok/IG = entertainment, algo-driven discovery

Different audiences, different behaviors and different expectations across all these channels. But many brands are still showing up the same way everywhere. That’s the disconnect right now.

The takeaway from the graphic isn’t about politics—it’s about strategy. We should probably stop thinking about “platforms”, and start thinking about “audience pockets.” Because in 2026, social isn’t one big stage. It’s now a collection of smaller (and often times private) rooms.

For me, being a good friend (a work in progress for me) isn’t just about showing up when times are tough. It’s about showing up when they’re in the spotlight and building something, too!

That’s what I attempted to do last week at the Marketers’ Community event on AI. I wanted to support my friend Patrick Schaber, who’s building his AI consulting business (and off to a great start, it seems!) and Abby Kelsey, who continues to build something special with Marketers’ Community.

As a bonus: I walked away with a few new ideas! I hadn’t heard of the Lovable app before—now I’m planning to experiment with some “vibe coding.” And I’ve been a big fan of NotebookLM from the beginning, especially for turning learning into video.

But again that wasn't the big reason I went. Showing up for my friends was.

Reddit now the fourth-most used social media platform

That’s according to research Edison and Sirius XM—Reddit now ranks fourth in behind Facebook, Insta and TikTok, but ahead of LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat and Twitter. That’s a big change. I also found it interesting that YouTube is now (easily) the dominant platform for podcast listening—well above Spotify and Apple. Finally, podcast consumption just keeps going up. In 2026, 58% of Americans listened to or watched a podcast in the last month—that’s up from 55% in 2025 and from 38% in 2022. Wow.

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Is the future of marketing really community?

This Inc. article makes some compelling arguments. When I read this, I think about the opportunity for brands on Threads, where replies (and community) are really the big play. Just look what Raisin Bran is doing on Threads here.

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As AI use increases at work, many employees still choose not to use it

Not-so-surprising stat: “About half of U.S. employees use AI only once a year or not at all.” That’s according to Gallup, a fairly reputable organization. So while AI is all over the news and many people are pushing for adoption, it’s stats like these that make me think we’re a ways off from AI becoming a dominant part of the way we work. I think back to the early days of social—it was similar. It took a while to ramp up adoption—feels like AI is taking a similar path.

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For years, people have asked me the same question: “Where can I go to actually get better at social media?” And honestly, there hasn’t been a great answer.

Conferences are inspiring—but not hands-on.

Online courses are convenient—but not super personal.

Most training is either too basic—or too disconnected from the real work.

That gap is exactly why I created SOCIAL//IRL.

This is a one-day, in-person workshop built for people who are already doing the work—and want to do it better.

Not trends. Not theory.

Actual working sessions focused on:

• Building a clearer, more modern social strategy
• Writing content that performs (not just fills the calendar)
• Auditing what’s working—and fixing what’s not
• Creating measurement leaders actually care about

You won’t just listen—you’ll work. And you’ll leave with sharper thinking, practical frameworks and real decisions you can apply immediately.

The first session is June 3 at CoCo Northeast in Minneapolis. It’ll be a small group, too (max 20), so networking and relationship-building is a part of this, too (almost like a cohort).

So, if you’ve been looking for something more practical—and more personal—this is it.

Register here.

Because what used to hinge almost exclusively on Google and traditional search tactics, now focuses on three big areas: 1) Traditional search, 2) Social search, and 3) AI/LLMs

Pretty big shift, right?

And there are a number of layers to this.

First, the organizational/structural challenges. Search has historically lived with the web or digital team. That’s not always connected to social. Many times those two teams report up through different functions, and they don’t always collaborate.

Second, the traditional search industry historically has been pretty darn technical. Most people I know that work in this area are very smart digital strategists—but they’re not really writers. Most of the social search and LLM-related search activity is going to loop back to writers, PR folks or social media teams. So, what used to be more of a technical matter is now a responsibility interspersed between 2-3 teams. Big challenge.

Finally, social search and LLM search are still very new concepts. Although social search, as a topic, has been around for a while, many brands still pay relatively little attention to it. Many times, it’s an after thought.

However, that feels like it’s changing. The social media mastermind group I run has many members who are actively thinking about this topic right now—specifically on YouTube, Reddit and TikTok.

LLM search is, obviously, even newer yet. We’re all learning how to figure this out right now. But, it often involves a mix of technology, writing and traditional media/social media strategies (articles placed in trade pubs and showing up more on Reddit and LinkedIn).

This is all still taking shape. But one thing feels certain: It's time to get your SEO, social and comms teams all talking about this stuff--together.

I’ve been presenting on social media trends a lot lately. Different companies. Different industries. But the same questions keep coming up.

Here are the three topics I’m hearing about a lot right now:

• Search is fragmenting—fast. This is the big one. What used to be “figure out Google” is now split between Google, social search and LLM discovery. Many teams aren’t structured for that. And they’re not sure who owns it (see above).

• “Is this finally the year for Threads?” This question just won’t go away. But it does feel different this year. More teams are moving from “monitoring” and grabbing their handle to actively experimenting. Still early—but there seems to be momentum.

• Employee creator programs. Tons of interest here. And for good reason. The gap between brand voice and employee voice has never been more obvious—or more valuable. If you need proof, just look at the “Staples Baddie!”

Had a great time digging into these topics--and much more--with the 3M Safety team last week. Big thanks to Carrie Simon and Wendy Westbrook for having me at the 3M Innovation Center.

The big takeaway for me? Most of these aren’t platform questions. They’re org structure, ownership and capability questions. And those are much harder problems to solve.

Native Documents are the big winner for LinkedIn engagement

That’s according to a recent SocialInsider report which claims that Native Document posts, on average, generate almost double the engagement poll and link posts do. Another interesting tidbit: Video views are down across the board for almost every sized page.

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Reddit now a top four social media platform

That’s according to the 2026 Infinite Dial report, which also claims TiKTok is now the #1 platform for U.S. folks ages 12-34. Another interesting nugget: Just 15% of U.S. folks 12+ use Threads vs. 30% who claim to use X/Twitter.

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Google now letting U.S. users change Gmail addresses

I typically don’t share platform news here because there’s just entirely too much, but this one seemed fairly relevant since almost everyone has a Gmail account and they’ve blocked us from changing these forever.

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For a number of years now, I’ve noticed a definite gap in social media marketing training. As in it really doesn’t exist. I know, because I’ve looked when people ask me.

Oh sure, you can go to conferences like Social Media Marketing World and get smarter about all things social. But that’s more “conference style” education—definitely not hands-on and definitely not a workshop.

And obviously there are online options. You can probably find those in droves. But those are online. They’re impersonal. And they’re usually led by someone you don’t know (and hopefully, trust).

This is why I built SOCIAL//IRL.

There’s a real need for in-person, practical social media training for working professionals who already know the basics — but need sharper strategy, better frameworks and clearer alignment to business goals.

This is not theory. It’s not trend-chasing. And it’s not really for beginners.

It’s built for the people doing the work inside B2B, B2C and nonprofit organizations who need:

• A modern, focused social media strategy

• Clear frameworks for writing stronger, more engaging content

• Practical ways to audit and improve performance

• Measurement systems leaders actually understand

• Confidence navigating internal stakeholders

SOCIAL//IRL is structured, hands-on and immediately applicable. You’ll leave with tools, templates and decisions — not just ideas.

The first one-day workshop is Wednesday, June 3 at CoCo Northeast, capped at 20 people. And, based on feedback I got from many of you when I was brainstorming about this series, I’ve priced it at just under $550 (which seems like a pretty fair price compared to other conferences and training modules I’ve seen).

So, want to up your social media marketing skills? Sign up today and join me on June 3.

The real question is: why do we still trust Facebook?

Because I have some pretty damning evidence that we probably shouldn’t. Actually, that’s being too nice. We DEFINITELY shouldn’t.

For starters, Facebook has a big bot problem. Reportedly, 4-5% of all Facebook users are bots. That’s 270 MILLION bots! And, if you remember from last year, Facebook actually wants to add MORE bots (on purpose) to your feed. They talked about this in early 2025—how adding bots would spur engagement. Um, hard no, Facebook.

And these bots impact advertising, too, which is the biggest way most of us use Facebook from a marketing standpoint. One startup recently claimed that a whopping 80% of its Facebook ad clicks were coming from bots. 80 PERCENT! That resonates with me, as I’ve done spot checking for clients before on Facebook ads and there always seems to be a disproportionate number of people from parts of the world the brand is clearly not targeting. That’s a huge problem.

Second, scams are prevalent on Facebook. The WSJ wrote an article last year titled “Meta battles Epidemic of Scams as criminals flood Instagram and Facebook. Not a great headline. And if you dive into the article, it gets worse. MUCH, MUCH WORSE.

According to the Journal article: “Current and former employees say Meta is reluctant to add impediments for ad buying clients who drove a 22% increase in its advertising business last year to over $160 billion. Even after users demonstrate a history of scamming, Meta balks at removing them.

The article goes on: “One late 2024 document reviewed by the Journal shows that the company will allow advertisers to accrue between eight and 32 automated “strikes” for financial fraud before it bans their accounts. In instances where Meta employees personally escalate the problem, the limit can drop to between four and 16 strikes.”

That’s pretty damning evidence. Facebook knows about the problem, but they absolutely do not want to fix it.

Finally, a recent Mashable article titled “Your Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses recordings aren’t private” provides even more concerning issues. In a development that should surprise no one, Meta is actively analyzing private video taken by users wearing the glasses. Yep, video from the bathroom. From your bedroom. Maybe even of you naked. All sorts of stuff. Repeating a pattern of behavior (remember the Cambridge Analytica scandal?). This feels way worse. But right on brand for a company with a history of this kind of behavior.

Yet again, we continue to invest in Facebook.

Isn’t it time we take a second look. How is Facebook performing for us? Is it still working? Are our ad campaigns actually reaching the right people? Those are the fundamental marketing questions to start with.

Then move on to the ethical issues. Do you and your brand want to be associated with a brand that outright lies to you and seems to have no moral compass at all.

Tough questions for 2026—but questions worth giving serious thought to if you’re a social media marketer.

I’ve been a little delinquent in my Substacking lately because we spent 10 days in Palm Springs, Laguna Beach and Del Mar earlier this month.

It was wonderful to have time away. But it was also a good reminder for why I work.
In a word: experiences. And our family vacations are right at the top of that list.

Although, I will say, it’s not really the vacation itself that matters (although that is great). It’s the small moments. Here were the small moments that helped me recharge during our time in southern California:

* Getting off the plane at the Palm Springs airport after another Minnesota winter is always a top 5 moment of the year for me. IYKYK.

* Watching the sunrise in the desert over the golf course my parents stay at while sipping coffee. One of the most peaceful things for me.

* Watching the sunset over the Pacific with my wife and daughter in Laguna Beach. Just spectacular.

* Eating at one of our favorite places in Palm Springs--the La Quinta Resort-- outdoors as the sun goes down (an annual tradition).

* Absolutely puring a driver at the PGA West Stadium course (for fellow golf nerds, this happened on #16 this year).

After our vacations are over, I always remember these little moments the most. As you can see, they’re often not the big glamorous "events." They’re little slice-of-life moments. But those are the ones that matter most to me. Moments I’ll remember as long as I can.

Social media is dead. Interest media is here.

Yeah, I’m tired of the “social media is dead” posts, too. And I’m not the biggest Gary V fan in the world (after watching him swear non-stop on stage at an event years ago). But he makes some valid points here—notably the importance of brand in the age of AI.

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What keeps viewers watching Facebook Reels?

Good data set here, but the most noteworthy piece of data is the fact that human speech within the first three seconds of your Reel can have a big impact on performance. And I know, you might be thinking “that’s not surprising.” To that, Facebook says 62% of Facebook Reels from brands contain no human speech whatsoever.

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Young people want their news to be more fun

I wasn’t as interested in the headline of this Nieman piece as I was in the graphic further down in the article that claims 19% of young people feel the media doesn’t do a good job of making them feel better about the world. I’m not sure that IS the media’s job! As always, media literacy should be a much bigger priority in our education system—witness exhibit A.

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For a number of years now, I’ve noticed a definite gap in social media marketing training. As in it really doesn’t exist. I know, because I’ve looked when people ask me.

Oh sure, you can go to conferences like Social Media Marketing World and get smarter about all things social. But that’s more “conference style” education—definitely not hands-on and definitely not a workshop.

And obviously there are online options. You can probably find those in droves. But those are online. They’re impersonal. And they’re usually led by someone you don’t know (and hopefully, trust).

This is why I built SOCIAL//IRL.

There’s a real need for in-person, practical social media training for working professionals who already know the basics — but need sharper strategy, better frameworks and clearer alignment to business goals.

This is not theory. It’s not trend-chasing. And it’s not really for beginners.

It’s built for the people doing the work inside B2B, B2C and nonprofit organizations who need:

• A modern, focused social media strategy

• Clear frameworks for writing stronger, more engaging content

• Practical ways to audit and improve performance

• Measurement systems leaders actually understand

• Confidence navigating internal stakeholders

SOCIAL//IRL is structured, hands-on and immediately applicable. You’ll leave with tools, templates and decisions — not just ideas.

The first one-day workshop is Wednesday, June 3 at CoCo Northeast, capped at 20 people. And, based on feedback I got from many of you when I was brainstorming about this series, I’ve priced it at just under $550 (which seems like a pretty fair price compared to other conferences and training modules I’ve seen).

So, want to up your social media marketing skills? Sign up today and join me on June 3.

The piling on that happened last week, while not surprising, was as gross as it has always been. For various reasons.

For starters, was the video really that egregious? I’ve watched the clip a few times and…I would say not really. Is the CEO a little awkward eating the burger? Sure. Does he call it a “product” a few times? Yes—but let’s be honest, most executives talk that way. The bigger point: McDonald’s has actually been putting its CEO out there on short-form video for a while now (both on LinkedIn and Insta). That’s a risk most Fortune 500 brands still won’t take. If anything, I’d argue McD’s deserves a little credit for the long-term play!

Another thought: I always wonder about the long-term upside of publicly shredding brands like this—especially on LinkedIn. Our industry is small. The internet is forever. And you never know who you might work with down the road. Plus, the piling on is really never a great professional look.

Finally, instead of piling on, why not highlight the good work happening out there? For example:

* Staples leaning into the “Staples Baddie” moment (I talked about this a couple weeks ago on LinkedIn)
* Red Wing Shoes’ “Made the Hard Way” campaign, where they’re literally
building billboards by hand out of wood and leather
* Spotify and Liquid Death's collab on the "Eternal Playlist Urn" was super fun (and the urn is already sold out)!

There are plenty of smart, creative and positive things happening in our industry right now. Those seem like better case studies to talk about than a slightly awkward burger video—right?

Last week I presented my social media trends talk at Social Media Breakfast in Minneapolis. More than 150 people showed up to talk about what might be next for our industry.

If you missed it—or you’re outside the Twin Cities—I’m hosting my own version of the session Wednesday, March 11 at 11:30 a.m. CST.

I’ll share 10 “provocations” about the future of social media marketing, backed by research, data and a handful of smart brand examples.

Join us if you’re trying to make sense of where things might be headed.

20 percent of all U.S. adults get news from TikTok

That’s up from just 3% in 2020. What’s more, if you look at young people (ages 18-29), 43% of those folks get news on TikTok (up from 9% in 2020). Now, those numbers go WAY DOWN for older people—just 10% of people ages 50-64 get news on TikTok. We always knew this was a young person trend—but man, those are some sizable numbers!

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“Prove it” content starting to show up more on social

I talked about this exact topic during my social media trends presentation at Social Media Breakfast here in Minneapolis recently. Rachel’s just giving “prove it” content a different term: “evidence of effort.” It’s essentially accomplishing the same goal: To prove your content isn’t AI.

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Could you be an influencer without even knowing it?

A new feature on Instagram has made this possible. The interesting world of social media marketing never stops changing, does it?

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For a number of years now, I’ve noticed a definite gap in social media marketing training. As in it really doesn’t exist. I know, because I’ve looked when people ask me.

Oh sure, you can go to conferences like Social Media Marketing World and get smarter about all things social. But that’s more “conference style” education—definitely not hands-on and definitely not a workshop.

And obviously there are online options. You can probably find those in droves. But those are online. They’re impersonal. And they’re usually led by someone you don’t know (and hopefully, trust).

This is why I built SOCIAL//IRL.

There’s a real need for in-person, practical social media training for working professionals who already know the basics — but need sharper strategy, better frameworks and clearer alignment to business goals.

This is not theory. It’s not trend-chasing. And it’s not really for beginners.

It’s built for the people doing the work inside B2B, B2C and nonprofit organizations who need:

• A modern, focused social media strategy

• Clear frameworks for writing stronger, more engaging content

• Practical ways to audit and improve performance

• Measurement systems leaders actually understand

• Confidence navigating internal stakeholders

SOCIAL//IRL is structured, hands-on and immediately applicable. You’ll leave with tools, templates and decisions — not just ideas.

The first one-day workshop is Wednesday, June 3 at CoCo Northeast, capped at 20 people. And, based on feedback I got from many of you when I was brainstorming about this series, I’ve priced it at just under $550 (which seems like a pretty fair price compared to other conferences and training modules I’ve seen).

So, want to up your social media marketing skills? Sign up today and join me on June 3.

First, there’s the viability of Threads itself—is this a platform worth spending time on for brands in 2026? The stats are unclear. According to a recent Pew Research Center study, only 8% of U.S. adults have ever used Threads. 8%!

What’s more, the Threads “feel” is weird, isn’t it? One article I saw last year referred to it as the “Big Bang Theory of social media. Bland, boring and largely unoffensive, yet somehow it was the most popular show on TV for years.” Yep, that tracks.

On the other hand, recent data from SimilarWeb says daily active users on Threads have now surpassed Twitter.

And, only one app had more downloads in 2025 than Threads (and it was a pretty popular app).

So what are we to believe? My gut tells me Threads finally has some legit momentum. It feels like more real people are using it. I’m starting to hear about it more (here in MN, I know a lot of people used it the last couple months during the ICE occupation). So yeah, I think in terms of viability, Threads definitely has enough of a “base” for you to consider at least actively experimenting with it in 2026.

The next big question is HOW do you go about experimenting. So far, the brands I see succeeding on Threads are largely doing it by having fun. Just look at how the LA Public Library uses it.

Also worth noting: it’s a lot of text-only posts. So not a huge need for powerful visuals like on many of the other popular social media networks right now.

The big hurdle for brands will be time. Because apparently, Threads is a time-sucker. In a webinar I sat in on as part of Rachel Karten’s Link In Bio community, a Threads employee shared that replies represent HALF of all reach on the platform. And higher frequency = more impressions. In fact, the Threads employee suggested posting at least once a day. Kinda sounds like old Twitter, right?

More survey data is corroborating that theory. A recent Buffer report found that replying to comments on your Threads posts can boost engagement by around 42%.

Translation: Threads is a major commitment.

So, in order to play effectively on Threads you’re going to need time. Much like Reddit, this is more of a community play. And to get that time, you’re most likely going to have to pause efforts elsewhere. Maybe Twitter (if you’re still there). Maybe Facebook (which has big problems of its own right now). Whatever the case, you’ll probably have to free up time to spend on Threads—because it clearly demands it, from all the reporting I’ve seen so far.

So, is 2026 the year to start using Threads for your brand? If you can find the time—and a decent amount of it—I say “yes.”

What a wonderful morning at Social Media Breakfast last Friday. I presented on social media trends—I think this is the 5th or 6th year I’ve done this prezo and it’s always a fun thing for me to put together. Lots of laughs. Hopefully some learning. And a wonderful new space at Improving (right on Lake Bde Maka Ska).

But the best part? The people.

The room was full of familiar faces (Kevin Hunt, Alyssa Meyers, Lindsi Gish, Debbie Friez, Glenn Hansen, John Vomhof Jr., Sarah M. Manley, MA, Greg Swan, Mary Kane, Sofia Horvath, Amanda Theisen, Maureen Gormley, Stacy Glaus, Julia Sattler, Caitlin Hannah, Shayla Thiel-Stern, Ph.D., Heather Olson even a Nancy Lyons sighting!). But also a number of new people to me: Eric Halvorson, Bennett Ryynanen, Sebastian Dziuk, and Emmet Kowler.

PLUS: a number of students from my class at the University of St. Thomas attended: Mackenzie Erickson, Alayna Rund, Morgan Hanson, Megan Farrell, Abigail Sullivan and Valerie Krinke (and Brianna Wille who took my class last year). It can be pretty scary for students to attend events like this, so I was so proud to see these seven women at SMB (please reach out and connect with them--especially if you're a Tommie!).

This is why I keep coming back to SMB—the people. What a fantastic community. And we’re lucky to have Mykl Roventine and Jen Roventine steering the ship. Without them, the volunteers and the sponsors, this doesn’t happen.

And if you haven’t been to an SMB event before, sign up in March. I know the topic is AI search—a very timely and important topic!

Fortune 500 CMOs turn to freelancers in major talent shift

Aside from the fact that I despise the term “freelancer”, I feel like this shift has been happening for quite a while now. And as someone who’s been doing this kind of work for 17+ years now, I’ve noticed a lot more openness to using “freelancers” (ahem, CONSULTANTS) for work vs. when I started in 2009.

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Are people really reading all these newsletters they’re signing up for?

According to Pew Research, the answer might be “no.” 62% of respondents don’t even read the newsletters they sign up to receive. What’s more, 71% of respondents said they subscribe to five or fewer newsletters with only 3% saying they subscribe to more than 10 (so I’m in the HUGE minority here!).

I just talked about the growing prominence of newsletters in my social media trends presentation last week at Social Media Breakfast. So, maybe marketers are excited about newsletters in 2026, but seems like the jury might be out on if consumers are actually reading these things.

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Read your Substack like a newspaper

My new favorite thing: printing out my weekly Substacks as hard copy newspapers and reading them old school (I’m firmly in the “read hard copy anything” camp, if you can’t tell!).

Read more

For a number of years now, I’ve noticed a definite gap in social media marketing training. As in it really doesn’t exist. I know, because I’ve looked when people ask me.

Oh sure, you can go to conferences like Social Media Marketing World and get smarter about all things social. But that’s more “conference style” education—definitely not hands-on and definitely not a workshop.

And obviously there are online options. You can probably find those in droves. But those are online. They’re impersonal. And they’re usually led by someone you don’t know (and hopefully, trust).

This is why I built SOCIAL//IRL.

There’s a real need for in-person, practical social media training for working professionals who already know the basics — but need sharper strategy, better frameworks and clearer alignment to business goals.

This is not theory. It’s not trend-chasing. And it’s not really for beginners.

It’s built for the people doing the work inside B2B, B2C and nonprofit organizations who need:

• A modern, focused social media strategy

• Clear frameworks for writing stronger, more engaging content

• Practical ways to audit and improve performance

• Measurement systems leaders actually understand

• Confidence navigating internal stakeholders

SOCIAL//IRL is structured, hands-on and immediately applicable. You’ll leave with tools, templates and decisions — not just ideas.

The first one-day workshop is Wednesday, June 3 at CoCo Northeast, capped at 20 people. And, based on feedback I got from many of you when I was brainstorming about this series, I’ve priced it at just under $550 (which seems like a pretty fair price compared to other conferences and training modules I’ve seen).

So, want to up your social media marketing skills? Sign up today and join me on June 3.

Nikita lays out a few of them in the post—fashion brands like Tory Burch covering runway shows by producing hundreds of social media assets. The NFL producing more than 200 assets from the night of the Super Bowl to the morning after. And, of course, we all saw this play out at the Olympics last week (although I would offer that sports teams and leagues are set up much better for success in this paradigm than, for example, a B2B brand).

But Nikita’s main point seems to be this: “Algorithmic feeds reward velocity, recency, and conversational density. Under these conditions, singular excellence is insufficient. Cultural dominance requires saturation.” The “singular excellence” she’s referring to is the campaign. The “saturation” is the coverage. And she’s not wrong—this is how you play to win on social in 2026.

But like I said before, this is not a new concept.

Brands have been acting as media brands for years. Just think about Red Bull. Remember that guy that jumped from space (Felix Baumgartner)? They covered that extensively—just like a media organization would.

Or what about brands at trade shows? I remember working with a large company in the dental space 10+ years ago now to help them “cover” their presence and what was happening at a trade show they exhibited at. In fact, we did that multiple times with good success.

I think the point Nikita is making now is that this is now SOP. In years past, those “events” were covered but it was much more episodic than it is now. And, much more short-form video-based. Today a trade show can and probably should lead to 2-3 months worth of content. Yes, MONTHS. Of course, that means sending more than just one social media manager to the event.

You now need a full team, which was another of Nikita’s key points. This new operating model requires a significant mindset shift (from marketing campaigns to editorial coverage—that won’t be easy) AND a shift in resources (which also won’t be easy).

The big question: Is the marketing world ready for this? I’m not so sure.

The campaign mindset is deeply embedded into marketing and advertising culture. Hundreds of millions of dollars are made off this model. To shift away from that is going to be a major change—and many, many people will kick and scream as a result. But I do believe for many brands it’s a change worth making.

Think about the brands we hail as social media case studies. Duolingo—they’ve made a habit out of “covering” the owl. Isn’t that what their social media content focuses on? And there’s a lot of it (hence the “saturation”). Or what about Poppi? As Nikita said in her post, they had a slew of posts “covering” the Charli xcx ad during the Super Bowl. Want smaller? What about the Milwaukee Public Library? They do a wonderful job of “covering” all the different facets of what the library offers.

So yeah, this is possible. And we have many examples of not only what it could look like, but what SUCCESS looks like with this (relatively) new operating model.

The question now: Will you consider making the shift?

Last week, I had coffee with three people I had never met before—my favorite kind of coffee! All three worked in prominent social media roles. But here’s the thing: 2 of the 3 barely had a social footprint at all.

One of the big discussions we used to have in our industry as “do you need to be active on social media to have a job in social media?” And early on and in social media’s formative years, I would say the answer for many people (me included) was a definitive “yes.”

However, as social media marketing has matured, I believe that discussion is all but over. And my coffee meetings with these three people last week was just the latest example of why.

The two people I mentioned above are highly successful social media marketers. They’ve held jobs with the top brands and agencies in town. They are recruited for open roles. They are, in many ways, exemplary employees. But yet, no big social media presence.

They are hardly alone. I think about some of the other people that are successful in our industry here in the Twin Cities: Alyssa Meyers who leads social over at Ecolab; Molly Madson over at 3M; or Elizabeth Gaule at Securian. None have a huge social media footprint. Yet these are the people leading the way in our industry. These are the people doing the work. These are the people who are the mentors for the next generation.

So, do you need a strong social media footprint to get a job in social media marketing? It seems the answer has gone from “yes” to “absolutely not.”

Staples Baddie is the future of employee creator programs

To be clear, Staples seems to have nothing to do with “Baddie’s” success so far—zero. But they also haven’t shut Baddie down yet (and hopefully won’t). And that’s progress folks. Because we’ve seen this movie before. Employee starts posting on social media. Draws a large audience. Brand swoops in and shuts employee down. Crowd boos. Life goes on.

So far, it’s not clear what Staples has done to work with “Baddie” and I’ll be following closely along to see how this plays out in the weeks ahead. Because I do think this is the future of employee creator programs—enabling and supporting employee creators, not controlling and guiding them.

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Is Reddit really the best source for LLMs?

I’ve been thinking about what J. Walker Smith summarizes in this post a lot lately. We all know Reddit is a top source for LLMs—but should it be? Doesn’t Reddit represent just a small slice of people (leans heavily younger)? Isn’t Reddit usually fairly negative? I know why LLMs look to Reddit for information (more community, less brand interference—same reason it leans on Wikipedia). But the bigger question is: Should it?

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Read your Substack like a newspaper

My new favorite thing: printing out my weekly Substacks as hard copy newspapers and reading them old school (I’m firmly in the “read hard copy anything” camp, if you can’t tell!).

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Organic reach continues to erode. Teams are scaling back. Budgets are tighter. And trust in brands is still sliding.

At the same time, audiences are saying something very different. They want content that feels human. Less polished. Less processed. Less “this was approved by 13 stakeholders.”

And the data backs it up. According to Nielsen, 92% of people trust recommendations from individuals over brands.

Which is why 2026 feels like a breakout year for employee creator programs.

We’re already seeing early signs.

Starbucks launched an Employee Creator Program last year, tapping two baristas to travel and tell the brand story on TikTok. These aren’t corporate spokespeople—they’re real Starbucks baristas.

Then there’s Ecolab. They noticed an employee, Aiden Doughman, had a knack for creating compelling short-form video content and partnered with him to create content for the company’s LinkedIn presence. Super smart given short-form video is a format many brands continue to struggle with.

Anecdotally, I’ve floated employee creator programs to a handful of clients over the last six months. The reaction is almost always the same: strong interest, stalled only by competing priorities. My bet? That hesitation fades over the next 9–12 months as pressure mounts to produce more impact with fewer resources.

The business case is strong right now.

Social teams are stretched thin. Expectations haven’t budged a bit. And leadership still wants massive reach and engagement. Employee creators can offer leverage. They can expand distribution. They can humanize the brand (big time). And in more cases than you might think, they can outperform the corporate page.

Because employees are people. And people trust people.

That doesn’t mean any of this is going to be easy. You need to identify the right creators. Provide guardrails and training. Build internal community. Recognize and reward participation. It’s actually going to take a decent amount of work.

But compared to pouring more dollars into declining organic performance, this feels like one of the more rational bets brands can make right now.

If 2025 was the year brands realized the old playbook isn’t working, 2026 may be the year they trust their people to help write the next one.

I’ve been quieter than usual the last month-plus on social. Minneapolis has had a lot going on, and I live just a few miles from where Renee Good and Alex Pretti were murdered in south Minneapolis. It’s been really heavy. We’re doing what we can to help and support.

But life keeps moving.

A couple weeks ago I kicked off year seven teaching social media and content marketing at the University of St. Thomas. Twenty-four students this semester—my biggest class yet! I’ll be sharing more from the classroom between now and May.

Work-wise, a few new doors have opened to start the year: I've been doing some training and consulting work with a local Fortune 500 company I worked with in 2025; and I had a coaching opportunity with the golf course where I grew up working. Full circle moments like that are pretty cool.

I’m also finalizing details on a new social media education series launching later this month—designed to be practical, in-person and cost-effective. If you’ve been looking for a straightforward way to sharpen your social skills, stay tuned.

On the personal side, we squeezed in a ski trip to Duluth in mid-January (and reminded ourselves how underrated the Duluth/Superior food scene really is--Corktown Eatery and Thirsty Pagan were top notch!); I had a golf trip to Mesquite/St. George with a few high school buddies (perfect weather in southern Utah), and spent Super Bowl weekend in Vegas on the back end (the Circa sportsbook lives up to the hype). And we’re just back from a quick trip to Fort Collins/Denver to see both our kids.

And I’ll be speaking at Social Media Breakfast on Feb. 27—hope to see some of you there.

Even though I haven't been as active on social lately, I appreciate this community more than usual.

Is AI really going to take our jobs, or is

Last week, you probably saw this post from tech entrepreneur Matt Shumer, laying out a very grim future with AI. It was bombastic—and that was on purpose. He was trying to get our attention. It worked. Then later in the week I saw a post from Ann Handley with a thoughtful, pragmatic take on Matt’s post—one that seems to make a lot of sense to me. Two posts. Two very different views of our futures.

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Social media management tools: A quick comparison guide

I can’t remember now where I saw this last week, but I believe it came from someone who was upset with Hootsuite for supporting ICE and was looking for a guide to ALL the social media management tools out there. So, she created this. Worth a bookmark for your next evaluation.

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Why 80 million users Are bypassing Google to find answers on Reddit

Yep, you read that stat correctly. According to Reddit, 80M users are now using Reddit as their preferred search engine.

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