What’s shifting on LinkedIn Last month, LinkedIn put numbers on the slop problem: more than a million reports within weeks of the flag launching, and 40% fewer views for the content it classifies as slop. This month its announcements dealt with the other half of the problem, which is establishing what is genuine. LinkedIn has started testing a way for colleagues to confirm each other's work history, and verified Company Pages can now remove people who falsely claim to work there. The AI tool that rewrote posts has been replaced by one that proofreads them. And Hari Srinivasan, LinkedIn's chief product officer, has announced a test of a Network tab, a feed made up only of the people a member has chosen to connect with or follow. Alongside all this came research from more than 50,000 closed deals linking organic activity and exec content to higher win rates when it runs with paid. Verified members get 50% more engagement, and verified pages can now remove imposters What it is: LinkedIn has widened verification on three fronts. The first is a test of verification by colleagues. Verified members are prompted to confirm the workplace or education history of connections they worked or studied with. Once someone has enough confirmations, a badge appears on their profile, with an option to opt out. In the coming months, members will also be able to ask connections to verify them. The second is brand protection. Admins of verified Company Pages can now remove known imposter accounts so they no longer appear in search under the company's name. LinkedIn is also piloting, with a selection of companies, an option to require workplace verification from anyone claiming current employment before they can associate with the Page. The controls are built around full-time employees, and removing someone from the Page does not change their own profile. The third is portability. Truecaller and PeerSpot have joined Adobe, TrustRadius and UserTesting as Verified on LinkedIn partners, so Truecaller users will see when someone calling or messaging them is verified on LinkedIn. More than 115 million members are now verified, with 75 more verifying every minute. LinkedIn says verified members get 50% more post engagement and close to 90% more profile views. The push comes as LinkedIn's latest EU transparency report records a 46% rise in detected inauthentic activity in the first half of 2026 compared with the second half of 2025. Why it matters: verification is free, and by LinkedIn's own figures, verified members are well ahead on engagement and profile views. The Page controls give comms teams a direct way to deal with accounts falsely claiming to work for a client, including any posing as its executives. Peer verification also gives execs a small new responsibility, because every confirmation they give counts towards someone else's badge. Action: check that every exec has verified both identity and workplace. If the company Page is verified, ask the admin to search for accounts falsely claiming to work there, starting with any that use an executive's name or photo, and remove them. If it is not, find out whether it is eligible. Before the peer prompts arrive, brief execs to confirm only people they have genuinely worked or studied with. The case for exec content now has deal data: 2.4 times the win rate when organic runs with paid What it is: research from Factors.ai, a LinkedIn Marketing Partner, which LinkedIn published this month. It covers more than 850 B2B companies, over 50,000 closed deals and more than $5bn in deal value. Buyers begin researching around 124 days before they speak to a seller, so four months of comparison and internal discussion happen before a deal reaches the CRM. Reaching six or more contacts at an account in that window lifts win rates by 17 percentage points. Engaging three or more further contacts during the sales cycle lifts them by 16 percentage points. Who is reached matters as much as how many: engaging internal end users, influencers and technical evaluators together increased win rates by 22 points, yet 76% of LinkedIn ad spend targets roles from director level up to owner. The finding with the most bearing on exec programmes concerns paid and organic activity. Companies pairing LinkedIn Ads with organic activity achieve 2.4 times the win rate of those running paid campaigns alone. LinkedIn describes organic activity as including thought leadership posts, executive commentary and Company Page activity. Why it matters: in July we covered LinkedIn's buyability research, which argued from survey data that execs need to be known across the buying committee before a deal starts. This makes the same argument with closed deals, in the terms a CMO or CFO uses. It also bears on how programmes are judged. If preference forms over the 124 days before a deal exists, assessing a programme on one quarter's pipeline measures it over too short a period. The targeting figure also shows where exec content can add most. Paid budgets concentrate on senior titles, while the largest uplift came from reaching the evaluators and end users around them. Action: put the exec's strongest organic posts behind Thought Leader Ads so the two run together. LinkedIn published fresh guidance on the format in mid-September. Plan part of each month's exec content around the questions the rest of the committee asks, such as the evidence of return a finance lead wants or the practical detail an end user needs. Agree a target account list with sales, and check it monthly against the company and job-title breakdowns in the exec's post analytics. Judge the programme over four months. LinkedIn's AI writing tool is now a proofreader, and its edits need the same sign-off as the draft What it is: Post Proofreader has rolled out to Premium users, replacing the AI post enhancement option LinkedIn removed in August. It is available on Premium Career and Premium Business, for English-language drafts only. It offers three options: Review fixes spelling, grammar and punctuation; Shorten makes a post more concise while keeping its meaning; and Clarify makes it easier to read. Suggestions appear inline, with removed text struck through, and nothing is applied until the user accepts it. LinkedIn describes the tool as an editing assistant that does not write for you. That builds into the product the line LinkedIn drew last month, when it said using AI to refine language is fine. Why it matters: for posts drafted by a comms team and signed off by the exec, the risk sits in Shorten and Clarify, which rewrite sentences inside the composer. The tool keeps no version history and has no undo. An exec or assistant who accepts a suggestion after approval can end up publishing wording nobody has approved. That matters most where posts go through compliance. Action: keep the approved version outside LinkedIn, and tell execs with Premium that Review is the low-risk option. Send anything changed by Shorten or Clarify back through approval before it is published. GOOD POSTS THIS MONTH Dr Farah Ahmed, Women's Health and BMS-Accredited Menopause Specialist What she did: opened with a bet. Her teenage son, newly strong after a summer at the gym, bet she couldn't carry him on her back for a minute, and the photo of her doing it leads the post. She then turns to a subject she says menopause care discusses too little, bone health. She explains how falling oestrogen speeds bone loss, cites the European Society of Endocrinology's recent guideline on HRT for bone protection, and lists what else helps. The final lines return to the bet. LinkedIn's editors singled the post out when they named her one of September's UK Top Voices. Why it worked: the story is short and true, and it comes with a photo nobody else could have posted. A single sentence makes the turn explicit ("the photo also made me think about something we don't discuss enough in menopause care"), so the reader never wonders why the anecdote is there. Everything after it is expertise, with a named source doing the authority work, and the callback gives the post a finished shape. What to steal: the ratio and the turn. Three short paragraphs of personal material, one sentence to cross over, and the rest spent on the subject the author knows best. With World Menopause Day on 18 October, it is also a model for marking an awareness date with substance. Kendra Eash, Global Head of Creative, Sonos What she did: announced a new campaign that presents Sonos as a "mood system" by describing three moments the idea rests on. One is a soundbar that makes it sound as if rain is falling from the ceiling. The others are a song from college playing in the laundry room and a burrito turning in the microwave. The rest of the post credits the team in 11 lines, each naming what the person or agency contributed. They range from doing "the work of 10 people every day for 3 months" to making "100 brain tingling animations". Why it worked: the opening sells the idea before the thanks begin, so readers outside the team have a reason to keep reading. The credits are specific enough to interest strangers. Every tagged person gets a line describing their work, which gives each of them a reason to share the post with their own network. What to steal: the credit with a verb in it. A team thanked in one sentence stays anonymous. A team credited for what each person did becomes part of the story. The format suits year-end posts, project completions and results posts, which usually thank the team in a single line. Adam Elman, Sustainability Director, Google What he did: posted during the summer heatwave, as COBRA met with temperatures at 38°C. He used the season's fifth heatwave, record days over 30°C, wildfires and flash droughts as evidence that climate disruption is now the operating baseline. He then looks past the day, warning that winter will bring flooding and storm surges to the same parched ground. He names what is at risk: supply chains, asset integrity, workforce health and resource security. Why it worked: the hook was the story every reader had already seen, and the post supplied what the coverage lacked: the consequences for the things operations leaders are responsible for. Looking ahead to winter took it beyond a same-day reaction and kept it relevant after the heat broke. What to steal: on the day a big story breaks, give the news one paragraph and spend the rest on its consequences in the terms your audience manages. The Budget on 28 October is the obvious place to use it. A post that turns a headline measure into hiring, investment or cash-flow decisions will do more for an exec than a summary of the speech. THE MONTH AHEAD UK CALENDAR WINDOWS The Budget lands on Wednesday 28 October. John Healey delivers his first Budget as Chancellor that day, and the OBR publishes its updated economic and fiscal forecast alongside it. He is expected on his feet at around 12:30pm, after Prime Minister's Questions. The date is earlier than last year's Budget, which fell on 26 November. It is also the first Budget since Andy Burnham became Prime Minister in July. For clients in tax, property, construction, energy and financial services, this is the biggest reaction window of the year. The weeks before it will fill with speculation. Posts that set out what a business needs from the Budget will age better than predictions of what it will contain. On the day, the exec take published that afternoon travels furthest, so agree the likely angles in advance and draft frames that need only the figures added. The IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok (12 to 18 October) put the global economic outlook on the agenda during the run-up. The Bank of England's next rate decision follows on Thursday 5 November, alongside a new Monetary Policy Report. The Conservatives meet in Birmingham, and Parliament returns. The party's conference runs at the ICC from Sunday 4 to Wednesday 7 October, with its Business Day on Monday 5, and the Commons sits again from 12 October. With the Budget three weeks later, conference week is a sensible moment for execs in policy-exposed sectors to say what their business needs from 28 October. That gives them something to point back to on the day. Sector dates. EXPO REAL, the Munich property and investment fair, runs from 5 to 7 October. The Paris Motor Show follows from 12 to 18 October at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, with the opening day reserved for press and industry. Chinese brands were far more prominent at the 2024 edition. Both weeks will produce plenty of attendance posts, and a view on the question each show is debating will stand out among them. Workplace moments. Black History Month runs through October. World Mental Health Day falls on Saturday 10 October and World Menopause Day on Sunday 18 October, so organisational posts marking either are better run on the Friday or the Monday. The bar is the same as in previous months: something the organisation actually does, such as a policy, a result or a change it has made. THE MONTH AHEAD US CALENDAR WINDOWS The midterms shape the month. Americans vote on Tuesday 3 November, so October is the final month of the campaign, and the feed for US audiences is likely to be more polarised than usual. For US-facing execs, the practical line is to keep commentary to business impact and to schedule announcements that can wait away from election week. Columbus Day, which many states and employers mark as Indigenous Peoples' Day, is a federal holiday on Monday 12 October. The B2B technology calendar is full. Salesforce made twelve announcements around Dreamforce (15 to 17 September). They included a new interface layer called AIforce, its own reasoning model, Koa, now in pilot, and Agentforce Coworker. October brings several events of similar weight: OpenAI's DevDay on 29 September spills into the first week. TechCrunch Disrupt runs at Moscone West in San Francisco from 13 to 15 October. Money20/20 USA, which brings banks, payments firms and fintechs together, is at The Venetian in Las Vegas from 18 to 21 October. Gartner's IT Symposium/Xpo in Orlando (19 to 22 October) draws more than 7,000 CIOs and senior leaders, and its programme includes the firm's top strategic technology trends and predictions for 2027. Execs outside technology can use these weeks too, by taking one announcement and explaining what it changes in their own sector. Earnings season opens on 13 October. JPMorgan releases its third-quarter results early on Tuesday 13 October, the traditional start of the season. The largest technology companies typically report in the final week. In recent quarters, Microsoft has reported on the last Wednesday of the month and confirmed the date about three weeks ahead, which would put its results on 28 October. Its results, and the LinkedIn commentary that comes with them, are where the platform's revenue and growth figures appear. These will be the first since the slop flag and comment ranking launched. For clients on calendar-year reporting, Q3 results posts go out this month, and a results post that makes one argument about the quarter travels further than a list of numbers. Wednesday 28 October is the day to plan around. The Fed's rate-setting committee meets on 27 and 28 October and announces its decision at 2pm Eastern on the 28th. The chair's press conference follows, and there are no new economic projections at this meeting. That is 6pm in London, a few hours after the Budget, and probably the day of Microsoft's results. The Future Investment Initiative runs in Riyadh the same week (26 to 29 October). So does CoreNet Global's North America Summit in Chicago (26 to 28 October), the main annual meeting for corporate real estate and workplace leaders. Finance-facing execs should have their reaction angles agreed before the week begins, and anything that is not time-sensitive is better scheduled for another week. THE MONTH AHEAD: BUILDING THEMES The Network tab makes in-network reach worth tracking. LinkedIn is testing a Network tab, a feed made up only of the people a member has connected with or followed. Its earlier alternative feeds, including June's topic-based suggested feeds, never got a wider launch, so this one may not last. If it does, the share of an exec's reach that comes from their own network will matter more, because members using the tab see only accounts they chose. In June LinkedIn added a metric showing what share of a post's viewers sit inside or outside the author's network. That gives teams a baseline to take now: record the split for each exec's posts through October, so any change is visible if the tab rolls out. Planning season meets the 124-day window. Q4 is planning season for many B2B businesses, and the Factors.ai research in Section One gives exec programmes a timing argument for it. If buyers research for around 124 days before a deal reaches the CRM, posts published this month are working on deals that will open in February and early March. An exec who goes quiet through the Budget, results season and the Christmas slowdown is absent for much of the period in which first-quarter deals take shape. The research also linked pairing paid and organic activity with higher win rates, which supports agreeing the 2027 exec content plan alongside the paid plan. Predictions season starts with Gartner. Gartner's 2027 trends and predictions, presented in Orlando from 19 October, open the year-ahead season, and many execs with a view on AI will post one before the year is out. The predictions that stand out will be specific enough to be checked later and grounded in the exec's own business: what an AI agent changed in a process, what it cost, where it fell short. Generic AI commentary also fits LinkedIn's own definition of slop, covered last month: polished writing with no experience, perspective or insight behind it. That is the content members are now flagging.

The latest developments from all the social platforms, in one place, to help you identify what comes next in social The past month has been relatively quiet when it comes to meaningful platform updates, with Meta being the exception. Across updates, one theme emerged: the challenging tightrope platforms are walking between leveraging AI to make things simpler and swifter, while sustaining real human interaction. During a quiet overall month, Meta was the most active platform. Outside of their products, Meta continued to find itself caught up in lawsuits. Following on from child safety concerns, Facebook was accused of misleading its users regarding privacy protections The platform has rolled out an AI agent you can talk to, known as Muse. You can have a long, in-depth conversation with it - think of it as your own personal assistant. That being said, it is not yet available in the UK, and requires observation on whether it’s successful and worth implementing for brands Meta’s second announcement was Meta One (starting from $14.99/month for businesses) - a new subscription service with professional content creation tools, but only available in the US at the moment. There are a few interesting features hidden behind the paywall, from links in posts to feed previews: we will wait and see if reception is strong enough for it to cross the pond to the UK and Europe Meta’s new Creator Marketing Hub facilitates brand-creator partnerships, with discovery filters supposedly making it easier for brands to find creators to work with. This update to the previous iteration of Creator Marketing Hub sounds good on paper, but the reality is a relatively weak update to an already poor tool, with a lack of creators signing up and therefore limited utility TikTok adds new commenting features to drive up engagement and community-building opportunities, as well as implementing child safety measures in the US The platform now gives users the option to comment voice notes and image carousels under posts. It’s a small change, but one to consider when planning content, especially where engagement is a core objective Additionally, brands can now add polls on posts for viewers to engage with. This is another relatively minor change, which works in a similar way to Instagram and Facebook where we have so far seen relatively strong engagement LinkedIn continues to prioritise trust between real humans, expanding its user verification system and trialling a ‘Network’ tab for users to engage with their connections The platform is expanding its verification system, to ensure that users are being truthful about their employment history and status. The user verification process now will include a step that allows for internal verifications from users’ past colleagues. Company pages can also remove people who have listed themselves as employees. This is still in the testing phase, but should offer brands more control to police rogue actors in the future The platform is also testing an alternative feed, in order to help users find more relevant conversations to engage with. They trialled a ‘Network’ tab, showing posts from your connections and people you follow, rather than potentially irrelevant posts your connections have engaged with, as is the current status of the ‘Home’ tab. This is unsurprising as LinkedIn is making efforts to balance its AI tools with ensuring humans remain at the forefront of the platform, prioritising ‘real connection with real people’. If this trial is successful and becomes the norm, it’ll become even more important for brands to maintain high viewer-follower conversion rates, as having more followers and connections will be more valuable to maintain relevance It’s been a very quiet month for Instagram, except for a profile grid update and tightening restrictions on teenage activity on the platform You now have the option to include your tagged posts in your profile grid. As collaborator posts already exist, this update doesn’t meaningfully impact things for brands; tagged posts will appear only on your profile grid and won’t get pushed to followers’ home feeds. It is worth focusing more on the existing collaborator feature, as this is the one that actually lands content in front of new audiences There have been no major updates for YouTube within the month, however, their annual ‘Made on YouTube’ event has offered some insight into where the platform is heading, and some interesting features to watch out for Starting from next year, brands will have the option to A/B test parts of their long-form videos, mirroring the concept behind Instagram’s trial reels. If you’re wondering which hooks resonate better with viewers, this will be your chance to test, making it an interesting feature to trial when it comes out next year The testing doesn't stop there… There will also be the option to test different thumbnails - helpful for grabbing attention in the explore page, and a Shorts Testing feature, allowing you to test your video against different criteria. Unlike the long-form content, the Shorts feature isn’t an A/B test, instead it’s YouTube giving their feedback on what will and won’t work Further on Shorts updates, there will now be the option to group Shorts into seasons. This is a bit like creating a playlist (which is already available on TikTok for pages with over 10,000 followers), and can be useful for collating campaigns or recurring video formats YouTube also introduced dynamic tags that will adjust the visibility of tagged products based on how viewers interact with them. This means that tags will only remain on a video if users have actively engaged with it, otherwise it moves to the video description. This would have an impact on brands already doing commerce via YouTube, otherwise it carries nothing of note?

What is Muse? Meta announced their Muse personal AI agent, which you’d communicate with in Instagram and WhatsApp DMs, and can perform tasks for you - planning a walking route etc. This builds on their Muse AI models, and fits within Zuckerberg’s vision of an agentic future. Initially available in the US, it will also have paid tiers for heavier users (in-line with LLMs such as Chat GPT or Claude). Why have Meta created Muse? The cynics will say it’s because Mark Zuckerberg is under pressure to justify Met’a huge spend on AI. As such, Muse has a lot to deliver on. It’s unclear whether it;ll be materiallly different to Siri or Google Assistant in how people use it. Those tools have modest real world differences made to people. Now Meta will tell you, not incorrectly, that this is different, those are interfaces, this is an agent. That’s where the real point comes in. An ‘agentic future’ has been discussed, but isn’t here for the mainstream consumer. Meta are betting their scale, social integration, and speed to market could see them take a lead in a world in which Ai isn’t just a smarter Google, but it acts on our behalf, to our direction. Time will tell if a) people want that b) Muse is good enough at doing the agentic tasks c) Meta’s USPs around social context can see it succeed. What do brands need to do with Muse? Initially - nothing. Watch, play, learn. Not least as Meta has a decidedly mixed record on innovation, so heavy pivots based on product launches can be wasted effort (remember the Metaverse?!). As such, your best bet as a brand is to have a strong social presence, for the users context to be drawn from, to integrate functionality where relevant (e.g. payments / bookings etc), and to monitor how (if) consumers adopt and modify behaviours. Much like GEO optimisation, a lot rests on ensuring the right info and functionality is discoverable by the LLMs. Making consumers want to use your brand remains the same challenges they ever were - be visible, be relevant, be differentiated - only today that’s primarily going to be achieved through social influence, third parties and paid media. As is demonstrated by Meta leaning heavily into influencers like Casey Neistat to promote it…

New EU rules are changing how brands can talk about sustainability. Here's what EmpCo means for marketing, social media and creative teams. If you work in marketing, there’s a new acronym worth knowing. EmpCo. From 27th September, new rules will apply across the EU that change how brands are able to communicate environmental claims to consumers. The Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (thankfully shortened to EmpCo) is designed to give consumers clearer, more reliable information and protection against greenwashing. Whilst this may sound like one for the legal team, there’s plenty for marketers to be concerned about. EmpCo doesn’t just affect environmental commitments that are set in the footer of a corporate website. It reaches into the words, visuals and creatives we make every day. Whilst this could mean more scrutiny, it could also end up being a good thing for the work. What environmental claims are affected by EmpCo? The obvious place to start is the copy. Words such as “sustainable”, “green” and “eco-friendly” have become pretty familiar in marketing, and it can sometimes be all too easy to use them without thinking hard about what they actually mean. The introduction of EmpCo changes that. Generic environmental claims like the above can't just be used without meeting the requirements behind them. There are also specific restrictions around climate claims. For example, brands cannot claim that a product is “carbon-neutral” or “climate-neutral” simply because they’ve paid to offset the emissions associated with it elsewhere. Big promises about the future also need something behind them. If “net zero by 2035” is going to appear in consumer comms, there needs to be a clear commitment that is verifiable, with a credible plan of getting there. Essentially, if you’re going to say something is better for the planet, you need to be really clear about why. How does EmpCo affect images and creative? Forests, leaves, wind turbines and a liberal use of the colour green have been doing a huge amount of heavy lifting in sustainability comms for years. None of these things is automatically a problem. The important thing is the overall impression the creative gives, and how prominent the environmental imagery is within it. Take a car photographed in a green landscape. If the car is clearly the focus and the landscape is simply the setting, that’s very different from an image where the landscape dominates, and the car becomes secondary. The latter opens up more room for someone to interpret the image as saying something about the environmental credentials of the car, even if the supporting copy is about something completely different. This makes still imagery particularly worth thinking about. With just a single frame, there is less context to explain what a particular setting or graphic device is being used. Video can sometimes be more straightforward because there’s usually more story and content. A wider and complete story, multiple shots, voiceovers and on-screen text can make everything clearer around why a product is in a particular environment. The same principle applies though: marketers should consider what the finished piece communicates as a whole. This means sign-off and planning on creative needs to go beyond “Is there an environmental claim in the copy?” and consider “What is someone actually going to take away from this?” The UK’s CMA Green Claims Code takes a similar approach to environmental claims, including how colours, images, logos and overall representations can influence what consumers take away. What does EmpCo mean for social media marketing? This is where things can get a little more confusing for marketers. In an age where the clipping economy is booming, a final film can get cut into a Reel, a carefully worded claim can get squeezed onto a graphic, a caption can get shortened, or an asset can get adapted for another market. Before long, an important bit of context can disappear. This makes EmpCo something the wider marketing team needs to understand, rather than something that sits with one person checking sustainability claims. Social teams, agencies, designers and creators all need to know which claims are approved, what sits behind them, and what can (and can’t) be changed when content is adapted. With rules applying from 27th September, now is a good time for brands marketing into the EU to audit their environmental claims and, crucially, the evidence. How should marketers prepare for the EmpCo Directive? The first step is to understand where environmental claims are already being made. Carry out an audit of live and planned content across websites, social media, paid social, email, packaging and influencer content. Don’t only search for “green” and “sustainable”; review claims such as “net zero by 2035” and “carbon-neutral”. Visuals should be part of the audit too, particularly where imagery or design could imply an environmental benefit that isn’t clearly explained. Then work backwards from each claim to the evidence. What exactly are we claiming? What evidence supports it? If nobody can answer those questions, the claim needs another look before it appears in your content. Do the same with creative. Review imagery and video in context and ask yourself what someone is likely going to take away from it. Is a picturesque and green landscape simply the setting, or is it prominent enough to suggest something about the product? Are environmental symbols, colours and images reinforcing a claim you can actually back up? The point of this isn’t to remove nature from creative, but to understand the role it is playing in the message. Lastly, review the sign-off process. Environmental claims shouldn’t only be checked when a large sustainability campaign launches. They can appear in an Instagram caption, an earned Influencer video or on a website. Teams need a clear route for identifying and escalating them as part of everyday content production. Does EmpCo apply in the UK? As an EU directive, EmpCo does not directly apply to marketing aimed solely to an audience in Great Britain. However, that doesn’t mean UK-based marketers can simply ignore it. Brands selling and/or marketing products and services to consumers in EU countries need to consider the rules that apply in those individual markets, particularly where the same campaigns and creative are being spread across the UK and EU. The UK has its own set of rules around environmental and sustainability claims. The Competition and Markets Authority's Green Claims Code explains how businesses should approach these claims under UK consumer protection law. This also includes the need for claims to be accurate and clear, whilst being backed up by evidence. Similar to the EmpCo directive. For brands operating across both UK and EU markets, this means environmental claims need careful consideration regardless os the territory the content is showing up in. EmpCo will inevitably lead to more scrutiny, but that doesn’t mean brands should say less about sustainability. It means replacing broad claims with specific, evidenced facts about what a brand is actually doing. More work for marketers, perhaps. But potentially better marketing as a result. Sources and further reading European Commission – Sustainable consumption and consumer rights EUR-Lex – Directive (EU) 2024/825: Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Competition and Markets Authority – Green Claims Code This blog is intended as general guidance for marketers and does not constitute legal advice.

The latest developments from all the social platforms, in one place, to help you identify what comes next in social This month, a new logo for Instagram was the biggest update that flooded social feeds. However, under the surface there’s been some significant changes to measurement across both Google and YouTube, which are far more significant for brands than a vanity update. LinkedIn also continues to flip flop between clamping down on AI slop, and using AI for content generation. Their stance navigates the relationship between the two, with this month implementing updates on opposite sides of the same coin. YouTube makes two big announcements: it is changing the way video performance is measured and increasing its Partner Program’s eligibility requirements • From August 24th, the platform is changing how it counts views. Previously, a video had to be watched for at least 30 seconds to count as a view; now a view is counted from when the video is clicked. Inevitably, clicks on videos followed by immediate skips will now be counted. The current view count measurement will still remain in place for engaged views, which will become the primary metric for monetisation. For brands, this means a shift in mindset around view volumes, and view count will need to be taken into account along with other important criteria such as watch-time and comments • YouTube announced that it is increasing its requirements to join the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) in February 2027. Instead of the current requirement of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours, creators will need the same amount of subscribers and 8,000 watch hours. This rule will not affect creators already accepted into the program, and applies mostly to creators with no immediate brands LinkedIn takes on the clipping economy, expanding its AI-powered features, launching a tool that chooses significant clips from livestreams for reposting • First AI-powered ad copy and now AI-powered event highlights, LinkedIn has really been honing in its approach to AI. LinkedIn has introduced a feature that allows brands to easily create clips and chapters from live event video recordings, highlighting the best parts to re-purpose. This follows a rise in the number of live events being posted on the platform. For brands using LinkedIn Live, this poses a real opportunity to generate high volumes of social clips efficiently following their broadcasts, making post-event distribution significantly easier, provided the tool lives up to the promise… • On the other side of this approach, LinkedIn has introduced an option for users to report any post that ‘seems like AI slop’. Clearly the platform is trying to navigate the intricacies of using AI for business. Brands should use it to streamline their editing processes and avoid relying on it to generate creative assets. Brands will need to check that their posts do not run the risk of being flagged as AI-generated content by users Meta - Amongst the headlines regarding the court settlement in the US with various States regarding child safety, we’ve picked out their relatively quiet month for product development as Meta expands its Meta AI app to Mac users and prioritises ad placement on Messenger feed and reels only, not Stories • Meta announced on August 19th that Mac users now have access to the Meta AI app. For brands that use Meta, this will be helpful to have an all-in-one application for asking Meta AI questions about their business, based on the information Meta has about their account engagement and ad performance. If given access, Meta can view a Mac window and respond with tailored advice. • From August 27th, Meta permanently shut down Messenger Stories for ad placements, meaning brand ads will show only on the Messenger feed and reels. A Messenger Story ad placement appears when users are swiping through their followings’ stories. This will have little impact on brands, unless they’re running high volumes of ads through Messenger Google lowers requirements for brands to have a search profile, helping brands to have a centralised measurement and better understanding of brand discovery • Building on its recent enhancements of Search Console, Google has lowered the requirements for a brand to have a Search Profile. Previously, a brand needed 100,000 followers on platforms like YouTube, Instagram or X; now they only require 35,000 • The Search Console helps brands track how their social profiles are showing up in search, and the reduction of barriers to entry shows Google making it a more accessible feature for all brands. Optimising your social content to surface for AI and traditional search is only going to become more important X announced video overlays, catching up to other social media platforms slowly • X has introduced video overlays, bringing it up to speed with the editing features of other social media apps. While X is still not considered a video-first app, it marks the shift towards catching up to the video-led platforms that currently dominate. Could we see an X video feed sometime soon? Instagram – New logo, new you? Not quite… • Last (and probably least), Chief Adam Mosseri shared Instagram’s new logo for a ”sharper and more modern” look, while still retaining the “simplicity and craft that’s always made it Instagram”. Instagram has also updated its fonts, icons and formats. This does not have any impact, although there has been some reactive content on it with brands reimagining their own identity in Instagram’s new style • A more meaningful update comes in the form of First Draft, allowing brands to trim their clips with one single tap to form an Instagram Reel. It’s brand new, and rolling out as you read this, so we’ve not had a chance to put it to the test yet. If it’s anything like TikTok’s autocut feature (which it seems to be a carbon copy of) the uses for brands will be limited, as the marginal gains to efficiency won’t be outweighed by the loss of control TikTok provides brands the opportunity to test different ideas for video ads • ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, has released its latest video generation model, Dreamina Seedance 2.5, which allows brands to create different versions of video content for TikTok. At first glance this appears helpful for brands when streamlining their content generation processes, however it’s one to tread cautiously. Just like LinkedIn, TikTok is expanding its AI features while maintaining transparency on AI content with users. Using AI to automate ideation and content generation processes should be paired with human oversight to ensure positive engagement on the platform

As someone who has been there for nearly all the decade of OneFifty, Tom Eyres, Head of Studio and Production, reflects on the principles that have evolved with the business – and the thinking behind them that hasn’t. Ten years is a long time in social media. Ten years matter because this year marks a decade of OneFifty, as many of you already know. I’ve been here for nearly eight of those ten years, which means I’ve had a pretty good view of how the business has changed – and the things that have stayed consistent. In that time, platforms have come and gone, the team has grown, and the work we do has evolved. Technology has changed what is possible, often before anyone got used to the last thing. OneFifty’s principles have evolved too. But, in many ways, they haven't at all. The exact words have been revisited, refined and added to over the years to reflect the OneFifty of today. But the thinking behind them has stayed pretty consistent. At their core, they’re about doing great work, treating people the way you’d expect to be treated, and caring about how things get done. We call it doing the right thing. I've always liked that OneFifty has principles rather than a long list of rules. They give people a framework for making decisions, while leaving room for judgement and common sense. Today, there are seven: Do the right thing Respect other people’s time Details matter- sweat the small stuff Principles>process Challenge mediocrity Win together Do all the things They all show up in different ways. Sometimes “respect other people’s time” means not booking the meeting that could have been a message. Sometimes “details matter” means being the person who spots the tiny thing nobody else will ever know was wrong. “Do all the things” has probably described my eight years at OneFifty better than any job title ever has. The wording of the principles has changed as OneFifty has grown, and it probably will again. But the important bits underneath them haven’t.

The latest developments from all the social platforms, in one place, to help you identify what comes next in social This month sees a continued drive to develop a greater volume of AI tools across platforms, some useful, most just interesting… Alongside feature development, we see platforms looking at new routes to monetise these AI products, though for most brands, that won’t become something to consider. The big news this month? LinkedIn starts the rollout of collab posts. Finally. Meta - Meta attempts to find a more viable monetisation system for its AI models - for most brands, this won’t have a meaningful impact Meta’s AI agent, available on Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp, will now cost 4-5 cents per message to use, starting from August 1st, operating on a token-based system. For most brands, this won’t have an impact on day to day operations, unless they're already using Meta bots for customer service At the start of July, Meta’s new AI option rolled out a new feature that allowed users to remix public IG posts. By default this applies to all public Instagram accounts, whether they’re a brand or creator. This caused a backlash and so Meta retracted the feature immediately after two days. This comes amid rising concerns amongst brands regarding their intellectual property on Meta Instagram - after a flurry of new (albeit long awaited) features in the previous month, this month was a quieter one on Instagram’s development roadmap, with just a few AI feature tweaks. Instagram has added more AI-power language translation options, including Japanese, French, German and Korean. This feature automatically applies to posts by default, unless toggled off Brands will have to decide whether they want their content to be automatically translated by AI or to manually create content in the target audience’s language, shaping the trust that audiences have in brands Instagram has introduced over 30 new effects in Stories from Meta AI. This is powered by Muse Image, the first AI image generation model from Meta Superintelligence Labs. Such effects, when applied to user photos, allow for quick alterations. Whilst only available in the US, it could open the door for further in-app editing, however the application for brands is likely to be limited Google - Google continues to update AI Overviews, and creates transparency for creators and advertisers Google has introduced "platform properties" in Search Console: this allows brands to understand how their social posts perform across Google Search and Discover. Brands can now track the search terms leading people to their content on Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube from Search. Determining why social content is ranking in Google Search, can inform content planning and SEO terms, improving content performance As of 17 July 2026, a Top Stories news carousel is now available in AI Overviews for US mobile users. The carousel consists of ‘developing-topic searches’, which applies to timely and substantial coverage while news stories are still developing in real-time. This shows a development in AI search, shifting into “live” stories and posing potential new challenges for press teams YouTube - YouTube tightens its existing guidelines on inauthentic content, and continues the clamp down The updated guidelines break down inauthentic content into three categories: generic/repetitive content, distressing content, and content where AI personas discuss sensitive topics such as health and finance. YouTube channels will not be able to monetise if they do not follow these guidelines. The YouTube Partner Program is pushing for human-led content, as it navigates ongoing competition with TV and other streaming websites for ad monetisation - for brands, this can only be good news, with less low-quality content out there to dilute the platform LinkedIn - LinkedIn continues expanding its AI tools for ad campaigns, and introduces collaboration posts Introducing… Collaboration Posts (finally!) - brands can now collaborate with up to 5 other members or Company Pages on posts, helping drive distribution through both networks. These work in the same way as Instagram or TikTok, and for brands, this can only be a win, opening the door to collaboration content with third-parties. It’s rolling out right now, so watch this space After launching its brand kit option last month for AI optimisation, LinkedIn is also adding a new AI-powered ad copy generation feature. Brands will have the option to draft ads with AI and set campaign goals using these AI tools. This allows brands to test the effectiveness of multiple ads, while ensuring their tone of voice and messaging stays consistent across all ads

As of July 23, LinkedIn Collaborative Posts are being rolled out globally. Think Instagram collabs, but with up to five individuals AND with company pages. For brands, it provides a gateway to paid influencer marketing, facilitates greater organic distribution, and streamlines company page and executive posting. Read on for how to create them, why this matters right now, and whether you should be utilising this feature. How do LinkedIn collaborative (collaboration) posts work? Important: It should be noted the feature is rolling out gradually and may not be available to you yet. If you do have access, you’ll be able to follow the below steps: On the LinkedIn home feed, create a post through clicking ‘start a post’ at the top of your feed - this allows you to enter copy and any assets If you have access to this feature, you’ll see an ‘add collaborators’ dropdown next to ‘comments’ If you don’t yet have access, you’ll see the following (no collaboration option next to ‘post to anyone’) Click ‘add collaborators’, you’ll then be given a dropdown where you can search for users to post in-collaboration with - click the appropriate individuals Hit post! Once live, the collaborators will receive a notification to accept the invitation - if the individuals accept, the post will be shared in-collaboration with those users Why does it matter? Greater organic distribution: your content is pushed to the feeds of other collaborators - typically, the only way to improve distribution was through encouraging engagement from other users i.e. tagging and comments Streamlines company page and executive activity: LinkedIn’s algorithm pushes individual over brand page posts (OneFifty, 2024). In-line with this, company pages are typically used for amplification of (the stronger performing) individual content. Collaborative posts offer a format that more meaningfully activates the brand page network (vs reshares), along with providing more coherent comms with executives A gateway to influencers: working with third-parties on LinkedIn is under-utilised vs other social platforms. The newly formalised relationship between individuals and organisation means greater credibility for creators and business partners Considerations & data capture Currently, the post analytics of a collaborative post are not split by different parties i.e. you’re unable to attribute post metrics to the individual collaborators. With this format only released to selective users, it suggests there’s more iterations and refinements to come. Should you 'collab'? Like all things, there’s not one answer for all scenarios. But there’s a strong case to test the distributional benefits of this new feature. What could this look like? Amplifying an announcement: a new team hire - collaborators with the brand page and the senior leader within a given team Event distribution: been at a recent event with a colleague? Don’t just post the selfie, utilise their network more effectively through a collaboration post Streamlining communications: rather than promoting a new report through reposts, collaborate with a) the brand page b) the individual who is the face of the report See below for some recent examples of what this looks like: Mazda UK 50th anniversary plaque Andy Burnham and Jimmy McLoughlin interview

UKREiiF is the UK’s largest trade event for the built environment, and is growing in significance. Considerable resource is applied by leading construction and real estate companies to maximising their visibility and narrative. But how effectively is this showing up on LinkedIn, the key digital platform? We analysed every post, to determine how to succeed at UKREiiF 2026, and what you can learn for your UKREiiF 2027 social efforts… How big was the UKREiiF 2026 LinkedIn conversation? 4,452 individual posts were made on LinkedIn Posts averaged 41 engagements each (with the top 10 fetching over 5.5x this volume) Very limited negativity (<1%) in posts What were the key findings from the UKREiiF 2026 LinkedIn conversation? People are underutilised - both within content, but also too little posting, and what they do post is not always at the best time, in the best way, and bucks trends seen inspector outside of the event There’s a lack of follow on - and a lot of pre-event Commercial Real Estate are the most effective sector of attendees, considerably outperforming Construction, professional services and others Thank to thrive - posts with reflections and thanking speakers perform well What worked at UKREiiF 2026? The average UKREiiF-related post received 41 engagements, while the most engaged-with posts were consistently either from pre- or mid-event (rather than post-), with the top 10 posts averaging 272 engagements (5.6x more than the average across the sample) Image posts drove strongest engagements against video and text-only formats (34 v 30 v 23) and all content, on average, drove a greater volume of engagements when posted during the event rather than pre, or post-event (39 v 30 v 20) Face-first content drives engagement - when individuals are prominent in assets, whether images or video, content drives 28% more engagements (opposed to being in the background) (over)Hashtagging harms performance; of the top 30x posts across Pre, During, and Post UKREiiF - only 6 featured more than 3 hashtags (half of those came in post-UKREiiF posts) Individuals outperform company posting in terms of engagements when posting Pre Event (35 v 27 engagements per post) and are on par for During Event post (32 v 34 engagements per post) Individuals should be posting to drive stronger engagement, although they’re not being utilised effectively - only 8% of posts came from people. So, despite overall superior performance of people, Company page posts drove many of the highest-performing content - in-line with the overall distribution of posts between company and individuals (c.7% of the highest performing posts were by individuals, in-line with their wider frequency in the sample) What to do for your UK REiiF 2027 LinkedIn strategy? Put your people front and centre - in the page content, but also from their own profiles Pay to play - ads are effective, and underutilised Find more ways to tag others - not just saying thanks Follow through - post-event content is neglected Plan, be intentional, and don’t spam. More page posts doesn’t equal more success Target your audiences in a considered way, through Execs, and through ads - different themes and formats resonate for different audiences Download our report here.

The latest developments from all the social platforms, in one place, to help you identify what comes next in social In June, there’s been a flurry of long awaited changes that we’ve known would arrive eventually… and about time, too. Across platforms, there’s a divergence in developments that either take control away from people - such as AI-powered features that improve efficiency in brand-collaborator processes - or give it back to people - like more control over how content is shown on user profiles. Scroll on, and uncover the specifics… Meta/Facebook - This month’s updates focus on introducing new AI features, as well as building community Meta has launched a creator assistant chatbot, which helps creators with content, posting time and content suggestions. The update has rolled out in the US, Canada, and India so far The company has launched its AI business agent globally - the agent can answer user questions across all meta platforms, recommend products and close sales Meta has been testing letting creators form ‘Series’ from their videos across Instagram and Facebook - these videos, grouped by a theme or topic, would be displayed in a separate playback section on user profiles. The idea is to help creators build community with a clear theme Instagram - Exciting grid changes dominated Instagram’s updates this month Users can now reorder posts on their grid, as well as frames within a carousel. These features provide an opportunity for more storytelling and further engagement with audiences - for brands, the true value beyond making grid-takeover stunts simpler, is limited Instagram has launched multiple captions on carousels, allowing users to add different copy for each frame. This update is significant in increasing depth of storytelling, and opportunities to have content rank in Social Search results. Now, more than ever, carousels are a great format for content Video ads can now be placed at the end of Reels, giving companies an opportunity to get their product in front of already engaged users It is now possible to comment on posts with photos from your camera roll - this opens up an opportunity for deeper engagement with audiences - whether that be interactive content that prompts sharing, or replying to community content with images In the works for a while, Instagram has now officially launched Instagram Plus - some of the top features of the subscription are seeing how many times a story was rewatched, extending a story post beyond the 48 hours, and the ability to create as many audience lists as possible. These features give an opportunity to reach more people, and in a more intentional way. So far, it’s available in the US only, and the utility for brands doesn't seem significant, but, watch this space for its arrival on UK devices This month, Meta has re-launched Creator Marketplace, to compete with TikTok’s established Creator Marketplace. The feature facilitates brand-creator collaborations, with tools such as AI powered discovery and search, profile and portfolio navigation, creator lists and end-to-end collaboration - which help brands find the perfect creators for their campaigns, evaluate their insights with speed, and manage this process without leaving the platform LinkedIn - In June, LinkedIn focused on content creation features, whether that be facilitating creator content, AI content or introducing collaborative posts LinkedIn launched a creator marketplace - the new feature gives brands an opportunity to partner with creators in the US and Canada, in a push to reach and influence more B2B buyers. This update empowers creators to monetize their content on the app, and for brands to effectively target their audience The platform is testing collaborative posts - the feature would allow users to invite other users or pages to co-create posts, in a similar way to the existing feature on Instagram and TikTok. This update would create a new way of sharing company news or team achievements, and offers brands great opportunities to drive increased visibility on the platform through third parties. About time! LinkedIn has continued to expand its brand kit feature, which allows companies to set core brand colours, fonts and tone of voice, which is then used by LinkedIn’s AI feature to suggest future ads and content - it’s an evolution of existing use of AI in content creation for ad platforms, but is unlikely to revolutionise anything More post performance insights have been added to the platform - users will now be able to see a breakdown of who is viewing content and whether they have come from within or outside their network - this was already available at a profile level, but rolling this out to be able to dive into per post offers a greater understanding of who’s engaging with what content Google/Youtube - this month’s updates focus on giving users more control on how they show up on platforms Google has launched Search profiles, which is a personalised page where creators can exhibit their content, including articles, videos and social posts. Creators must have 100,000 followers to be eligible, and the feature is only available to US users currently Youtube has expanded in-app video sharing - as with Instagram and TikTok, users can now dm each other. This means more opportunity for brands to engage users on the platform Google has introduced Ask Ad Manager, which helps users get insights on existing content, as well as suggestions and insights on future content

What’s shifting on LinkedIn LinkedIn is making one argument from several directions: credibility and peer proof now decide B2B deals, not brands talking themselves up. The research explains why, and the product changes are LinkedIn building the tools to act on it. The research: what actually wins B2B deals LinkedIn and Bain spent three years studying how big enterprise buying decisions get made. The findings reframe what an exec should be doing on the platform. B2B deals are made by groups, and groups don't choose the best option, they choose the one that's safest to agree on. The strongest emotion isn't ambition, it's defensibility. Asked to rank their priorities, buyers put "I felt I could defend this decision even if it went wrong" above "I felt confident the product would work." Fear of messing up beats fear of missing out. Three numbers worth quoting to clients: Vendors are 20x more likely to be chosen when the whole buying group knows them from the start, not just the technical champion. Around half of all buying influence sits with hidden buyers in finance, legal and procurement, who rarely show up in a marketing funnel. Buyers are 3x more likely to choose a vendor their peers recommend than one promising a better product or lower price. What this means for how an exec shows up: Lead with proof, not features. Your job is to make choosing you feel safe, which means visible evidence you've helped companies like theirs succeed. Be known before the deal starts, by more than your champion. An exec's visibility isn't vanity, it's risk reduction for the buyer. If finance and procurement have never heard of you, your champion is defending you alone in a room you're not in. Put peer validation at the centre, not in a case-study library no one reads. People buy from vendors who feel like them, and from names their peers trust. To steal: stop posting about how good the product is. Start posting evidence that people like your buyer already chose you and succeeded. Creator Marketplace: buying credibility at scale What it is: Creator Marketplace, now live inside Campaign Manager, lets brands find vetted creators by topic, check their audience and performance, and contact them directly about partnerships. Why it matters: this is LinkedIn building the tool to act on its own research. If peer and expert voices decide deals, and 70% of marketers say buyers trust those voices over brand content, brands need a way to find them systematically rather than ad hoc. For any client running thought-leadership or influencer work, it turns sourcing from manual outreach into a searchable, vetted pool. To steal: "credibility is overtaking polished messaging," which 83% of B2B marketers agree with, is clean ammunition for the case that exec and creator presence beats corporate copy. Connected Apps: proving expertise instead of claiming it What it is: you can now connect the tools you use daily, like Salesforce, HubSpot, Adobe or GitHub, directly to your profile. Each one generates a specific line from your real activity, for example "creates and sends segmented email campaigns in HubSpot's Marketing Hub" rather than a flat "uses HubSpot." Heavy users get a "Top User" badge. Over a million members have already connected something. Why it matters: it's the Buyability principle applied to your own profile. The research says proof beats claims, and this is proof you can't fake, because it comes from actual usage, not a skills list anyone can pad. For execs and teams in technical, product or marketing roles, it does the same job as a peer recommendation: it lowers the risk of believing you. The catch: the line is app-generated and can't be edited, so it's proof you don't control the wording of. Action: check which of your core tools are available and connect the ones that genuinely sharpen your positioning. For technical and product execs it's a quick, high-trust add. Don't connect things that just clutter the profile. In-network vs out-of-network reach: finally, a real growth metric What it is: post analytics now split in-network reach (your existing connections and followers) from out-of-network reach (people finding you through feed recommendations, reshares and search). It's in the discovery section under impressions. Why it matters: a big impression number used to tell you nothing about whether you were growing or just talking to the same room. Now you can see the difference. The posts that travel out of network are the ones winning you new audience, and they're usually not the posts that land best with your existing followers. That makes this the single most useful input to a content plan. Action: next reporting cycle, read the in vs out split first. If the goal is growth, do more of whatever broke out of network. And remember document posts still drive the highest engagement of any format, per Socialinsider, and LinkedIn just made them more compact in the feed. Collaborative Posts: the reach fix brand pages have been waiting for What it is: LinkedIn is testing the ability for members and pages to co-author a single post, with every collaborator named at the top. Testing began with creators and brands at Cannes, with a wider rollout over the coming months. Why it matters: start with the problem it solves. Brand pages have big follower counts but poor reach, because the algorithm favours people over pages. Collab posts are the workaround: when a page co-authors with an individual, the post rides that person's reach and lands in both audiences at once. But the real implication is bigger. You can only co-author with people who are already active and credible on the platform. A page can't conjure a collaborator the moment it has news to share. So the feature is only as good as your bench of individuals who already post regularly and have built real audiences. That's the case for a proper exec and employee posting programme, made concrete. Not a one-off push when there's news, but an always-on set of credible voices inside the company, ready to collaborate when the page needs reach. The companies that win from this will be the ones who built that bench months earlier. Add Creator Marketplace for external voices, and you have the full roster: your own people, plus vetted creators. Action: nothing to ship today, but the real move comes first. Start building or expanding an exec and employee posting programme now, so the collaborators exist when the rollout lands. The page posting alone should stop being the default. GOOD POSTS THIS MONTH 1. Rohan Nayak, Co-Founder and CEO, Pocket FM The post: the press framed Pocket FM shutting down its Pocket TV beta as a failure ("Pocket FM shuts down Pocket TV"). Rather than let the headline stand, Rohan posted what actually happened: a five-month beta did exactly what a beta should, and here's what they learned. He shared real lessons, that retention, not acquisition, is the actual problem in micro-drama, and that they refused to compete on the category's dark-pattern auto-renewal economics. Then he reframed the whole thing: the beta succeeded, because it taught them something more valuable. (2,265 reactions, 176 comments, 45 reposts.) What he did: took a story framed against him and republished it on his own terms, leading with specifics rather than spin. Why it worked: he didn't get defensive. He conceded the surface fact (yes, we shut it down) and then went deeper than the headline could. Candour plus substance beats a rebuttal, and the dry closing line ("next time we shut down a beta, we'll schedule a press conference") signalled confidence, not wounded pride. The strong comment-to-reaction ratio shows it sparked real discussion. What to steal: when a story gets framed against you, don't argue with the framing, replace it. Concede the basic fact, then go deeper than the original coverage could with specifics only you have. 2. Ricardo Fort, Sponsorship Strategy Advisor The post: with the World Cup around, Ricardo took on ambush marketing, where brands ride an event's profile without paying to sponsor it. His contrarian point: most people assume it's a legal problem, but you rarely beat it in court. You beat it by activating your real sponsorship so well that ambushers can't compete. He drew on having worked multiple World Cups and Olympics. (90 reactions, 12 comments.) What he did: took a topic people think they understand and flipped the common assumption, backed by insider experience. Why it worked: he earns the argument through specifics. He doesn't say ambush marketing is fine, or illegal, he draws the exact line between what crosses into illegality and what stays just outside it, then lands a point most people wouldn't expect. Expertise plus a contrarian take gives the reader something they couldn't have worked out themselves. What to steal: find the place where the conventional wisdom is slightly wrong and you have the experience to correct it. "Everyone assumes X, but having done this, I've learned Y" beats restating what the reader already believes. 3. Eleanor Orebi Gann, Chief Communications Officer, Hiscox The post: Eleanor opened with a sharp memory, an early director who red-penned her drafts and binned anything with more than three marks. From there she built to a bigger argument: AI now lets anyone produce something that looks finished, but the red pen was never just about editing, it taught judgement by exposure. That training ground is vanishing faster than we're replacing it, and the people with least access to informal mentoring will be hit hardest. Her conclusion: a comms leader's job isn't to grieve the old system but to help design what replaces it. (110 reactions, 23 comments.) What she did: used a small, concrete memory as the way into a much bigger argument about the future of the profession. Why it worked: the opening is specific and a little uncomfortable, which earns attention, and she pays it off by widening to stakes that matter to her whole field. It sidesteps nostalgia by ending somewhere constructive, with a clear view on what leaders should actually do. What to steal: the structure is the lesson. Open with one concrete, personal detail rather than a general statement, then widen out to the bigger argument. A specific small moment is a far stronger way in than the abstract theme. THE MONTH AHEAD UK CALENDAR WINDOWS Q2 earnings season runs through the back half of the month, with most companies reporting between 13 and 31 July. This is the fixed point for any exec at or advising a listed company. The window around results is the highest-stakes posting moment of the quarter, and there's a clear gap between a CEO who frames their own numbers and one who leaves it to the press release. Plan exec commentary to land with the results, not a week later. The FIFA World Cup final (19 July) is the broadest cultural moment of the month. Unlike most sporting hooks, it's wide enough that execs in almost any sector can post into it credibly, on leadership, teamwork or what the tournament says about their market. An easy, low-risk moment for a leader who wants visibility without a heavy theme. Wimbledon finals (12 July) are softer and more situational, useful mainly for leaders whose brand is built on hospitality, culture or client entertainment. THE MONTH AHEAD US CALENDAR WINDOWS Independence Day (4 July) shapes the first week. In practice, it means a quiet posting window across the US from roughly 3 to 7 July, worth scheduling around rather than into. US Q2 earnings follow the same mid-to-late July rhythm as the UK, with banks reporting first (around 13 to 17 July) and big tech in the final week (27 to 31 July). Same principle: the exec voice should be ready to land with the numbers. Disability Pride Month (US, all July) is a genuine moment for leaders with a real story to tell on inclusion. The filter is authenticity. An exec with something substantive to say should; one reaching for a calendar peg shouldn't. THE MONTH AHEAD: BUILDING THEMES 1. Heatwave and climate move from seasonal story to exec talking point Why it's building: summer reliably pushes climate up the agenda, and it's one of the few big conversations almost any leader can enter credibly. As heatwaves hit through July and August, the entry points are unusually broad: operational resilience, duty of care to staff, supply-chain exposure, or genuine sustainability commitments. It's a rare theme that's relevant to a logistics CEO, an HR leader and a sustainability head alike. The filter, as ever, is substance over reflex. A leader with a real operational or sustainability angle adds something. A generic "stay cool out there" post doesn't. The strongest version connects the moment to how the business actually operates. What to do: for clients with a legitimate angle, draft ahead rather than reacting to the first hot week. The execs who say something specific about resilience, people or real commitments will stand out against the wave of generic weather posts. 2. Earnings season as an exec-comms test, not just an IR exercise Why it's building: it's seasonal, but the expectations around it have shifted. With Q2 results landing across late July and analysts expecting S&P 500 earnings growth above 20% for the second straight quarter, there's a lot of good news to communicate, and a widening gap between leaders who narrate their own results and those who stay silent behind the official statement. The exec post that explains the quarter in human terms is becoming expected, not optional. What to do: for any client at a listed company, treat the results window as a planned exec-comms moment with copy drafted in advance, not a reactive scramble. The leaders who own their narrative are setting the standard others are measured against. 3. EU AI Act: the transparency deadline gives execs a reason to speak Why it's building: a real deadline is landing, even after the recent delays. The Act's headline high-risk rules were pushed back to December 2027 in the May 2026 agreement, but the transparency obligations still take effect from 2 August 2026, requiring companies to disclose when content or interactions are AI-generated. For any client whose business uses AI in customer-facing ways, that deadline is now weeks away. The opportunity here isn't compliance, it's voice. AI governance is a topic boards, customers and staff are actively asking leaders about, and most execs say nothing because they're waiting for legal to hand them a line. The leader who speaks early and specifically about how their organisation approaches AI transparency and trust owns a high-credibility topic before their peers do.

The AI Act is the first-ever legal documentation on AI, which addresses the rules and regulations around it, and what needs to be disclosed on social media. It becomes applicable on 2nd August 2026. Who this applies to: EU-based organisations and EU-based organisations operating in the UK This applies directly. From 2 August 2026, you are legally considered an “operator” of any AI system used in your business activities, including AI-generated content produced by agencies on your behalf. Compliance sits with you as the brand. UK-based organisations If you’re operating in Europe: Brexit does not create an exemption. The EU AI Act has explicit extraterritorial scope: if your brand’s content, campaigns, or communications reach EU audiences, the regulation applies to that activity. UK businesses working with EU markets, subsidiaries, or consumers are firmly in scope. If you’re only operating in the UK: This wouldn’t apply. However, many of the provisions are reasonable good practice, in the way that images already often feature disclaimers if they’re not the exact model you’d receive in a showroom How it works, and what it changes: AI-generated or manipulated images, video, and audio must be clearly labelled if they could reasonably be perceived as real by an average viewer - think realistic car imagery, AI-generated people, or AI voiceovers. Clearly stylised or obviously unrealistic content is typically exempt. AI-generated text does not require a disclaimer if it has been reviewed, edited where necessary, and approved by a human. Standard AI-assisted copywriting with human sign-off is fine AI chatbots, voicebots, and human-like avatars must disclose to users that they are interacting with AI, not a person Type of Content Transparency Obligation applicable? Sample Disclaimer AI-generated images, videos and audio (“deepfakes”) Yes, if content is a deepfake (= content appears authentic or truthful) No, if unrealistic or artistic representations à In case of doubt, transparency obligations should be fulfilled. “AI-generated image” “This video was created using AI” “AI-generated content” AI-generated text Yes, if texts are published without human oversight or content is clearly presented as purely AI-generated without editorial responsibility No, if text is reviewed, adjusted if necessary and approved by a human à human assumes responsibility; AI may be used for drafting or ideation In most cases: No disclaimer required “This text was created with the assistance of AI” “AI-generated Text” AI-Chat- and Voicebots Yes, if user is interacting with an AI-Chat- or Voicebot “You are chatting with an AI-powered chatbot”. “You are interacting with an AI-powered voicebot”. AI-Avatars cf. transparency obligations for AI-generated images, videos and audio (“deepfakes”) cf. transparency obligations for AI chat- and voicebots where an AI avatar is used as a chat- or voicebot. cf. transparency obligations for AI-generated images, videos and audio (“deepfakes”) cf. transparency obligations for AI chat- and voicebots where an AI avatar is used as a chat- or voicebot. What's complicated with the act? It’s not very clear what using standard editing tools in Adobe which utilise AI means in practice. E.g. if one colour grades a video, and lets the software optimise it, does that count as AI? Or an image being auto resized? We suspect there will be further detailed guidance as the deadline approaches on some of these nuanced points.