Featured
Table of Contents
Audiences are sentimental for 'the old web' and crave material that feels ageless. Many developers are currently starting to use this by dumping trends and focusing more on evergreen material like vlogs and storytime videos, or restoring retro aesthetic appeals (although this itself is likely simply a present trend). You do not desire to waste valuable time producing videos for the sake of hopping on a trend audiences don't wish to see it anyhow.
Rather, focus on premium material that shows your craft and values. Don't simply hop on the fond memories pattern use throwback references or older music styles only if they match your story.
I use AI to produce social networks material every single day, however probably not in the method you're believing. Instead of typing in a prompt and then publishing, AI is woven into almost every stage of how I think, draft, style, and ship content. At Buffer, and on my own social media, I've grown to over 20,000 followers throughout platforms.
Archiving Archival Childhood Portraits for the FutureA year ago, my AI usage looked like many people's: open ChatGPT, ask it to compose a caption, get something generic back, rewrite the entire thing anyway, and question what the point was. The issue wasn't the tools, it was that I was utilizing them one-dimensionally when the real utilize was all over else.
Not because AI was writing better posts for me, however since I was composing better posts with AI managing the friction. I've evaluated a great deal of tools. These are the 14 that stuck, organized by where in my workflow they come in, starting well before I open a blank page.
I'm a company believer that the quality of my material is directly tied to the quality of what I take in. Compared to the amount of time and energy I have, there are boundless quantities of content and connections to be made. This is where this tool can be found in: they help make that process much easier and more repeatable.
When you conserve something to Sublime a quote, a link, an image, a note it immediately surfaces related ideas from other people's libraries. "common understanding management."In practice, it feels less like a performance tool and more like browsing the reading lists of the most fascinating people you know.
Sari's framing is one I return to often: the secret to better AI output isn't better triggers it's better inputs. There's a genuine difference between asking AI to "compose me something about personal branding" and handing it 40 ideas you've been collecting about identity, craft, and audience-building and asking it to discover the thread.
Archiving Archival Childhood Portraits for the FutureOr I'll drop them onto a digital infinity board and begin playing with the flow rearranging concepts, including my own notes and external context up until a shape emerges. It does require active engagement, however. You have to sit with what it surfaces, not simply wait to a folder you'll never reopen.
Sometimes I need to extract structure from my own rambling I talked through an idea, and now I require to discover what's really worth keeping. Other times I have actually got the opposite problem: scattered references across tabs, notes, and half-watched videos, and I need to synthesize them into something coherent that still seems like me.
That's not why it's on this list. The usage case I lean into for Granola is thinking out loud.
What I get back isn't simply a transcript. It's a starting point. When concepts will not await a practical minute, so you simply interrupt everyone (my group has actually been extremely patient with me) This is how I use Granola to remain present in conferences without losing every thought that turns up.
Granola makes that instinct efficient. It's just listening and organizing.
Here are a number of articles from fellow spoken processors on the group to dig much deeper into rambling-as-processing.: Free (basic); $14/user/month for limitless Visual thinkers who need to synthesize numerous sources into material as rapidly as possiblePoppy's interface is a visual canvas. I drag in YouTube videos, TikToks, articles, PDFs, voice notes whatever raw product I'm dealing with and arrange it into groups that the AI can pull from simultaneously.
I use it mainly for scripting YouTube videos, short-form content, anything where I want the output to in fact sound like me rather than generic AI-speak. My common setup appears like this: Examples of my own previous content (this teaches it my voice) Referral videos I want to study not to copy, however to learn from their structure, hooks, pacing The working draft, where the AI pulls from both groups simultaneouslyThat last part is what makes it click.
It's synthesizing my voice from Group 1 with the structural patterns from Group 2. The output still requires modifying, but I'm beginning with something that seems like me riffing on ideas I actually care about not a generic script design template. I can also access multiple models (ChatGPT, Claude) within the same office, which is helpful when I desire to compare outputs or utilize various designs for different parts of the process.
The real tool beneath is more thoughtful than its landing page recommends, however it's a meaningful financial investment. Strategies are yearly only with a credit-based system, so it's worth screening within the 30-day money-back assurance before you go all in.Price: From $400/year (annual billing just; 30-day money-back guarantee) Here's what I have actually discovered works better than asking AI to write my material: asking it to assist me believe through my material.
: Strategic sparring and seeing concepts before I construct themClaude is my thinking partner. What makes Claude uniquely useful for content work is the combination of deep thinking and the capability to really show me things.
But it can likewise visualize what we're talking about: prototype a web page layout, mock up a report structure, build a working preview of a landing page. I'm not just discussing ideas in the abstract. I'm taking a look at them. For our upcoming State of Social Engagement report, I went back and forth with Claude over several rounds till the structure clicked.
That iterative process is where the real thinking occurred. I've also used it to model websites layouts before sharing concepts with my team. Having the ability to see the structure, not just explain it, helps me come to discussions much better prepared. The sparring only works if I really push back.
Latest Posts
Comparing Outdoor and Outdoor Family Events
The Parent's Handbook to City Parenting Highlights
Great Upcoming Family Activities