Funny how everyone on LinkedIn uses the Summary portion as a buzzword garden - you've got the whole experience section for that.

But hey - I've got 15+ years working in agencies, with a heavy emphasis on social, content, influencers, and campaigns. As a Director of Creative Strategy, I've lead Social AORs and campaigns for Microsoft, Beats By Dre, Verizon, Spotify, Minecraft, Bethesda, Rock Band, and a slew more - a bunch of details on all of that below.

Besides that? Huge NBA fan who plays ball 4 days a week, vinyl record collector, colossal music fan, and guy who Postmates far too much. Let's make something cool.

Jack Appleby

Okay, I’ve identified seven ways to know if someone’s using AI to write their LinkedIn:

I actually haven’t, I just think it’s ridiculous that anyone cares. If the content in front of your eyes is good, enjoy it! If it’s not good, scroll on right past. But there’s nothing more silly spending time wondering who’s using AI or having emotions about it.

Social Media / Creator Consultant | Work: Microsoft, Beats By Dre, Verizon, Twitch, Morning Brew, Rock Band, Community (six seasons and a movie!) & a slew of video games.

Should your brand only hire Social Media Managers who have their own personal brand and social following?

OF COURSE NOT. It's okay if social's just a job to them. Not everyone needs to build a personal brand in their free time. Does it help? Sure! Can it help show how someone thinks? Yes! But should it be a determining factor? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

“Industry experience required.”

Easily the dumbest, most self-sabotaging phrase in hiring.

If I'm hiring a social media manager for a shoe brand, they don't need five years of footwear experience—they need to understand marketing. They need to get storytelling, and community, and human emotion, and how to make engaging content.

MARKETING IS A TRANSFERABLE SKILL, FOLKS. What, are we in a post apocalyptic society where whatever task you're assigned in the zombie wasteland is your new career for life? Come. On. 

None of your industries are special snowflakes, folks. Yeah, there will be some industry specific things; maybe it's legalities, or demographic preferences, or who knows what. Any half decent marketer can learn that stuff in 30 seconds. Stop pretending like your field is rocket science. 

What's funny is I benefited from this silly way of thinking! Check my LinkedIn—over half my jobs are in the video game industry because once I had gaming experience, those companies kept on calling me. Funny thing? I wasn't allowed to play video games as a kid. And honestly? I don't think my ~gaming experience~ is what made me good at those jobs—it was my social experience.

So uh, hiring managers and companies? Maybe we get a littleee more creative and a littleee less lazy with how we hire people, yeah?

Welp, I did it. I built a 2nd media business around my 🏀 passion, that’s now a 2nd major income stream.

This is the TikTok payout for How To Hoop Forever last month. That's not counting brand deals or in-kind trades.

I'm being paid to play basketball.
You can follow along: https://lnkd.in/eFHFcG_s

ChatGPT can now turn off em-dashes.

What will the LinkedIn AI Police who wanna scream about "I CANT BELIEVE PEOPLE USE AI" complain about now?

Every. Single. Brand. Should. Post. YouTube. Shorts.

Here's 3 very simple reasons why ↓

YOU CAN LITERALLY JUST REPURPOSE YOUR REELS + TIKTOKS
Short-form vertical video is short-form vertical video. These platforms are the sameeee. You've already made the content, so why not just post the content on another massive social network?

YOUTUBE IS THE 2ND LARGEST SEARCH ENGINE
We've heard a lot about the importance of social SEO—Gen Z loves to search YouTube and TikTok the way us millennials usually google things. Getting your social content on YouTube ensures you're in the mix for searches

YOUR BRAND'S YOUTUBE IS PROBABLY DUSTY
Let's be honest, you probably just dropped old TV spots onto your brand's YouTube. Shorts suddenly give that channel purpose, AND will give your next commercial better lift when you inevitably toss it on this channel!

Why isn't your brand on YouTube shorts? What's stopping you? Lemme know in the comments.

I’m super proud of this week’s newsletter.

I’m writing about moving SLOWER in social.

Why speed doesn’t get us anything, how we’ve held ourselves to a reactionary standard that’s honestly not worth much, and why slowing down and being more deliberate are what get you the best social media results. 

Sub here to get it tomorrow: Futuresocial.beehiiv.com

BIG NEWS: my newsletter Future Social just hit 80k subs, and we've kept a 39% open rate!

I'm so proud of this thing. I've never spent a dime on advertising—Future Social has solely grown from readers sharing my articles & encouraging other to subscribe. Hell, I don't even promote it very much, but I really pride myself on writing strategies & case studies that help our beloved social media industry to keep getting better.

If you're not subbed yet, would love to see ya:
https://lnkd.in/eCGxAWpJ

What are your Social Media Predictions for 2026?

I'm gonna feature my favs in the newsletter!

Here's a list of areas to challenge your thoughts—just drop a comment here with your predictions!

- What’s one big social platform shift you think everyone’s underestimating?
- Which social network is due for a major glow-up… or a major collapse?
- What’s one content format you think is about to explode?
- What’s a trend we’re all obsessed with right now that won’t survive 2025?
- How will AI realistically change the day-to-day job of a social media manager?
- What’s one new feature Instagram/TikTok/YouTube WILL roll out next year?
- What’s the biggest skill social pros will need by 2026?
- What’s a type of content brands should immediately stop making?
- What’s the next “For You Page” evolution? (More personalization? More curation?)
- What’s one creator behavior you think brands should steal?
- What’s a metric that will matter way more than it does today?
- What’s a metric we’ll all stop caring about?
- Will Threads actually become a thing? (Or… lol no?)
- What do you think the TikTok algorithm will look like post–ownership change?
- What’s one consumer behavior shift we’re all sleeping on?
- What’s a category of brands that will win big on social in 2026?
- What’s a hot take about the future of paid social?
- What’s your prediction for UGC creators in 2026?
- What new job title will emerge for social teams next year?
- What’s one way social media marketing will look completely different 18 months from now?

Or pick your own!

There's one major mistake I'm seeing brands make over and over in their Influencer Marketing efforts ↓

Brands are giving influencers unreasonably short timelines to create the content, then giving themselves what feels like eons to approve the content... then turning back and asking the creators for edits within 24 hours.

Influencer partnerships are just that—partnerships. It's gotta be a team effort on both sides. You're immediately alienating influencers when you ask for impossible deadlines, or when your brand doesn't deliver timely feedback after asking influencers to drop everything to make content.

Like, think about it. If you've identified an influencer as someone who can successfully drive business for your brand, you probably wanna do everything to make sure they have a great experience, because the last thing you want is them no longer supporting you!

The solves are simple:
- Be realistic in timelines, for both creators and approvals
- Have a clear approval process on the brand side
- Suggest timelines to influencers, but specifically ask them to feedback on the timeline and see what works for them.

Pink Instagram backgrounds now exist!

Buttt you can’t get them. The details ↓

So Instagram started a very exclusive awards program called Rings—basically the Oscars for Insta. Only 25 creators were selected worldwide for the honor.

Two of the benefits of winning Rings:
- creators get custom background colors
- your IG stories ring turns gold (example on left)

Personally, I don’t love the colors look (it’s hard to read & at a glance, it’s impossible to know why they have colored backgrounds when no one else does), but would you want the option to change your color?

No alternative text description for this image

Hot take: your brand’s social will fail if it’s all trend content.

You need to make real, original IP. Unique content!

Your social strategy can’t just be reacting to whatever’s new and hot on the For You Page. The celeb memes and popular songs you’re using? Yeah, those are copyrighted.

YOU DON’T NEED TRENDS. Your brand is interesting all on its own, I promise! And really, your content should constantly pay off the EMOTIONAL BENEFIT of your product, which really doesn’t need any ~culture~ (oh, I’m yelling again, sorry).

If you want relevance year-round, you need content that’s recognizable, repeatable, and uniquely yours. This is cliche, but the best brands in the world don’t join trends, they leverage social insights to start them.
So, I partnered with Hootsuite to create a simple checklist to help you build evergreen content that’ll do numbers without ever checking what’s trending. 
👉 Head to Hootsuite’s LinkedIn page for the full breakdown: https://lnkd.in/eSa3qpNS

#HootsuitePartner

Brand partnership • Social Media / Creator Consultant | Work: Microsoft, Beats By Dre, Verizon, Twitch, Morning Brew, Rock Band, Community (six seasons and a movie!) & a slew of video games.

Can we stop trying to reboot Vine?

TikTok and Instagram have already won. You don't even want Vine back—you just don't realize it.

The nostalgia for the app is cute, but here's what'd happen:
- you'd log in on day 1 out of curiosity
- you'd love the shortest videos ever again
- by week 2, you'd forget its on your phone as your habits go back to Instagram (where your friends and creators are) and TikTok (where the best algorithm in the world knows what content you want).

VINE 2 IS NOT GONNA HAPPEN STOP IT!!!

If you get upset when your brand's social media comments turn negative... you've probably put too much of your identity into your job. 

You're not the company your work for, or the product, or even the social media content you make for the company. It's all work. And sure, you should be proud of when the work does well! But when it doesn't? Or when the company's under fire for some reason that has literally nothing to do with you? That shouldn't bother you.

But I see farrrr too many social media professionals (especially young ones) tie their self-worth to their social media jobs. That's always a recipe for disaster. 

Maybe I'm lucky—my social career began on 3 hated products. I worked community management for some EA video games: Battlefield, Need For Speed: The Run, and Mass Effect 3... also known as a massive game that launched with major glitches, the most hated rendition of a beloved franchise, and the long-awaited trilogy ender with an ending blasted by fans. All 3 got tonssss of negative comments, and I knew up front that those comments weren't a reflection of me.

So please, make sure you're not tying too much of yourself to your brands. Touch grass, as they say.

graphical user interface, text, application

Yeah, you could post memes & lols on LinkedIn...

Anddd it'll do truly nothing to help your career.

I loved a LinkedIn post I saw from Shannon Kelly Ash this morning. She ran a little experiment on her personal account:

"I posted a bunch of unhinged nonsense daily and gained 1,500+ followers and 400,000+ impressions in just over a month. Sounds pretty neat on paper, right? 

Except … visibility ≠ opportunity.

When I used to post polite content tips [3 likes], my inbox was full of job offers and freelance opportunities. Now? With exponentially more reach? Nothing."

This is the number one mistake I see people make in content. We think all engagement is good engagement. We think being the funny guy means we'll get attention... but it's not the attention you want.

You want to be an authority! You want to appeal to bosses & budget holders, not be one of those LinkedIn people who complains about the industry or pokes fun at things. That doesn't get you noticed by the right people.

So please, use LinkedIn, but if you're here to better your career? Share content that shows off that big ol' brain of yours.

And hey, if you need an easy way to start? I've got a $5/month thing I built that gives you daily LinkedIn writing prompts meant to mine your brain for thinking & ideas that are specific to YOU. Give it a look over here if you like: https://lnkd.in/gTTZVf4e

What's the best piece of advice you'd give to someone who wants to work in social media?

Black F̶r̶i̶d̶a̶y̶
Black F̶r̶i̶d̶a̶y̶ ̶W̶e̶e̶k̶
Black F̶r̶i̶d̶a̶y̶ ̶C̶y̶b̶e̶r̶ ̶M̶o̶n̶d̶a̶y̶
Black F̶r̶i̶d̶a̶y̶ ̶E̶x̶t̶e̶n̶d̶e̶d̶
Black Existence

Reply with your take, I'm gonna feature a bunch in my newsletter!

Sociallyin

• Develop and execute social media strategies tailored to medium and enterprise-level clients across various industries.
• Oversee client strategy, ensuring alignment with clients' business goals and target audiences.
• Content ideation and collaborate with production teams to create high-quality, on-brand content.
• Analyze performance metrics and provide actionable insights to optimize campaigns and maximize ROI.
• Incorporate community engagement into strategy, fostering strong relationships and brand loyalty on behalf of clients.
• Stay ahead of social media trends, advising clients on innovative tactics to elevate their presence.

Senior Strategist

Stealth

Making Something

Better Call Brett

• Developed and implemented comprehensive social media strategies tailored to three distinct local businesses, driving engagement and increasing brand visibility across platforms.
• Orchestrated multi-platform campaigns across LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Threads, and TikTok, ensuring consistent brand messaging and optimized user experience.
• Designed and curated compelling content calendars, including graphics, videos, and written content, resulting in a consistent and engaging online presence for clients.
• Utilized targeted advertising, community engagement, and analytics to grow followers and foster meaningful interactions, enhancing client-customer relationships.
• Conducted regular performance analysis using social media analytics tools, providing actionable insights and recommendations to optimize campaign effectiveness and ROI.
• Established and maintained brand identity guidelines across all social media channels, ensuring cohesive storytelling and alignment with each client's unique brand voice.
• Fostered strong relationships with clients through regular communication, feedback sessions, and collaborative brainstorming, ensuring alignment with business objectives and goals.
• Continuously monitored and adjusted social media campaigns based on real-time performance metrics, A/B testing, and industry trends to maximize engagement and reach.
• Implemented innovative tactics such as influencer partnerships, live streaming events, and user-generated content campaigns to create buzz and drive organic growth.
• Stayed abreast of the latest social media trends, algorithms, and best practices through ongoing education, webinars, and industry conferences, ensuring clients remained at the forefront of digital innovation.

Social Media Strategist, Owner

Peredox Digital

Digital Marketing Manager

Klothed

Lead, Social Media Strategist

Ladders

• Spearhead content creation and marketing strategies across Adobe Lightroom, Premiere Pro, Photoshop & Canva in collaboration with Marketing and Acquisition Directors.
• Architect of go-to-market content strategies for product launches and managed campaign execution in partnership with Chief Revenue Officer.
• Oversee content planning utilizing a detailed content calendar
• Directed Social Media advertising and managed advertising budget in conjunction with Marketing Director.
• Manage diverse team of 4 including video/photo production and copywriting.
• Generated 122,074 impressions on Linkedin through organic content - 186.92% increase YoY
• Leader of community management for audience of 374k+
• Increased Twitter Impressions 341.9% YoY (1.6% ER)
• Increased Facebook engagements 67.7% (2.4% ER - up 96.5% YoY)
• Increased Instagram Reach 1538.84% YoY (2.1% ER)
• Launched company’s first TikTok account amassing over 1 million views in the first 6 months.

Manager, Social Media

Kona Gold Beverage

• Spearhead content creation and marketing strategies across Adobe Lightroom, Premiere Pro, Photoshop & Canva in collaboration with the Chief Executive Officer.
• Architect of go-to-market content strategies for product launches and managed campaign execution in partnership with Chief Executive Officer.
• Expanded social media audience across all platforms by 400%
• Oversee content planning utilizing a detailed content calendar
• Created CPG eCommerce storefronts for Instagram and Facebook for 2 beverage brands.
• Increased Instagram total engagement rate .8% to 2.3%.
• Increased Twitter impressions by 118.9k over first 90 days.
• Oversee creation and execution of email marketing campaigns totaling $23,553 sales in 10 months.
• Oversee brand wide packaging redesign with social media visibility as a focus in collaboration with Chief Executive Officer.

TuneOnTheGo

• Launched company Instagram - building account to 1,725 followers
• Oversee web content optimization
• Spearhead content creation and marketing strategies across Adobe Lightroom, Premiere Pro, Photoshop & Canva in collaboration with the owner.
• Oversee content planning utilizing a detailed content calendar

Social Media Manager

Icahn Automotive

• Manage store P&L for locations grossing over $3 million in annual revenue.
• Directed team of 7 Technicians & 2 Service Advisors.
• Oversee KPI metrics for add on sales
• Maintained average profit margin of 63%.
• During my tenure, annual steadily increased from approx. $600k to over $3m

Assistant Service Manager

• Assess customer needs and create customized service estimate based on needs
• Assist customer in finding solutions to financial road blocks
• Manage team of 7 Technicians & 2 Service Writers
• Maintained average profit margin of 63%
• Manage KPI metrics regarding add on sales
• Ensure smooth repair process from customer approval to parts acquisition to repair completion
• Research new releases to maintain knowledge of upcoming vehicles
• During my tenure, annual revenue steadily increased 
approx. from $600k to $2.2m

Service Advisor

• Responsible also to maintain clean and safe work areas in the tire and service department
• The General Service Technician may be required to provide advice to and sell customers on automotive services and repairs that are recommended or required for their vehicle
• Learn how to diagnose and repair basic automotive including brakes, alignments, suspensions, cooling and electrical
• Continuously learned new technical information and techniques in formal training sessions in order to stay abreast with rapidly changing automotive technology
• Change engine oil and filter
• Install and perform tire maintenance
• Install batteries and check starting / charging systems
• Install headlights and other small bulbs
• Repair flat tires
• Install wiper blades
• Stock and unload tires
• Assist fellow technicians/mechanics in performing technical activities
• Keep store management aware of mechanical repair problems as they occur
• Clean and maintain an organized and neat shop

General Service Technician

Lundgren Honda/Bernardi Honda

• Cultivate and maintain relationships with potential customers to achieve sales objectives
• Use of rapport built to strategically negotiate with
customers to close deals
• Qualify client buying power and financial requirements prior to approval with Sales & F&I Managers
• Maintain working knowledge of lot inventory & inbound units
• Qualifying & follow up with internet leads
• Research new releases to maintain knowledge of upcoming
vehicles
• Informed customers of associated dealer services such as extended warranties, accessories, and maintenance plans

Sales Consultant

Transforming your Organic Social Strategy | Digital Marketing | Creative Strategy, Community Management, Team Management, Content Marketing

Hey there, LinkedIn folks! I'm the marketing maestro you've been waiting for! I've got the digital marketing skills to take your brand to new heights and make those social media platforms work for you.

I've been in the game for a while, specializing in all things social media management, brand strategy, and content strategy. Whether it's small businesses, beverage brands, start-ups, or even a sleek SaaS model company, I've handled them all with finesse.

But here's the secret sauce, folks: I don't do things the conventional way. Nope, I'm all about breaking the mold and finding those out-of-the-box methods to keep your audience hooked and engaged. Let's face it, it's called SOCIAL media for a reason! So let's get social, shall we?

I thrive on creating content that educates and entertains, giving your users a reason to stick around and become part of your awesome community. Let's ditch the boring and embrace the exciting. Together, we'll make waves in the digital realm and leave your competition wondering how we did it.

So, if you're ready to take your brand's online presence to the next level, hit me up. With me by your side, there's no limit to what we can achieve in the wild world of social media marketing!

taplio

The Battle

Jack Appleby

Brett Birdsall

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreJack Appleby's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Jack Appleby

Brett Birdsall

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Jack Appleby's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreJack Appleby's LinkedIn Performance