Setting The Stage: Why Trends Matter

Chris Norton 0:00

If you've ever felt your content land flat, if your board wants harder numbers and if your channels are getting louder but not stronger, these next few minutes are going to give you some proper clarity. I'm Chris Norton and this is Embracing Marketing Mistakes, the place where we talk openly about when everything goes wrong in modern marketing and how to rebuild momentum when everything is in utter chaos. This episode though is a little bit different. Our annual social media trends event sold out weeks in advance, with more than 1400 of you marketers turning up and giving us your views, and it was the liveliest, busiest session we've ever run. And the questions, the polls, and the reaction made one thing clear the industry is at a turning point. In the next hour, Will and I are going to walk you through the shifts already shaping 2026, what's working, what's not working, and where brands are quietly wasting time. You'll hear the predictions that we got right last year, because we've been doing it for 12 years, and the ones we completely misread, because that is always entertaining. And the trends you will need to get ahead this year. Let's get into it. Six years. Right from back in the day, and obviously a lot of things have changed. So we will get into it. But before we do, um, yeah, we'll just do a little bit um of an introduction. So my name is Chris Norton. I am the founder and managing director at Prohibition. Um, I'll go into a little bit about who we are and what we do, but I've been in social media since My Space, Friends Reunited. Several of you won't even know what that is. Um, right back in the beginning when um social media was when it was called word of mouth marketing. Um and so we yeah, I've always wanted to stay on top of what's what's new, what's coming, and what's evolving so we can share those thoughts with you guys. Um this is Will.

Will Ockenden 2:08

Yeah, hi everyone. Um so I'm I'm the um the other owner at Prohibition. I'm gonna do the second half of this um this trends deck. Interestingly enough, um, as as Chris alluded to, this is consistently our most popular ever webinar every single year. And I'm sure everyone wants to know what's happening this year and and and how what trends you need to stay on top of. At the end of this, actually, we're gonna show you how you can stay on top of these trends because it can be a little bit overwhelming at times um in terms of um yeah, staying on top of everything. But yeah, we hope you enjoy it and hope you find it valuable.

Chris Norton 2:40

Yeah, valuable is the key. So, what we're gonna try and cover in the next 50 to 60 minutes is we've got a couple of slides on us, don't worry. Um, then we're gonna get into why trends are important. Then we're gonna look at amusingly, we do this every year, and you guys, I know always find this amusing, where we talk about what we predicted last year and how close, because we we've got about 40 clients, a lot of who we do social media for, um, and we use our our team to predict what the predictions are based on data that we've got in-house. We've got a number of social media tools and AI tools that we've had bespoke built. Um, then we're gonna get into yeah, the trends for social media 2026. So, um, yeah, who are Prohibition? Well, we're basically uh based in Leeds. We are the biggest PR agent PR and social media agency in Yorkshire. Uh, we've got about 30 consultants. We worked from everybody here. You can see there's a few of our clients we have worked with. So we did the social media content for University of Oxford for its 75th anniversary of its business school. So we'd that was B2B thought leadership content a couple of years ago, right through to consumer social media for goldsmiths, watches of Switzerland, Cartwright and Butler, Primula, um, even Transport for the North and Fentimans, the drink, the drinks brand. So we do social media for tons and tons of different brands and have done uh in the past. We also work with uh we do a lot of content for Yorkshire Water. For those of you that are in the Yorkshire region, you'll know that's our local water provider. Um, we

Who We Are And What We Measure

Chris Norton 4:10

also hope, Will and I also have this has happened in the last two months. So thank you to anybody who does actually listen to the show. Uh, we loved this show two and a half years ago, and it it as of this uh in December, it went to number one and stayed in number one uh uh to in uh podcast for marketing. So embracing marketing mistakes is our podcast. We've also got a YouTube channel, um, which is on about seven and a half thousand followers, I think. Um and yeah, it's at about 260,000 downloads and embracing marketing mistakes is a podcast, we do it weekly, so we do interviews with guests, and sometimes we do a little bit of our stuff that we talk about on the in the webinars. Um, but it's like and then we also interview people about the biggest mistakes they've made in their careers, and then we segment and share them every week, and people love the uh the mistakes more than anything. And yeah, um, we reach about 750,000 marketers every year, so pretty good. We've got no sponsor, uh Prohibition sponsor it. So if you want to if you know somebody who wants to reach a load of marketers, think of a good brand, let us know because we'd love to do that. Um uh, and then how are our businesses split up? We've got sort of three departments. Um, obviously, I've just talked about um podcasting, so that's content creation for brand. Uh obviously in 2026, uh I predicted it last year, we'll come on to it. But B2B um thought leadership, podcasting, b um podcasting is still pretty prolific uh in content creation uh because it is the year of brand, it's gonna be the year of brand. Brand is gonna win the day, and you're gonna you're gonna see why. Uh in the middle there, you can see performance PR. So we do what we call performance PR, which is about PR campaigns that actually deliver some sort of tangible business benefit. Um, we measure everything down to the nth degree, but our job is to always sort of show a return on investment, whether that's in social or in public relations. So if you do a campaign with us, we try to show the business benefits, uh conversion, sales, whatever it might be, if it's B2B as well. So that that that's called performance PR. And then yeah, strategy and insight. We're we we'll come on to that because we we do offer um social media strategy and insight into all sorts of different bits and pieces. So that's us really. Let's get into um what trends are all about. So we've been doing this for, like I say, about 12-13 years now. Why are trends important? Well, they've got several benefits. You can cut through the noise if you know what is noise, because there's that much stuff these days. TikTok, uh all the different channels, and you're just bombarded with the latest, um, you're bombarded with the latest um uh product or or tool that's come out. So you and you want to be seen as leading edge. Um, if you if you on top of uh trends, you can drive efficiencies, you can improve your marketing impact, you can stay relevant by focus, focus, focus, and uh hopefully raise your own board visibility to the rest of the company by you know following the right trends and not just every old whim. And when we say every other whim, who remembers Clubhouse? Clubhouse was gonna be the next big thing, or um yeah, you can see a mere cat there and Vine. I'd say Vine's made made a comeback with little little loopy videos, it was going to be the next big thing, and actually, I think it was a little bit of ahead of its time. But the the key is investment, whether that's time, money, or whatever, versus return. So don't just embrace a trend just for the sake of it. It's to be clear why are you doing what you're doing? Don't just launch a TikTok if you've not thought it through. You know, it why are we doing what we're doing? Don't just do it because your competitors are doing it, you want to be different to everybody else. We had someone on the podcast the other week, and he his whole strategy was um be the pink Batman, which is basically something that stands out. And if you copy everybody else, you're not you're not gonna be the pink man, Batman. I never thought I'd get the words pink Batman into a statement, but there we go. So this is where Will and I can chat through something.

Will Ockenden 8:04

Yeah, what do we know what do we normally get right? About 80%, isn't it? I think.

Chris Norton 8:08

No, you always say that. I'd say it's about um well, let's go through it. Let's see what's the tick. So generative AI for content creation is what we predicted in 2025.

Last Year’s Predictions: Wins And Misses

Chris Norton 8:20

Big tick, yes.

Will Ockenden 8:21

Yeah, definitely.

Chris Norton 8:23

Get ready for an X. Threads growth to plateau. Well, no. Um Blue Sky to 200 million, no. We thought Threads was going to plateau. Um uh threads being the Twitter Twitter comparison, you know, X comparison competitor, and Blue Sky to take off, but actually it's been the other way around. Blue Sky has plateaued and Threads has taken. We knew one of them would, but um the wrong way around.

Will Ockenden 8:46

It's about 40 million, I think, Blue Sky globally, which is nowhere near our prediction. So you've got a theory why this has happened, haven't you, Chris?

Chris Norton 8:53

Um, well, yeah. Um basically I've seen various people saying that Blue Sky is one side of a story, so there's not enough debate in there. So it's be it launched to a lot of this is amazing. This is what Twitter used to be, which is what what we did. It was about November a year before last. Uh, and everybody thought that's what it was going to become, but actually it just meant that it was a one people are saying it's one side of a conversation. Whether you agree with that, it's up to you. Um 2025 YouTube Renaissance. Yes, I would say that's true. YouTube is still growing, it's still the channel for growth. I mean, the the beauty of YouTube is it it still serves. You can put a video on three years ago and it's still building you momentum and still growing, unlike other channels that do well at the beginning and then fade. YouTube can start really slowly and then build. So um, yeah, I'd say that's still going on. Uh, B2B branding exploding on LinkedIn. I mean, yeah, that's happening ridiculous. More and more and more content, like the podcast example I was just giving you. We share um maybe a five-minute clip of our podcast every week on LinkedIn, and it always does really, really well. Um, the growth of micro virality, so like micro-niche um viral areas. What do you think, Will? Did that happen or not?

Will Ockenden 10:06

Um yes and no. Yes and no. It's not it's not been a it's not been a defining moment of 2025, has it?

Chris Norton 10:14

No. And then we've got outbound engagement, which is basically where you you go out from the brand to engage with people instead of just reacting to people. Is there's a bit of that going on as well.

Will Ockenden 10:25

In consumer, definitely in consumer markets, we're seeing more of that brands reaching out. Um but actually that dovetails with the trend that I'm going to talk about about irrelevant leveraging of events. So I'll I won't say any more on that.

Chris Norton 10:39

Controlling the narrative, uh, Brooklyn Beckham. Uh we'll park that one there.

Will Ockenden 10:46

That's a that's a story we're all deeply committed to at Prohibition.

Chris Norton 10:50

And then embracing creative disruptions. There's plenty of creative disruptions. So I'd say about 70% we got right.

Will Ockenden 10:57

On the creative disruption, actually, um the um Ryanair has just done a post today um attacking Elon Musk, and um it's just brilliant. They they they're doubling down on calling Elon Musk an idiot, they're doing an idiot discount. Uh it's just absolutely brilliant and on-brand and disruptive, and really caught my attention. So seek that out if you've not seen that so far.

Chris Norton 11:20

So, what should we care about in 2026 then? Not Michael O'Leary. Um, well, first one, your first employee is an AI brand bot. So in November 2024, so just at the end, just almost in the beginning of last year, um, Google launched Brandbots, which is if you if you're on um uh your pr a business profile, you can actually attach uh a WhatsApp to your business page. You know, Prohibition could have one, and you can use it as a customer service brand bot. Um, what's happening is uh it's a chance for B2B brands to feel more human at scale because you can have AI at the front desk. So I know that HubSpot's done this because we tested it out, but you can have an AI tool and learn particularly your business or your brand all about all the FAQs and everything, and then you can attach it to an inbox and it will reply for you um properly

AI Brand Bots And Always‑On Service

Chris Norton 12:10

and appropriately, you would hope, if you've trained it properly. But there's there's some good examples of that. It means you can scale. Um, it's a smart way to build authority, let the bot um give fast, useful answers. It stops you know humans having to do that work and they can focus on the more difficult tasks. Points people to the right product of service and takes them to the next step. Um, and if you get the tone of voice right, be crystal clear on what it can do and set a clear handover for when it gets to a certain point to a real person. You've therefore saved a bit of money, you've become um it's not like the old days of when you used a phone um and the customer service was an automated response. Often people don't realise um that these brand bots are brand bots now. I know that Octopus, um, their head of marketing was speaking at a thing I was uh speaking at recently, and he and they'd improved customer service by something like 28% by using AI as part of the customer service process, mainly because it doesn't have an ego and and doesn't get personally affected and and and gives a fair answer and is helpful. Um often people don't like being criticized, and that can come across. So that's the first one. Second one, and there is a theme, there's quite a bit of AI in social media, but this is um yeah, this is interesting. You've got Shrek here eating rice and crying into it. Uh, AI creates more of your feed than people do, right? So whether you agree with this or like it or not, um I know that um there's various meta have launched an entire channel just dedicated to AI slop. We're basically in the era of AI sloptimization, it's just AI crap everywhere. But there's some quite cool AI content too, such as dreet lights burn and see the smoke in the sky.

Speaker 5 13:51

I'm still dreaming bigger than the black Zarazar. Gold in my chain, but the weights in the story. Every scar on my skin is a note in the glory. You feel me?

Chris Norton 14:01

Uh there's a collaboration that you never thought you'd see, and then also there's uh cool AI like this. Yes, this is gonna be massive on TikTok.

Speaker 5 14:17

Back again. Shady's back tell a friend.

Chris Norton 14:27

Yes, decent. I mean, guess what's bad, guess what's bad. TikTok is um TikTok looms quite heavily over a lot of these trends, and actually, TikTok is changing consumer behavior and influencing a lot of these. And some of the trends I'm gonna talk through it are are driven, or certainly the human behavior is driven by TikTok behaviors. Yeah, so uh, what does AI AI slot mean for you and your brand? Well, content performance is about to get a lot more competitive when everyone can publish at scale, whether you think it's better or not, originality and consistency are gonna become the real talent. And we sort of come on to that. So creative can build you can become a system, so not just a one-off, you can build repeatable formats, uh like series of templates, recognizable edits, so you can ship fast without losing quality. I know, for example, like Copilot has got a uh brand kit section where you can upload your brand guidelines and then every bit of content, you don't need a bloody artworker anymore. The artwork it'll design it for you based on the brand guidelines, which is great for AI, um great for like scaling content, even for a small business. So the problem with this though is that if that everyone's everyone's doing it, you need to stand out still, and you still need what I talked about before, which was I'm saying it again, well, the pink Batman, you need to be different. Um turn trust into a differentiator. So, yes, audiences will start rewarding brands that show Providence site sources and declare on uh what AI is assisted. So, what content is AI assisted and what content is created by humans. That's a big thing, because I I if I see videos now, I'll show it to my kids and they'll say, that's just AI, dad, can't you tell? And some of it you can and some of it you can't, but we're gonna come on to that because um yeah, there's a bit of a there's a bit of a situation going on with AI misinformation. So that's the second one. Third one, thousands of small brands can now run social, not websites. So there's brand there's businesses out there that don't even really need websites. Um, you can sell direct. Social, we took we covered social commerce in 2024, massive boom in social commerce, and I'm gonna come on to live shopping as well. But social commerce is really exploding, even more and more and more and more. Uh, I know that um to take it back to the AI side of things, Chat GPT has launched ads, it's literally testing ads in America at the moment on free uh models, so be expecting that if you use the free side of things. Um, but yeah, um it means that you can uh thousands you've got you can sell directly through social media, including WhatsApp.

Speaker 3 18:10

If you do not have the budget for a full-blown e-commerce website, that's

AI Content Flood And Standing Out

Speaker 3 18:14

okay. Because why do you want to make your customers download another app for shopping when they already have one? Let your customers shop where they already spend a lot of time on WhatsApp. With the Webbized Catalog feature, your customers can easily browse through your products in the chat, add to cart, and also complete the purchase all without leaving WhatsApp. Ready to sell smarter and not harder? Try WhatsApp catalog and make shopping seamless for your customers.

Chris Norton 18:45

And that's gonna happen on every channel. I mean, we know Instagram shopping and uh various every platform you can pretty much buy direct now. The fact that you can shop through WhatsApp is getting bigger and bigger and bigger is interesting too. So social channels have turned into the shop uh front door. First impressions, credibility, and clarity all come from your profile. Uh pinned posts and highlights of you share various bits and pieces. Um sales, uh conversion move to messaging. So treat WhatsApp and DMs like a proper funnel so people can engage with you. You get quick replies, clear links, pricing context, and a smooth handover when it gets quite complex. And you can make socials self-serve so you can build content that answers the basics without any effort. So what you do, who is it for, proof it works and how to buy. The beauty of uh social commerce is that people see a demo, that's what we all love, don't we? We love to see a product demoed, tested, uh, what's good about it, what's bad about it, whether you trust their view or not, and then you can buy direct. It's just increased spending so much more. Add that to this, which is Google Lens, which is changing things as well. So Google Lens, which for those of you who don't know, on your mobile phone, so you you get your mobile phone, you can literally do a search, and top right, you can click on image search. So, and if you've not done it, test this out. But this is changing uh social spending as well. So Google Lens now processes 20 billion searches a month, so it's growing, with four billion attached to shopping. Um, but only 10% of everyone else is currently using it, and the buying cycle has changed. So people are now searching straight from social. So to explain this, I would took the family to um Center Parks the other uh uh at the Christmas uh over the New Year's period, and my wife spotted this lady in um Wellingtons that she liked, she said they're really cool. She said, Does it is it awkward if I go over and say, Excuse me, I really like your Wellingtons, where did you get them from? I said, just take a picture of them. You can take a picture of them and then you can search for them, and that's what she did. And that is how simple it is. If you see anything these days, like the book, for instance, so you could literally take a pic if it wasn't blurred out, I need to turn my blur off. Um you could literally screen grab and search with Google Lens. It's really impressive, but it means you you can so if you're anything you're in a shop you want to see is so much better, and that's sort of giving birth to this as well. So live shopping is becoming the new QVC. So QVC for anybody that's to um below the age of th is QVC still around, Will?

Will Ockenden 21:20

Even it is, yeah. And uh actually some of our clients um absolutely swear by it. There's been a bit of a resurgence actually in it. So and it's um we work in the uh with a few clients in the kind of furniture and home furnishing sector, and and they have huge success on it.

Chris Norton 21:35

Well, there you go. Um, I mean, yeah, so QVC, when I was a kid, we I used to watch it just to just to see if you could buy stuff. And um basically live shopping has become the new QVC. So live shopping events are achieving conversion rates of up to 30% compared to e-commerce averaging of two two to three percent. So as I say, people are watching and then buying direct, it's because of the speed of sales. So on Black Friday, TikTok shop was processing 27 items a second. That is meant that's just in the UK, 27 items a second. So if you don't think TikTok's a big thing in your sector, it it's growing and growing and growing, and the demographic is moving as well. Yes, as I've

Social Commerce Without Websites

Chris Norton 22:19

as I've got here. So 80% of QVC's customer base on TikTok is aged 35 or older. The spending power is coming from older demographics adopting the tech, not just the kids. So, yeah, the the the age group on TikTok's moving as well. And volume, there are now 6,000 live shopping sessions just in the UK every single day. And the market is flooded with contents, meaning that brands who are not broadcasting are effectively invisible during prime time. So if you can think of a way to do a live where you can sell product, great way to sell a consumer product. There's other ways you can do B2B as well, by the way, with live. We we do some we've done LinkedIn live on all sorts, uh, which is quite fun. Doing LinkedIn Live is we've done these live as well. Um, the growth spike, the number of active shoppers on TikTok shop has jumped. 131% in a single year. 22%, oh, might be 22% well, of Gen Z are already using Visual Search. So yeah, it's really, really growing. So what does this live shopping and uh lens shopping mean for you? Well, live is becoming your best product page. People see it working, they hear the questions and answers, and they get the confidence to buy without bouncing all around a website. It's got an always-on feedback loop. So if you see something, you can feed back. You'll learn um what people don't like, what they do like, what people care about, um, which benefit works best, all in real time, so people can tell you. A bit like a poll, actually. Um, and treat it like a repeatable campaign. So one strong host, a type format, clear offer, pinned links for to buy products, um, and then repurpose the highlights into clips, ads, and email content that keeps selling after the stream ends. So there's real potential with that. So the next trend then is yeah, I mean, this is where social media and PR combined. So I'm I love crisis management. One fake clip, uh, fake news, can become a a week, yeah, could undo a week's trust. It can actually undo uh a year's trust. It takes so long to build brand reputation and trust, and it can take a second to get rid of it. And the thing about um what we're talking about here is uh deepfakes, and deepfakes have really come on from the Tom Cruise era when they were they had the Tom Cruise, fake Tom Cruise. I don't know if you those of you remember that one from three years ago. That was with a um a guy that was um SFX expert in Hollywood. He got this actor who was an impressionist for Tom Cruise, and they they made him look amazing. But now, deepfakes, uh you don't even need an expert in Hollywood effects. You can create deepfakes like this on your own channel in an hour.

Speaker 24:59

Hello, I'm not a real person, and that's the point. In this video, we're revisiting a video we made a few months ago, this time with VO3.1.

Chris Norton 25:07

Artificial intelligence or AI can make fake things seem very real, just like everything in this video.

Speaker 1 25:15

Evening. Tonight's show is all about how deep fakes are getting easier to create and harder to spot. But don't take our word for it.

Speaker 9 25:23

With us now live on the phone, someone you may think you recognize.

Speaker 2 25:28

Thanks for having me. Look, I wanted to come on Floyd Bishop's YouTube channel here and try to get the word out about how easy it is to fake things. Be sure to like and subscribe, by the way.

Chris Norton 25:41

It's super I mean, that video is class. I'll send you the link in when I do the follow-up, uh, but it goes on for like six minutes. And he just keeps going on about how easy it is to do it. What I actually liked about that deep fake is any of the two people that were deep faked in the studio even looked awkward when they were waiting for Donald Trump to even had that. Their teeth were a little bit too white for me. So, but it my point is a believer a believable deep fake can spread before your team even sees it. We've actually done some AI uh misinformation training. Actually, I'll give you a plug because we've got a misinform our next um webinar is that one there. So if you want to register for that, that's on it, that's on um AI misinformation, uh, all about this this area.

Live Shopping Becomes The New QVC

Chris Norton 26:24

But anyway, I'll get back to um where I was. Sorry. I won't do that again, will I? That's just two sec.

Speaker 4 26:35

Click, click, click, click, click. While Quest is clicking, we've actually done a podcast a few months ago with a guy called Ant Cousins on misinformation, and he argues that brands can't be reactive when it well, they should be reactive when it comes to misinformation, but they actually need to be proactive when it comes to tackling the threat posed by misinformation. So if you want a real deep dive into the topic, um head to embracing marketing mistakes podcast and and search um search that back episodes.

Chris Norton 27:02

Yeah, and our next ep our next webinar will be is it on AI misinformation because we've done like special bespoke sessions on that.

Speaker 4 27:10

Ooh, sorry.

Chris Norton 27:11

Yeah, it's all right. Um so proof beats opinion. You need a habit of sharing verified evidence quickly. So original files, timestamps, behind the scenes, context, clear statements for named people. This is to help you against misinformation. Preparation wins the week, which is basically what Will said. Be ready, um prepare. Uh set roles, monitoring a simple playbook, build trust in the quieter moments, so audiences give you the benefit of the doubt when something properly kicks off on misinformation. But like I say, we're gonna have a whole webinar on that because it is a bit a problem. You see more and more people getting hacked. Um, you see more and more AI being used in nasty um situations, and I think this is a thing that there is a burning passion for, which is how the hell do we avoid a real problem with all this stuff going out there when we're not in control of it? Which leads us to um AEO or GEO. So AI answers become the new front door. So people don't click anymore, they ask questions.

Speaker 2 28:10

So, what we mean by that is this when a douchebag like me gets on a podcast like yours and starts telling everybody how to game the system, they have to make an algorithm change. I started my career in SEO 20 years ago, and so I'm a I'm a proponent. I'm not I'm not here to just shit on an industry arbitrarily. I have a 10th grade education case, so I'm gonna explain this like an idiot, and then somebody who's smarter than me can come and explain it in a better way. SEO has already experienced a degree of forced obsolescence. SEO is is so beyond irrelevant that it's lackable. What ends up happening is the most important thing that can that you can do for yourself from an AEO perspective is begin to establish yourself with an authority. The LLMs are trying to, and this is the thing that's horrifying. It's actually really scary. They're not trying to deliver you the quote unquote best information that's peer-reviewed, double blind, scientifically backed. They want to give you whatever you want. It's horrible because the echo chamber we're about to build for humanity, it's inbuilt confirmation bias to a degree that will never allow for conflicting information. Like we're not gonna be able to do it.

Speaker 4 29:03

So in terms of radicalization, this is probably a very dangerous thing.

Speaker 2 29:06

Instantly, like the whole world is about to be instantly radicalized.

Chris Norton 29:10

Yeah. Um, but don't just listen to podcasts and people talk about it. This is fact. This is uh mail online's click-through rates dropped by 56% on desktop in 2025 and 48% on mobile. More than 50%, basically. That's the Daily Mail, the number one um site for news in the UK. So it's happening everywhere. And what search behavior is changing. So you can see here, I've just put an example. This is all due to this, which is AI overview, where you put into Google who is the best PR agency in Leeds as an example, and it says prohibition PR. Whoa, we come top it, thankfully. Uh, but my point is that search behavior is changing. We're looking for the if we well, the answer in the AI overview, and we're we're getting we're asking different questions, much more specific questions. So, what does GEO mean for you as a brand owner? Well, uh, people are getting answers inside feeds. They're actually, you're gonna be able to, as I was saying with the ads in Chat GPT, you're gonna be able to get ads in in there as well soon. You're gonna be able to buy directly without leaving the the similar to social selling, you're gonna be able to buy directly in the AIs. So you need contender answers your real questions fast, with the point um in the first line or the first two seconds of your content. You've got to be easy to quote. So use plain English, make specific claims, and back them up with proof-like stats. So, examples, screenshots, or real results. So anything that you can do to back up what you're saying will help you and it will mean that you rank better. So treat your socials like a knowledge base, build your FAQs up, how it works, comparisons and myth busting bits and pieces, then pin those to the top of each of your channels and keep naming uh consistent so your answers are easy to find and reuse. And you'll be amazed at how good the AI tools are at finding your different social channels these days and and and highlighting that. And that takes me to um this, which is if you want to know more about GEO, Will said that um the social media trends is our most popular event. Actually, um last year, this on par with that was our GEO event, which um which I've put here, um we'll put in the deck and we'll give you a link to it. But it's it's free to go and watch that back. But that is literally specifically what you can do and how you can handle GEO to make sure your business is uh optimized.

Visual Search And Buying Behaviour

Chris Norton 31:35

And um one little bit of uh sales we've got here, which is if you um don't don't have anything sorted on your GEO strategy on how you're appearing in AIs, um we do what's called a GO AEO uh audit where we can audit you, your brand against keywords and terms and do a technical web audit of your site, and then we create a 12-month GEO strategy for you based on some technical stuff and also um how you can earn some con uh earn some links and content and how you can optimize yourself and then how you can measure your impact. If you're interested in that, um yeah, you can you can book a chat with me um for next week, then that's the um that's fine.

Speaker 4 32:16

Right. Influencers, one of our favorite topics. So micro influencers become your main media channel. Now, we have been talking about micro influencers for some time, but really this is this is reaching tipping point now. And I think obviously there's always going to be a role for the mega influencer with the kind of the premium polished, glossy feed, and there's an awful lot of you know mega influencers or macro influencers, whatever we call them. Um and that's great for kind of very large top-of-the-funnel brand awareness, but brands are increasingly waking up to the fact that um, you know, smaller creators are much more relevant and much more relatable. And actually, there's a whole body of research suggesting that consumers rate relatability as one of the key factors in terms of which influencers they now trust. So they're less interested in things like are you famous? Have you got a massive audience? Um, interestingly enough, this kind of um uh theme of micro-influencers was one of the big talking points at Cannes Lions um last year. And a lot of the brands at Cannes during some of the keynotes were showing data that made a case that much more specialized, authentic voices when it comes to influence actually outperform those broader influencers. Um and as such, micro influencers really became a hot top, you know, big kind of talking point at the um at the event. And I think when it's discussed at CAN, you know it's pretty much reached tipping point. Um the definition of a micro influencer, I mean, it varies, doesn't it? 5,000 to 100,000, it depends on the sector, but you know, we're not talking about millions of followers here. Um and I mentioned that kind of TikTok is increasingly leveling, increasingly kind of influencing a lot of these trends. And certainly TikTok has influenced this trend. Um TikTok's algorithm basically rewards engagement and watch time um as opposed to follow account. So therefore, those kind of micro influencers with um you know great engagement are the ones who are starting to outperform uh the macro influencers on TikTok. So, what does this mean for you? Um really authentic voices are a really effective route to kind of powerfully amplify your message. I mentioned this idea that consumers want relatability. Um, 40% want relatability, um, easy for me to say, relatability above expertise, fame, or followers, which is absolutely fascinating. Um it's a chance really to reach um specific niche demographics, you know, and depending on what your sector is, it may be that you don't want to reach everybody with with you know with your message. I mean, it may be it may be that your product is sufficiently um interesting to a wide demographic, but in most cases you want to reach niche niche demographics. And really this is working with micro influencers is a chance to do that. And again, the research suggests um working with more niche influencers will outperform macro influencers in terms of engagement, conversion, awareness, and advocacy. And also they're a hell of a lot cheaper, um, if not free. And um, what the more forward-thinking brands are doing is turning that micro influencer content and really kind of sweating it and turning it into a constant funnel. So you might produce some short-form content um and you can turn that into clips, into email campaigns, into owned content, website content, and essentially

Deepfakes, Misinformation, And Preparedness

Speaker 4 35:34

it gives you that ability to kind of have a much bigger footprint around your influencer work. And the the reality is um, you know, often micro influencers are much more open to their content being used in that way. If you work with a macro influencer, you might have to sign exclusivity arrangement, you might have a clause where you can only use their content for six months, but a micro influencer tends to be much more flexible. We've actually taken this kind of micro influencer approach with a number of our clients. We work with Stockhard Park, which is um a big North Yorkshire tourist attraction. They've got the, what is it, um, I'm trying to remember the PR line, the biggest indoor child's play center in Europe, isn't it?

Speaker 7 36:14

Yeah, and it was yeah, it's decent. Yeah, we launched that a couple of years ago.

Speaker 4 36:18

So we we work with loads of um micro influencers and we use them to essentially show what what the what the parks like, but we also use them from a kind of a conversion perspective, and we give them bespoke discount codes which they can then use with their audiences.

Speaker 6 36:32

This is like this, don't wear the blows.

Speaker 4 36:41

So you get the idea. Um, authentic content, micro influences, five to ten thousand followers. And um, bearing in mind they're either very low cost or free. Um, they on average deliver something like five to ten thousand pounds in ticket revenue. So it shows the kind of the mega um impact of working with somebody with this with a smaller audience, which which sounds counterintuitive, but um that's that's the way things are going. Um I'm gonna talk about integration as well, and that's why I was quite interested in um in the fact that um there's a very cheesy photo uh representing um the the trend there. But um I I was interested, kind of people didn't feel this was was a was a big focal point. And I and I get it, I know we've been talking about integration forever, haven't we? But there's a number of quite interesting um kind of micro and macro economic factors happening, which we believe is really going to drive this. So um essentially, um, you know, the economy is relatively stagnant, budgets are being cut, teams are more stretched than ever, and there's more and more board pressure for measurable business outcomes. Um, at the same time as that, we're seeing the gradual kind of collapse of um so-called siloed marketing teams. And that's one of the factors that are kind of causing things to join up. But more than that, it's the kind of the the emergence of new technologies that's we believe is going to drive integration. So you look at um the rise in social search, for example, particularly driven by TikTok. So that's an immediate kind of merging of organic social media and um and paid. You've got um in-platform purchasing, which again merges social with paid. You've got GEO, which Chris talked about, and GEO very much places PR at the center of digital visibility. Um, and overriding all of that, you've got this big focus on return on investment. So all of these kind of um technologies and platforms are starting to merge, and that's going to have um an impact on the way teams are structured. So certainly from our perspective, we're seeing this happen more and more, and we're delivering campaigns that are genuinely integrated. So digital PR, traditional PR, SEO, paid media, all of which are operating together. They're using shared data and essentially delivering campaigns which have got a much clearer um ROI. So from your perspective, um essentially um, you know, what you what we're gonna see more of, we predict, certainly from the way you work with agencies, the way you work internally, one joined upcoms engine. So, you know, PR um arguably is is the is the tool that builds credibility, social builds momentum, and paid um drives that kind of revenue piece and pay and scales uh what content is landing. And all of these things are going to be delivered seamlessly and together. From a PR perspective, we would encourage you to demand more from PR. I think long gone are the days of PR being a kind of slightly woolly, fluffy, intangible discipline. Any agency worth their salt in 2026 should be able to demonstrate um hard business metrics from public relations. And that's certainly something we don't shy away from at prohibition. So don't settle for vanity metrics, focus on business impact from everything you do, including PR. But by the same token, be open to the fact that PR is not just a siloed discipline. You know, a modern PR agency absolutely should offer page, should offer influencer, should offer this kind of technical know-how that links with GEO as well. Um, and we believe there's going to be the kind of you know the emergence of the big integrated idea. So, you know, rather than lots of um kind of siloed activities, you know, this is the time to

AEO: AI Answers Replace Clicks

Speaker 4 40:24

back one big creative idea that's fully integrated. You know, give it the budget, the partners, the time, um, and then measure it end to end, and it should deliver effective results for you. Keep the questions coming, by the way. I'm hoping Chris is answering lots of them. Um, I had to answer about 500, so I want him to do his best.

Will Ockenden 40:42

Oh my god. Yeah, I've got I was gonna say, I'll let you keep going because I don't want to interrupt your flow, but um, I'm gonna add them to a QA thing at the end for the best ones because people are answering some of them themselves. But thanks for everyone.

Speaker 7 40:52

Yeah, there's loads. I'm just yeah, it's good. Good content. Keep going. Yeah.

Speaker 4 40:57

Um, so um this hopefully will will um will be a big sigh of relief for a few of you, but um, we believe, uh and this has been a long time coming actually, and certainly we've been seeing this in 2025 as well. But brands are going to stop trying to be everywhere all at once. I think if we'd had this webinar in 2006, um, and if anyone was in social media and PR in 2006, it was the opposite, wasn't it? We need to be everywhere, we need to be on absolutely every single platform, we need to reach out and in as many places as possible and publish as much content. But um, that's frankly exhausting. It's hugely time consuming. Um, you know, there's a lot of kind of uh team consolidation in-house, meaning it's just not practical to be everywhere all at once. And what we're seeing at the same time is what we call a social tiredness effect. Um, you know, so engagement is plateauing on on major platforms. Users are getting more and more tired and aware of generic content, particularly the type of generic content that's published in the same way on 10 different platforms. You know, people are tiring of this. Um, you know, there's more platforms than ever as well. So attention, you know, audience attention is more thinly than ever. And essentially what's happening, you know, marketers are starting to kind of pull back on being everywhere, and they're actually kind of doubling down on those key platforms where their audience are, where they can make a real impact and where they can have a really kind of bespoke approach. And it's all about kind of prioritizing debt, authenticity, um, rather than kind of algorithm-driven AI spam. And you'll see all of these trends are kind of linking with each other, you know, and again, this kind of idea of AI slop, meaningless, irrelevant, generic content, people don't want that anymore. They'd rather have a real kind of community focus and quality content on a few channels. And it certainly makes our jobs easier as marketers, you know, it's very much quality over quantity. So, from your perspective, you know, let's start to reconsider if we're spreading ourselves too thinly. You know, ultimately, unless you've got an enormous team, you know, spreading yourself across eight to ten platforms is going to mean weaker creative, it's gonna mean slower response times, you know, lots of content, yes, but maybe nothing actually sticks. Um, you're much better focusing on those kind of core channels. And certainly, this is an approach we've started advocating with with some of our clients, you know. And some of our clients will, particularly in B2B, will just be on LinkedIn and will do LinkedIn really, really well. Great, thoughtful content, superb engagement, and and that's really the the um you know where you're going to get the best results. Um, and there's also this kind of yeah, you know, consumers increasingly want community as well as content, and and those brands that have their kind of living, breathing communities, a little bit like the chat room here, there's lots of great questions, there's other people diving in. Min, Chris don't have to necessarily answer every question. You know, that's a thriving community, albeit um you know, one that's an hour long on the podcast. But those brands that can nurture those type of communities um have greater trust and have greater authenticity than than those that don't. Um AI slot. That's a horrible term, isn't it? AI slot. We keep we keep saying it, but it's it's it's definitely a thing. And um, you know, it there's there's more and more of it. And and again, this is a kind of a running theme that's um that's that's going through some of these trends. I mean, um essentially, as Chris said, it's it's it's basically the new internet's cram, isn't it? An overwhelming volume of shallow content that doesn't really mean anything and doesn't really achieve anything, and it's it's not the sake of content. And the point is we need to find ways to cut through from that. Consumers are starting to become aware of it as well, which is which is quite um reassuring, actually. Um, you know, and I think uh people are starting to spot uh what is AI content. So only 26% of consumers prefer AI content, um, and that was 60% preferred it in 2023. So yeah, 2023 is a bit of a novelty, people liked it. Less and less people are liking it. There's there's this shift back to genuine, authentic, real content. Um, only 59% of customers, or rather, 59% of customers say it damages their trust. In a brand, if they over-eg the AI. There's also a premium attached to human-made work. And it's it's

Micro Influencers As Core Media

Speaker 4 45:14

yes, it is sometimes hard to spot what's human and what's AI, but people aren't, you know, people have that intuition and they can spot it. You know, when something doesn't quite ring true, you know. So essentially, um, you know, um 42% of consumers say they would pay more for a friendly human service experience. 82% of consumers can first speak into a human, and the same is true on content. People prefer dealing with humans, and the same goes for brand storytelling, imagery. You know, people want real stories, they want real authenticity, and it's hard to fake that. Um, 88% of consumers say authenticity is a key factor when choosing a brand, um, and it's a top driver of trust. And again, it's hard to be authentic if you're producing lots and lots of AI content. Um, I talked about community as well, and community is one of those things that it is quite hard to automate, you know, and and and it's worth the hours you put into building a community in terms of nurturing the community, commenting, engaging, managing that community. Um, and you know, there's there's a lot of value when it comes to authenticity, when it comes to trust, etc., that AI simply can't replicate. We're not anti-AI, by the way, we're absolutely pro-AI, but we need to be more critical about how we use it. Um and storytelling, again, asking AI to tell uh you know to develop um some storytelling narratives around our brand, again, you can't fake that, you know, and there's a whole body of research making that case. So, for example, emotional ad copy rooted in real human experience performs twice as well as rational logic-based content. So, if you're producing ad copy um that uh talks about human experience through AI, it's not going to perform well as well as if it's um if it's genuine and authentic. So, what does this mean for you? Um time spent on building community and nurturing community is time well spent. Um, unique stories and human-crafted content should always play a role on your socials. Um, you know, maybe there is opportunity for AI shortcuts in some cases, but and in our view, you can't beat um that that genuine human-crafted narrative and creative. Um, and this is where purpose, I think um, over the last few years we've we've constantly talked about purpose, you know, brand purpose, genuine authentic brand purpose starts to become more and more important in the age of algorithms. Um trend jacking is out, genuine participation is in. I'm gonna caveat this. Um you know, the terminology trend jacking, we're not talking about kind of relevant reactive PR. Um, we're we're still huge fans of that, as I'm about to explain. But what we're seeing, particularly on social, is um lots and lots of brands leveraging every single event that they can leverage. And and you know, I think the um you know the the cold play Kiss Cam story, that was that was a classic example. You know, there was a couple of brands who kind of jumped on it and it was quite funny, but literally every single brand, whether it's relevant or not, did a meme around it, and it was just quite tiresome and quite I've heard it described as quite cringy actually sometimes, and brands are desperate, they're so thirsty to be relevant and they're they're jumping on absolutely every trend. The other thing was this um, you know, the kind of the AI-driven um figurines, and literally every brand jumped on that, and it just becomes my perspective, I see brands almost about a week later than than than when it actually peaked, and it just seems a little bit desperate. It seems a little bit um you you just wonder why on earth brands are trying to um do this, and essentially what we're gonna see more of, or we should see more of, is brands um choosing their moments more and focusing on much more authentic um act uh events to leverage you know more about long-term brand building. So the type of things that um we love an in and out list here. So the type of things on our out list are opportunistic, forced or superficial participation in viral and viral trends as demonstrated here. And hopefully we're going to see more kind of meaningful brand aligned involvement. So is there a reason? Can you explain why you're leveraging a trend? If you can, is there a reason for your brand to be involved? Yes, then great, go for it. So communities can smell bandwagon posts. There's a great Facebook page called Condescending Corporate Brand Page, which basically names and shames um brands that are just doing awful content. Um so be beware, don't appear on that page. So if you're only showing up for the reach, people will clock it and will scroll on. Um, and that will damage your algorithm and damage your your engagement with your community. Um, you should comment like a human, so you know, share useful opinions, collaborate with creators, think about value rather than just kind of leveraging, um desperately leveraging trends, and have a

True Integration Of PR, Social, And Paid

Speaker 4 50:14

simple rule which we love. If you can't explain why your brand belongs in that moment, then don't post. You know, and I think you look back on a year worth of trend jacking, and so many brands are involving themselves in absolutely every single trend for no apparent reason. I'll give you an example of um what we've done with one of our clients, which we felt was super relevant and generated some great results. So we work with um Prestige Gifting, which is a major online um flower retailer. So um on the left, you'll see the ONS every year release um their list of the top um 50 girls and boys names. So um the top names got released. Um Mohammed and Olivia were top for the second year in a row. So on the same day, we quickly analyzed the data because anecdotally we'd heard that floral floral names such as Iris or Lily, um, no doubt driven by Lily Collins in um Emily in Paris, but um floral names were increasingly rated on the list. And we basically analyzed the list and we found about seven floral-based names in the list. We then looked at the list over the last three years and found there's something like a 30% year-on-year rise in floral names making the list. So essentially, we the same day um or or near enough, we we basically released our own chart of the top floral names based on the ONS data, and each floral name we then linked to further information and specific bouquets um containing those flowers. So for an online floral company, super relevant, it got people to kind of engage more deeply with the brand. It was absolutely newsworthy and it flew um through all the nationals and it also linked to purchase. But we're leveraging this event as the floral experts, not because it's something irrelevant that we just want to hang our hat on. So, an example of a really simple campaign where we leveraged something relevant and it drove great results for us. Um, okay, I'm on to the final trend, and this is the favorite really nostalgia marketing. So um this uh I don't know if anyone's watched Mad Men. Um, Don Draper describes nostalgia as delicate yet potent, which I think is quite a good dumb high drama description of it. But essentially, um and and the the more we looked into this trend, the more I realized it's already started happening. But um, you know, there's definitely kind of a nostalgia trend over the last six months that's been gathering momentum, probably driven by stranger things, which is hugely nostalgic and absolutely brilliant. The resurgence of vinyl records, handwritten notes, funnily enough, have started to make a comeback, but general retro vibes are kind of making a comeback. The Oasis Reunion, of course, um has has driven this. Um, and actually, uh if someone can explain it to me, this obsession with 2016 that is doing the rounds on social media and April Grant's jumping on the back, please in the chat explain this if um if you've got any insight. But um we we dog a bit more deeply into the kind of sociological reasons for nostalgia, and apparently during periods of uncertainty, so rising living costs, political instability, um, rapid AI-driven change, people basically want reassurance and want stability, so they push towards cultural touchstones that feel stable and trustworthy. So arguably, everything happening in the world is driving us towards um simpler times, which may be in 2016. Um, and also um at the same time as this, um, some of the algorithms favor nostalgia as well. So TikTok and Instagram reward content and spark emotional reaction or recognition, and often that comes from kind of nostalgic content. But you know, the the amount certainly the Oasis Reunion kind of captured the imagination, and every brand and their dog jumped on it. Alde, which was the um Manchester Aldi store, changed its name, a classic name-changing stunt, which we love. Coca-Cola started publishing its old 90s ads and have been getting great traction online. Um, this is from Vogue, this uh is 2026. Why is 2016 trending? So a ton of kind of you know, and and the more we looked into this, I realised it's already happened, you know, and and then this is gonna happen more and more and more. So, from your perspective, what does it mean? Um, it's comfort in a chaotic feed, so familiar references can cut through because people feel them more. Um but it's got to be done with taste and not laziness, you know. And I think the brands that get it right are kind of remixing, making it their own in the way that Alde, there's me, me as a southerner trying to try to do that. Yeah, right. Yeah, I'm not gonna say that. Yeah. Um, so not recycling but being creative and updating the reference, and that that's that's that's the uh the you know the crux of it. Um and um essentially you can become a content engine, you know, you can have seasonal throwbacks that then versus now always works really well, and you'll see loads of these kind of trends and online and and loads of brands doing the 2016 versus versus now

Do Less, Better: Channel Focus

Speaker 4 55:14

kind of trend on social, albeit a little bit too late because I think that that that trend has potentially passed. A bit of a recap. So um your first ever employee is an AI brand bot. Again, AI weighs heavily on this. AI is um creating a huge amount of content more than real people do. Thousands of small brands run on social, not sites. This idea of live shopping becoming the new QVC, every platform is going to start doing that, and that's gonna present huge opportunities, even if you're a small brand. Misinformation, definitely listen to the podcast and join the next event. But you know, a proactive approach is needed when it comes to misinformation. You absolutely need to be aware of GEO, PR. Content is a massive driver of that. Um, you know, GEO looks to trust factors like PR. And again, you can be proactive, and it's important you benchmark your brand's position. Micro influencers, um, we talked about cheaper, more effective, better engagement, better conversion than macro influencers. Um, start to look at genuinely merging um PR, social, and paid, um, particularly in creative campaigns. Focus your efforts on two to three platforms, don't be on 20. Brands with soul will win the race. Be aware of what you're trend jacking and embrace nostalgia. So 12 trends, 70% are going to be right. We will see. We'll see you in 12 months.

Speaker 6 56:37

Yeah.

Speaker 4 56:38

Again. So we have got a product. You know, you might hopefully you're looking at this thinking, oh god, I need to be doing GEO, I need to be doing this, I don't I don't know where my brand is. So um, we do have a product which will absolutely help you make kind of clarity, help you make the right decisions, understand which trends are relevant for you, look at how you can roll them out, and it's called uh Prohibition Social 360. And essentially, it's a way to take all of this data and information and behaviors and trends and um turn it into a strategy. So we will audit your brand, we will audit your sector, we will look at what's what your consumers are doing, they're changing behaviors, and essentially take all of that data and help you use it as a springboard to dominate your market. So it's insight and a 12-month roadmap, which basically we talk about outperforming and outmarting your competitors. And we've delivered tons of these for our clients as a strategy in the box, but time and time again we see our clients delivering, uh, you know, delivering a 360 for our clients, it gives them that real focus for the year, and they get higher engagement and they get better ROI from that. So if you want to talk about that, um, let us know. It's literally a kind of a two-month project, um, quite competitively priced, but it's a line in the sand that lets you kind of build on that and um, like we said, embrace some of these trends and supercharge your performance. So, yeah, book a chat if you'd like to find out more about that.

Will Ockenden 58:02

We'll see you um at the next event, which is AI Misinformation. So we'll catch you later. See you later, guys.