Guides & updates
Playbooks and honest product notes on growing your business with autonomous AI social media.
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What is an AI social media manager, and what does it actually do?
The phrase covers everything from a caption button to a system that reads your website and runs your feed. What each version really does, what it costs, where every one of them still needs you, and the honest case against buying one, written by people who sell one.
What to post on social media for a business
Running out of ideas is the real reason most businesses go quiet, not lack of time. Six repeatable post types, where the material for each one already exists in your week, and what changes when you move the same material between Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.
10 best AI social media tools
Ten tools, sorted by the job they actually do rather than the label they use. Includes what each one costs you in time, not just money.
18 ChatGPT prompts for social media that are worth saving
Most prompts fail for one reason: they ask for a post without saying anything only you know. These eighteen pull that out of you first.
How much does social media management cost?
Agency, freelancer, in-house or software. What each one really costs a small business, including the trade-offs that never make it into the proposal.
How to get your business to show up in ChatGPT
There is no form to submit your business to ChatGPT, and no setting to switch on. Here is what actually decides whether it names you.
What to Post
Ideas, formats and frequency, for the days you open the app and go blank.
How the Instagram algorithm works in 2026, according to Meta's own system cards
Every guide to this quotes an Instagram blog post dated May 2023. Meta also publishes nine Instagram ranking system cards, six of them updated in 2026, naming the exact predictions its models make. One of them says the quality of your post is scored by an LLM.
Best time to post on Instagram, and why the studies are twelve hours apart
Later says 5am. Sprout Social says 2pm. Hootsuite says 5pm. RecurPost says 9pm. Four of the largest datasets in the industry, covering billions of engagements between them, and they do not agree about what time of day it is.
LinkedIn headline examples: we measured 62 of the ones everyone hands out
Every example headline in the two top ranking guides is longer than 60 characters, and 82 percent are longer than 70, which is roughly where a headline stops being visible in the places it is actually seen. None of them gets past 110 characters, out of the 220 available. They are all crammed into the one zone that is too long to read and too short to index.
The best time to post on Facebook: four studies, seven hours apart, and the metric Facebook switched off
Hootsuite says Tuesday at 5am. Sprout Social says Tuesday between midday and 8pm. Same platform, same year, same question, and a seven hour gap between the answers. The four studies agree on exactly one thing, and the reason they cannot do better is that Facebook stopped publishing the data that would settle it.
YouTube banner size, and the 82 percent of it nobody is guaranteed to see
Upload 2560 x 1440 under 6MB. Then design inside a strip in the middle that is 60 percent of the width and 29 percent of the height, because that is the only part YouTube promises to show on every device. The rest is decoration for televisions.
YouTube thumbnail size, and the number every guide is still copying
1280 x 720 has been the answer for a decade and it is now the wrong one. YouTube asks for 3840 x 2160 and takes a 50MB file from a desktop. The old number survives because YouTube itself still serves a file at exactly that size, which is a better reason than most guides have.
By Industry
The same question answered for the trade you are actually in.
Social media for veterinarians: the best material in medicine, and the comment you cannot answer
A veterinary practice has the most engaging content of any healthcare business and the tightest rule about replying to it. What to post from the consult room, why answering is my dog alright in a comment is a legal problem and not just a busy one, what a client's animal and a client's grief actually belong to, and how to say no in a way that books an appointment.
Social media for gyms: the before and after post, and what has to be true about it
The transformation photo is the highest performing and highest risk post in the industry, and the rule about it is not the one most gyms think. What to post to fill a class, what the FTC requires next to an atypical result, what you cannot say a workout does, and the member in the background who never agreed to any of it.
Social media for real estate agents: what you can say about a house, and what you cannot
The word list every agent has been shown came from a HUD memo that was withdrawn thirty years ago. The rule that replaced it is shorter and harder. What to post, the licence line that belongs in the caption, why boosting a listing is a different act from posting one, and the six posts that get a listing appointment.
Social media for construction companies: the progress post, the finished post and the site rules
A build takes months and produces a photograph every day, which makes construction the easiest trade to post for and the one that posts least. The progress post, the finished post, the crew post, the licence number that has to be in the caption, the client's address that must not be, and the drone shot everyone makes that gets nothing.
Social media for plumbers: what to post between emergencies
A plumber's customer is not scrolling; they are standing in water. What social media actually does for a trade whose work arrives by phone, the six posts that make the phone ring, the licence number that has to be in the post, and the van photograph everyone makes that does nothing.
Social media for restaurants: the six posts that fill tables, and the six that fill a feed
Restaurants have the easiest material on social media and post the least of it. What to post from the pass, the floor and the book, what needs a diner's permission, what a free meal to a reviewer legally is, and why the reel of the pour is not the post that fills a Tuesday.
AI Prompts
Prompt libraries, split by model, because they do not behave the same.
22 Copilot prompts for LinkedIn posts
Copilot's advantage is that your actual work already sits inside it. That is also the risk, so this set starts with the confidentiality pass and ends with the case against posting.
20 Gemini prompts for social media posts
Gemini has three things the other models do not: saved Gems, live search grounding and a spreadsheet at the end of it. These prompts use all three, and strip the formatting it adds by default.
25 Claude prompts for Instagram posts
Claude will hold far more of your business in its head than you are probably giving it. These prompts are built around that, and around cutting the two habits it will not drop on its own.
34 ChatGPT prompts for Instagram Reels scripts
Most Reel scripts a model writes are unfilmable. These prompts start from what one person with a phone can actually shoot in twenty minutes.
18 ChatGPT prompts for social media that are worth saving
Most prompts fail for one reason: they ask for a post without saying anything only you know. These eighteen pull that out of you first.
Brand Voice and AI Writing
Getting AI copy to sound like you rather than like everyone else.
What is an AI social media manager, and what does it actually do?
The phrase covers everything from a caption button to a system that reads your website and runs your feed. What each version really does, what it costs, where every one of them still needs you, and the honest case against buying one, written by people who sell one.
How to use AI for social media marketing without it showing
A working order of operations for a small business: what to give the AI before you ask it for anything, what to let it do, what to keep, and the four ways it went wrong on our own product before we fixed them.
How to write a brand voice guide your AI can actually follow
Most brand voice documents are three adjectives and a mood board, which is why no writer and no model can work from them. Here is the one page version that survives contact with an AI.
Why AI-written posts sound like AI, and how to fix it
We build an AI writing tool, so we spend most of our time fighting this exact problem. Here is what actually makes AI copy sound generic, and the fixes that work.
How the AI learns your brand voice
Before it writes a single post, a good AI social media tool reads your world. Here is what it looks at, and why it still needs you.
Approve a week of content in five minutes
The whole promise falls apart if reviewing the posts takes longer than writing them would. Here is the routine that keeps it short.
Tools and Comparisons
What the software does, what it costs, and where the free tier stops.
Is scraping social media legal? The clauses, quoted
Every article on this cites hiQ v LinkedIn as the case that made scraping public data legal. Almost none mention how it ended: hiQ paid $500,000, accepted a permanent injunction, and deleted everything it had built. Here are the actual clauses, photographed in the documents they live in.
The best YouTube Shorts scrapers, ranked
Ten tools ranked, and the problem underneath all of them: YouTube's own API has no idea which of its videos are Shorts, and cannot tell you.
The best TikTok scrapers, ranked
Nine ways to get TikTok data out, ranked. Including the official API, which is free, excellent, and forbidden to almost everybody reading this.
The best Instagram scrapers, ranked
Nine tools that pull public Instagram data, ranked on what you actually pay, what breaks, and how much of Meta's rewritten terms you end up standing on.
Free AI social media tools, and exactly where the limit sits
Free tiers here are real, not bait. The catch is that they are cut along a line you cannot see until you cross it, usually in week three.
10 best AI social media tools
Ten tools, sorted by the job they actually do rather than the label they use. Includes what each one costs you in time, not just money.
Getting Found by AI
Being the answer when somebody asks an assistant instead of a search box.
Enterprise versus affordable AI visibility tools, and what the difference buys
The best known product in this category has the worst entry tier in it. Profound's $99 plan tracks ChatGPT only and gives you one seat. Otterly's 29 euro plan tracks four engines and gives you unlimited seats. Every published price in the category, read and photographed on one afternoon.
AI visibility tools: what actually tracks whether AI mentions you
Six tools that watch whether ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI name your business, with what each really costs. One of them is free, and for most small businesses it is enough.
Social media SEO: how AI decides who finds your business
Hashtags stopped finding you an audience and AI search quietly took over the job. What to change in your profile, your captions and the words you say out loud.
How to get your business to show up in ChatGPT
There is no form to submit your business to ChatGPT, and no setting to switch on. Here is what actually decides whether it names you.
Pricing and Costs
Real numbers, from both sides of the invoice.
How much to charge for social media management
Published rate ranges run from thirty five to two hundred an hour, which tells you nothing about what to put on a proposal. Price from hours instead.
How much does social media management cost?
Agency, freelancer, in-house or software. What each one really costs a small business, including the trade-offs that never make it into the proposal.
Is AI social media management worth it for a small business?
Most articles about AI social media tools are written by the people selling them. We sell one, and here is the honest answer about when it helps and when it does not.