Author Archives: i4lead

 

Since late 2024, major players in the chatbot game have been rolling out a deep research feature designed to provide what they call “expert-level analysis.”

With a focus on multi-step research tasks and more source transparency, this new capability promises to deliver data-rich reports with applications in a variety of industries.

Let’s explore what this means for content marketers.

Table of Contents

• What is deep research?
• What is deep research useful for?
• Is deep research free?
• Who are the major players?
• Using Deep Research for Content Strategy
• What’s next?

What is deep research?

Deep research is a new AI tool designed to solve complex problems and behave similarly to a research analyst. It tracks down and analyzes large amounts of text and visuals. Then, it synthesizes the most relevant information into a comprehensive report.

One of the most useful improvements comes through better source transparency and citations.

Since LLMs can produce hallucinations (nonexistent or nonsensical items) and around 60% of queries generate inaccurate answers, the work of human editors and fact-checkers has always been crucial.

But it’s harder to fact-check something if the source isn’t obvious or if it’s quoted as coming from a fabricated link, so more transparency is likely to quicken the editing process.

What is deep research useful for?

Generating reports with clear citations from various sources is bound to help users in a wide range of research-heavy roles. Folks in finance, science, tech, consulting, and, of course, marketing, can benefit from using this iteration of AI as a research assistant.

But this tool is also positioned as an aid for entrepreneurs who want quick access to competitor or product research. The same goes for everyday people looking to make purchases that usually involve hefty investigative work (e.g., cars, household appliances, trips, and so on).

Results aren’t instant like with a regular search. They’ll take a few minutes to pop up, but the extra detail is worth the wait.

Is deep research free?

With ChatGPT, deep research is only available with paid plans (Plus at $20/mo and Pro at $200/mo).

With Gemini and Perplexity, deep research is free. There are usage limits, though, and paying subscribers gain access to expanded use.

Who are the major players?

Several AI search engines have been adding deep research tools, while others have been research-focused from the beginning (like Elicit and Kompas AI). But today, I’ll be looking at the big three:

• OpenAI’s ChatGPT (with over 122 million monthly users)
• Google’s Gemini (with 275 million monthly users)
• Perplexity (with 12.7 million monthly users but centered on analysis over conversation from the outset)

ChatGPT: Best for deep, iterative exploration and niche analysis

Source

ChatGPT made deep research available for Pro users on February 5th, 2025, and for Plus users on February 25th. It touts the ability to interpret the information it finds and react to it in a way that guides the search process.

OpenAI defines the target audience as “people who do intense knowledge work” and promises extra effectiveness when it comes to finding “niche, non-intuitive information.”

Users can add context to queries by attaching files, including spreadsheets. Updates are currently in the works for adding data visualizations to results.

In addition to use cases in areas like business, UX design, and shopping, ChatGPT’s deep research also has an application called “Needle in a Haystack.” It’s made for ambiguous queries without crucial keywords, so you could be tracking down half-remembered scenes in obscure TV shows you saw as a kid in just a few minutes.

Ideal users: Researchers, strategists, and content marketers who need to chase down nuanced insights or follow ambiguous leads

Gemini: Best for quick overviews and Google ecosystem integration

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Google’s Gemini added deep research on December 11th, 2024. The stated goal was to create a tool that’s “even better at all stages of research,” so it turns prompts into research plans, sorts for up-to-date information, and then puts out custom search reports.

A key differentiator is that it has an Audio Overview feature, so you can take said reports and listen to them as short podcasts on subjects of your choosing. This is handy for immersing yourself in a topic while getting on with mundane tasks that don’t occupy your brain.

Just like ChatGPT, Gemini confirms the research plan with you before putting it into action. After that, it determines which sub-tasks can be completed at the same time and which need a sequence, while the “thinking panel” makes this process more transparent for the user.

Before generating the final report, it goes through “multiple passes of self-critique” to eliminate inconsistencies and provide more clarity.

Ideal users: Agency creatives, SEO professionals, and Google Workspace power users

Perplexity: Best for free, fast, accurate research with expert vibes

Perplexity launched its deep research feature on February 14, 2025. It was designed to more closely mirror the way a human researcher would approach complex tasks. The feature reads documents and decides what to do next based on what it learns about a specific subject.

It’s geared toward people who need fast expert-level analysis on complex topics (e.g., finance, health, news, and beyond), but also toward those who want a “personal consultant” that’s akin to a concierge. For example, check out the travel planning feature:

Source

In addition to enhanced source transparency, you can see how there’s more insight into the reasoning behind each choice. And there’s clearly a more thoughtful vibe.

The first example’s “start in London, continue to Paris” approach is something a user likely doesn’t need a travel planner for, while the second aims beyond overcrowded capitals. An itinerary that includes Slovenia, Montenegro, and the Amalfi Coast sounds like a real winner.

Ideal users: Budget-conscious marketers, researchers in niche domains, and anyone needing credible, well-sourced reports

Using Deep Research for Content Strategy

Practical Applications: ChatGPT

People who took ChatGPT’s deep research out for a spin brought “questions too big for a quick search” and discovered an extra time-saving perk: “resisting the urge to fall into unrelated Wikipedia rabbit holes.”

Another significant one seems to be this tool’s improved ability to distinguish between how relevant sources are and to unearth factual gems that would take a human several hours to reach.

This is largely thanks to its agentic nature:

• If Gemini follows an omnidirectional process (aka searches far and wide to produce a summary), ChatGPT “performs an iterative cycle of finding, assessing, and refining the data.”
• If it encounters a surprising bit of information, it can follow that thread to produce a more nuanced final analysis.”

AI pros recommend using the tool’s follow-up questions to refine a search and following the most interesting hyperlinked data points to the original source. You can (and should) blacklist and whitelist specific sources for the next run; as usual, running multiple iterations produces the most accurate results.

Use Case for Content Marketers

As a content marketer working on a strategy, ChatGPT’s deep research can bring out emerging industry trends and generate more data-rich reports (compared to Gemini’s broader understanding of a topic).

Source

It can also:

• Analyze your existing content strategy
• Scan the content of your competitors
• Lean into social listening

You can get some pretty granular detail this way. You might want to consider messaging and positioning from various competitors, but also look at keyword usage or CTA structure.

Ultimately, this is a quicker way to identify those much-coveted content gaps that can illuminate the next steps and best use of resources for your brand. Asking the chatbot to compare websites can be very helpful.

Practical Applications: Gemini

Google’s deep research tool scans a wide range of citations and documents. Once again, it’s helpful to review the multi-step research plan it presents after you’ve entered the prompt and tweak it to your preferences. Its ability to generate insights is vastly superior compared to earlier versions of Gemini, and all the more so compared to a regular Google search.

Source

When you’re looking for a quick snapshot of a specific brand’s digital ecosystem, Gemini is a good bet. Here’s why:

• If you’re already using other Google tools, the integration is seamless. For example, one click turns a report into a Google Doc, so you can share and edit quickly.
• Its connection with Google Search also means you can conduct deep SEO analysis that mirrors the results pages a user would see while doing a classic search.

Use Case for Content Marketers

I took Gemini’s deep research out for a spin and asked it to create a content strategy for a furniture museum. Here’s the research plan it came up with:

While I wasn’t super impressed by what it qualified as a fresh content idea, I liked that it included regional specialties among brand pillars and that it set out to put museum pieces in a cultural context — all in a way that’s relevant to everyday people.

With “Show thinking” turned on, this is what I got: A description of each task and a roundup of websites being investigated.

By the end of the five-minute process, Gemini had identified leading museums and common themes in the way they define their missions. Then, it generated the final report.

I chuckled at how it started with the classic clunker “In today’s digital age” and at the fact that the Mission section explained what a mission is rather than suggesting one or giving some examples. But things got more specific. The proposals for potential USPs made sense, as did the lists of prominent museums, brand pillars, content formats, and distribution channels.

There was also a collection of successful content initiatives, including a fun Metropolitan Museum of Art campaign that invited visitors to “twin” with specific artworks.

Practical Applications: Perplexity

Perplexity scores better on accuracy tests, and its longstanding focus on research is felt. It already included cited sources, but the answers used to be concise. The deep research feature brings custom reports with more detail. Generating them can take as little as three minutes.

More insights:

• It uses a set of searches and keeps refining them based on what it finds, similar to how competitors operate.
• It offers a good balance between casting a wide net and factual accuracy.
• It’s more user-friendly, thanks to fewer geographical restrictions and a mission to make AI tools available for free.

Perplexity is a smaller player compared to Gemini and ChatGPT, so you’ll find fewer tutorials and prompt ideas online. But it’s so easy to use, you’ll barely need them.

Use Case for Content Marketers

I typed in the same prompt as above. I asked for a content strategy for a furniture museum, complete with brand pillars and some fresh content ideas. The process did indeed take three minutes, and I got a glimpse of the logic behind the search, plus some of the sources.

The generated report started with citations:

The brand pillars were confidently outlined and covered sustainability, education, plus interactivity. The report also included a crafty audience persona analysis that included everyone from professionals and hobbyists to casual visitors. Content types were listed comprehensively, with an expected focus on digital storytelling but also room for physical interaction and good old printed materials.

Perplexity also discussed content ideas and their effective execution in more detail. A material library, a narrative podcast series, and a digital furniture workshop were all included in the mix.

I particularly enjoyed the addition of museum-specific KPIs:

What’s next?

All in all, deep research promises to make detailed analysis via AI easier than it used to be. You have more clarity on citations and better access to insightful nuggets that might have been missed by previous iterations of the same tools. Fact-checking is quicker, so more time can be spent getting familiar with sources that bring real value to complex projects.

As for which one to choose, the classic advice stands: Take them out for a spin and figure out which is the best fit for content marketing in your niche.

If you value a conversational style, ChatGPT has always had that as a focus, and it stays true for deep research. If you’re an agency creative who has to dive into the quirks of a new industry for each client, Gemini’s Audio Overview could be a great tool. And if you’re working with a small budget in a research-heavy area, going for Perplexity might be the answer.

Good luck and happy researching!

Every few years, a new channel takes center stage — short-form video, podcasting, or AI-generated content — and people start asking the same question: “Are blogs dead?”

It’s a fair question. After all, platforms evolve and audience habits shift. But the idea that blogs are irrelevant today? That’s a myth I was eager to investigate.

To get a clear answer, I turned to marketers across SEO, content, and digital strategy to find out whether blogging is still worth the investment. Here’s what they said.

Table of Contents

• Are blogs dead?
• Blogs vs. Other Marketing Channels
• Why Blogs Are Still Impactful
• Why Marketing Isn’t Dead

Are blogs dead?

According to marketers, not even close.

Blogs aren’t just alive — they’re evolving. According to HubSpot’s 2025 State of Blogging report, half of marketers say they saw better ROI from blogging in 2024 than the year before. And nearly half plan to invest even more in 2025.

Source

But the way we blog is changing fast. Over 90% of marketers now use AI tools somewhere in their workflow, and Google’s AI Overviews are already reshaping how — and if — blog content gets discovered.

The bar is higher than it’s ever been, but the payoff is still there for those willing to meet it.

Source

That said, “Are blogs dead?” is a question that refuses to go away. Every time a new platform gets hot — whether it’s TikTok, a podcast, or the latest AI trend — someone sounds the alarm for blogging. It makes sense. Audiences shift, attention spans shrink, and video continues to dominate. So yeah, I get where the question comes from.

And just to level with you: Search interest in the word “blog” has steadily declined over the past five years. According to Google Trends, the term “blog” has seen a consistent drop in popularity.

Source

And when compared side by side with “video,” the difference is stark. Video content has dominated attention spans while blogs have quietly carried on in the background. So yes — asking whether blogs are dead is a fair question.

Source

But the truth is, blogs are still very much alive — and in the right hands, they’re making a real impact.

According to HubSpot’s latest State of Blogging report, 65% of marketers work for companies that maintain blogs, and most publish content multiple times a week. Even more telling, 93% of marketers say blogging is important — or very important — to their strategy.

Source

And when it comes to budget? Nearly three-quarters of marketers put more than 10% of their marketing spend into blogs. That kind of investment speaks volumes.

The global picture backs it up, too. According to Tech Business News, there are now over 600 million blogs worldwide, contributing to more than 7 million posts published every day. That’s a lot of words — and a lot of opportunity.

That scale isn’t just impressive — it’s effective. If you want more proof, Ross Simmonds, a B2B marketing expert and the founder of the content marketing agency Foundation, has spoken about how blogging has helped his clients triple traffic and close deals faster — and based on what I’ve seen, that tracks.

“At Foundation, blogging with intent has helped us generate millions of dollars in the pipeline for both us and our clients,” says Simmonds. “It‘s also armed us with the ability to elevate our brand’s position in the market and, most importantly, truly help others in our industry learn and unlock new opportunities.”

Neil Patel, who is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading digital marketers and whose blog consistently ranks among the most influential in the industry, puts it simply:

“Owning a website and ranking on Google is one of the best long-term marketing strategies. Starting a blog is the easiest marketing strategy in 2025.”

Still, blogging today isn’t what it was five or ten years ago. Lisa Dahmani, former director of global content at HubSpot and current CMO at UX Design Institute, says it’s not enough to just have a blog nowadays.

“You need to consistently create content that is more valuable than your competition’s content. You need to be an SEO expert to get your articles ranking on page one of Google, and you need a distribution strategy to promote your content across all the channels your audience likes to consume content on,” says Dahmani.

“It’s a lot more complex to win at blogging now, but if you can master it, it’s worth the investment.”

That point really stuck with me, because it’s something I hear echoed by other experts, too.

Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko, summed it up well. (He’s been called an “SEO genius” by Entrepreneur and a “brilliant entrepreneur” by Inc. Magazine. Forbes even listed Backlinko as a top blog to follow.)

“All in all, today, SEO is less about optimizing your site to help Google and more about being the best result that deserves to be #1,” says Dean.

That mindset applies to blogging, too. Hitting publish and hoping for the best doesn’t cut it anymore. To get real results, you need to invest in quality, distribution, and long-term strategy.

And in a landscape where AI-generated content is everywhere, being the “best result” means creating something original, helpful, and worth trusting. That’s what search engines, and readers, are rewarding.

So sure — it takes more work to stand out. But if you’re willing to put in the effort, the payoff is definitely still there, and worth it.

And that brings us to the next big question: Even if blogs aren’t dead, how do they stack up against everything else out there?

Blogs vs. Other Marketing Channels

Now that other content marketing channels — namely, video and podcasting — have surpassed blogs, will blogs soon become redundant?

Well, it all depends on the user personas you’re targeting. But even as other platforms grow, blogs still offer many advantages.

“Podcasting is not without its own set of limitations. There are plenty of discoverability and audience growth challenges. At this point, blogs have a pretty well-dusted playbook for scaling. That’s not true for podcasts,” says Matthew Brown, senior lead producer of YouTube & Podcast at HubSpot.

“A company can use its likely limited resources to invest in a blog that will basically give consistent, easily measurable, and reliable performance. Blogs also have a direct line to the company’s bottom dollar, podcasts do not.”

Nelson Chacon Guzman, a marketing fellow at HubSpot, highlights that there’s no reason to choose between two platforms if your team has the bandwidth to tackle both.

If it aligns with your user personas, you can engage your audience from several angles.

“Creating a blog constructed of articles around the benefits of your product will be helpful. Having a video showcasing its use or how to install it would be beneficial for your audience,” says Chacon Guzman.

He continues, ” Home Depot has done a fantastic job of doing this. While they inform and educate their customers on their products, they also add a quick ‘how-to’ for the more knowledgeable person who just needs a short answer explained in a video.”

As for social media, Annabelle Nyst, former senior content manager at HubSpot and current principal social content manager at G-P, says it’s hard to compare it to blogs as each platform serves different purposes.

“Social content doesn’t always have the shelf life or the discoverability of blog posts,” says Nyst. “It’s more about consistently meeting your audience where they are, in the right moments, engaging with them one-on-one, and establishing trust via community building.”

She adds that social media can be a great way to amplify your blog posts. And vice versa, blog posts can serve as inspiration for social content.

If using both, Nyst recommends pulling the most compelling points from your blog posts, creating social-first content, and using it to drive traffic back to your blog.

With all that said, blogs don’t come without their disadvantages. AJ Beltis, a principal content marketing manager at HubSpot, mentions the high drop-off rates often seen in blog posts.

“Blogs lack the interactivity that many crave due to its nature as written content,” says Beltis. “This challenges blog writers to hook their readers in a few short sentences without having the benefit of special effects or audio engineers available to their video and podcast creating counterparts.”

What it often comes down to is your brand goals and which channels will help you meet them. Podcasts, for example, are better for branding while blogs serve better for top-of-the-funnel engagement.

“Blog posts are an acquisition juggernaut. There’s a clear path that any seasoned marketer can follow. Podcasts, however, best serve as a brand opportunity,” says Brown.

“You wouldn’t measure a series of blog posts on their brand uplift ability, just like you wouldn’t measure a podcast show’s lead generation. That is unless you like gray hairs and a serious lack of sleep.”

At the end of the day, the best marketing channel is the one that supports your goals, and I believe blogs still have plenty of runway left.

Why Blogs Are Still Impactful

From an investment perspective, blogs may be a better long-term investment for lead generation.

“I could spend $200K to hire a full-time writer, SEO expert, and conversion rate optimization (CRO) specialist to work on my blog. By combining those skill sets, I’m going to be able to create a blog that drives organic traffic to my website and converts it into leads for my business all year long,” says Dahmani.

She continues, “Or, I could put the same $200K into an advertising campaign and maybe get a couple of thousand leads over the course of the ad campaign. But once the campaign ends, so does my lead flow.”

Dahmani adds that the majority of HubSpot’s blog-generated leads come from older blog posts. This means that blogging can be a great lead source long after posts are published. Aja Frost, senior director of global growth at HubSpot, echoes this sentiment.

“Organic traffic is more important than ever. Unlike paid traffic, which stops coming in the second your budget runs out, organic traffic is mostly self-sustaining after you’ve put in the time and effort to create a blog post,” she says.

She adds that most content management systems (CMS) have SEO tools integrated into their platforms, which makes it easier to optimize your posts.

Blogging can also be valuable in shaping a brand’s product positioning.

“Blogs are still one of the best channels we have to create narratives around our product,” says HubSpot Product Marketing Manager Alex Girard. “They offer us the opportunity to address trends we see in the market, how those trends impact the reader, and how our product might be able to help them meet that trend successfully. They’re also great for telling customer success stories.”

He adds that when using your blog to market your product, the content doesn’t have to be promotional. When you establish yourself as a thought leader and gain the trust of your audience, they will organically look into your products and services.

With that said, it’s going to take more than good content to have a successful blog.

“Growth without a goal isn’t going to help your business – if 10,000 people are reading your blog, but none of them fit your persona, that’s not going to do anything for your company,” says HubSpot’s Director of Content Marketing Karla Hesterberg.

“Focus on something attainable, like generating new contacts, and make sure every post you’re putting out has that goal in mind.”

She adds that one of the biggest mistakes brands make is creating content only for people at the decision-making stage.

With so many stages between reading a blog and making a purchase, marketers should have posts geared at users in every stage with corresponding offers.

Learn more about that through HubSpot’s business blogging course.

From an SEO perspective, brands may also struggle with generating traffic because they’re thinking blog first, link building second.

“What I often notice is that marketers see ‘blogging’ and ‘link building’ as two different disciplines. First, they write the blog posts, then they think about how to earn backlinks to them,” says Irina Nica, former senior product marketing manager at HubSpot and current senior product marketing manager at SurveyMonkey.

“Instead, they should include linkable assets into their regular content calendar, alongside other types of articles that are maybe designed for generating organic or social media traffic.”

Despite the many benefits we‘ve gone over, blogging isn’t always the best strategy for every brand. Why? Well, what if your ideal user persona doesn’t read blogs? What if they prefer emails instead?

“Some brands have great email communication and workflows where they provide people with downloadable offers where they don’t have to go somewhere else to get the information, it’s just in their inbox straight away,” says Sandra Mpouma, head of digital marketing at Centura (Formerly RationalFX) and Xendpay.

“You don’t necessarily need a blog as long as you’re offering something in exchange. I think the blog has always been: offer something for free in exchange for that user interaction.”

So, in that case, blogs wouldn’t exactly be dead, more so irrelevant.

Why Marketing Isn’t Dead

If you‘ve made it this far and you’re still wondering whether marketing itself is dead — let’s clear that up, too. Despite what some headlines suggest, marketing isn’t going anywhere.

In fact, it’s more influential than ever. And that applies to both traditional strategies and digital initiatives.

The global content marketing industry is experiencing massive growth. Just a few years ago, global content marketing industry revenue was estimated at roughly $63 billion U.S. dollars. Currently, it’s projected to increase to over $107 billion by 2026, according to Statista.

“There’s a reason why Nike and McDonald’s continue to invest millions every month in marketing even though they’re already household names. There’s a reason why the top musicians and artists still do promotion prior to their latest album release,” says Simmonds.

“Marketing isn’t to be seen as just an expense. It’s an investment. And if you make an investment that is rooted in a strategic plan — that investment should return dividends for years (maybe decades) to come.”

So no, marketing isn’t dead. It‘s just evolving. And for brands willing to meet the moment with quality content, smart distribution, and a clear value prop — it’s still one of the most powerful growth levers you have.

Blogging Is Far From Dead

Here’s the bottom line: Not every marketing tactic works for every brand, but blogs aren’t going anywhere.

They’re still one of the most effective ways to build trust, drive traffic, and capture leads over time. They’ve evolved, yes. They’re harder to win with, sure. But they’re far from dead.

So for now, blogs, you can step off the chopping block.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in January 2022 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

I’ve been in content marketing for about eight years, and I’ll tell you this golden nugget of truth for free: You can’t cheat your way to success in this game. And that’s especially true regarding marketing on a highly visual platform like Instagram.

In my experience, it takes dedication, consistency, and hard work to build a reputable Instagram account. However, I’m all for Instagram hacks that make account-building easier, especially since HubSpot’s 2025 State of Marketing Report revealed that 29% of marketers believe Instagram will see increased investment in 2025. (See where other Meta channels stack up in comparison.)

So, whether you’re posting for business or pleasure, countless lesser-known features, settings, search options, and Instagram tips (as well as tricks and hacks) that can help take your Instagram game to the next level. And I’ve compiled them all here.

Let’s go!

Table of Contents:

• 41 Instagram Hacks, Tips, and Features
• Instagram Design Features [+ Tips]
• Instagram Optimization Features [+ Tips]
• Instagram Reels Features
• Instagram Stories Features
• Instagram User Preferences Features [+ Tips]
• How to Get Verified on Instagram

41 Instagram Hacks, Tips, and Features

Instagram Account Features

Note: Before getting started, make sure you’re operating on the latest version of Instagram. At the time of publishing this guide, the latest version is 379.0.0 on iOS and Android.

Please also note that although this article might demonstrate each tip below using an iPhone or Android device, all items on this list are available for both operating systems and can be enjoyed using the same step-by-step instructions.

1. Add and manage multiple accounts from the same device.

As a freelance social media manager working on multiple client accounts, I found this hack an absolute blessing. Managing multiple accounts from the same device made my job more effective, efficient, and, honestly, way easier.

For example, if a scheduled post hit a technical glitch and didn’t go live, I can toggle between accounts and manually post the content (without an arduous log-in process).

I can also complete engagement tasks (i.e., commenting on X amount of relevant posts) for multiple client accounts in one session. I don’t know about you, but I find it much easier to do the same task repeatedly if I’m already in the zone.

But even for personal use, it’s a game changer. Separate account for your dog? Don’t be embarrassed; stand by your puppy profile. Whether it’s a pet or a business account, you can add and manage it alongside your personal account.

Here’s how:

1. Either hold down on your profile photo icon at the bottom right of the screen or tap on your bolded handle name in your profile.
2. Here, you will see the current Instagram and Meta accounts listed. Tap Add Instagram account, and you can either log into an existing account or create a new one.

You can also come to this window to toggle between profiles.

2. See all the posts you’ve liked.

Ever wanted to see all the posts you’ve liked in one place? Go to your profile, click the three lines on the top right (Android and iOS), tap Your Activity, and click Likes below Interactions.

Unlike any posts, simply go to the post and deselect the heart icon below it. Don’t worry — the user won’t be notified that you’ve unliked their post.

Pro tip: Looking for a super specific post but you’re not sure how to find it? Above all of your Likes, there’s a small row where you’re able to sort any posts by Author (aka User), Content Type (Posts, Reels, and Threads), Date (Past Week, Past Month, Past Year, or a Custom Date Range), and Newest to Oldest.

3. Hide, delete, or disable comments and likes on your posts.

X may have a more “anything goes” culture of commentary, but my Instagram profile is my domain, and it’s much easier to control who says what on my content. This is especially important for those who manage a business account.

To Filter Comments by Keyword:

• Navigate to Settings and Activity by clicking the three lines at the top right of your profile.
• Scroll down and click Hidden Words under How others can interact with you.
• You can toggle Hide comments to filter general offensive words or click Manage custom words and phrases to add custom filters.

To Hide Comments:

• Tap Hide directly under the comment. This will hide it from view, but the original commenter won’t know the comment was hidden.

To Delete Comments:

• Hold down on a comment to open up options.
• Click Delete to delete the comment. You can also Restrict or Block the individual from commenting again.

To Disable Comments Entirely:

To clarify, you can’t turn off comments across your entire profile. However, you can disable them for individual posts:

• To do so, start posting an image.
• When you reach the page, tap Advanced Settings at the bottom to add a caption, tags, and location.
• This will open a screen where you can easily switch on an option labeled Turn Off Commenting.

 

4. Clear your Instagram search history.

To clear your Instagram search history (on Android and iOS), go to your profile, tap Settings, then Your activity. Tap Recent searches under How you use Instagram and click Clear all.

5. Add another Instagram account to your bio.

Maybe your company has more than one Instagram account for different aspects of your brand. For instance, HubSpot has a verified HubSpot account, a HubSpot Life account, a HubSpot Academy account, and a HubSpot Partners account.

To draw awareness back to its main company page, HubSpot links to the @HubSpot account in its other account bios, like in @HubSpotLife’s account:

Fortunately, you can include another Instagram account in your Instagram bio. To do so, type the “@” sign into your bio and select the account you’d like to tag. Then, click Done.

6. Communicate with your audience using Instagram Broadcast channels.

According to our 2025 State of Marketing Report, the number one trend being explored in 2025 is creating content that reflects your brand’s values (21%).

A great way to try out this trend is through Broadcast Channels, a messaging tool for creators to engage directly with a large group of followers.

Creators can share updates and behind-the-scenes content as text, video, voice notes, and images. Also, just a heads up: followers can’t send messages but can enjoy the content, react to content, and vote in polls.

Check out Doechii’s Broadcast Channel below, where various approved fan accounts send updates and other important news about her music:

Instagram Design Features [+ Tips]

1. Add special fonts to your bio.

Here’s an Instagram bio hack that can make your profile stand out. You can already add emojis to the bio beneath your profile photo, but the keyboard limits your creativity there.

Using a couple of basic third-party websites, you can copy over some more special fonts not often found in the Instagram community. Here’s how:

To Add a Special Font to Your Bio via Mobile:

• Add a new font to your Instagram bio via your mobile device using a website like LingoJam.
• Open the site on your phone, type your desired bio text in the left-hand text box, and see the same bio text in different typefaces appear on the right.

• Carry your chosen font over to your Instagram bio by tapping it and selecting Copy.
• Then, open your Instagram app, navigate to your profile, select Edit Profile, tap the Bio section, and paste your chosen font into the empty field.

To Add a Special Font to Your Bio on Desktop:

If you’re editing your Instagram profile on your laptop or desktop, Font Space has a library of fonts you can download and copy into your bio in seconds.

• Find a font you like and select Download beneath the font’s sample image, as shown below.

• Downloading this font will open a folder on your desktop where you can pull a “.ttf” file that carries the various versions of this font. The file will look something like the screenshot below.

• Once the font is copied to the computer’s clipboard, open an internet browser and log onto www.Instagram.com.

• Select Edit Profile and paste the downloaded font into the bio field.
• Edit the sample text that came with the font to write a new bio as you see fit.

2. Add special characters to your bio.

Beyond customizing your bio with a special font, you can add atypical characters that distinguish you or your brand.

These include §, †, or even ™ — symbols you wouldn‘t find on a smartphone’s keyboard, which is helpful if an Instagram name features a trademarked product name.

To Add Special Characters From Mobile:

• Install a free mobile app like Character Pad on your mobile device. This app catalogs nearly every character and symbol you might need but won’t find in the 26-letter English alphabet.
• Open the app and find a character to add to your Instagram bio.
• Simply double-tap the picture of a symbol to paste it into a text box, as shown below.
• Then, copy this character to your phone’s clipboard. (For example purposes, I double-tapped the half-moon icon.)

• Once the symbol is copied to the clipboard, open Instagram, navigate to your bio, and tap Edit Profile.

• Hold down your finger on the field of your bio you want to insert your special character until Paste appears as an option, as shown below.
• Tap Paste and then Done.

To Add Special Characters From a PC:

You can insert special characters and symbols through Instagram’s web client on a desktop or laptop. In my opinion, the easiest way to do this is through Microsoft Word’s Advanced Symbol insertion icon and the pop-up menu.

Source

• Select the desired symbol or character and copy it to your computer’s clipboard.
• Then, navigate to Instagram.com and follow the steps above to paste the character into a particular part of your bio.

Note: You might be tempted to simply Google search for the special character you want, but not all special characters from the internet are “clean” when pasted into Instagram. Some might become corrupted or not show up correctly.

3. Use Instagram as a photo editor (without posting anything).

This is one of my favorite Instagram hacks. I don’t always want to share content on Instagram, but I might want to share visual content on a different social platform like LinkedIn.

In my humble opinion, no other social platform matches the photo editing capabilities of Instagram, and I’m an absolute sucker for the filters. So, I use this hack to add a filter and/or crop an image before sharing it to LinkedIn.

I haven’t done a formal A/B test, but my LinkedIn photos with an Instagram filter perform better than those without. Of course, that could be due to the specific type of content I share and my audience. Your results may differ.

To use Instagram as a photo editor without posting anything, publish a picture while your phone is in Airplane mode.

• First, go to Settings on Instagram, scroll down to Archiving, and download under Your app and media.
• Make sure Save Original Photo is toggled on.

• Next, follow the steps to post a photo to Instagram. Upload the photo, edit it, and press Share.
• An error message will appear saying the upload failed, but you’ll find the edited image in your phone’s photo gallery.

4. Insert line breaks into your bio and captions.

When you write a caption on Instagram, you’ll see that the keyboard doesn’t allow you to press Enter or Return. The same is true for your bio. So, how do all those people put line breaks in there?

Press the 123 key in the bottom left corner of the keyboard, and the Return key will appear on the bottom right.

I know this tip sounds simple, but a lot of people miss it — myself included, until a colleague clued me in. I’ve seen some elaborate solutions for hacking through this problem, like writing the caption copy in another app and then copying and pasting it into Instagram. Thankfully, it’s much simpler than that.

Instagram Optimization Features [+ Tips]

1. Pin important content to the top of your Instagram Grid.

If you have an Instagram post that you want to call attention to, you can pin it to the top of your profile grid.

• Pick the Reel or image post you want to pin.
• Hold down on the post in your grid to open up a menu of options, and select Pin to main grid.
• The post will now stay at the top of your grid.

This is a valuable tool for displaying ongoing partnerships, drawing attention to viral content, and ensuring new followers or browsers can immediately see the most important content you want to share with them.

2. Optimize your Instagram bio to appear in the Explore tab.

Your friends, family, and coworkers might be your first group of Instagram followers, but growing your audience takes more than the people who already know you.

You don’t need a million followers to make an impact. In our 2025 State of Marketing Report, 23% of brands said they saw the most success working with nano-influencers, who have just 1,000-9,999 followers.

One key way to grow your audience impactfully is to have your profile appear on Instagram’s Explore Page.

The Explore Page, accessible by clicking the magnifying glass icon at the bottom of your Instagram page, is a browsing page that sorts the entire Instagram community by topic and keyword. These include Fitness, Style, Science, and more.

Hashtagging your posts with these words can expose your content to the people browsing these topics, but you can also use them in your Instagram name and bio to promote your profile.

For example, if Jane Doe is a marketing consultant, she might want to make her Instagram name “Jane Doe Marketing” rather than “Jane Doe.” Then, in her bio, she can include all of her specialties, such as “SEO,” “blogging,” “email marketing,” etc.

Pro tip: When you’re looking for suitable hashtags for your content or bio, you should factor in competition in addition to relevance.

To do this, I don’t recommend using the first hashtags that Instagram auto-suggests when you start typing. They’re usually the most competitive (i.e., densely populated with existing content), making it harder for you to stand out.

The good news? All it takes is a little research.

As an example, I searched for hashtags for my pretend abstract artwork business. I searched #abstractart in the Explore search bar and toggled over to Tags to see the results.

I can see that #abstractart has 53.9M posts, which will make it nearly impossible to stand out. As I scroll down, I can see #abstractartistry and #abstractartcommunity at 11.4K and 11.5K posts, respectively.

I like the look of those odds compared to hashtags with millions of existing profiles and content. Those two hashtags would be on my list out of that small selection.

3. Drive traffic to an external website.

The number one challenge cited by marketers in HubSpot’s 2025 State of Marketing Report was generating traffic.

Now, Instagram doesn’t make it much easier since clickable URLs aren’t allowed anywhere except the single website box in your bio. If you put a URL in a photo caption, it’ll appear as plain text, meaning users would have to painstakingly copy the URL, open a web browser, and paste or type it there.

One sneaky way to get people to visit your Instagram profile, where that one clickable URL is allowed, is to use your photo captions to encourage people to visit your profile for a link with language like “Link in bio.”

Then, update that URL frequently to point to your latest blog content, YouTube video, product, or offer.

Check out the example below from the food magazine Bon Appétit, which includes a link in its bio that draws people to external Bon Appétit content.

4. Drive traffic to an external website on Stories.

You can add links more easily on Instagram Stories. Here’s how:

• Add a photo to your Story.
• Click the sticker button at the top right (the icon with the smiley face). Here, you can add various elements to your Story, such as location, questions, and GIFs.

• Click Link and enter the URL you want to drive traffic to and the text you want to use in place of the URL.

• Click Done, and now you can customize the sticker design by tapping on it until you find the color and font you prefer.

5. Sell products from Instagram using shoppable posts.

You might already know you can tag people in your Instagram posts as (or after) you post new content. But you can now officially tag products and direct your viewers to a product page to buy what they saw. (This might be good news for you if you’re one of the 49% of marketers who use revenue/sales of products within the Instagram app to determine ROI.)

Pro tip: Speaking of ROI … Why not try HubSpot’s free paid media template to analyze performance and revenue for each media type and source?

To Add an Instagram Business Account:

An Instagram Business account is necessary to publish shoppable posts. You can get one by selecting Edit Profile on your Instagram profile and tapping Switch to professional account, as shown below.

To Tag a Post With Products:

Once you’ve launched an Instagram Business account, you’ll need to enable product tags to use them on a post that depicts a product.

• Navigate to your settings using the gear icon from your profile page, and select Products.
• Tap Continue and follow the prompts to connect a product catalog to your business profile.

With product tags enabled on your Instagram Business account, you can now upload new posts and tag your photos with products you find from your product catalog. Here’s what a shoppable post can look like:

6. Create an auto-complete quick reply for standard responses.

HubSpot’s State of Marketing Report revealed that 20.5% of brands are exploring using social media DMs for customer service in 2025. However, responding to user comments and questions in DMs is incredibly time-consuming.

Fortunately, there’s a hack to streamline the process and make it more efficient. (Note: This only works on Instagram Business accounts.)

You can simply create a one- to two-word phrase that acts as a shortcut to a more extended standard response you might send often.

• To do this, click Business in your Settings, and then Quick Replies.
• Or, click the three-dot chat bubble icon on the bottom of the screen, and then click New Quick Reply.
• Tap the + icon to create a new quick reply, and enter a pre-written response in the Message field.
• You can assign a shortcut keyword for easy use. For instance, you might type “returnpolicy” as the shortcut for a more extended response. (i.e., “Hey there. We’re sorry you don’t love your purchase. Fortunately, we permit 30-day returns, no questions asked. Please send us your order confirmation number to get the process started.”)
• Save the quick reply by tapping the checkmark.
• Once you’ve added a shortcut, you can type the shortcut “returnpolicy” into the comment box to auto-generate the full response.

Source

7. Pin your Instagram post to Pinterest.

I’m an SEO girl at heart. But before I knew what SEO was, I began experimenting with Pinterest to grow my blog traffic.

To get the most from Pinterest, you need to post consistently, and as most content creators know, sometimes you hit a brick wall on the inspiration front.

When I have a creative block with Pinterest content, I like to repurpose old Instagram posts. (And it‘s easier than you think!) I’ve used the following technique to build group boards and direct traffic to my blog.

But here’s the thing: You might not know this hack exists. Why? Well, Instagram doesn’t have a natural integration with many social networks (except Facebook and Threads, considering they are all owned by Meta) for publishing Instagram posts to other social accounts.

However, with respect to Pinterest, image-loving platforms stick together. Here’s a backdoor way to pin your latest Instagram post to Pinterest:

• On the Instagram mobile app, tap a post to view it fully, then tap the paper airplane Share icon.
• Select Copy link to attach the picture’s link to your clipboard.

• Open the Pinterest mobile app — or download it; you’ll need it for this step — and navigate to your profile page.
• If you have downloaded the latest version of Pinterest, it might ask you if you’d like to produce the image from your clipboard as soon as you open the app.
• If not, select the + icon at the top right to add a new pin. You’ll see a menu of options to add your Copied link to a new Pin or board on your profile.

Instagram Reels Features

1. Upload and browse video content on Instagram Reels.

Instagram Reels is one of the most popular features of Instagram to date. In fact, according to HubSpot’s most recent Instagram Engagement Report, 25% of marketers share this post format at least once a day. This makes it the most shared content type on Instagram for marketers, with image posts and stories coming in joint second at 23%.

You can find Instagram Reels by opening the Instagram app and tapping the video icon in the bottom navigation bar. You’ll land on a feed of Reels to watch, including those from people you follow, trending videos, and the most popular creators on the app.

As you view more videos, the algorithm will adapt to your interests and show you Reels relevant to your likes. And naturally, the same goes for your target audience.

The Reels you create are visible on your Profile under the Reels icon. When you want to upload a new Reel, follow the traditional steps to upload an image, but toggle the options at the bottom from Post to Reel.

2. Easily create Reels using the template feature.

Instagram’s native Reels template helps anyone quickly and easily make a Reel. To create a Reel using a template, you can either:

• Find a Reel you like that someone has created using a template, tap on the three dots on the bottom right corner of the reel, tap Use as template, and follow the steps. (Note: the only Reels you can use as a template have the Use as a template button.)

Or

• Start creating a new post, toggle from Post to Reel to see the Templates button.

You will immediately be served recommended and trending templates when you open the Templates window. If you like one and want to save it for the future, you can access it later by toggling from Browse to Saved.

3. Automatically add captions to your Reels and Stories.

The auto-caption feature automatically converts speech into captions for your Reels and Stories.

This feature is crucial for increasing accessibility to your content and allowing people to consume the content without sound.

• Create a Reel and upload it to Instagram.
• Tap Next and then tap the sticker icon.
• Select the Captions sticker. Instagram will automatically transcribe the audio into captions.
• Customize the font, color, text effects, size, and positioning of the captions. You can also edit the transcription by double-tapping a word.

4. Remix Reels to engage with other users.

Remixing a Reel means creating one that includes content from someone else’s Reel. It’s a great way to engage with other users and create side-by-side interaction as a reaction or response to their content.

• To Remix a Reel (on Android and iOS), tap the three dots on the Reel you want to remix and click Remix.

• Click Edit video and choose whether to play your video alongside the original video or after it ends.
• Next, record your Reel and share it on your profile.

If you remix a Reel using side-by-side video, you can mix the audio and add voiceovers, text, and stickers to your Reel and the original Reel.

If you remix a Reel and add your video after the original, you can’t change the audio from the original post. Still, you can adjust the volume level of the original Reel and add a voiceover.

5. Sequence Reels to create a progression.

Sequencing a Reel means stitching multiple clips, including someone else’s, into a single Reel to create a more extended narrative. If you share multiple Reels following the same story, you can stitch those clips together and include relevant content from others.

• To Sequence a Reel, tap the three dots on the Reel you want to sequence and click Sequence.

• You can choose a clip or use the entire Reel. Then, record or upload videos sequentially to tell a story.

6. Reply to a comment on your Reel with a Reel.

Instagram allows people to create Reels to reply to comments on Reels. It’s an engaging way to interact with followers and build connections.

• To do this (on Android and iOS), tap Reply underneath a comment and click the camera icon.

• Record your Reel or upload a pre-recorded video from your camera roll.

• Click on the comment sticker to update the background color or change its position in the frame.
• Edit your Reel, then click Share.

Instagram Stories Features

1. Use Notes to share status updates.

Notes are 60-character max posts next to profile images in the messages inbox.

Notes will appear in your followers’ inboxes, and you can choose to share them with all of your followers or your selected Close Friends list. They last 24 hours, and Notes replies appear as DMs.

The new feature is a great way to share your timely thoughts, engage with people, and see what others are saying.

2. Create a collection of saved posts.

In addition to being able to view all of the posts you’ve liked, Instagram also has an option to save or bookmark certain posts in collections that you create.

• Start by going to your settings and selecting Saved under How to use Instagram.
• Next, press the + button and name your new collection.

• Click Next, and select posts from your Saved section.
• Tap the bookmark icon below the post you want to save to add posts directly into a collection. This automatically saves it to Saved, but you can also immediately add it to one or more collections, as seen below:

3. Create Stories Highlights to show Stories for longer than a day.

Like in Snapchat, posts to your Story only stick around for your followers to see for 24 hours. But sometimes, you have a Story that deserves more daylight.

That’s where Stories Highlights comes in. Instagram’s feature allows you to save stories together in the same space on your profile page by using the New button with the + icon below your profile image.

• To make a Stories Highlight, tap the New option and select any number of past stories in your album:

• Then, give it a cover photo and a name to display as its own Instagram Story on your profile page. Finally, click Add to make your new Highlight live.

• You can remove Stories Highlights any time by holding down on the icon and selecting Delete highlight.

4. Reorder Instagram Stories Highlights.

The Highlights on your Instagram feed act as your brand’s portfolio — you can use Highlights to demonstrate your company’s values, showcase new products or services, or categorize various topics you post about frequently.

For instance, sister foodie influencers @sistersnacking have Highlights to compile their top eats in various destinations, such as New York City, San Francisco, and Japan, as well as their original recipes.

Since a user can only see the first five Highlights when they come across your profile, you’ll want to ensure your first Highlights are the ones you’re most proud of. To do this, simply follow this trick:

• Hold down the Highlight you’d like moved to the front of this list and click Edit Highlight when the slide-up appears.

• Next, find an image or video you’d like to add to the Highlight. (Don’t worry — you’ll be able to delete this within 30 seconds, so you don’t need to choose one that will stay on the Highlight.)

• Click Done in the top right corner.
• Now, your Highlight will be first in the list. To remove the image or video you just added, follow the above instructions and simply uncheck the image you added. Your Highlight will remain at the beginning of the Highlight reel.

5. Change your Instagram Highlights icon without publishing it to your feed.

The image you choose for each Highlight should accurately depict what type of content users can expect to see if they tap it, so you’ll want to select a compelling, engaging image.

However, if you have a design, logo, or image you‘d like to use that isn’t in your Instagram feed, you can still make it the Highlight Icon.

• To do this, hold down on the Highlight and click Edit Highlight (same as the step above).

• Next, click Edit cover and click on the gallery icon to open up your entire photo library.

• Once you choose an image from your camera roll, click Done. Your Highlight cover image is now an image you’ve never posted on your Instagram account.

6. Schedule posts in advance.

Given that Instagram is a mobile app, you’re probably in a routine of taking photos and posting them to your Instagram Story on the fly. But you can also pre-post them from your computer for a set day and time in the future.

 

If you have an Instagram business account, this feature is available with a social media scheduling tool, as well as HubSpot.

If you have this business profile, switch to it via the Instagram mobile app and follow the prompts to connect it to Facebook. You might not need to follow this step depending on the social scheduling tool.

Once you’ve toggled to the correct account, launch the scheduling tool, navigate to the current connected profiles, and see Instagram as an available integration.

Note: A word of warning when it comes to scheduling posts on Instagram — I tell you this from experience managing Instagram accounts for international clients — make sure you set your scheduling tool to the client’s time zone rather than yours.

I once created and scheduled some beautiful content, which was met with crickets. Why? It went out at an appropriate time on my end, but it was an unsociable time for the client and their audience. Doh!

Pro tip: Check out this post for the best days and times to schedule content on Instagram and other social channels.

7. Use “Type Mode” to enhance your Instagram Stories.

Since its launch, Stories have become quite creative, and it takes more than a pretty filter to stand out to your audience.

Enter type mode — an option similar to Snapchat that gives you the power to caption Stories that need extra context to resonate with someone. Here’s how to use it:

• Open Instagram Stories by swiping right from your Instagram feed. This will launch your smartphone camera.
• Take a photo or video, or upload one from your camera roll. Then, press the Aa icon at the top of the screen.

• The Aa icon will open Type Mode, with 14 fonts to choose from. I used the Poster font below:

• Next, choose from four text animations, such as typewriter.

You can also add various text effects, such as giving the text a pixelated look.

• Lastly, you can change the text alignment to right, left, and center, and add a text backdrop color to help it pop against the image background.

8. Post content from other users to your Instagram Story.

Although Instagram Stories are a great way to amplify your content on your followers’ homepages, you might not always have something Story-worthy.

In those times, you can share an engaging, inspiring, or relevant post from someone else through your Instagram Stories. Here’s how:

• Find a post you want to share in your Instagram Stories and tap the paper airplane icon, as shown below.

• This icon will open a screen allowing you to send this post to specific followers or add it to your Story. Click Add to story.

On the Story, you can customize the size of the post. Also, tap the image to show a preview of the post caption.

Instagram User Preferences Features [+ Tips]

1. Mute Instagram notifications.

You have the power to turn off all app notifications by either temporarily pausing notifications or turning on Sleep mode. Using Sleep mode adds a badge to your profile so people know you’re taking a break. When you turn these modes off, you’ll get a roundup of notifications of things you’ve missed.

• Navigate to Settings and activity on your profile page. Click Notifications. You’ll see two options at the top.

• Pause all notifications temporarily pause notifications for anywhere from 15 minutes to 8 hours.

• Turning on Sleep mode turns off notifications indefinitely until you turn it off again. You can also set a timer to automatically turn on Sleep mode at a specific schedule, such as weekdays from 9 PM to 9 AM.

2. Create a Favorites list to see your favorite accounts first.

If you have favorite accounts on Instagram or friends whose content you want to see more often, you can select up to 50 accounts to add to your Favorites list.

You’ll see their posts higher up and more often in your feed, and you can even swipe to a separate favorites-only feed to see what people are up to.

Every Favorites feed is free of ads and suggested posts. Better yet, nobody else knows who you’ve added to the list.

• To choose your favorites, tap the Instagram logo on the top left corner of the Instagram feed and select Favorites.

• In the Favorites window, tap the three lines with stars in the top right corner. This will bring you to a window where you can add accounts by clicking the + icon or searching for a handle.

3. Get notifications when your favorite people post.

Never want to miss an Instagram post from your favorite influencers or brands again? I have great news for you: You can choose to get a notification every time a specific user posts a new photo. All you have to do is turn on notifications for each user individually.

To turn on these notifications, visit a user’s profile, click the bell icon in the upper right corner, and choose the post type you want a notification for: Posts, Stories, Reels, or Live videos.

It’s important to note that you must enable notifications from the Instagram app in your phone’s settings — here’s how.

• To allow notifications on iPhone/iPad, go to Settings, then Notifications. Choose Instagram and then turn on the setting to Allow Notifications.
• To allow notifications on Android, go to Settings, then choose Apps, then Instagram. Select the option to show notifications.

Want to turn off post notifications? Just follow the same steps by returning to the bell icon and toggling off the notifications.

4. Hide photos you’ve been tagged in.

When someone tags you in a photo or video on Instagram, it’s automatically added to your profile under Photos of You, unless you opt to add tagged photos manually (see the next tip).

• To see the posts you’ve been tagged in, go to your own profile and click the person icon on the same line as the grid and Reels icons.
• Next, click on an individual post (in your tagged photos) and click the three dots in the top right.

• Tap Post options, then Remove me from post or Hide from my profile. The first removes your tag, and the second removes it from your tagged photos.

5. Adjust your settings to approve tagged photos before they appear on your profile.

As mentioned in the previous step, when someone tags a photo or video of you on Instagram, it‘s automatically added to your profile.

But you can change your Instagram settings to manually select which photos you’re tagged in that show up on your profile.

• To manually approve tagged posts, navigate to Settings and Activity, and tap Tags and mentions under How others can interact with you.
• Here you will see options to change who can tag and @mention you. Toggle on Manually approve tags.

6. Hide ads you don’t find relevant.

Instagram tries to show you ads that are interesting and relevant to you. You might see ads based on people you follow and things you like on Instagram or the third-party websites and apps you visit.

If you see sponsored posts you don’t find relevant, you can let Instagram know and slowly teach its algorithm what you like and don’t like to see.

To hide ads on Instagram, tap on the three dots to the right of a post labeled Sponsored, and choose Why you’re seeing this ad to hide it.

From there, it’ll ask you to share why you don’t want to see the ad anymore.

You can also opt out of seeing ads based on sites and apps from Instagram and Facebook from your device’s settings.

Note that even if you choose to opt out of seeing these types of ads, you’ll still see ads based on your Instagram and Facebook activity.

• To limit ad tracking on an iPhone/iPad, go to Settings and choose Privacy & Security, then Apple Advertising. From there, choose the option to turn off personalized ads.
• To turn off interest-based ads on Android, go to Google Settings, then Ads. From there, choose the option Turn off interest-based ads.

7. Send photos privately to your friends.

Posting photos with all of your followers or with the public isn’t the only way to share content on Instagram. You can share them with individual or multiple users, like a Facebook message or group chat.

You can either send a new photo to friends or one that you or someone else has already posted.

• To send a new photo privately, click the Direct Messenger icon at the top right of your Instagram feed. This will open up your DMs with individuals and groups.
• Click on the user or group with whom you’d like to share a photo or video. At the bottom, you will see options to take a new photo or video or to pull one from the camera roll.

• To send an existing post, tap the paper airplane icon next to a post in feed. This will open Share settings, with suggested users and groups to directly message the post to.
• Click as many as you’d like and add a personalized message, if you like, before hitting Send. The post will be sent separately to each user and group.

User Search Features

1. Search Instagram users without an account.

As much as Instagram would like everyone to ultimately create an account for themselves or their business, people can still peruse the many accounts of brands, people, and dogs without an account to see if it’s worth signing up.

There are two ways to search for people on Instagram without logging in:

Enter a Username at the End of the Instagram URL:

The first way to search users without an account is by using an Instagram handle you already know and adding it to the end of “www.instagram.com/.”

For example, our Instagram username is simply “HubSpot.” You can enter the following into your browser’s address bar: www.instagram.com/hubspot, which brings you directly to HubSpot’s Instagram profile without needing to log in or sign up.

Google Them in an Instagram Site Search:

A slightly “hackier” way of looking up users without needing an Instagram account is to simply search their name in a Google site search.

This means telling Google to only look up search terms on a website of your choice (in this case, Instagram).

To site-search for a user, open a Google search and type the following: “site:instagram.com [name of user].”

By keeping all the text prior to the brackets in your search bar, you can shuffle through the names of people and businesses, and Google will produce results that are live only on Instagram. Here’s what a site search looks like for HubSpot.

As you can see, Google produces our main profile and our culture-focused HubSpot Life profile. As I scrolled down the search results, I also saw Instagram posts that include the #hubspot hashtag and our HubSpot Academy Page.

2. Look through pictures without accidentally liking them.

It‘s pretty easy to learn how to like something on Instagram — so easy, in fact, that people do it accidentally: It’s just a quick double tap of the photo once you’ve entered its full view.

The thing is, it’s so easy to do quickly by mistake. And there’s nothing worse than being deep in an Instagram stalking session and accidentally liking someone’s post from 2013.

So, here’s a quick cheat for you: To look through someone’s photos without “double-tap paranoia,” scroll through Instagram feeds with your phone set to airplane mode. Without internet access, you won’t be able to like a photo, even if you accidentally double-tap it.

The pictures won’t load if you start in airplane mode, though. You’ll have to go to the feed first to load the posts, turn on airplane mode, and then start scrolling.

When you reach the end of the first rows of posts and want to load more, simply turn Airplane mode off, let more posts load, and then turn it on again. Cumbersome? A little, but it could be worth the stress mitigation.

• To turn on airplane mode on an iPhone/iPad, swipe down from the top of the screen and click the airplane icon. Or, go to Settings and toggle on Airplane Mode.
• To turn on airplane mode on an Android device, swipe down from the top of the screen. Then, swipe from right to left until you see Settings, and then touch it. Touch Airplane Mode to turn it on.

3. Browse posts from certain locations.

One fun thing you can do on Instagram is browse photos and videos from a specific location or taken near your current location. I like to do that when I’m planning a trip or want to check out a new restaurant and scroll through the pictures taken there.

You can search for a specific destination or click a geotag on an existing photo.

To search for a specific place:

• Tap the magnifying glass icon at the bottom of your home screen to open the general search page.
• Type in a place to see content most relevant to the place you searched, including the most popular Reels, accounts, audios, tagged photos, and locations.

To use geotags:

• Click on the location in a post that you want to further explore. You can find the location directly under the handle name above the photo or video.
• This will bring you to a page like this, where you can see Top and Recent Posts with that location tag.

 

How to Get Verified on Instagram

A verified badge (the blue check beside a celebrity or brand account name) tells users that you’re, in Instagram’s candid words, “the authentic presence of a notable public figure, celebrity, global brand or entity it represents.”

For instance, there are plenty of “Reese Witherspoon” fan pages on Instagram, but there’s only one real Reese Witherspoon account, as verified by the blue badge:

To request a verified badge, you must be:

• An authentic public figure, celebrity, brand, or organization.
• Unique, and not a fan or impersonation account.
• A complete, public profile with a bio and profile picture.
• A notable, well-known entity featured in multiple news sources.

Instagram Hacks & Features: My Final Thoughts

I might be biased, but Instagram is one of the most fun (and visually appealing) social apps around. Aside from personal use, you can use Instagram to enhance your brand’s presence.

It’s no surprise that 31% of marketers surveyed for HubSpot’s 2024 Instagram Engagement Report post on their brand’s account multiple times a week. On the other end of the spectrum, 23% of marketers post multiple times a day.

At first, I found the latter statistic surprising, but with features like Reels and Stories, it makes more sense. There are endless opportunities to post different content styles throughout the day to keep followers engaged.

Overall, my favorite Instagram marketing hacks are post-scheduling and using the platform with Pinterest. From a personal and business perspective, I love that you can benefit from Instagram’s filters without posting on your account.

That said, all of the tricks in this post can help you use Instagram to an even fuller extent. Keep these in your back pocket to make the most of this platform.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in January 2016 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

LinkedIn is full of narcissists, and I have the data to prove it.

It all started when I wanted to go viral on LinkedIn. Rather than simply guessing what might work, I took a data-driven approach, scraping posts and analyzing what drives engagement. What I discovered was surprising (and depressing): The most successful posts are overwhelmingly self-centered, with people talking about themselves in supposedly “inspirational” ways.

Instead of joining the self-congratulatory parade, I decided to call it out. I built the Viral Post Generator, a tool that automatically creates eye-roll-worthy posts, making the formula painfully apparent to everyone. In a delightful twist of irony, this tool mocking viral content went viral itself.

In this post, I’ll share how that happened and what I learned about product-market fit, distribution, and modern virality along the way.

The Birth of the Viral Post Generator

About two-and-a-half years ago, I decided I wanted to go viral on LinkedIn. That was my goal: to write a post that would take off. Naturally, I started wondering what truly makes a LinkedIn post go viral in the first place.

So, I did what any curious marketer would do. I scraped over 200,000 posts and filtered them based on engagement metrics to identify distinct patterns among the most successful ones. I specifically checked if keywords were causing them to go viral. After analyzing all that data, it was pretty obvious what was happening.

These viral posts all followed the same formula. The LinkedIn user shared some personal story with lots of dramatic highs and lows, giving vague advice about “hanging in there” or “believing in yourself.”

This insight led me to create the Viral Post Generator, a parody tool that generates cringeworthy LinkedIn posts based on minimal input. The concept was simple:

1. Tell the generator what you did today.
2. Add any “inspirational” advice.
3. Choose a cringe level (low to high).
4. Get a perfectly crafted viral post that mimics the exact patterns of successful LinkedIn content.

Source

The technical approach was straightforward, especially by today’s standards. This was before ChatGPT rolled out to the public. Using the most viral posts of all time as inspiration, I created about 50-100 templates to serve as the foundation.

For the interactive element, an AWS library provided natural language processing to analyze user inputs, match them with the right template, and even adjust the text slightly to fit the sentence structure. The entire project came together on the no-code platform Adalo, proving that deep technical skills aren’t necessary to create something that truly resonates with people.

How a Parody Tool Actually Went Viral

Having built a tool that parodied viral content, my next challenge was getting people to use it. The initial launch fell completely flat. After sharing the Viral Post Generator across X, LinkedIn, and Reddit, all I heard was crickets. Nobody seemed interested.

This initial failure taught me a crucial lesson: Having a good product isn’t enough. Distribution strategy makes all the difference.

Pivoting tactics, I began tagging social media profiles that regularly criticized LinkedIn’s culture of self-promotion. By positioning the tool as being “inspired by them” (despite never having interacted with these accounts before), these larger accounts began sharing my product, giving me instant access to their established audiences.

Source

On Reddit, my posts initially faced deletion for promotional violations. By reframing the conversation to involve the community, telling them I created the tool for them, and inviting them to share their best creations, these restrictions transformed into opportunities for engagement.

People who feel like they helped spark an idea are much more likely to support it. By giving people credit, I gave them a reason to share what I’d built. It was one of the most effective ways I found to reach audiences I would’ve never accessed as a newcomer.

When Acquisition Comes Knocking

As the Viral Post Generator started to take off, I got a message from the founder of Taplio, a platform that helps users grow their LinkedIn presence. He saw the tool’s potential as a brand awareness play and wanted to acquire it.

Source

At first, I wasn’t sure. There was something incredibly satisfying about building something that had my name on it. But as traffic started to slow and the reality of sustaining momentum kicked in, the offer started to look more appealing. I was tired. Keeping the tool alive meant constantly promoting it — posting, replying, and finding new ways to keep people interested.

Behind the scenes, the technical pressure was even more intense. Sleepless nights became the norm as I constantly worried about the site crashing while thousands of visitors were actively using it. As a solo creator with no support team, the stress of being “internet famous” had quickly lost its charm.

After weighing these factors, I quoted what I considered a high acquisition price. The Taplio founder immediately declined, not even offering a counteroffer. Instead, we agreed to a 24-hour test: I would include an ad for Taplio in my generator to measure its brand awareness value before determining a fair price.

The Last-Minute Viral Push

As the 24-hour window started, I noticed our numbers dropping. I needed one last shot at making this work. I thought, “Where haven’t I tried posting yet?” I remembered there’s a subreddit called r/InternetIsBeautiful where people share cool new tools they find online.

I posted there, and it blew up immediately. Someone saw my post on Reddit and shared it on X. That post went crazy viral. Within a few hours, it hit 22 million people and nearly 180,000 likes. It was completely unexpected.

The chain reaction intensified as Reddit’s official accounts began sharing the tool. Instagram pages with millions of followers picked it up, and thousands of users started posting about it across social platforms. In a single day, the generator reached 1.4 million users who created and shared their parody posts.

Source

Then came the technical nightmare. Too many simultaneous visitors crashed not just my tool but the entire hosting platform. An Adalo staff member later confirmed their system went down specifically because of the traffic surge to my generator. After several tense hours, everything came back online, and the flood of users continued unabated.

By the time our 24-hour test concluded, the Taplio founder didn’t even attempt to negotiate. He simply agreed to my original asking price — a clear indication I could have asked for more. But at that point, I was ready to close the chapter. What had begun as a weekend side project had transformed into an acquisition success story in just seven breathless days.

The Unbundling of Word-of-Mouth

Beyond the acquisition, this experience revealed something profound about how content spreads in today’s digital landscape. Our conventional understanding of virality, one person telling two people who each tell two more, has become outdated.

what I call “word-of-Slack” and “word-of-WhatsApp.” True virality now occurs in private messaging platforms and closed communities, not on public social media feeds.

Modern word-of-mouth has fragmented into what I call “word-of-Slack” and “word-of-WhatsApp.” True virality now occurs in private messaging platforms and closed communities, not on public social media feeds. This insight fundamentally changed my approach to designing shareable experiences.

When I built the generator, I didn‘t bother with those social sharing buttons that nobody clicks anyway. Instead, I just wrote, “Take a screenshot and share it.” Simple as that. I made it so users couldn’t copy the text directly. They had to take screenshots.

This was one of the best decisions I made. When people took screenshots, they grabbed my yellow background and watermark, too. They could share them anywhere they wanted, in their group chats, Slack channels, or DMs. My branding went along for the ride. This simple approach worked way better than fancy sharing widgets ever could have.

Source

Post-launch analytics confirmed that private channels drove the majority of new users. By designing for these intimate sharing contexts rather than public platforms, the tool achieved exponentially greater reach than conventional social media strategies could have delivered.

The Amazon Approach to Product Development

Amazon has a brilliant framework for developing new products and features. Their teams start with the press release in mind, literally typing up what they imagine the TechCrunch or Business Insider headline might be before writing a single line of code.

This “working backward” approach forces creators to focus on what makes a product newsworthy. Instead of trying to figure out what features to develop and how to build them, Amazon teams start from the end: The headline that will announce the product. Only after they’ve clearly envisioned this announcement do they work backward to develop it.

For the Viral Post Generator, I applied this exact approach. Before development, I envisioned how tech publications might cover a tool that parodied LinkedIn’s self-promotion culture. This mental exercise clarified what to build and why people would care enough to share it.

The coverage that eventually came from Business Insider, The Guardian, and BuzzFeed followed patterns remarkably similar to what I had imagined — not by coincidence, but because I deliberately created something designed to provoke a specific conversation.

By starting with the headline you hope to earn, you create a North Star that guides every development decision toward a product worthy of that coverage.

Tapping Into Shared Experience

Despite all the technical aspects behind my generator’s success, the real magic came from tapping into something deeply human. I connected with a daily frustration that LinkedIn professionals experienced but rarely discussed openly.

What I created wasn‘t just a parody tool. It was permission to laugh at something we all found ridiculous, yet continued to participate in. I’ll never forget watching people’s reactions when they used it: “Yes! Someone finally said it!” That moment of recognition created a connection far more potent than any technical feature could have.

This emotional element explains why my project spread so quickly. People who feel understood don‘t just use your product. They champion it. I learned something huge from all this: Great marketing isn’t about solving problems or adding features. It’s about making people feel seen.

In a world where everyone‘s fighting for attention, sometimes the best strategy isn’t being the loudest or most cutting-edge. It‘s being the one who puts words to what everyone’s been thinking all along.

Welcome to
Breaking the Blueprint
— a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your success.

This piece is in collaboration with HubSpot Podcast Network’s Amplifying Voices campaign partnership with The Gathering Spot.

Black content creators, let’s take a walk down memory lane together.

I remember it as if it were yesterday. (I bet you do, too.) It was 2020, and Charli D’Amelio shared a video on TikTok doing the notorious Renegade dance. The video blew up and, to this day, it remains her claim to accelerated internet fame. Since then, Charli’s amassed 150M followers on the app, has had various brand deals with household names — her family even got an unscripted reality docuseries called “The D’Amelio Show.”

After Charli went viral for her performances of the Renegade dance, thousands of TikTok users followed her lead, danced, and attributed its popularity solely to D’Amelio. But she didn’t create it — Jalaiah Harmon, a young Black girl from Atlanta — did. Thus, Harmon’s erasure from her dance is attributed to racial bias as she’s Black and D’Amelio is White. It’s a classic case of creation without credit — and a reminder that, as a Black content creator, going viral doesn’t always mean being seen.

Harmon’s experience is just one of thousands, as many Black content creators face inequalities, from receiving credit for trends to late payments to algorithm biases.

In this post, I’ll delve deeper into some of these inequalities, share expert advice on overcoming these roadblocks from Natasha Pierre, Host of the Shine Online Podcast, and Ross Simmonds, Founder and CEO of Foundation Marketing and host of Create Like The Greats Podcast, and provide some suggestions for how you can navigate and challenge the disparities baked into the creator economy.

Table of Contents:

• Discrepancies Experienced By Black Content Creators — Key Stats [New Data]
• Discrepancies Experienced By Black Content Creators (+ Expert Thoughts)
• How can Black content creators rise above discrepancies? ( + Expert Advice)

Discrepancies Experienced By Black Content Creators — Key Stats [New Data]

As content creation through short-form social media platforms (primarily Instagram and TikTok) has become more prevalent over the past few years, Black (and Brown) creators haven’t just propelled this space forward — in a lot of ways, they’ve built it and continue to redefine it.

However, despite making massive contributions to both the social media and content creation spaces, like setting viral trends on TikTok or innovating storytelling approaches through YouTube, Black content creators seem to receive the short end of the stick when it comes to things like compensation, brand partnerships, and overall visibility across platforms; this oversight doesn’t go unnoticed. (I’ll share more on this, along with some expert insight, later on.)

If you’re interested in getting a closer look at how Black and Brown creators are disproportionally impacted by the algorithms, biases, and structures of the creator economy, take a look at some recent data from Influencer Marketing Hub’s 2025 Influencer Marketing Report:

• 58% of influencers say they’ve been discriminated against as an influencer on any social platform.

• 77% of Black influencers fall into the nano and micro-influencer tiers, with compensation from brands averaging $27,000 annually, compared to 59% of white influencers.

• Only 23% of Black influencers, compared to 41% of white influencers, make it into the macro-influencer tier.

• Nearly 22% of influencers claim discrimination based on their physical features.

Discrepancies Experienced By Black Content Creators (+ Expert Thoughts)

As I’ve previously mentioned, Black creators have sustained the content creation community and social media landscape with their labor and visions, but are often met with unfair, unjust, and inequitable treatment, whether it be through a lack of acknowledgment of their creativity or being excluded from significant monetization opportunities.

In short, Black content creators aren’t just being undervalued; there are more serious attempts at quiet erasure looming about, and it’s time folks start calling a spade a spade.

However, as the world of influencing and content creation has grown, I will say that there has been a surge of folks — some Black, others not — speaking out and advocating for better treatment of creators of color, Black ones specifically.

All of this said, I’ve listed the three most common disparities experienced by Black content creators, supported by real experiences and recent data. Have a look:

1. Pay Disparities

Black influencers are paid 35% less than White influencers. Most of the time, that means creators aren’t getting paid what they’re worth, and sometimes they’re being paid late. There’s also a lack of pay transparency, so Black creators don’t know what others are getting paid if they’re being shorted and what to negotiate for.

92% of influencers responding to MSL’s Time to Face the Influencer Pay Gap research study said that pay transparency could be the single most crucial factor in eliminating the racial pay gap in the creator economy.

2. Constant Invalidation (from Brands and So-Called Fans)

When Golloria George, one of social media’s resident Black girls in beauty, received Youthforia’s Date Night Foundation and shade-tested it against her own deep complexion for an ongoing content creation series she has on TikTok, the mass response was, to say the least, uncalled for and incredibly disheartening.

After Golloria was sent a PR package of Youthforia’s products, including the brand’s “updated” Date Night Foundation in deeper, dark skin-friendly tones, she took to her series “The Darkest Shade” to truly test the brand’s shade awareness and inclusivity.

However, after applying what appeared to be entirely jet black facepaint (although Youthforia falsely advertised its Date Night Foundation as a diverse product) and proclaiming that Youthforia had more work to do in its shade development labs, the social media sphere took to her comments and their own platforms to discredit her experience — one that could have been completely avoided if Youthforia had done the proper work to design a product that was inclusive of darker skintones to begin with.

After sharing this post, Youthforia received backlash, and its products were even removed from retailers IRL and online. While Golloria was scrutinized, bullied, and dismissed, had she not stood firm in her commitment to shade inclusivity in the beauty industry, Youthforia could have continued to profit from Black women and other women with more expansive expectations for its foundation range.

The lesson here? Even when you’re seen as a Black content creator, brands still fail to recognize the impact of your content, especially if it’s rooted in diversity and visibility of marginalized groups. If you ever find yourself in a situation similar to Golloria’s, follow her playbook: Know your worth, choose peace over payment.

3. Algorithm Biases

Although algorithm biases are unconfirmed, Black creators report feeling the effects anyway. Many say their content doesn’t perform as well as other creators’, even if it is the same quality. The creator below even made light of this reality, but simultaneously, also highlighted how demoralizing it is for Black folks trying to build a platform on social media:

More notably, Black creators have noticed their content performs worse when discussing racial equality (or related topics). Check out a testament from Pariss Chandler, Founder and CEO of Black Tech Pipeline, about why this is likely happening across algorithms globally:

In a February 2025 report titled “Recommending Hate: How TikTok’s Search Engine Algorithms Reproduce Societal Bias,” The Institute for Strategic Dialogue revealed that across almost two-thirds of the videos (197) in their analysis pool, “TikTok’s search engine and recommender algorithm perpetuated harmful stereotypes.”

The study further emphasized, “this content systematically associated presumed members of marginalised groups with derogatory and violent search prompts.”

Unfortunately, algorithms probably won’t stop being biased. However, Black content creators won’t stop creating either. If it’s any consolation, here’s an empowering truth to believe as you push through the noise: Black creators and talent have always built culture — algorithms are just trying to keep up.

How can Black content creators rise above discrepancies? (+ Expert Advice)

Black creators are often left to determine and experiment with how to gain visibility in the creator economy. Additionally, tons of essential resources for success are selfishly gatekept, making it even harder for them to permeate the creator economy.

If you’re here, reading this article, you likely have many questions about how to grow your platform and receive equitable treatment as a Black (or Brown) creator. Lucky for you, I asked Ross and Natasha what they suggest you do, especially if you want to:

• Land meaningful brand partnerships without compromising your values.
• Create content that sparks impact, not just engagement.
• Get paid fairly and consistently for the content you create.

Check out their advice and words of wisdom below:

1. Build community with other Black creators.

A great way for Black creators to build themselves up is — you likely guessed it — to find and build community with other Black creators.

Here’s why: You’ll get to know other people with the same experiences, and you can use your different backgrounds to help each other out. These days, you can make this happen in a variety of ways. Here’s what I suggest to start nurturing intentional, empowering connections as a Black content creator:

• Build through brand trips/experiences (‘cause loyal followers love to see a good link-up between their favorite creators!)
• Build by using a personable social media engagement strategy (i.e., commenting on the posts of creator mutuals, collaborating with them across content, etc.)
• Build by joining online communities, groups, or digital creator collectives that center Black and Brown voices (i.e., Black Women Photographers and Black Girls Who Write, for example)

Ross also adds, “The internet is an amazing place to find other people who are creators, and you can create some amazing relationships with people in a similar world as you.” He adds, “There are a lot more people who are Black who are creating things online, so it’s easier to find someone to look up to.”

2. Show up for people in your community.

Natasha says that the simple act of showing up for people in your same groups can truly, sincerely make all the difference. “We just need to be taking up space and building our own networks and continuing to show up for our communities and advocate for your own communities as well,” she emphasizes.

When you build community connections, you can bring people up with you. Ross, similarly to Natasha, says he enjoys creating a path for others: “I want to be able to create content that helps other creators create great content and helps people see the opportunities and the potential to open doors.”

Natasha also says that if she’s asked to participate in a campaign or speaker lineup, she makes the extra effort to find out who else is involved (and if the organizers need her to recommend other creators in the category).

While these opportunities are meaningful and validating, she warns that the excitement of being invited or considered can make it easy to forget about the impact of creators’ voices and how they can support others’ careers. So if you can help someone else get into “the room where it happens,” do it.

Plus, you can’t forget a very important bonus: Having a network of creators who support, uplift, and share each other’s content can expose people to new audiences eager to follow people and consume new content. Despite what folks may argue, sometimes the biggest platform you’ll build is the one you make together.

3. Learn from others and their experiences.

Meeting your first creator milestone can feel like a long, multi-faceted, drawn-out process, but learning from other awesome influencers of color can shorten the learning curve and expand your creative toolkit.

Consume content from all different creators and learn ways to apply their strategies to your own. You’ll get exposed to so many new ideas and inputs, and what you learn can help you come up with new, unique stories nobody has told yet.

Ross says, “I always try to say that everyone can learn from every creator, even if they have a thousand followers. I get inspired by a random mommy blogger; I get inspired by a random psychologist; I’ll get inspired by a therapist on Instagram who puts up posts that are inspiring; I follow business folks … everyone.”

4. Focus on what you can control, let go of what you can’t.

Say it with me now: Sometimes, Black creators have to focus on what they can control to make progress with what’s outside their control. For instance, while you may want to partner with larger brands, it might not be possible at the stage you’re at in your creator career.

For example, Natasha notes that small brands struggle to find opportunities just as small creators do. “There are so many small brands that are doing such great things. Of course, smaller brands are going to have less budget, but when there are opportunities to partner with those smaller brands, I think that’s a way to show how things can be done differently,” she explains. By partnering with a smaller brand, you’re building your influence and community in a more attainable way.

Focusing on what you can control also means recognizing when an opportunity doesn’t align with your standards and abilities. Ross advises, “You have to focus on your circle of control … I can control the fact that I’ll probably decline if I don’t think something isn’t fair … otherwise it becomes a very draining industry and a mental tax that I don’t believe is oftentimes worth paying.”

5. Don’t be afraid, ask for what you’re worth.

For Black folks, asking for what we know we’re worth can seem scary because of the potential for rejection. I know this all too well, but here’s one piece of empowering advice that I can offer: You only know the possibilities you’re unlocking if you ask.

Ross says, “I’ve found that you will be pleasantly surprised if you do ask for what you deserve…they’re either going to say yes or no.” If they say no, they probably aren’t a brand you want to be associated with anyways. “Walk away and be okay with that,” he adds.

Your community networks can also be helpful, especially as you can ask around and see what other people are getting paid for opportunities. Ross has no shame in his game; he shares that he’s even asked before, noting, “If I know someone who’s engaged in these organizations or is also working for them, I’m not afraid to send a DM and ask people what they got paid before I give a quote, and I get clarity on what I should be offering.”

Black Content Creators: Take Up Space, On Your Own Terms

The discrepancies that Black creators in the creator economy face can seem like a never-ending, discouraging battle, but it’s not impossible to overcome.

The more people who have honest conversations about these issues and hold brands and platforms accountable, the more pressure there is actually to shift the system. Change doesn’t happen overnight, but it does happen when creators, communities, and allies commit to pushing forward together.

So, to my Black content creators: keep asking the hard questions, making stellar content, showing up with excellence, and don’t be afraid to take up space. Because if the system wasn’t built for you, that just means it’s time to build something better.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in April 2023 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Pretty landing page examples are nice to look at, but let’s be real: You want yours to convert well — which is exactly what these landing page examples do.

I’ve gathered 36 of the best landing page examples on the internet, including ones from HubSpot’s talented Channel Monetization and Conversion Rate Optimization teams.

And of course, I picked their brains for their secrets to creating high-performing landing pages. Prepare to be inspired.

Table of Contents

• What is the purpose of a landing page?
• What is a good landing page conversion rate?
• Lead Magnet Landing Page Examples
• Great Examples of Landing Page Design

Want more specific examples? Browse by landing page type:

• Simple Landing Pages
• Product Landing Pages
• Webinar Landing Pages
• Course Landing Pages
• B2B Landing Pages
• Membership Landing Pages
• Newsletter Landing Pages

A landing page might engage a customer by offering a lead magnet, something free (e.g., ebook, webinar, or checklist) that relates to the product or the company’s industry.

When a prospect fills out the form and receives valuable content, they might be even more likely to trust your brand and become a customer.

Quick tip: Want an easy way to add a form to your landing page? HubSpot’s free form builder tool can help you fill your CRM with leads from your website.

I’ll share an example of when a landing page can be especially effective.

If a business wants to sell an AI product that helps salespeople, it might create a landing page that offers audiences a free video on how to use AI in the sales industry. Interested audiences might offer their contact information in exchange for valuable information.

If they enjoy the video they’ve received, they might be more likely to respond to or purchase a product from a company rep who calls them.

Another quick tip: How about an AI product that helps with landing pages? HubSpot’s Campaign Assistant turns your key value props into effective landing page copy in just a few clicks.

Plus, the Landing Page Creator GPT can craft copy for you in minutes and even create a page in HubSpot’s CMS with the click of a button.

In another scenario, a publishing company that targets an audience of chief executives might create a landing page that invites audiences to sign up for a webinar hosted by an executive at a major company.

After giving their email address on the signup form presented on the landing page, the leads get an email with the webinar dates and login information, as well as instructions on how to sign up for the publication’s newsletter or subscription.

If the webinar pleases the user, they might sign up for the newsletter or a subscription to keep up with similar content.

Although their purpose is simple, successful landing pages require some detailed planning and creative testing.

Even after launching your landing page, you’ll want to pay attention to conversion rates to see how well it’s doing.

What is a good landing page conversion rate?

According to WordStream, the average landing page conversion rate is 2.35% across industries, with the top 25th percentile of landing pages hitting 5.31% or higher.

You can see the full WordStream conversion rate analysis here.

To calculate your conversion rate, divide the number of conversions a webpage generated by the number of visitors the page received and multiply by 100 to get a percentage.

If your conversion rate isn’t close to the average just yet, don’t worry. Nailing those percentages can be challenging at first, especially if you have a lot of regular page visitors.

Luckily, there are several simple conversion rate optimization strategies that can help you boost your current rate quickly.

Regardless of what your business is selling or the conversion action you hope to instigate, it’s helpful to get inspired by seeing what other great landing pages look like.

Check out the landing page examples below.

Lead Magnet Landing Page Examples

I consulted HubSpot’s Channel Monetization and CRO teams to find some of their highest-performing lead magnet landing pages — and I asked them for their top tips. Read on for more.

1. HubSpot’s Social Media Trends Report (SaaS: Marketing)

Source

As soon as this landing page loads, I’m met with a clear headline highlighting exactly what I‘m getting: “Social Media Trends Report + Expert Panel.” There’s also the “2025” to signal that this is fresh, not outdated.

Beneath that, the five “Go to Section” buttons allow me to jump to the section I‘m most interested in — perfect for busy readers. I love the quote call-outs featuring the major thought leaders featured in the report. It immediately builds trust, as I know I get to hear from HubSpot’s Global Head of Brand Marketing if I download it.

This landing page also builds visual appeal with statistics, fantastic for skimming and getting the hardest-hitting highlights, like 25% of shoppers having purchased directly via social media.

How to Implement This Yourself

One of the first questions that came to mind when I saw this landing page was this: How do you create compelling landing page copy without giving so much away that visitors don’t actually download the full report?

“The secret is actually in the content creation process more so than even the landing page,” says Drue Stinnett, HubSpot Media’s senior premium content strategist.

“We are very diligent with these original research reports to make sure that they have this unique perspective from what it’s like to run social media at HubSpot, like how the brand team is thinking about this, and having really concrete examples from other brands who are doing social really well.”

In other words, while the landing page shows the what (trends), the how (unique insights from top brands) can only be found inside the report — a strong way to entice downloads.

2. HubSpot’s 40+ AI Tools Guide (SaaS: Marketing)

Source

This beautiful landing page is short and sweet, with a clickable image slideshow that gives you a sneak peek of the actual guide.

It has hit an above-industry-average conversion rate, so I asked the HubSpot content marketing manager who worked on this page, Ariel Gonzalez, for its secret to success.

“This landing page succeeds because it immediately addresses a specific pain point and clearly shows what readers will get in return for their information,” she tells me.

“My best tip: Strike the perfect balance between teasing your offer‘s value and giving too much away. Every line of copy should showcase what’s inside—whether it’s toolkits, workflows, or how-to guides.

“Use relevant and appealing images that tease your offer, keep formatting scannable, and always answer the reader‘s question: ’Is this worth my contact information?‘ Make them feel confident they’re getting genuine value, not just another generic resource.”

How to Implement This Yourself

I wanted to give you a deeper dive into how to boost conversions on your landing pages. So I turned to Ben Young, senior marketing manager of conversion rate optimization at HubSpot. His team designed the template that this landing page was built with.

“One of the keys to creating landing pages that convert is to match the content of the page to the user intent,” Young says.

To match content to the user’s intent, you need to get familiar with the marketing funnel stage your user is in (the lower down the funnel, the more likely they’ll convert):

• Top of funnel (Awareness)
• Middle of funnel (Consideration)
• Bottom of funnel (Decision)

HubSpot’s offer landing pages are built for visitors who are typically coming from a blog post like this one. They read the blog post, see the related content offer CTA, click through, and arrive on the landing page.

At that point, they’ve moved down to the middle of the funnel. They’ve already taken a step toward the content by clicking the CTA.

“They are already interested and have shown intent to move forward,” explains Young. “They have context about what we are offering, and they have engaged. What we have to do next is remove points of friction.”

That’s where these high-converting offer landing pages come in. Young’s team has designed them to be free of distractions. They feature:

• Clear CTAs
• Action-oriented language
• Tangible value
• Social proof

“We have to do everything we can to reinforce the expectations we have set, make it easy for them to reach the finish line, and avoid introducing anything that will distract,” he says.

3. HubSpot’s Financial Planning Templates (SaaS: Marketing)

Source

This financial planning templates landing page immediately tells the benefits (“organize, analyze, and plan your personal and business finances with ease.”)

It then shows you exactly what you’re getting, with an image of the spreadsheets.

“Abstract images, although more attractive and creative, haven’t helped us much,” says Young. “We tend to use images of the product itself. The impression I get is that users want to clearly see what they are going to get rather than nice imagery.”

How to Implement This Yourself

You’ll notice that the landing page design isn’t overly ornate. Simple designs can convert just as well (if not better) than more complex ones. And don’t neglect the copywriting.

“Copy actually matters a lot, not just design,” says Cyan Zhong, a HubSpot senior premium content strategist who writes copy for our entrepreneurial content.

“Since I‘ve been doing these landing pages, I’ve definitely started to pay more attention to how we describe the offer upfront because above the fold is more important,” says Zhong. “Sometimes people don’t even scroll down. So I try to be as conversational as possible and basically be as direct as possible.”

She recommends avoiding jargon, and instead, using straightforward language that shows what the visitor will get. Her team has found that including numbers and words that convey value is extremely effective.

“If we want to try and squeeze out a little more CVR lift,” adds Young, “I’ve found it helps to orient the copy to focus on the benefits first and the features second.”

I know not everyone is fortunate enough to have Cyan on their team, so if you don’t have dedicated writing support, we’ve got you covered. HubSpot created this free custom GPT that generates landing page copy for you.

And if you need help creating the entire landing page (including copy), check out HubSpot’s AI Landing Page Creator.

Pro tip: Stinnett’s best piece of advice for high-performing landing pages? Trust your data.

“It is the bane of being a marketer,” she says, “but we will test things or try new image styles or something, and I think it looks amazing — it hits our conversion rate in a negative way.”

That’s why it’s so crucial to run landing page split tests.

“Your creative instinct is amazing when you’re planning these tests and trying new ideas,” Stinnett tells me. But when your big idea doesn’t perform as well as expected? “You just have to let go of your pride and respond to what your clicks and conversions are telling you.”

Great Examples of Landing Page Design

4. Airbnb (Travel and Leisure)

This Airbnb landing page is a one-stop shop for visitors curious about where to book a holiday rental. It features several options like beachfronts, cabins, and amazing views.

Once a user clicks, they can easily view the potential home, read testimonials, and view the pricing. What’s even better is a user’s ability to select a date to book on the same page and convert on the spot if the info is convincing.

How to Implement This Yourself

AirBnB’s design style is clean and platform agnostic, which makes for a pleasant site for users on iOS and Android. Follow conventions on important elements like navigation, system iconography, contextual actions, and interactions for a similar experience.

5. Wix (SaaS: Web Development)

Wix has turned its landing page builder into a creative playground with a captivating digital illustration that follows you down the page. It’s not overwhelming or distracting — it’s carefully balanced with white space and clear text.

Wix’s use of design to emphasize certain touchpoints on the page. For instance, the mountain’s peak in the illustration points to the main CTA, encouraging visitors to get started.

How to Implement This Yourself

Explore your brand’s color palette and story. Make it reflect your mission and identity in an eye-catching way that differentiates yours from competitors. And if you need a guide, create a custom color palette for your brand here.

6. ExpressVPN (Digital Privacy and Security)

What do I love most about this landing page? It’s not what it has, but what it doesn’t — a navigation bar! By removing the navigation bar, ExpressVPN shines a spotlight on the primary CTA.

Why do we take an anti-navigation stance for landing pages? They distract visitors and lead them away from the intended action. Removing navigation links from landing pages can increase conversion rates.

How to Implement This Yourself

The choice to use a serif typeface speaks to ExpressVPN’s established trust and authority. Differentiate your brand from the trend of straight lines and rigid, sharp edges and try to find fluidity and warmth in your style.

7. Row House (Fitness)

Besides its sleek design, this landing page gets bonus points for the header that gives prospects a free first class.

I also like the copy, which speaks to both new and experienced fitness pros. What’s better is including access to a fitness community that can help keep customers accountable for their fitness goals.

How to Implement This Yourself

Row House focused its website design to be minimal and get people to sign up. When you design your own landing page, ditch a fussy design and focus on how you can turn prospects into customers quicker.

8. Codecademy (SaaS: Education)

I like this page because it’s simple in both copy and design.

The form on the page is simple and requires only an email address and password. Or, you can use your LinkedIn, Facebook, GitHub, or Google Plus login, shortening the conversion path even further.

The landing page also offers real-life success stories, testimonials, and other forms of social proof for visitors who need more information before creating an account. This helps make the potentially intimidating world of coding more approachable for beginners.

How to Implement This Yourself

Keep your landing page design centered on value. Let your webpage be more of a way to showcase your satisfied customers.

9. Sunbasket (Ecommerce: Food and Nutrition)

Sunbasket’s landing page ticks all the boxes by communicating its audience’s challenge in simple terms. People like me want an easy and convenient process in making meals.

I want the best quality food that’s organic. And I want my meals on autopilot. Sunbasket nails these, and that means my chance of becoming a customer is high.

How to Implement This Yourself

List the pain points of your audience and confirm you’ve answered them on your landing page. Doing this makes your audience feel seen, and this can boost your odds of converting them.

10. Curology (Beauty)

I’d argue that above the fold is the most important element of a landing page, alongside the CTA.

Curology’s top fold is clean, visually appealing, and to the point — and the copy is fewer than 50 characters long. Users immediately understand the offer and how it can benefit them.

Even if the brand is new to you, its message is loud and clear: Regardless of your skin issues, Curology has a custom solution for you.

How to Implement This Yourself

Make your landing page reflect how your customer will feel when they use your product. Soothing colors, a minimalist background, and a close-up of your product might be the pleasant impression that your audience is looking for.

11. Breather (Productivity: Co-working Space)

Here’s another example of clever, delightful design on a landing page.

As soon as you visit Breather.com, there’s an instant call to action: Indicate where you want to find a space. Plus, it uses location services to figure out where you are, providing instant options nearby.

I love how Breather uses simple, to-the-point copy to let the visitor know what the company does, followed immediately by the CTA to select a city.

The negative space and soothing color scheme also align with the product — essentially, room to breathe.

How to Implement This Yourself

You want to make customer signups as easy as possible. Place your CTA as a focal point and design your landing page in a way that guides users to click it.

12. Mailchimp (SaaS: Marketing)

For starters, check out the two sunny yellow calls to action — they are impossible to ignore.

Besides the color, this landing page gets a shoutout for its CTA placement. It displays a consistent CTA (“Start free trial” and “Get started”) and is highly visible on the page.

This is a solid strategy since the CTA operates as a gateway for converting clients. It should be available to visitors as they move down the page, not just once on the top fold.

How to Implement This Yourself

Soft colors are the modern norm, but that doesn’t mean your brand has to fall in line. Go against the grain like Mailchimp and make a bold color choice.

13. Paramount Plus (SaaS: Entertainment)

This landing page design has it all. It’s visually appealing, interactive, and offers scannable yet descriptive headers. Plus, the background makes each fold look slightly different, creating a captivating scrolling experience.

The landing page also features a repeatable CTA (“Sign In … ”) and several strategically-placed content offers, culminating in multiple touchpoints for visitors to convert.

How to Implement This Yourself

Don’t be afraid to place more than one CTA on your landing page. Space them out appropriately and even experiment with the wording to see which gets the most clicks.

14. CarMax (Automobile: Cars)

CarMax is ready to empower visitors to do their own research right on the landing page. It features a search bar that leads to a large database of cars and a calculator that allows visitors to estimate their ideal monthly budget.

It’s clear CarMax wants the buying or selling experience to be as painless as possible. By translating the company’s customer-centric approach on its landing page, CarMax effectively turns a universally dreaded event — purchasing a new car — into a straightforward process without gimmicks or barriers.

How to Implement This Yourself

Sometimes, you don’t need to do a lot of convincing on your landing page.

Instead of relying on text-heavy monologue or testimonials, present customers with a means to get the information they want first, and then get into the details as they explore your site.

Simple Landing Pages

15. Uber (Ride-sharing)

People are flooded with information online. This is why creating a skimmable landing page is essential — like this one from Uber.

It features a black-and-white color scheme, short and easily digestible sentences, and a simple call to action that leads to a signup form. The combination of these elements results in a professional and approachable page.

How to Implement This Yourself

If your product or service doesn’t target a specific or niche market, but instead a broad range of people, you should focus your web design on conveying a clear message over complicated design styles.

Anyone can use Uber, so you don’t want to drive any customers away.

16. Spotify (Ecommerce: Audio Streaming)

This landing page takes a dramatic detour from Spotify’s classic green and black colors — and perhaps that’s the point. It could be a way to signal to visitors that the page serves a different purpose from its other content.

Even though the landing page is relatively simple, the stark color contrast emphasizes the text and CTAs. To entice visitors even more, Spotify lists different pricing plans for its different audience segments.

How to Implement This Yourself

Incorporate some original graphic design elements into your landing page to add to the visuals. We’ve already discussed how important it is to display clear CTAs, but a visual indicator of what the product or service is like can further push prospects to convert.

17. Canva (SaaS: Design)

Sometimes, you need to admire a landing page for its attractive and straightforward design.

Similar to the example above, this one features an abundance of white space that accentuates the text and balances the bright colors throughout.

To seal the deal, the page ends with a FAQ section.

If you suspect visitors will have additional questions about your products or services, you may want to include a similar section too. It lets potential customers better understand what you’re trying to sell them, and sends a message that you’re open to questions.

How to Implement This Yourself

Canva incorporates its product as a part of its landing page design and so can you. If you want people to see the product range or capabilities of your service, show them upfront.

Product Landing Pages

18. Mooala (Ecommerce: Food)

Playful isn‘t usually the first word that comes to mind when you think of dairy-free milk, but Mooala’s bright and colorful landing page is exactly that.

This example illustrates how you can embrace simplicity while using relatively bold, striking colors to highlight important headers and CTAs.

To pull this off, stick with colors that correspond with your brand while also capturing the attention of visitors.

How to Implement This Yourself

Mooala uses earth tones intentionally. There’s an added layer of trust when your product/site design looks trustworthy, and for an organic product line, earthy tones add to that motif.

19. Nauto (Shipping)

When writing website copy for a product or service, a helpful rule of thumb is to expand on the benefits rather than the features. Such advice also applies to writing landing pages.

For example, instead of bombarding visitors with technical information, Nauto, a fleet safety platform, chooses to highlight its benefits with clear and engaging copy (“Your roadmap for improving fleet safety”). In doing so, Nauto makes its content offer more appealing.

How to Implement This Yourself

Focus your landing page on what your product or service can do for the people who come across it. They need to know how it will improve their lives or processes, not the specs or minute details.

20. Rover (Pets)

Putting your pets in the care of another person can be nerve-wracking. Which is why Rover, an on-demand pet care service, leans on social proof to build trust with visitors.

The landing page includes testimonials from real clients and copy about its “Rover Guarantee” and 24/7 support. Of course, the cute pictures of animals help too.

How to Implement This Yourself

Rover knows what its customer base is visiting its website for, and that’s to easily book pet services. When you think about what your customer base is trying to accomplish, meet them with a solution as soon as they get to your landing page.

21. Gong.io (SaaS: Call Recording)

There are many intelligence platforms on the market, and Gong knows that. So how did it make its landing page stand out? By calling itself an AI platform and using social proof of 4,000+ customers to show that the platform works.

Gong is a revenue intelligence platform, and when you go into the site, you may be curious to know what all that means — you may want to see conversion analytics, sales training capabilities, or more, depending on your business.

Gong solves that need on its landing page by displaying messages such as, “Engage customers, forecast accurately, and improve team productivity, all in one revenue intelligence platform.”

And to make it even more convincing, Gong adds lots of review ratings it’s received from third-party websites. This adds more credibility to the platform and can spur prospects to demo the software.

How to Implement This Yourself

Try out an interactive landing page. Look at different themes or code that can move automatically or with the viewer as they scroll your site to reveal more interesting and positive information about your product or service.

Webinar Landing Page Examples

22. Gartner (Consulting)

The headline of this webinar landing page made me lean forward.

First, it focuses on the trending issue of AI and its role in the future of work. But most remarkably, the topic is contrarian. Experts say AI lacks empathy. So, the notion that AI could be “your most human-centric leader” is intriguing.

Note that Gartner doesn’t claim AI is human-centric. The webinar’s description reveals that its goal is to show how AI can augment, not replace, workplace leaders. This theme is common in conversations around the “AI and future of work” topic.

However, by crafting the topic in a thought-provoking way, Gartner effectively captures its audience’s attention without using clickbait.

How to Implement This Yourself

According to a 2021 BrightTALK report, your webinar topic has the greatest impact on registration and attendance. So, getting it right is crucial.

Choose a topic relevant to your target audience’s needs and goals. You can attract more interest by selecting trending topics or approaching the subject from a contrarian angle.

What I like: Gartner’s signup form is conspicuous and short, requiring email only. Per our survey of 101 U.S-based marketers and advertisers, 30.7% believe four form questions are ideal for maximum conversions. However, we believe there’s no one-size-fits-all for the number of questions to ask on your landing page form.

My recommendation? Only request information that you absolutely need from visitors.

23. Convertcart (SaaS: Marketing)

This webinar landing page also nails its webinar topic. Audiences prefer real-life experiences over textbook knowledge. So, the case study format of the webinar is appealing.

Learning email secrets gathered from other successful ecommerce businesses will likely interest other ecommerce business owners. I’d wager that a different headline, like “Effective Email Strategies for a Successful Ecommerce Business,” could have a lower conversion rate.

How to Implement This Yourself

The landing page copy states that Convertcart studied emails of 500+ e-commerce brands to uncover the secrets they shared. You, too, can find valuable insights by auditing your audience insights, interviewing your most successful customers, or just conducting a research study.

24. Calendly (SaaS: Scheduling Automation)

In my experience, most webinar landing pages present the webinar details using text-based copy. But here, Calendly used a 43-second video. This move is smart, given the growing popularity of video marketing.

I also like that they partnered with an SME — sales educator Morgan J. Ingram — for the webinar and promo video. This partnership signals Calendly’s commitment to addressing customer pain points, potentially boosting webinar lead conversions.

Ingram’s experience includes training at Salesforce, Google, Slack, and other high-growth startups. His presence in the video will attract sales professionals who are familiar with his work.

How to Implement This Yourself

Consider featuring a video promo on your webinar landing page. Bonus points if you can collaborate with an SME or an influencer.

Course Landing Page Examples

25. Radical Design Course by Jack McDade (Design)

If you wanted to take a design course, your first question would probably be, “Is this designer worth learning from?” McDade instantly shows his expertise by using a landing page that stands out for its unique, retro-style design.

I like the insights I get about the course creator’s personality, thanks to the personality-infused video sales letter and copy.

How to Implement This Yourself

Everyone appreciates beauty. Thankfully, you can create an attractive course landing page using drag-and-drop builders like HubSpot. You don’t need a design or technical background.

For course creators, your unique personality is one of your strongest differentiators. So, let your personality shine through your landing page. It makes your copy more engaging.

26. Part-Time YouTuber Academy by Ali Abdaal (Video)

This landing page excels in several areas. First, the title “Part-Time YouTuber Academy” directly addresses a common concern of new creators: “I don’t have time to make videos.”

As expected from a YouTube content creation course, the page features a compelling sales video from Abdaal.

However, it also includes reviews from successful students and popular creators like Tiage Forte, author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller Building a Second Brain, and Chris Williamson, host of the popular “Morden Wisdom” podcast.

I love that all the testimonial videos were recorded in high resolution. I’ve seen course pages from well-known creators with low-resolution video reviews, which weaken the impact of the testimonials and their brand. We know this landing page converts well because Abdaal reported earning $2.5 million in course sales in 2023.

How to Implement This Yourself

The right course name can make the difference between a high and low-converting landing page, so choose one that makes a solid first impression on your audience.

Additionally, details like the resolution of testimonial videos might seem minor, but they matter. Ensure every element of your landing page reflects careful craftsmanship.

27. Freelancing School by Joanna Weibe (Copywriting)

Joanna Wiebe is a highly respected and experienced copywriter, and she shows her skills on this landing page. The headline appeals to readers’ emotions by addressing a common aspiration among freelance writers: earning six figures.

Rather than simply saying, “I can help you achieve that dream,” she takes an authoritative stance, challenging readers to leverage her resources to achieve their dreams. This authoritative tone continues in her video sales letter.

The landing page also features other experts like Jillian Smith, Aaron Orendorff, and Jesse Gernigin as instructors. Collaborating with these marketing veterans builds trust and increases the likelihood of conversion.

How to Implement This Yourself

Don’t shy away from using an authoritative tone in your landing page copy.

Potential customers need to be convinced of your competence, so confidently list your achievements and collaborate with other experts to build trust.

An authoritative tone, balanced with empathy, can help persuade and engage your audience.

28. Notion Mastery by Marie Poulin (Project Management)

Notion is an increasingly popular and versatile tool that combines project management, knowledge management, and collaboration tools into a single software platform.

Poulin describes her course as “the world’s best Notion training.” This claim triggered my BS instinct and made me think, “Anyone can say that.” I wanted proof.

Fortunately, she shared feedback from Notion Founder Ivan Zhao that completely solidified her claim. Ivan described her as a world-class Notion expert who’s able to do with Notion things that are beyond his imagination. In Zhao’s words, Poulin’s skill “blew our minds.” I was ready to pull out my credit card at this point.

How to Implement This Yourself

Landing pages often make big claims but fail to justify them. Without evidence, these claims can come across as empty promises.

Thanks to unethical marketers, buyers have learned that some people would say anything to make a sale. Your audience wants to believe you, but they need proof. So, always provide evidence to back up your big claims.

B2B Landing Page Examples

29. Survicate (SaaS)

Survicate nailed its messaging. Without scrolling past the hero section, I completely understood Survicate’s use case and value proposition.

The pre-headline, “Effortless Survey Software,” clearly shows the product category. The personality-infused headline and bullet points effectively communicate the company’s value proposition. It further reinforces this message with images of common survey types on its platform.

How to Implement This Yourself

B2B copy often lacks personality, which is unfortunate because everyone appreciates a bit of fun. Brainstorm opportunities to infuse personality in your messaging without coming off as unprofessional.

Pro tip: Ask yourself, “How would a delighted customer describe our product without corporate jargon?”

30. Plus Docs (SaaS)

This landing page headline tells us what Plus Docs does, but it goes further by demonstrating the product’s use cases with a 5-minute video.

SaaS tools rarely include a demo video on their homepage. They usually place it in their help center or YouTube channel. Including a demo on the homepage shows that Plus Docs has thoughtfully considered the questions site visitors may have.

How to Implement This Yourself

There’s no one-size-fits-all formula for creating an effective landing page.

However, the right mindset is crucial. Ask yourself, “Does this landing page address the common questions readers will have?” Don’t hesitate to adopt relatively uncommon practices if they help answer these questions.

31. Hack the Box (Cybersecurity)

Though this landing page is in an unfamiliar niche, it took me less than 15 seconds to understand it’s a cybersecurity company.

The headline, “Cyber Performance Center,” seemed vague at first, but as I scrolled down, I realized it provides security training to individuals and organizations.

I like how Hack the Box promoted its event — Business CTF 2024 — near the top of the landing page in a non-distracting way.

Further down, it included a quote to highlight the necessity of its service: “50% and more of significant cyber incidents are caused by a lack of skills or human failure.” This quote would be more compelling if it cited the source.

How to Implement This Yourself

Ensure your headline passes the grunt test. Within five seconds of landing on your site, visitors should know what you offer, how it will improve their lives, and how to take the next step: purchase.

Membership Landing Page Examples

32. Exitfiveby Dave Gerhardt (Community: Marketing)

I love the design of this landing page. It uses interactive animations to create an immersive experience for visitors. The membership benefit is also clear: access to proven knowledge to succeed in B2B marketing.

The community’s founder, Dave Gerhardt, was VP of Marketing at Drift, leading the company to a $1B+ valuation. He was also CMO at Privy, a brand that was acquired for $100M+. So, Dave has the credentials to match Exit Five’s promise.

However, he makes it risk-free to join by offering a 7-day free trial.

How to Implement This Yourself

Simple landing pages built using drag-and-drop builders are sufficient. However, if your budget can accommodate it, consider investing in an exceptional landing page. It’s an effective way to stand out.

33. Pavilion (Community: Marketing)

This landing page design is nice and vibrant. I like how the headline gets the spotlight on this landing page. Also, the text-light hero section helps to reduce the probability of overwhelm. The page remains scannable as you scroll down.

How to Implement This Yourself

Leonardo Da Vinci asserted that “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry also said, “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” The lesson? Be rigorous about ensuring your landing page contains no unnecessary parts. Simplicity sells.

Newsletter Landing Page Examples

34. Justin Welsh (Marketing)

Justin Welsh is one of the world’s foremost authorities on solopreneurship, and I love how he frontloads his authority on this landing page.

While landing pages typically place testimonials in the middle or near the bottom, Welsh features endorsements from well-known entrepreneurs like Dan Go, Sahil Bloom, and Dan Koe right in the hero section.

His hero section also highlights his impressive readership of 215K+ people. I appreciate that Welsh shares the estimated reading time for his newsletters. With so many unread emails, knowing his emails take less than four minutes per week to read makes it easier for me to commit.

Additionally, he includes links to previous issues, allowing visitors to sample the emails before subscribing.

How to Implement This Yourself

Third-party reviews are powerful. If you have testimonials from notable people, feature them prominently on your landing page rather than near the bottom.

Additionally, find creative ways to establish your expertise and address your target audience’s common objections right from the start.

35. The Gist (Sports)

I hadn’t heard of The Gist until recently, but its 900K+ subscriber count is huge social proof. This large following suggests an established reputation, making me more attentive to its offer.

It further strengthened its credibility by adding, “As seen in Forbes, TechCrunch.” These efforts are essential because people want news from credible sources. True to its name, The Gist’s landing page content is snackable — the entire page fits my screen, so I didn’t have to scroll.

How to Implement This Yourself

As mentioned earlier, ensure your landing page addresses your target audience’s biggest objections. Also, strive to frontload this information and keep it brief.

36. 3-2-1 Newsletter by James Clear (Self-improvement)

James Clear makes a bold claim, describing his newsletter as “the most wisdom per word of any newsletter on the web.” But I’m inclined to believe his claim since I know he authored Atomic Habits, a book that’s sold over 15 million copies as of 2023.

Plus, self-improvement newsletters with three million+ subscribers are rare. So even if a page visitor were unaware of his success as an author, that social proof could spur them to subscribe.

Clear’s landing page also features past issues of the newsletter so visitors can scan it and determine if it’s worth their time.

How to Implement This Yourself

Many authorities avoid taking a stance because they don’t want to seem cocky.

But true authorities don’t (or shouldn’t) hedge. Like Joanna Weibe, Maurie Poulin, and Justin Welsh in the examples above, confidently brag on your landing page … within reason.

Your best customers will find this confidence attractive, not repulsive.

Ready to build your landing page?

Whether you’re using a landing page template or building one from scratch, it’s essential to keep these best practices top of mind. And remember to test your landing pages to improve their effectiveness.

One of the hardest parts of our three-lesson format is deciding what NOT to include, and a lot of really useful advice is gathering dust in my Google Drive.

This week, I’ve got three lessons I just couldn’t waste from the most-shared interview in the history of Masters in Marketing. Email marketing expert Jay Schwedelson is back, and this time he’s coming in hot with what you’re (probably) doing wrong with your email marketing.

And, in all honesty, I’ve committed some of these sins with this very newsletter. (Oopsie!)

Jay Schwedelson

Founder, SubjectLine.com; Host, Try This, Not That! For Marketers Only!

• Fun fact: Jay takes inspiration from his grandpa, who told him, “Stupider people than you have been able to do it.”
• Claim to fame: Created one of the top 1% ranked websites in the world. 

Lesson 1: Get the dang thing opened.

To kick things off, I asked Schwedelson what common email advice gives him the twitchy eye.

“There’s always so much focus on what’s inside the email. What does the copy say? Is it compliant? Is it on brand?” He playfully grumbles. “But on average, less than 50% of people are going to open your email.”

In fact, 50% is dreamy. The average marketing email open rate across industries is closer to 42%. (Ours is a lil higher, but that’s because our readers are so smart and cool and good-looking.)

“So the first focus should really be: How do we get the email opened?”

Which isn’t to say you slack off on the content of your emails. If we suddenly pivoted to stories about dryer lint, our open rate would probably crash, right?

Just make sure the elements with the biggest impact on open rate — details like your subject line, preheader, and send time — aren’t just afterthoughts.

“If you focus on getting the email opened with as much energy and intensity as you do on what’s in the email, it will radically change the outcome of your marketing performance.”

Lesson 2: Throw out your banned words list.

“One of the biggest myths is that what you write in your subject line is the reason you’re landing in the junk folder. This is information from the year of the flood.”

He’s caught me on this one. When we ran a recent giveaway, I told the team we absolutely could not use the words “prize,” “winner,” or “you’ve won” in our subject lines.

Like me, you probably also fear the word “free” and using exclamation marks. All caps? Neverrrrrr.

“That is not going to get you filtered. It used to, 10 years ago, but technology changed. So I want to liberate everybody. Write whatever you want to write to get the email opened.”

So, what does put you on the naughty or nice list?

“It’s all about engagement. The more you get people to click and interact with your emails, the greater the likelihood is that you will stay in the inbox. That’s what the receiving email infrastructures want to see: Hey, this recipient likes interacting with these emails.

“And the irony is that the very tactics that people avoid — the word ‘free,’ an exclamation mark, an emoji — those exact tactics are gonna cause you to get more engagement and stay in the inbox.”

Lesson 3: Don’t worry about what “everyone else” is doing.

I asked Schwedelson about a LinkedIn post of his that made me chuckle. It’s a screenshot of every brand using the same shamrock emoji on St. Patrick’s Day.

Image Source

“The funny thing about marketers is that, sometimes, we’re too close to it,” he smiles. “So, it’s Mother’s Day, you know there’s going to be a lot of heart emojis in the subject line, right?”

Until we notice the trend. “And then marketers will be like, well, I’m not gonna do that ’cause everybody’s doing it.”

So I asked him how to be on the right side of history. Do we follow the trend or do we reject it?

He reminds me of something we shared in his first set of lessons: Test everything. Especially the things you don’t like.

If that shamrock emoji gives you a 20% lift in your open rate… do you care if 30 other brands used one, too?

“So just because you, as a marketer, think everybody’s doing it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.”

What I hear is: Game on with the 🍀🍀🍀.

 

Lingering Questions

THIS WEEK’S QUESTION

What’s one “boring” marketing channel or tactic that’s working way better than expected for you right now, and why do you think that is? — Katie Parkes, Director of social, community & customer marketing, Apollo.io

THIS WEEK’S ANSWER

Schwedelson says: Weekend email sends!

Email campaigns targeting director-level and above contacts are generating a 40% year-over-year increase in click-through rates.

Not testing Sunday sends is leaving out a super valuable opportunity to engage with key people when they have the time to really dig into what you are sharing.

NEXT WEEK’S QUESTION

Schwedelson asks: You [Ross Simmonds] always say ‘create once, distribute forever’ – what’s one piece of content you’ve milked longer than anyone should reasonably admit? And why that one?

Time is money in marketing, so why not use AI workflows to boost productivity? I spoke with some of my colleagues at HubSpot, and they say they’ve found workflows that maximize their productivity, save time, and act as the perfect automated assistant.

If you‘re looking for workflows that make your work life easier, you’ve come to the right blog.

But before we get into their experiences, let’s dive into the benefits of AI workflow automation.

Benefits of Productive AI Workflow Automations

A huge benefit of AI workflow automation is that it can act as an assistant to whom you delegate tasks. My colleagues at the Marketing Against the Grain podcast would agree.

“The thing I’ve learned about AI is that it works best when you treat it like a collaborator and not just a tool,” says the podcast‘s host, Kipp Bodnar. “It’s there to help you get going. It sparks ideas, making starting just about anything 100 times easier.”

And it’s because AI can sift through and analyze data much faster and more efficiently than humans, which brings me to my next point: AI workflows can save you hours doing repetitive tasks. Our 2025 State of AI in Marketing report found that AI can save 1-3 hours of work on tasks like:

• Media content creation
• Text-based content creation, such as blogs and ebooks
• Research
• Brainstorming

So, what AI workflows can you adopt into your strategy? Let’s dive in.

Productive AI Workflows Used by HubSpotters

1. Project Assistant

You’ve probably heard of Build-A-Bear, but have you heard of Build-Your-Assistant? Okay, that joke was a little cheesy, but the point is, you can build your own AI project assistant that can help you work smarter and not harder.

“A project AI assistant is basically just how you use ChatGPT, Claude, and Google for work,” he says. “It’s basically creating, in ChatGPT, a specific project for an outcome you’re trying to achieve within a business.”

For example, let’s say your goal is to grow demand for your business by 50% year over year, or you want to boost monthly active users for your app or website.

The goals may sound straightforward, but they require the work of teams, individual contributors, direct reports, documents, and more.

“For each of those outcomes and projects, I create a ChatGPT project,” Keiren explains. Not a fan of ChatGPT? That’s fine. You can also make a Clause project or a Gemini gem.

Kieren says there are three parts of your AI project assistant: context, templates, and instructions.

Context

The context would be unstructured and structured data, such as meeting transcripts, strategic documents, emails, project correspondence, and deep research.

“All of this information that we have had forever becomes way more valuable and usable because of AI,” says Kipp‘s co-host, Kieren Flanagan. “One of the ways you should think about your use of AI is, ’Am I getting the maximum amount out of the structured and unstructured data I have’ before moving on to other use cases.”

Templates

Kieren says templates are materials you can give the AI to use, so that when you request a task, it can perform the task in the format you want.

For example, he wanted to craft a memo, and he could upload a memo template and request the AI to create a memo using the template provided.

You could also upload templates for:

• Weekly blockers

• Bi-weekly momentum drivers
• Monthly status updates

Instructions

Your instructions are how you want the AI system to work. What your instructions are or how they look is up to you and your project needs, but for reference, these are the instructions Kieren gives to his ChatGPT AI project manager:

“1. Be clear, concise, and insightful: Keep responses to the point, but ensure you provide enough context to support your conclusions. Prioritize clarity, but don’t sacrifice depth where nuance matters.

2. Ground recommendations in evidence: When referencing internal documentation, cite the exact document name or source clearly (e.g., “2024 Q3 GTM Strategy Doc”). If relevant, include specific excerpts or page numbers.

3. Actively surface blind spots: Don’t just respond to the prompt — proactively identify risks, missed opportunities, or potential second-order effects I may not be considering.

4. Challenge my thinking respectfully: If my assumptions or logic appear flawed, offer a better alternative. Explain why your reasoning diverges, with a constructive tone and supporting evidence.

5. Bring in external perspective where valuable: Use real-world case studies, industry benchmarks, or competitive insights to strengthen recommendations or broaden strategic thinking.

6. Think long-term and systemically: When possible, connect individual tasks or problems to larger strategic goals, org-wide implications, or patterns across projects.

7. Prioritize actionability: End with clear next steps, questions to consider, or options to move forward — especially when the path isn’t obvious.”

2. Meeting Assistant

An AI workflow can also be a meeting assistant that records, transcribes, and pulls data from your virtual meetings. This workflow is a favorite of my colleague Jeanie Thompson. She especially loves fireflies.ai assistant.

“I’ve been loving fireflies.ai for meeting notetaking, especially if I have to miss a meeting,” she says. “I also love it for other tasks, like starting a draft for an interview-heavy blog post.”

Justina says fireflies.ai has also helped her review key meeting conversation topics or a summary of an interview she conducted for her blog posts.

“I’m able to review a summary of our conversation without having to watch my entire recording back manually,” she explains.

3. Monthly Work Planning

Mapping out a month‘s load of work can be tedious and tricky, which is why HubSpot’s lead marketing writer, Laura Browning, uses AI to plan her workload. Before AI, Laura spent a lot of time preparing her monthly workload.

“It helps me to see visually what I’m working with, plus with overlapping assignments and competing deadlines, I need to make sure I leave enough time for research and talking to subject-matter experts,” she says. “Using Claude to do the bulk of this has saved me easily a day’s work — plus it’s so much less overwhelming than trying to map out everything myself.”

Laura tells Claude.ai how to set priorities based on meeting dates and the length of tasks. Claude uses that information to produce an hourly schedule for Laura’s entire month.

“It doesn’t matter if I follow it down to the hour (I never do!) — it still helps me stay on track,” she says.

4. Trend Spotting

A trend-spotting workflow is the most interesting of all the AI workflows in this list. I would have never thought to create such a workflow if Basha Coleman, HubSpot‘s Principal Content Strategy and Operations Program Manager, hadn’t herself.

Basha says she used two tools to create the workflow, Pipedream and Windsurf. Pipedream is an application builder that helps users integrate various tools and platforms, and Windsurf leverages AI to make coding more accessible for those who don’t consider themselves to be super tech-savvy.

“Pipedream brings in all the tools you’d use, so it would bring Ahrefs,” she explains. “Then I’d tell Windsurf to build something, and it would create it.”

In Basha‘s case, she created a workflow that identifies and reports on trends daily. The workflow builds a spreadsheet every day at 9:15 am and pins a new tab of the day’s SEO trends to the spreadsheet.

“And I can just look at it and say, ‘Yeah, we’re going to talk about that this week,’ and create a brief, and that’s it,” she says.

These are just a few workflows you can implement in your daily life. I strongly recommend experimenting with other AI tools to determine what best suits your needs.

My transformation from serving customers to nurturing a community didn’t happen overnight. It started with a crisis. Gymshark’s infamous Black Friday 2015 catastrophe happened during my first week: Our website crashed on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Orders failed. Customer support lit up. Social media exploded. We were trending — but not for the reasons anyone hoped. I braced for digital war. To top it off, the BBC showed up bright and early the next morning to document the chaos. Cameras, questions, and crew — all while the team was still recovering from a sleepless night.

And yet, something wild happened: Our customers didn’t leave. They leaned in. Gymshark audience remained strong, showing their loyalty to the brand and even feeling compassion toward us during the situation. Why? They felt like they were part of a community.

Gymshark offered customers a sense of belonging. The guest and the business were going on a fitness journey together. Below, I’ll discuss how community can transform your business trajectory. Then, I’ll share tips on building community from my time at Gymshark.

What is community, and why does it matter?

A community isn’t just a group that happens to use the same product or service — it’s a living ecosystem where people feel a genuine sense of belonging. It’s where transactions transform into relationships, and casual buyers become passionate advocates.

In today’s hyper-competitive business landscape, community matters more than any marketing tactic or sales strategy because it creates the one thing money can’t buy: genuine emotional connection. Community is a competitive advantage that can’t be copied.

How I Discovered the Power of Community

The importance of community stretched beyond my first week at Gymshark. The second challenge arose later when I attempted to polish up the brand. I wanted to emulate bigger companies like Nike, Adidas, and Puma. The attempt backfired.

The audience gradually became less engaged. Aspirational was cool, but they wanted to stay connected to the brand. This didn’t just impact engagement. Sales were gradually tailing off too.

I started listening more to our audience, analyzing feedback from our comment section, studying competitor influencers, and monitoring what resonated in their posts. The pattern confirmed what our brand was built on from the beginning: Our audience wasn’t looking for flashy ads or poetic language — they wanted to feel like true participants in our brand.

Frustrated by our messaging approach, I reached out to early customers and simply asked, “What’s missing?”

Their feedback reinforced our founding vision. The product itself was good, but our communication didn’t highlight the community aspect enough. They were looking for more than just a transaction. They craved that sense of belonging we’d always intended to create. They wanted to share experiences with others using our products — exactly what the brand was meant to foster from day one.

This revelation didn‘t change our brand’s purpose but rather reminded us to return to our roots. We needed to better communicate what we’d always been about: building a community, not just selling a product.

The insights I gained from listening to our community helped me grow Gymshark’s social presence from 1.5 million followers to 20 million between 2015 and 2022. That journey contributed to the brand achieving a staggering £1.4 billion valuation ($1.8 billion U.S.).

Tips for Running Community — Insights From My Time at Gymshark

Standing for Something: Giving People a Flag to Rally Around

The Gymshark mission focused on taking a stand against toxic fitness culture while showing the power of consistency. Whether you’re a footballer, basketball player, or boxer, the core principles of dedication, proper nutrition, and recovery remain the same, while the sport-specific skills and movements make up that differential 20%.

This perspective helped unite our community across different fitness disciplines. Rather than separating athletes by their sport, we highlighted the universal elements that connect all training journeys.

This approach made our messaging more inclusive and relatable, allowing people from various athletic backgrounds to feel part of the same community. People who believed in fitness became our community.

Tactical Approach

At Gymshark, we weren’t just selling fitness apparel. We were championing a certain belief system about fitness, community, and self-improvement. We focused relentlessly on what the brand stood for beyond products.

Great communities aren’t just about what you sell. They’re about what you and your customers believe in together. Lululemon isn’t just selling yoga leggings — they’re championing mindful living. Liquid Death isn’t just selling water; they’re celebrating a certain rebellious attitude.

These companies aren’t just selling things. They’re offering people a way to show the world who they are.

Action you can take today: Define your “3%,” or the core belief that might alienate 97% of people but will deeply resonate with your true community. What’s the thing you stand for that others might not? Write it down in one sentence.

Talking With, Not At: Turning Buyers into Collaborators

Instead of just delivering finished products, we started involving our community in the creation process. We launched Gymshark Insiders, where customers could share ideas, challenges, and feedback. We also engaged directly through comment sections, Instagram story polls, and in-person events.

At first, I worried nobody would participate. But soon, it became the most valuable resource for our product development. People weren’t just buying from us; they were co-creating with us.

This is based on the simple insight that listening to your customers and delivering communications in ways they prefer is incredibly powerful. It ensures you never stray from what truly matters to your audience.

Tactical Approach

Traditional companies talk AT you. Community-first companies talk WITH you. Today‘s most successful businesses don’t just have customers. They have collaborators. They respond to comments, showcase customer creations, and seek opinions before making decisions.

Consider Glossier’s approach to product development: They asked their community, “What do you wish existed?” Then, they created it. Glossier transformed makeup selling into a conversation about what beauty products should be.

When developing our next feature at Gymshark, we didn’t guess what people needed — we asked. Through polls, roundtable discussions, and prototype sharing, we created not just a better product but a community with genuine ownership in our shared creation.

Nothing beats a “YOU ASKED, WE LISTENED” announcement. Trust me.

Action you can take today: Ask your audience what they want. Create a simple poll, host an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session, or invite user-generated content. Find at least one way this week to make your people feel heard and involved in your process.

Partnering Up: Finding the Right Creators

Once we knew we wanted to build community, my team stopped chasing celebrity fitness models and started working with everyday athletes. That means we found people who hadn’t “made it” yet but who already had deep engagement, and more importantly, deep connection. We looked for creators with long-form attention — YouTubers who held their community’s time and trust.

More than metrics, we looked at meaning. Could this person shift perspective? Could they move hearts — not just products?

Tactical Approach

Once we found them, we invested. We asked for their opinions on products and let them meet each other. We created a connection behind the brand because we weren’t interested in transactional relationships. We wanted partnerships.

I’ll never forget the first time a creator told me, “It feels like I’m part of the company.” That was the goal. When you make your collaborators feel like insiders, they become your loudest advocates.

Action you can take today: Make a list of influencers with genuinely engaged audiences that align with your niche. From there, you can design custom ways to work with them.

Making People Feel Special: Creating the Velvet Rope Effect

One of the most powerful shifts came when Gymshark created tiered access to different parts of our community. Everyone received value, but our most engaged members got special perks – early access to new products, direct access to our team, and invitations to events and our HQ.

This wasn’t about artificial scarcity. Our goal was to reward commitment and create spaces where deeper connections could form. The FOMO was real, and many onlookers yearned to get the same treatment, which created a commitment flywheel that drove engagement and mentions of the brand.

Tactical Approach

We all want to feel like we’re part of something exclusive. It’s why VIP areas exist and why “limited edition” items fly off the shelves.

Nike’s SNKRS app turns new shoe releases into events people get excited about. Sephora’s Beauty Insider program makes you feel like you’ve got backstage access. Even small brands are creating private groups, early access, and member-only experiences that make people feel they’re in on a secret.

Action you can take today: Build one element of exclusivity into your brand. Whether it’s early access to content, special perks for your most engaged followers, or a private community space, create something that makes people feel like they’re part of an inner circle.

Disrupting IRL with URL and Vice Versa

The pandemic had forced everything online, but as restrictions lifted, Gymshark took a risk and organized a small in-person retreat for our most active community members. Despite having built relationships entirely through screens, the chemistry when people met face-to-face was electric.

That single weekend generated more ideas, collaborations, and word-of-mouth growth than months of online interaction. It reinforced what I’d suspected: Digital communities are powerful, but they’re even stronger when complemented with real-world experiences.

When referencing Gymshark, it’s important to talk about how we used IRL to disrupt URL (what I’ll call the digital space) and vice versa. The strongest, most influential communities are not just online. They exist in a mixed reality world where you leverage the strengths of one sector to amplify the other.

If you create an in-person experience that can only be felt by the people physically present, you’ve missed an opportunity. Equally, if you only rely on digital interaction, you might achieve reach, but it remains passive. You don’t actually know how committed your audience is or how deep the connection truly runs.

Tactical Approach

Real connections don’t just happen through screens. The strongest communities find ways to mix online interaction with real-world experiences.

Think about Peloton. You might be biking alone in your bedroom, but the leaderboards, live instructors, and friendly competitions make you feel like you’re part of something bigger.

Gymshark went even further by hosting workout events where their online followers could meet face-to-face and turn digital friendships into real ones. These events were instrumental in their growth from 1.5 million to 20 million followers.

What I discovered is that even small in-person gatherings create what I call “temperature check moments” — defining experiences that strengthen bonds in ways purely digital connections cannot.

Putting Customers in the Spotlight

Perhaps the most transformative change was shifting the spotlight away from our company and toward the amazing things our community members were accomplishing.

Instead of case studies that highlighted our product, we created stories that celebrated the journeys of our members. Our content strategy flipped from “look at us” to “look at them.” The more we made our community the heroes of our story, the more they championed our brand to others.

Tactical Approach

Companies like Airbnb, Notion, and Figma don’t just show off their features — they showcase what amazing things their users have created. The more a company celebrates its users, the more those users become passionate supporters.

When I implemented this strategy with clients, I found that user-generated content consistently outperformed company-created content by three to five times in terms of engagement. People trust peer stories far more than brand claims.

The results spoke for themselves: Our customer acquisition costs plummeted because word-of-mouth became our primary growth channel. Our retention rates soared. People weren‘t just buying products. They were part of something they didn’t want to leave.

Action you can take today: Shift the spotlight. Feature at least one customer story this week, celebrate a user achievement, or highlight something amazing your community has created. Make your people — not your products — the heroes of your narrative.

Be a Community Builder

By the time I left Gymshark, 95% of our content was community-led. But the biggest growth you couldn’t measure in metrics. It was in the message that said, “This brand made me believe in myself again.” It was in the tattoos. The gym murals. The proposals in branded hoodies.

We didn’t just build an audience. We built identity. And when you build that right, you don’t just scale a brand. You shift culture.

You don’t have to chase relevance. You become it.

In February, OpenAI gave a two-minute demonstration at a private event in Tokyo. The demo didn’t stay quiet for long. It set off a firestorm in the sales industry.

The short demo, which isn’t available yet, was for an AI sales agent. This AI agent can perform autonomous tasks to help sales teams qualify, enrich, and follow up with leads. You can watch the full leaked demo here, but I’ll break down all the information you need — and what it means for everyone doing knowledge work — below.

OpenAI’s Entry Into Vertical Agents

First of all, OpenAI has mostly focused on consumer products to this point. They created their foundational model, which companies can build on with an API. This is really the first example of OpenAI building a vertical agent. They’ve built an agent that helps knowledge workers do their work, with use cases specific to certain verticals.

How It Will Work

According to the demo, here’s how OpenAI’s virtual sales agent will work:

1. A customer fills out a Contact Sales form.
2. That request comes into the OpenAI task pane as a lead.
3. The sales agent calls up multiple tools to analyze the lead and take action. For example:

• OpenAI’s Deep Research tool analyzes the lead to fill in enriching information like role, sector, company size, etc.
• It calls up calendar availability to check time slots available to set a meeting.
• It drafts an email to schedule the meeting and sends calendar requests to both the sales rep and the potential customer.

These steps are fully automated, with no human intervention required.

What Makes It Different From Other AI Sales Tools

​​There are a lot of AI sales tools already on the market, including HubSpot’s own Breeze. So, what makes OpenAI’s sales agent different?

Deep Research Capabilities

At HubSpot, we know the power of enriched data to inform and enable sales conversations. When a lead comes in through OpenAI, the AI agent will call up deep research with live web results and reasoning capabilities to enrich that data. This is research a sales associate might do on their own, like industry, revenue, title, and so on. Deep research can be phenomenally powerful when it’s done in seconds.

Since it connects to various tools, the OpenAI sales agent can also pattern match against customers in your CRM to assess whether it’s a good fit compared to current customers. So, it may offer lead scoring and automated actions tailored to how good a fit the lead is.

Fits Within Your Existing Tech Stack and Workflows

The best value proposition of autonomous agents in the workforce is when they work within your workflow and tasks. Your tasks will be the starting point for the agent. If you have a good tech stack and workflows you like, you don’t have to change them.

Instead, these workflows will be streamlined and automated based on what the customer and buyers are doing across your customer journey. What do I mean by that? Well, someone filling out the form is the trigger, and that trigger starts an AI agent doing its work. That agent is part of the workflow, it’s not separate or tangential to it.

Essentially, OpenAI will be the orchestration layer, and that orchestration layer will be able to call up and work within different tools. That includes research, software, and communication.

Multi-Language Capabilities

Another differentiator is that OpenAI’s tool can work intelligently within different languages and global contexts. In the example the company shared, the lead was entered in Japanese. So, without being told, the tool wrote the contact back in Japanese.

That‘s huge, isn’t it? The way companies have to expand internationally now is that they have to wait until they have local capabilities or language capabilities for each country. With agents, you don’t need full departments. The agent knows a prospect can enter a form within a certain IP location and can adjust its language to match that language or location.

What are the limitations?

With this quick demo, we don’t yet know which features will be included when the full version launches. But here are a few features that HubSpot’s customers have found useful that OpenAI might be missing:

• Sales prospecting features like customizing approaches for different personas and re-engaging lapsed leads.
• Buyer intent analysis, assessing which companies are ready to buy based on website clicks and other actions.
• Conversation intelligence to coach your sales team with call feedback and insights.

How the OpenAI Sales Agent Will Impact the B2B Sales Industry

If you were following the initial leaked demo, you probably saw some initial hysteria that OpenAI was trying to kill the human part of sales. So let’s be clear, that isn’t what this tool does. There won’t be an OpenAI sales bot sending you cold emails.

This system is designed around inbound leads, or people who have filled out a form and want to be contacted. Now we know how this usually works. Someone submits this form, it goes into a system, and then a team of people reviews the leads to reach out and figure out how best to respond. This can take hours or days.

So, what could it look like if you had agents working for you inside your workforce right now? What if instead of spending hours researching leads and scheduling meetings, you simply had good-fit leads appearing on your calendar?

The real value of this first wave of autonomous agents is in the time they give back to sales teams. You might have 50 micro-agents doing 50 different tasks within your workflows, and it’s going to make your life better. All of the mundane, boring things you probably don’t want to do, these agents will be able to do for you.

So these AI tools are good for sales teams, and they’re also good for customers. Coming back to the human-to-human connection, intent matters. Automating lead qualification and scheduling can improve the overall experience and clear the junk out of the way for the human connection. For the most part, humans won’t care if something is AI if they have a goal and AI helps them reach it.

To sum it all up, the OpenAI Sales Agent has incredible potential to help companies work within their existing workflows and tech stacks to reach prospects faster and better. This is just one glimpse behind the curtain showing how OpenAI may be dipping its toes into vertical agents. And, I can’t wait to see what comes next.

To learn more about boosting productivity by building AI assistants, check out the full episode of Marketing Against the Grain: