Ok, as much as LinkedIn is an awesome place to build your network, it’s also full of totally insufferable people making posts like the above. (I mean, congrats, I guess?) And now, thanks to the fact that AI can crank out ok-ish written content, it’s home to piles of posts that all sound, well, exactly the same (if I have to read another post containing the words “Here’s the reality no one wants to talk about” I’m going to throw my laptop away). Which means if you show up on LinkedIn with even a little bit of personality, you’re going to stand out in the best way. [Here’s how]

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

There’s a good chance it’s because the platform announced it was cracking down on spammy AI-generated comments – halle-freakin-lujah!

Laura Lorenzetti, LinkedIn’s Global Editorial VP, dropped the news late last week, emphasising that “it’s more important than ever that people can learn from real voices, authentic perspectives, and lived expertise”.

“When AI is overused, especially at scale and in an automated way, it dilutes the valuable insights that real human conversations can spark. It's ok to use AI to help you write, but your posts and comments need to represent your voice and your perspectives. The ultimate value comes from the human behind the tool.”

Lorenzetti says LinkedIn’s incorporated technology systems built in partnership with its editorial team that’ve have been trained to spot signals of AI slop. I personally welcome this de- slop-ification of what’s already the most ostentatious hub on Earth – If I gotta interact with LinkedIn egomaniacs, at least let them be real!

While AI’s taking blows on LinkedIn, the technology’s just seen a big win on Spotify. Specifically, the music streaming platform just struck a deal with Universal Music Group (UMG) allowing fan-made remixes.

Per TechCrunch, the tool will launch as a paid add-on available only to Premium subscribers. A revenue share will be offered to participating artists for the AI-generated music based on their work.

“What we’re building is grounded in consent, credit, and compensation for the artists and songwriters that take part,” Spotify co-CEO Alex Norström said regarding the UMG agreement. “Through each technological transformation, we have worked together with [UMG] … to evolve the music ecosystem into a richer, more beneficial experience for fans and a more rewarding outcome for artists and songwriters.”

As of now there’s no set launch date. Last year, Spotify said its AI tools would be created via “upfront agreements, not by asking for forgiveness later.” This was a clear swipe at Suno and other big players in the AI music space. Yeowch. Still not big on AI music wriggling its way into my recommendations. But giving artists a choice and compensating them for letting others use their work is major. That wasn’t so hard, now was it Spotify? Think you can do the same thing, but for the original music artists actually make?

As one streaming platform feels increasingly robotic, others are leaning more into that realness and humanness we all crave - case in point, NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s taking to Twitch.

Regardless of your politics, you can’t deny it’s a good thing when a politician keeps you in the loop – not just through media interviews, but by literally talking directly to you. In typical Mamdani fashion, he’s meeting Gen Z where they are by launching Talk with the People. It's a recurring Twitch livestream where he’ll answer questions directly from viewers in the chat. This will be simulcast across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X and Bluesky.

The 34-year-old mayor teased the launch last week with an Instagram post contrasting the livestream with the fireside chats held by 32nd US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Those, too, involved direct communications with the public and were similarly informal.

Whether you’re a marketer or a politician, there’s nothing more vital than keeping your people in mind. Not saying y’all should become Twitch streamers. But if you meet your constituents where they are and maintain transparency, trust is innate and can only get stronger!

-Devin Pike, Copywriter 💜

Take it from a journalist, copywriter and guy who spends 40 hours a week doomscrolling LinkedIn. After thousands of hours of skimming success stories, mini lectures and overly-sentimental confessions, I’ve developed a strong nose for what’s written by you and what’s written by… not-you.

I’ve made a mental list of the many telltale signs of AI writing, and if your post has at least 3 of them, it’s almost always a dead giveaway. You might think you’re slick, but really you look mad suspicious if you use:

→ Waaay too many emojis
→ Tons of em dashes (—), bold text, italics text and #hashtags
→ Phrases like “And honestly?”, or “Here’s the thing”, or “It’s not X. It’s Y.”, or “Not X. Not Y. Just Z.”
→ Use arrow symbols for bullet point lists (like I just have).

Fair question. After all, what matters most is that your posts get clear intended message across. If you use AI to achieve that, and it does it well, what’s the issue?

I’m not saying you absolutely shouldn’t use AI in writing. It certainly has its uses. I personally never use it in my own work. Everything you see with my name on it – LinkedIn posts, concert reviews, news stories and articles like this one – is written by hand on an old-timey Bluetooth keyboard.

That said, I still incorporate AI into my professional work; I’ll often use it to make “sh*tty first drafts”, as my favourite English teacher Dr. Campbell would call them. Before anything gets published or sent away for review, I always add some human touches by reading over everything, replacing words, switching sentences around and freshening up the grammar to perfectly meet every brief.

I’ve found AI useful when I need to quickly consolidate information and form rough drafts, especially during time crunches. Everyone’s got their justifications for using it too. But if your reliance on it gets too heavy, it’s easy to neglect a key trait of the writing process that maintains your humanness and uniqueness: your tone of voice.

There’s a trap I see friends, colleagues and connections fall into all the time: You hop on ChatGPT or Claude, ask for a 170-word LinkedIn-friendly spiel, quickly scan over what gets spat out, then decide it sounds like you.

But does it really sound like you? Or does it just sound “good”?

Regardless of how well-trained generative AI is, it’s algorithmically designed to respond to every prompt by taking the safest possible route towards the outcome it thinks you’ll prefer the most. That means when you ask Claude to write you a LinkedIn post, it’ll use whatever writing style it’s already been trained on. Then it fills the gaps with “good” words, phrases, structure and grammar.

But there’s an irony to it: while many people now view these writing features as “AI slop”, algorithms love them for how popular they actually are. From an algorithm’s perspective, if the em dash is commonplace, it means it’s a safe choice. It’s easily understood, and thus qualifies as good writing.

Any writer will tell you that before they developed a tone of voice, they emulated anything they read solely because they liked how it sounded. There’s brief confidence in using smart-sounding language that, in all reality, doesn’t truly reflect who you are. If you’re still developing a tone of voice, it’s easy to look at anything AI writes and think “this sounds like me!”, when really it sounds good, but nothing like you.

AI writing is a gift and a curse. It’s not my place to tell you whether or not you should use it, but from my perspective there’s 3 paths you can take:

1.      Ridin’ solo. “Old school”, if you will. Writing takes longer and is harder work without AI. But you’re rewarded with an improved vocabulary and more confidence in your tone of voice (and you can certainly use AI tools to train those writing muscles!)

2.      All in on AI. The flipside to AI’s mediocre wordsmithing is that it’s safe and reliable language. By making your posts more accessible, you could see potentially higher engagement. If you’re not too fussed about tone of voice and just want to get a clear message across, you may decide this is the way to go. But be warned – public sentiment on AI isn’t great, so unless you’re always training your bot, it could reflect poorly on you in the not-too-distant future.

3.      A healthy mix. This is where I reside. I use AI where it makes sense in the writing process, but I stick to my own words when it’s more personal. Sometimes I just need to get a simple message across. But when I’m writing from a place of passion and vulnerability, I want readers to really feel what I’m saying.

But before you decide, please do me a favour: write a post or two without AI, just off the top of your head. Doesn’t matter if the grammar’s bad or reads like a 12-year-old wrote it. The goal is to get a sense of how you truly sound in writing and how it makes you feel.

Give it a whirl, have fun and let yourself suck at it – even if you’re not some version of “good”, you’ll never sound more yourself!

-Devin Pike, Copywriter 💜

Take this viral TikTok for example, where a woman spots negative numbers among her elevator's floor buttons. To the horror of those riding with her, she presses the button for floor -4 (the lowest floor of all) and proudly proclaims:

"Let's go to hell!"

The chaos is strangely beautiful to listen to. And it's inspired a myriad of TikToks where people happily take themselves to hell - and often times, bring people along for the ride. Because whether you're drinking coffee while already anxious or warming up fish in the office microwave, there's empowerment in acting against others' wishes, all while not having a care in the world for consequences.

Take this sound, turn the camera around and film yourself lip-syncing with the "let's go to hell" line. Then, add onscreen text describing a situation where you caused your own suffering with no regard for the suffering of others. Make sure you look as smug and uncaring as possible in your performance - it pairs well with the screaming and shouting towards the end of the audio!

A few ideas to get you started:

-Devin Pike, Copywriter 💜

😂Yap’s funniest home videos - "And then Bayum!"
❤How wholesome - "Noticing"
😊Soooo satisfying - Glass
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight - Creamy Tomato Pasta

Hey Aiden,

Your audience should be able to tell what your video is about instantly. The very first frame needs to set the context, because otherwise people will swipe rather than sticking around to find out. In the first second of your video, the audience should already be able to see there's a story here that they need to see more of.

If you're having trouble knowing what this looks like, go spend some time watching content with intention. Pay attention to the videos that grab your attention and the ones that don't. Ask yourself, What are those things that make a hook effective or ineffective? Then use what you've learned and experiment until you figure it out for your own content.

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

We get it. Creating content that does numbers is harder than it looks. But doing those big numbers is the fastest way to grow your brand. So if you’re tired of throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks, you’re in luck. Because making our clients go viral is kinda what we do every single day.