For 15 years social media was a reach discipline. In 2026 it has a second job: feeding the citation layer AI engines retrieve from. The two-function playbook for ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews.
Social media done properly in 2026 is not about presence. It's about whether that presence feeds the citation layer AI engines retrieve from. The two-function playbook.
Three brands come back when a buyer types a beauty query into ChatGPT. The small brand that wins one of those slots gets the sale. The one that misses gets nothing. Five patterns making small beauty brands invisible — and the fix.
Discord. Substack. Patreon. Skool. Geneva. Circle. Reddit. The community layer of the creator economy, mapped.
Positive Reddit reviews are public, searchable, and reach buyers a brand cannot reach directly. Why Starbucks owns Reddit, why most brands do not, and the four rules for handling positive threads.
Sixty percent of brands run social listening. Less than ten percent run it well. The four common mistakes \u2014 brand-only queries, campaign blindness, legacy platform footprint, AI prompt layer ignored.
SEO in 2026 is the foundation underneath Generative Engine Optimization, not the endpoint. The 2026 playbook — six fundamentals that anchor everything, three new layers above (GEO, Citation Share, cross-engine distribution), Wikipedia and Reddit as retrieval anchors, and the cross-engine measurement stack.
Customer reviews have moved from a side conversation in marketing to the primary reputational asset most brands now defend. Google, Yelp, Amazon, Trustpilot, G2, TripAdvisor — what makes a review carry weight, what brands should actually do.
One role often discussed is that of a community manager.
OnlyFans does zero advertising. Every one of its 377.5 million fan accounts came from somewhere else — TikTok, Reddit, X, and now the AI engines. The 2026 off-platform discovery playbook, channel by channel.
