Marketing has always had a slight obsession with the future. What’s next? What’s the next platform? What’s the next consumer behavior? What’s the next big technology? What are Gen Alpha doing? What comes after TikTok? Are we all going to live in the metaverse? Is everyone going to wear AI glasses? Is email somehow STILL alive?

And I love this stuff. Obviously.

The industry has landed, at least for now, on Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO, as one of the names for the work of improving how brands appear in AI-generated answers.

You'll also hear AI search optimization, answer engine optimization, AEO, AI visibility and several other acronyms fighting for survival.

I'm less interested in winning the acronym war.

I'm interested in this question: When someone asks an AI system about your category, what does it know about you?

Today, social touches entertainment, search, shopping, news, customer service, identity, memes, creators, private messages, communities, recommendation engines, culture, and whatever TikTok has decided we are all obsessed with this week. So when someone asks me about “social strategy” today, I have questions.

Organizations have gotten pretty good at hearing that change is happening. The harder part is figuring out which changes matter, what they mean for the business and when to act.