GREG SWAN

26/07/2025

AI-driven search is rewriting the playbook. But if you never learned SEO 101, this post is for you.

16/05/2025

How are you? “Busy!” “Crazy busy.” “Back-to-backs all day.” We all know these default answers. But they’re not a red flag. They’re a reflex. A conversational cop-out. A way to dodge real connection with a socially acceptable excuse.

But if everyone is busy all the time… is anyone actually saying anything?

In this week’s Social Signals (https://open.substack.com/pub/gregswan/p/the-busy-trap-revisited), I revisited “The Busy Trap” (circa 2012), and unpacked why **busy** still dominates our self-image in 2025, and what we can do to move beyond it.

Less balance fantasy. More intentional blur. Fewer meetings. Smarter AI sidekicks. New rituals for a world that never really slows down.

Maybe it’s time to stop fantasizing about a return to balance and instead start designing for a world where imbalance is the baseline. The goal isn’t to opt out of ambition but to build systems that support both achievement and sanity.

What’s your (new) default answer when someone asks how you’re doing?

06/05/2025

I'm quoted in Digidaytoday about the massive changes in digital + social that happened in the first 100 days of President Trump’s term and what marketers are doing to adapt, leverage, and match pace -->

For marketers, there’s been an expectation of chaos this time around but that expectation doesn’t make the reality any easier to manage.

28/03/2025

⚠️ Welcome to the era of algorithmically average ideas.

In a world where everyone’s feeding the same prompts into the same models and playing it safe to stay “on-brand,” we’re watching creativity collapse into a beige blob of sameness.

Safe work doesn’t spark. It scrolls by.

And guess what? The algorithm is optimizing you into irrelevance.

If your work looks like it was written by the same robot as everyone else’s... it probably was.

👇 This week I wrote about why bold is the new smart: https://gregswan.substack.com/p/safe-work-is-the-riskiest-move

24/01/2025

In this issue of we’re talking Employee Generated Content (EGC) based on some thoughts I shared with Ad Age last week and wanting to unpack it more ➡️ https://gregswan.substack.com/p/more-employee-generated-content-in

11/12/2024

In a world where humans are never **not** connected with technology, brands must adapt to engage their new ‘cyborg’ audiences. 🤖

🤖 ➡️ https://www.prweek.com/article/1898545/connect-cyborg-audience-2025

06/12/2024

Happy Register Your Brand on Bluesky Day! 🦋 From a reputation management perspective, the breakout platform has reached the point where all brands should get their branded handles. Wrote about that this week: https://gregswan.substack.com/p/register-your-brand-on-bluesky

05/12/2024

We took some listener feedback over at The Cave Project, and Jenny and I put together a little "2024 Holiday Gift Guide" based on stuff we both put on our lists, what our kids asked for, and a bunch of technology that runs our house we still recommend. 🎁

Check it out here ➡️

Get a Bird Buddy so our birds can be friends with your birds. 🦆

26/11/2024

Whamageddon is a viral internet game where players try to go from December 1 to Christmas Day without hearing "Last Christmas" by Wham! 🎄 And by knowing about this game, you are now playing whether you planned to play or not. Good luck! 🤞

22/11/2024

If you still haven’t spent any time in , let me convince you to check it out today.

🎷 —> https://open.substack.com/pub/gregswan/p/roblox-rising-shaping-the-future?r=116e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

24/10/2024

Had the BEST time at Mixing Board’s annual in-person summit in Austin, TX this week. 🤠 I shared a keynote presentation about digital-first marketing and integrated PR strategies, met nearly 150 brilliant marcomm leaders, and oh yeah, managed to enjoy tacos for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. 🌮🌮🌮

Big thanks to the organizers and speakers and members sharing such great insights and attitudes about the future we’re building together. 🔥🔥

11/10/2024

Imagine scrolling Instagram and you routinely see images of yourself in different situations, as characters, or even trying on clothes in your feed. It could be coming. Wrote about that this week. 🤡 https://gregswan.substack.com/p/metas-imagine-me-ai-selfie-generator