Jack Appleby

Jack Appleby's core thesis from Future Social: each social platform has a native content language, and content that ignores it underperforms regardless of production quality. TikTok rewards vertical, lo-fi, conversational video with trending audio. LinkedIn rewards text-heavy posts with strong first lines and minimal links. Instagram rewards visually distinctive static and Reels optimised for saves. The failure mode is using the same content across platforms, which reads as inauthentic on every platform.

Summary of Appleby's published framing on earned vs paid social: earned attention comes from content that spreads organically because it is genuinely interesting, funny, or useful to the audience. Paid reach is rented. The best brand social strategies build a flywheel where earned content builds audience trust and social proof, reducing the CAC on paid social for the same audience. Brands that rely only on paid reach have no compounding asset.