Budgets tend to leak when a brand asks one format to do another’s job. Reels are your best shot at strangers. The algorithm pushes them to people who don’t follow, so if nobody’s name is there, start there. It sits on the profile for months, and it’s when somebody plays your reel or shorts back to back and that means they are loving the creator’s taste and worth following. If that creator promoted any product, AI tools, and etc., but plenty of people not quickly buy it, but will check it. Stories and shorts are short lived and casual, which suits an “I actually use this” moment, and it’s that moment where nobody expected it; over stories tend to feel fake.

UGC is the odd one out. The creator makes the content, but it’s run on the creator’s own channel of creators and ads instead of theirs. Brands often get better performance from it than from studio shoots. Ask for raw footage too.