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name: emerging-channels description: "Evaluate and plan emerging marketing channels — voice and visual search, conversational and social commerce, communities, podcasts, and video — producing channel evaluation reports with 90-day pilot plans, setup checklists, and go/no-go recommendations. Advises and plans; it does not set platforms up for you. Triggers on "/digital-marketing-pro:emerging-channels", "should we open a TikTok Shop", "is voice search worth optimizing for", "plan a community launch on Discord", "evaluate podcast advertising for us". Reads the brand profile and industry benchmarks, and stamps any dollar figures through the benchmark book before they enter a plan."

Emerging Channels

Benchmark provenance (as of 2026-08): Dollar figures in this document are planning priors, not quotes — market and auction rates drift continuously. Before any figure enters a media plan, budget, or client deliverable, refresh it live (platform dashboards and current published reports beat memory) and record it with python scripts/benchmark_book.py --action record ... --source <url>; quote from the book thereafter (--action quote). Never present an unstamped figure as current market fact.

When to Use This Skill

Activate this skill when the user's request involves any of the following:

• Optimizing content for voice search (Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, smart speakers)
• Preparing for or leveraging visual search (Google Lens, Pinterest Lens, Amazon visual search)
• Building conversational commerce flows (WhatsApp Business, Facebook Messenger, chatbot funnels, SMS marketing)
• Setting up or optimizing social commerce (Instagram Shopping, TikTok Shop, Pinterest Shopping, YouTube Shopping)
• Building, growing, or managing online communities (Discord, Slack, Circle, Facebook Groups, Reddit, forums)
• Planning podcast marketing strategy (branded podcasts, podcast advertising, guest appearances, podcast SEO)
• Developing video marketing strategy across formats and platforms (short-form, mid-form, long-form, live)
• Marketing on newer or underutilized platforms and channels
• Evaluating whether an emerging channel is worth investing in for a specific business
• Understanding platform-specific commerce features and shoppable content
• Designing chatbot conversations and automated messaging funnels
• Building voice applications (Alexa Skills) or surfacing brand content in current Google Assistant/Gemini experiences
• Exploring international messaging platforms (WeChat, LINE, KakaoTalk, Telegram) for commerce

Brand Context (Auto-Applied)

Before producing any marketing output from this module:

1. Check session context — The active brand summary was output at session start. Use the brand name, industry, voice settings, channels, goals, compliance, and competitors shown there.
2. If you need the full profile, read: ~/.claude-marketing/brands/{slug}/profile.json
3. Apply brand voice — Formality, energy, humor, authority levels must shape all content tone and word choices
4. Check compliance — Auto-apply rules for brand's target_markets and industry using skills/context-engine/compliance-rules.md
5. Reference industry benchmarks — Consult skills/context-engine/industry-profiles.md for the brand's industry
6. Use platform specs — Reference skills/context-engine/platform-specs.md for character limits and format requirements
7. Check campaign history — Run python "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/campaign-tracker.py" --brand {slug} --action list-campaigns before planning new work
8. If no brand exists, say: "No brand profile found. Use /digital-marketing-pro:brand-setup to create one, or I can proceed with general best practices."
9. Check brand guidelines — If ~/.claude-marketing/brands/{slug}/guidelines/_manifest.json exists, load and enforce: restrictions.md for banned words, restricted claims, and mandatory disclaimers; channel-styles.md for channel-specific tone overrides (may differ from base voice); messaging.md for approved key messages, taglines, and positioning language; voice-and-tone.md for detailed voice rules beyond the 4 numeric scores. If producing content for a specific channel, channel style rules take precedence over base voice settings.

Do not ask the user for information that already exists in their brand profile.

Required Context

Before executing, gather the following from the user (ask if not provided):

• Business type: B2B, B2C, D2C, local business, marketplace, SaaS
• Target audience: Demographics, digital behavior, platform preferences, and purchase patterns
• Current channels: Which marketing channels are already active and performing
• Goals: Awareness, engagement, lead generation, direct sales, community building, or content distribution
• Budget and resources: Available investment for new channel experimentation, content production capacity, and team bandwidth
• Product/service: What is being sold and its purchase complexity (impulse vs considered purchase)
• Geography: Target markets, as channel adoption varies significantly by region
• Tech stack: Current ecommerce platform, CRM, marketing automation, and integration capabilities
• Risk tolerance: Willingness to invest in unproven channels vs preference for established channels with clearer ROI
• Timeline: Short-term (testing) vs long-term (building a sustained presence)

Capabilities

Voice Search Optimization

• Query pattern analysis: Voice queries are longer, more conversational, and more question-based than typed queries. Optimize for natural language patterns ("What's the best Italian restaurant near me" vs "Italian restaurant NYC")
• Content structure for voice: Featured snippet optimization, FAQ schema markup, concise answer paragraphs (40-60 words for Google's spoken responses), and position zero targeting
• Speakable schema markup: Implementing structured data that identifies sections of content suitable for text-to-speech playback by voice assistants
• Local voice search: "Near me" query optimization, Google Business Profile completeness, local schema markup, and review volume/recency
• Voice commerce: Voice-initiated purchasing flows, reorder by voice, voice-exclusive promotions, and integration with Amazon Alexa shopping
• Voice app development: When to build Alexa Skills, use cases (brand utilities, content delivery, customer service), and discovery optimization. Google sunset its conversational-actions platform in June 2023 — reach Google Assistant/Gemini users through well-structured web content and schema markup instead of a standalone voice app

Visual Search

• Image optimization for search: Descriptive file names, comprehensive alt text, high-quality images from multiple angles, and consistent image sizing
• Google Lens optimization: Product images that are easily identifiable by visual recognition, unique product design elements, and schema markup for products
• Pinterest Lens strategy: Lifestyle imagery, shoppable pins, visual similarity to trending Pinterest content, and Pinterest SEO
• Structured data for visual search: Product schema, image schema, and video schema that help search engines understand visual content
• Visual search commerce: Enabling "search by photo" on ecommerce sites, visual similarity recommendations, and AR try-on features
• Platform-specific visual search: Amazon visual search, ASOS Style Match, and retailer-specific visual search capabilities

Conversational Commerce

• WhatsApp Business: Catalog setup, automated greetings, quick replies, broadcast lists, WhatsApp Business API for scale, and click-to-WhatsApp ads
• Chatbot funnels: Lead qualification bots, product recommendation bots, customer support bots, appointment booking bots, and cart recovery bots
• Conversation design: Writing chatbot scripts that feel natural, handling edge cases gracefully, knowing when to escalate to human agents, and maintaining brand voice in automated interactions
• SMS marketing: Opt-in compliance (TCPA), message frequency optimization, promotional vs transactional messages, segmentation, and two-way SMS conversations
• Messenger marketing: Facebook Messenger bots, sponsored messages, recurring notifications, and integration with Meta ad campaigns
• International messaging platforms: WeChat Official Accounts and Mini Programs (China), LINE Official Accounts (Japan/SE Asia), KakaoTalk Channels (Korea), Telegram Bots (Eastern Europe/Middle East)
• Conversational AI: Using LLMs for more natural chat interactions, hybrid AI-human support models, and training conversational AI on brand knowledge bases

Social Commerce

• Instagram Shopping: Shop setup, product tagging in posts/Stories/Reels, live shopping, Shopping from Creators, and checkout optimization
• TikTok Shop: Product listing, affiliate marketplace, live shopping events, shoppable videos, and TikTok Shop Ads integration
• Pinterest Shopping: Product pins, catalog integration, shopping Ads, and Pinterest's visual discovery to purchase pipeline
• YouTube Shopping: Product shelves, shopping tags in videos, live shopping, and Shorts shopping integration
• Social storefront optimization: Product descriptions for social context (different from website), social-first imagery, pricing strategy for social buyers
• Live shopping: Platform selection, host preparation, production requirements, engagement tactics, and conversion optimization for real-time selling
• Shoppable content strategy: Integrating commerce into organic content without making every post a sales pitch; editorial-to-commerce ratio guidance

Community Building

• Platform selection: Discord (real-time, younger demographics, gaming/tech), Slack (professional, B2B), Circle (course/membership), Facebook Groups (broad demographics, easy onboarding), Reddit (niche interests, authenticity-focused), brand-owned forums (full control, SEO benefits)
• Community health metrics: Daily/weekly/monthly active members, post frequency, response rate, member-to-member interactions (not just brand-to-member), retention rate, and NPS
• Growth flywheel: Content attracts members, members create content, content attracts more members. Design the initial content and engagement loops that start this flywheel
• Moderation strategy: Community guidelines, moderation team structure (paid moderators, volunteer mods, AI moderation), escalation procedures, and transparency in enforcement
• Community-led growth: Using community as a top-of-funnel acquisition channel, community members as beta testers and product advisors, and community content as marketing content
• Monetization: When and how to monetize (premium tiers, events, courses, marketplace), without destroying community culture
• Community manager role: Skills needed, time commitment, empowerment level, and integration with marketing and product teams

Podcast Marketing

• Branded podcast strategy: When to create a branded podcast (thought leadership, audience building, customer education), format selection (interview, narrative, solo commentary, panel), and production quality tiers
• Podcast advertising: Host-read vs programmatic ads, CPM benchmarks ($18-50 for host-read mid-roll), frequency and reach planning, and attribution methods (vanity URLs, promo codes, pixel-based)
• Guest appearance strategy: Identifying target podcasts, crafting pitches, preparing talking points, and maximizing each appearance with social promotion and backlinks
• Podcast SEO: Show titles, episode titles, show notes optimization, transcript publishing, and distribution across platforms (Apple, Spotify, YouTube, Google)
• Podcast-to-content pipeline: Repurposing podcast episodes into blog posts, social clips, email content, and video snippets to maximize ROI