Produced By - Be the Answer: How AEO Changes Everything About Brand Visibility | 126: Adrien Thomas

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

Adrien Thomas is the co-founder of Crescendo, an agency helping brands become the first name AI recommends. After more than a decade in digital consulting, Adrien made a bold move from France to Singapore to help his company expand globally. Then Covid hit. What followed was a journey of rebuilding, rethinking, and eventually launching his own business. Today, Crescendo is at the forefront of AI-native visibility, helping brands show up inside ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity, not just on Google.In this episode, Adrien opens up about the reality of moving across continents to chase big goals, what it takes to build something from scratch, and why visibility in the age of AI is about so much more than search. You'll get a crash course in SEO, AEO and GEO, along with practical tips on growing your brand on LinkedIn without burning out. It’s part masterclass, part mindset shift, with a healthy dose of real talk on what it means to grow a business while still enjoying your life.Connect with Adrien:https://www.linkedin.com/in/athomas-lkdin/https://x.com/_AdrienThomas_https://www.crescendoagency.aihttps://www.youtube.com/@CrescendoAgency/Timestamps:00:00 – Cold open: AI is the new homepage01:01 – Intro: Meet Adrien Thomas, co-founder of Crescendo02:14 – Moving from France to Singapore for a new role03:47 – Starting from scratch during the pandemic06:15 – How Crescendo was born and why AI visibility matters08:58 – SEO, AEO, GEO: What they mean and why they matter11:48 – Search is out, answers are in13:30 – Teaching the machine to trust your brand15:44 – Why visibility in 2025 needs a new strategy17:50 – From 0 to 10k: How Adrien grew on LinkedIn20:25 – Using AI for support, not identity22:57 – What builds real authority online25:49 – Repurposing content that earns visibility27:42 – Boundaries, burnout, and staying consistent30:30 – Your bio is your prompt now32:50 – Think ecosystems, not just content35:00 – A new playbook for brand growth37:15 – Forget vanity metrics, focus on trust39:40 – Inside the agency: running Crescendo42:20 – Leadership, lifestyle, and agency life44:57 – Growth that fits your life, not just your goals47:12 – Future of Crescendo and AI-native visibility49:38 – Advice for creators and founders in 202551:00 – Where to follow Adrien + closing thoughts Connect with Tomas:X: https://x.com/TomasLoucky⁠⁠⁠Stan: https://stan.store/TommenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/⁠⁠Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠⁠Unproduced:Newsletter: https://unproduced.substack.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@unproducednotesSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033Ddo8ibDlLYoaP7FFLIWMore:Links: https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠⁠⁠Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://producednewsletter.substack.com/⁠The Podcast Club: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/25420030/Tools & gear that support the show:Metricool: https://f.mtr.cool/HRJBZKRiverside: https://riverside.sjv.io/vDnDodFavikon: https://www.favikon.com?fpr=tommenRa Optics: https://ra-optics.myshopify.com/discount/TOMMEN?rfsn=8803777.591d19JamX: https://jamx.ai/podcasters-offer?ref_id=e02d48af-ef66-4e76-b804-c2e8d282a8bfSome links are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. If you find them useful, using these links helps keep the podcast running. Thank you!  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There is a lot of competition first because you can see three type of competitors. The traditional SEO agencies that has been doing SEO for many, many years, and that like we did, saw the shift in customer behavior, like moving from traditional search Google towards AI platforms. So they adapt as well, right? So they made an AEO offer as part of their offering to their clients. So I would say traditional SEO agency is an AEO offer, basically like us. And then we have the traditional AEO offer.

agency that don't want to adapt, I don't want to shift. They continue to push SEO and they are more like geo is rubbish. And basically, you should continue to only do SEO 100%. Which to me is very dangerous for their clients. Because even if SEO remains the foundation of your online visibility strategy and should remain the foundation, AEO is a bit different. There is more nuance into it. So you need to adapt because Google doesn't work like CHAPT.

So you need to adapt. And the third is like the brand new AO agency that are saying SEO is dead. Before we dive into today's episode, please hit that subscribe button. Your support helps us grow and inspire more people on their journeys. Thank you. Hello, Adrian. Thank you for Jinnah today and welcome to the show. Thanks, Thomas, for having me.

It was about time, right, to do it together. Very true. So, Adrian, for those who don't know you, can you please introduce yourself? Yeah, sure. So I'm Adrian. I'm French, obviously. you can hear the accent. I'm 37 years old now, time flies.

Living in Southeast Asia, and I am the co-founder of Crescendo, which is an AEO, GEO, SEO, agency, and I guess we didn't elaborate on this a bit later in the show. And you also forgot to mention that you are the writer of the best AI news on LinkedIn. The best I don't know, but yeah, so every Monday, I have this AI news post on LinkedIn.

but try to recap the most important news that happened in the AI world the past week. It's quite a success. Does it come every Sunday? I used to come every Sunday, but then how to say it. Some people told me it would be good to take some rest during the weekend. So now it's on Monday. And actually, I think it's even better to have it on Monday. Okay, good.

I was curious actually, how do you come up with the news? that you are going to choose. Because I feel like there is so much that happens. So maybe how do you choose what's most interesting, what is going to resonate, and what are the sources where you find it? Yeah, well, quite simply, of course, like the main news that everybody's talking about.

It's easy for me to remember. And then, of course, I'm using AI to find the news, right? Also, a couple of people I follow, especially on X, formerly Twitter, that are doing the job of listing this news, right? So I'm not reinventing the wheel, of course. I try to be efficient. And so I basically pick and choose the one that I found the most interesting and then elaborate a bit more on them, providing a bit more details.

I try always to keep it short for the people to be able to catch it up in two minutes. That's the promise. That's what I enjoy about it, that during the week you see AI news all over the LinkedIn, especially if you follow or are connected with people from the AI world. but you always come up with something that stands out that I haven't heard before. So I think you're doing the great work and I hope that you continue with that. That's the plan. I mean, I don't plan to stop, but I don't plan to make it a newsletter as well

because I wanted to keep it easy for me, to keep it short for the people to read and to catch up. So that's my plan. That's interesting. What platform are you going to use for a newsletter? No, no, I don't plan to use the newsletter, actually. So I don't have any plan to create a newsletter out of it. There is already hundreds of AI newsletter out there. So I prefer to keep it as a simple post, easy for the people to read and to catch up.

That's it. Okay, okay. That is true. I thought that you said that you are going to use the newsletter, but you're right. There are a lot already. A lot. A problem to me with newsletter. We are all subscribing to dozens of newsletter and we barely read them.

So I don't want to create another one. It doesn't make any sense here. That is true. And to come back in your journey when I was doing a bit of more of the research, I know that you moved the countries a bit. And I also did consulting before. So can you tell us more about your journey before joining this AI wave and diving into AI in general? Yeah.

So back in the days, so I started my career 13 years ago, something like that. right here, 2012. Used to be sales guys for consulting firms in France, in Paris. Previously in the automotive industry, then I moved to a big digital IT consulting firm. And this company gave me the opportunity to move to Singapore, to open and establish their first presence, first office up there.

So yeah, I moved to Singapore, December 2019, two months before COVID, basically with the objective to establish a business there and to start, yeah, basically making operation and business operation in Southeast Asia operating from Singapore. I did it until almost the end of 2024 because mid-20204, I co-founded Crescendo, my current venture. And so I stopped being an employee end of 2024. And then I moved to Thailand in January 2025. So from France to Singapore, from Singapore to Thailand, where I live.

the moment. And I wonder what type of person you are when it comes to relocating like this, because it's literally all over the world. So are you someone who's been enthusiastic to try different country, different culture and challenge like this? Or what was it like for you? Yeah, yeah, it's always something I had in my mind. Actually, I did it. When I was still a student, I moved to London for three months. It was during summer. So it was easier, of course. It was like a fixed period of time from June to end August working in London, try to find a job in London and make money. But yeah, I wanted to do it in a bigger way and my previous company, again, like, gave me the opportunity to do it. Which was easy, I guess it's easier to do it with a company because you have a company to support you in this journey, right?

Even if you are moving across the entire globe. First time is the most difficult, to be honest, right? It's a brand new world, you need to learn everything. moving then to Singapore to Bangkok was easier because I already knew the journey, basically. And it's not that far away, is it, from Singapore to Bangkok? No, it's not that far away, but I would say the distance is not what really matters here. It's more like how easy it is to relocate from a country to another, especially in terms of paperwork. Singapore, I guess, is the most efficient country in the entire world.

so everything is very easy for you. The moment you have a visa, your visa is approved, everything is quite easy. Opening a bank account, getting the actual visa, finding an apartment, etc, etc. Thailand is a bit more challenging, let's say. Or you used to give it more challenging.

Okay. I would maybe expect the opposite since it's quite popular country among, I would say, digital formats as well, probably not as Bali, but still I would assume that they are more open, or not? It's not really a question of being open. It's a question of like how easy it is to get the visa you want. I have a working visa.

Most of the others, they don't have a working visa. I don't need to give too much detail. That's not the main issue. I mean, the main topic here, basically. But for example, with most, like most of the so-called digital nomad, the visa they have, they can't open a bank account, yeah, for example, right. So which make their life a bit more difficult on a daily basis. Yeah, I can imagine.

And you also said before that once you moved to Singapore, it was just a few months before the COVID, right? Yeah. Literally two months. How did you find it then? You know, because it was unexpected, challenging time. So I can imagine moving to a new country, having some expectation and suddenly this happens. So what was it like for you? Let's be honest, right?

It wasn't part of the plan. It wasn't part of the roadmap. The roadmap was to settle down in Singapore, to build a strong business. quickly and to be able to travel all over like all across like Southeast Asia and at the end of the day we've been stuck 18 months in Singapore because the first time I left was September 2021 to go back to go back to France finally to see family and friends right so yeah it was worst off especially because Singapore was quite strict as well back in the days in terms of number of people that could gather and stuff like that right so the worst was

when we could only be two, everywhere you go. So like to have dinner, just to have a beer or stuff, or just two people maximum. So it's impossible to make friends. And when you, I mean, when you relocate, you need to make friends right.

So most of time. And how did you find living there in general, such as in such a country? Because I've never been there. So is it, did you like enjoy living there? You know, like the environment, culture and everything?

I mean, yeah, we stayed for five years. So definitely we, enjoyed just that Singapore is a small country, right? I actually cycled around the entire country, it's just 125 kilometers. So that did. But yeah, as I was saying, everything is working extremely well. Everything is extremely secure. To do business, it's one of the best place on earth. To do business, right, or even to establish a business. But after a few years, you feel a bit stuck. You feel a bit like Singapore is small. Every time you want to go somewhere else, it means taking a flight.

So now in Bangkok, I just can rent a car and drive two hours. And I'm in the beach in the middle of the jungle, stuff like that, which is great after five years, being in the city. I thought that you rent a car, you drive a few hours and you're on a golf court. Not a few hours of them. Like 30 minutes. That's a good thing, right? Golfing in Singapore is extremely expensive. Enjoyable, but expensive.

And Thailand, yeah, it's cheaper, which is good. and you have plenty of options. So I'm enjoying that part much more for sure. It might be a really question, but have you got any plans or ideas if you want to move somewhere else in the future or stay for now? Stay for now.

It's just been 10 months. So it's still in the very beginning. I kind of made myself a promise to never make big plans because you never know what's going to happen and COVID is the perfect example right. It wasn't part of the plan. It happened.

you need to figure it out. Even Singapore, my relocation to Singapore, like a month before we made a decision, I never thought about it, right? Like, I never, I've never been to Singapore before. I never went to Singapore before. And I took the decision without, like, putting a foot in Singapore, right? So you never know what's going to happen to you.

Yeah, that is a good point. What was then the moment when you decided to leave that company and start your own? That's a good question. Two things first. So funny thing, I met my co-founder literally the day before the COVID lockdown. So in Singapore, they call it the lockdown. So I met him the day before and we met after the lockdowns on two months,

two months later. So it became like a very good friend and we always wanted to make the business together, never get any idea, like concrete ideas, an AI in his public. And that's where we decided basically to make a business around the area. We'll talk about it, I guess, right after. So that's one. And the second is like, well, I moved to Singapore with the objective to establish a business from scratch in a new country, in a new part of the world, I don't know. So it was a kind of entrepreneurship, as we call it.

And so at some point, I was like, I did it for a company. I can do it for myself, right? And so that's where I make the decision, basically. That is true. And you mentioned AI. I would then someone who's been always somehow interested in AI, or did you see it as opportunity once it started growing, once they were like Chach GPD and stuff? Or what was it like for you? It was really when Chad GPT has been released public because I was still the managing director for this previous company. I had a small team, and so I always had the challenge to do more with the headcount that I got, right?

So managing the headcount was quite challenging. And so AI arrived, CHGPT arrived, and it was a very good way for me to be able to do more with less, basically. So I started exploring it, experimenting with CHGPT every single day to try to speed up everything I was doing back then. And then I realized that, yeah, there is a huge opportunity,

the business opportunity to help company leveraging AI. Basically, the price I went through to be able to replicate this for, for this company by trying to make it simple. And that's how the idea of creating Crescendo at first came. And with AI, there are obviously many like angles, how you can look at it, the ways that you can work. But I think that your focus is at least to me quite unique

because I haven't really seen like anyone else or any other company to do that, at least on LinkedIn. So why did you actually pick this specific topic that you are focusing on in question. Yeah, that's a good question. So when we started in mid-2024, to make it simple, we had no precise idea of what we wanted to do, like in terms of offers, in terms of like services,

it was just helping companies to leverage AI. So we went, I mean, we covered them all. We did automation, we did AI agent, we created visuals, videos a bit, And my co-founder has been doing SEO for 15 years now. So we know everything about search, right? So we started also to have clients on the SEO side. And then the web search arrived on these LLMs.

So we started to push this AEO first, how to make this business visible on AI platforms. But early 2025, still in January 2025, we were doing everything. And then we realized that it wasn't sustainable. right, because we couldn't focus on a single thing and make it valuable and make it efficient in the way to deliver this offer. So earlier this year, we decided to fully focus

just on one thing and this one thing is now AEO, GEO, even SEO still. So basically how to make business visible online, whether it's on Google, the traditional SEO, or on chat GPT and LLMs, which is AEO for answer engine optimization. So we finally decided to niche down. Everybody's talking about niching down. Very easy to say, quite tough to do.

So after six to seven months, we finally managed to do it. And you just mentioned some important terms now. I'm sure that there is a question that many people ask you. And for those who do know, can you explain these terms that you mentioned? First, let's talk about AEO, GEO, AISO, L-LM-S-E-O, I guess I read. To me, I mean, I'm French, I'm quite rude. It's bullshit. It's like the market will decide which terms will sustain, basically.

But here we are all talking about the same things. You can have some potential nuance for the person that are extremely expert in the matter, right? But they're covering the same thing, which is how to make you visible on AI platform. That's it, right? So, AEO or GEO, that the most common terms is just how to make you visible, right? how to adopt the proper strategy to make any business visible on chatypT or AI overview or perplexity or cloud or whatever. Compared to SEO, it stands for search engine optimization, which is how to make you visible, how to make you rank page one on Google,

which most of the businesses have done for many, many years now. Yeah, okay, that makes sense. And what I said before was that I don't really see much of the competition or at least on LinkedIn. But it's just me, or maybe I just don't follow it. But you, as a professional, what is like the market when it comes to the competition, other people that talk about it, and just competition? Yeah.

And it's a good question. There is a lot of competition first because, I mean, I can see three types of competitors, right? The traditional SEO agencies that has been doing SEO for many, many years. And that, like we did, so the. shift in customer behavior, like moving from traditional search, Google, towards AI platforms. So they adapt as well, right? So they made a NEO offer as part of their offering to their client.

So I would say traditional SEO agency is an AEO offer, basically like us. And then we have the traditional SEO agency that don't want to adapt, that don't want to shift. They continue to push SEO and they, they are more like, geo is rubbish and basically you should continue to only do SEO 100% which to me is very dangerous for their clients because even if SEO remains the foundation of your online visibility strategy and should remain the foundation aio is a bit different there is more nuance into it so you need to adapt because

Google doesn't work like CHAPT so you need to adapt and the third is like the brand new AOA agency that are saying SEO is dead which is even more dangerous for potential clients because if you are, as I was saying, if you totally ditch SEO, you're never going to be visible on LLMs. So actually it's even more dangerous that's the second type of potential competition. Yeah. And I can imagine it's going to be even more interesting with all the updates when it comes to AI, right? Yeah, more especially the brand new one that appeared like that has been announced last week with Shopify, be integrated directly into CHATGPT and the payment protocol directly into CHATGPT.

So yeah, basically tomorrow CHATGPT is going to be a full distribution channel. So you're going to be able to search any information, but you're going to be able to book, buy, like book an hotel, buy directly a product, directly inside CHATGPT into clicks. Like you will do in any e-commerce websites. So at the moment it's a pure search engine, as per se, right? Tomorrow is going to be a full distribution channel. And again, people is going to need to adapt. Business is going to need to adapt.

Who knows when someone is watching this recording in the future, it might sound a bit outdated, what we are talking about. That's going to be the norm. I can give you a concrete example. So like many people, I just started playing paddle two weeks ago. So I needed the full equipment. I needed new shoes. I needed to buy a racket and everything.

So I went to JGPT and I just was looking for like, what are the best option for Paddle shoes, right, that I can find in Bangkok. So ChachyPT provides me with options, like the name and links to redirect me to e-commerce shops, right? Like Amazon, like whatever. Tomorrow, you can ditch this part and you're directly going to have the ability to buy the product directly from ChachypT in two clicks. So the experience is even better because Chachapit provides you with the best options

and the ability to buy it, to purchase it instantly. So that's great. Crazy how it progresses. And what are the type of the clients that you work with? Are there any specifications, such as focus, size, demographics, or it can be anyone? At the moment, it's, I will say, bit anyone that's not really true, but to a point. So we have niched down in terms of offer. We haven't niched down in terms of pure business vertical or industry.

So that's potentially the next move. So now we are working mainly at the moment with small and mid businesses, so SMEs, SMVs, that are across the globe. So we have clients in Australia. We have clients, of course, in Southeast Asia, Ireland, Singapore, Hong Kong. We have clients in Europe, in France, UK, in the Middle East and in the US, even in a client in Guatemala. So we are working across the globe. That's not really an issue, mainly with mid-sized companies. in terms of industry, more and more with financial services, fintech and SaaS platform as a whole,

and everything around legal services, like low firm and everything legal services. And we discussed it a bit before when talking about that some see it, that SEO is enough, other see the potential, but can you say kind of in general, if you feel like that the people and the businesses are realizing it's important, or it's still, for example, important for you to talk about this topic so that it reaches more people and they actually know that there is something like that. We are still very early, right? And actually, recent studies that has been released, like only on average,

it's between 8% to 16% of the company, depending on if they're small, mid or enterprise, basically, right? So 8 to 16% of these companies are focusing on AI visibility. So we are still extremely early into the process. And there is a lot of education that needs to be made. That's what I try to do with my content and with the YouTube channels that we have, right? To explain to people what is AEO and what are the differences with SEO, because that's the biggest question.

The question that always comes first. Yet, I have more and more leads, more and more prospect that are reaching out. And I always are reaching out because they see the potential. How do they finally see the potential? It's because they recently got first leads, first clients coming from the GPT. So for them, it was a kind of a wow effect, like the ha-ha moment. As we say, like, okay, it's real. It's not just a trend.

It's not just rubbish stuff that so-called influencer are saying on the web. it is true. I do have traffic coming from LLMs and I do have leads and clients coming from JGPT. So now they are seeing the potential and they want to double down on this. That makes sense. So what would be like the main channel for you where you get the clients? Would it be actually LinkedIn? We are really all bound. As we said to me, that's the best strategy. So we try to address every channel of acquisition, meaning to say we are doing outbound like marketing, email marketing. Of course, we are doing SEO and AEO.

Content, so LinkedIn, especially that's the main platform I focus on. So we do have leads coming directly from LinkedIn and from our website. And then referral, like our personal network, of course, like the people we know. And then referral from people we know or from existing clients. So really, we try to cover them all. And we have clients coming from all this channel. So again, we haven't decided if it makes sense for us to, niche down as well in terms of like channel of acquisition.

Even if we don't do, we have done a bit of ads, but it costs a lot of money and the result are so, so, let's say. So yeah, it's not something we want to focus on. Who knows? Hopefully in the future clients will come from YouTube as well. That's very difficult to track. I mean, I'm always asking like the people that are reaching out, like the in-bound, how they find us,

considering the traffic that we have on the YouTube. YouTube channel. I guess, yeah. To me, it's more a question of, we mainly see our YouTube channel as a authority platform, right, more than the early generation platform, I will say. Right. So it's more like for the people, they need to know more information. They need to be educated basically on the AO. They see with our videos, they got answered to their question. And basically, it helps us to position ourselves as experts, of course, in the domain. Right. So I see it more as an authority generation, more than. than lead generation as well.

I agree. And I think it definitely helps with branding of yourself or your co-founder, because when people come across, they go to LinkedIn, they go to other links, and just to help to build you as expert in the field. Yeah, I mean, like I can give you a concrete example. I contacted like a cold DMing on LinkedIn someone. This person accepted my request for connection. Never replied to my DM, but she went to my profile. She went to YouTube, because she told me later on,

and she filled out the contact form in our landing page, rather than replying to my deal. So it shows, yeah, it's a bit crazy to me, right? It would have been easier just to reply, but it shows that how potential customers, like the journey they are doing, right? You can't expect this to happen, but it happens. So that's why to me, all bound is the best strategy and you need to cover all the channel,

because you don't know how your client is going to behave, behave, basically. Very sure. And as we are discussing social media, our favorite platform, LinkedIn, when and why did you start on the platform? I started when I quit my job officially, so it was 1st November, basically,

2024. So not even a year ago, the moment we are recording this podcast, we are mid-October, not a year ago. So before that, I never posted anything interesting in a sense that, yeah, like I was like reposting, company posts, stuff like that.

I'll see very valuable. I will say to my potential audience. And I started to do it, like for personal branding, of course, right? And also because I knew that it was a good channel to build authority, to build a personal brand. And at the end of the day, to potentially generate leads. Right. It was not as simple as that. Also, honestly, expecting that you started much longer or way before.

because if I remember correctly, you recently hit a beautiful milestone, right? Yeah, 10,000. It's a good milestone. Honestly, make me love because I'm not chasing virality. I'm not chasing followers count. It's not that I don't care. It's important because if you want to address people,

you need to be in front of people. So, of course, that's the way to work, right? The more followers you have, the bigger your chance to reach, right, to get more impression. So it does matter. People saying it doesn't matter. I don't believe them, it does matter. If you want to speak to more people,

you need to have a bigger audience. but I'm not making my content to try to get viral or try to get followers, right, that are not valuable if I can say so, right? So now I just started a year ago and I tried to pause, try to four times a week. And I just hit 10,000. Well, congrats again. And my favorite question, which I have to ask, is what would be your advice to people or to audience or if someone goes into your DMs

and asks you, you know, Adrian, how to go viral, how to grow. Any recommendations or advice on this? First, how to go viral? I don't know, because I've never been viral. I can give my most performing post just got something like 70,000 impression. So it's not that big compared to others, right?

So it's not viral at all. That's, actually it was my second post, I guess, when I said I relocated to Bangkok, so something very personal, right? It has nothing to do with AI or AO or whatever. So how to be viral? I don't know so I can't teach people because I've never been. To me, the most important is to define an objective. Like, why are you doing it?

Right. Are you doing it to generate leads? Are you doing it to build a personal brand? How are you doing it? I don't know, just to create a newsletter and have more subscribers to your newsletter. So you need to define an objective and then your entire content strategy needs to be aligned this strategy, right? Do you just want to have the more likes on your post? That could be your your most important Patrick, right? So the moment you have this in mind, the moment you have defined

your objective, right? It's easier to define your strategy. I have my own objective with VingDim. So I've built an entire process, an entire system around this that helps me now to be able to write a post in end-to-end, 30 minutes maximum. So now I try to batch all my content into half a day. It takes me 30 minutes for one post, so let's say two to three hours maximum for my content for a full week. And that's it, of course, using AI to speed up the process, right? I will be stupid not to do it.

And even if you have people saying, oh, you shouldn't use AI to write to me that's rubbish as well. Because again, there is a difference between copy pasting the output from AI and using AI to speed up the process. And then you fine tune it with your own world, with your own materials, with your own point of view, basically. want to try to do and why I would recommend anyone to do.

Yeah, I can only agree. And as we know from our experience, sometimes people can be quite funny and creative with AI comments, right? Yeah, I guess we are sharing a passion, common passion for AI comments. Right. So to me, I agree, it's an advice. It's like lots of people I talk to, they are, and again, I'm not like a LinkedIn influencer or whatever.

So I'm just sharing my thoughts. here is like a lot of people struggling to press the post button because they are afraid to be judged by other people, I guess, or they are afraid that what they're going to say is not valuable. Start commenting. Comment on other people post is the most easiest way for you to start being comfortable, right? To start the process. And yes, to comment, please don't use it. Make absolutely no sense.

If you're not able to write 50 word or 100 word, comment on your own like manually. Yes, you're going to struggle later on. So start commenting manually, right? Start sharing your own point of view on other people post. It's going to help you to kickstart the process. It's going to help you to be more comfortable with both writing and sharing your ideas. And then you should be able to be more comfortable to write your own post, basically.

I think, I don't know if people try to speed up the process or they overthink it, but I feel like that literally just a few words that are authentic and by yourself. It's much more valuable than a long AI comment, that it's super formal in a language that no one speaks in a real life. And again, even 10 quality commands are much better than how many. 50 that are super artificial and get lost in all the comments that sound the same and in the end don't tell you anything. So my advice to people would be just, I know everyone says that, but be yourself, don't overthink it and focus on quality over quantity.

And it works. I do agree. It works because I have most of my comment on big content creator posts, right, where I share something, I guess it's valuable. They print like crazy in terms of impression. Some of my comments perform way better than my usual post. So again, I can share the metrics because I'm not chasing impression. On average, I make something between 5,000 to 10,000 impressions at the moment, right? So absolutely nothing crazy. I have comments that goes 20, 30,000 impression. So you can get visibility as well with coming. That's crazy to me.

I don't understand it, but that's how it works. So don't be afraid to comment. Actually, it's easier for you. You don't have to overthink it. And you can definitely share something valuable or at least your unique point of view in 20, 30 words. and DVD board. I agree. I hope this convinces people.

Are you struggling to stay consistent on LinkedIn? Fanpost helps you create high quality posts in minutes so you can write faster, show up more and stress way less. Built by creators for creators is the easiest way to grow your presents without burning out. Try it free at fanpost.com. So, Adrian, we've been discussing the content creation and AI. So what will be some of your favorite tools, whether for content creation, any AI related or just the tools that you use as a part of your process?

Yeah, well, good question because that's my tomorrow's post, actually. So that's what I'm using for my content creation. So already everything in mind. Nothing fancy, nothing original, I will say, as per se. First and foremost, my most important tool is my brain, because everything I'm writing on, come from there. And again, to me that's very important. If you use AI end-to-end, you're just going to generate fluffy stuff, generic stuff. And everyone can do it. So what's the point to read your content to follow your profile and stuff like that? So I guess now that it's becoming easier and easier to generate content,

good content with a unique point of view or with valuable stuff in it should pop up, even if we're all complaining about the LinkedIn algorithm at the moment, but whatever. So it should happen, right? So yeah, everything starts from there. And I then to move it from my brain to something written, I use something called Super Whisper, which is a very small speech-to-text AI tool.

So basically I just press the record button. I dump everything I have in my head, and then I get the transcript, basically. So it gives me the raw material. So every time I have an ID, every time I want to talk about something, I just read the record button of Super Whisper, spit it out, and then I got the text. So it gives me the raw materials. If it's something where I need more data,

then I'm going to use perplexity to get data from or GROC to get additional data, additional material on top of my own materials, right? So then I get materials, the raw materials. Then I go to Cloud that I'm still using. I have a Cloud project. That's how it's called in Cloud. A cloud project that is trained on my top. trained on my ton of voice and trained on all my previous posts.

So basically, then the club project gives me a very good first draft I can use and work with. Then I start fattunic a bit manually. I go to chat gpti. In chat gpt, I have a custom gpt I made. That is a kind of a brutal advisor that gives me honest, brutal feedback on the first draft. And even if I really don't like how chat gpt is writing the way to write stuff, I use it mainly to give me another point of view to give me another angle, perspective, basically. Right. And with this, I can finalize my post. So that's the writing part. And then the usual stuff,

I use Conva, mainly for everything visual, everything, illustration, so the carousel, the one-pager, the infographic and stuff like that that you can find on my post to illustrate them. The notion to manage everything around content from dumping ideas, to scheduling, to draft, and to the final piece of content. And recently, because we launched our YouTube channel in July, Opus clip to convert this long format content videos into short videos, basically. The usual stuff, please. Yeah, nothing, no secrets as we are hoping.

No secret. But I guess to me, that's the point. You don't need to overthink it. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. Honestly, you can even start with a simple one, one tool. You just go to judge youp. and you can start, right? That is true.

And you don't need all the stuff I talked about. You need your brain and try GPT and you can start. And find what works for you. If it works for someone, it doesn't mean that it has to work for you. Just explore, try and see what fits you. Exactly. And quick tips or hack or golden nuggets, whatever the term is. Like, if you really don't know how to start,

like you really can't write a couple of first posts to try to identify. your own ton of voice, sorry. Just go up there, gather some posts from your favorite content creator. When I say favorite, it's like the writing style you like. It could be yours, it could be some other writer. You put it into Cloud or chat GPT or whatever and ask him to analyze this tone of voice, right?

And to come up with a tone of voice guideline, then you can use on your own to create your own post. At least it gives you something to start. And then you can fine tune everything and ask the GPT or Cloud or whatever to reanalyze your most recent post and then you fine tune your tone of voice as well. That's how I did it visit. In other words, go to Adrian's profile, scroll his post, copy on the place. If you like the way I write, if it resonates for you, do it, do it, right? If you prefer some other people in the writing style, take their post

and extract the tone of voice guideline. That's the best way to start. And what will be some of your inspirations, such as people that you follow either on LinkedIn because you like their content or from the AI world to keep up or people whose content you just like in general? Oh, there is many. There is many.

It's going to be difficult to name all of them. I just want to name one, someone that I think is very inspiring in the way it approves. LinkedIn, which is Matt Barker, if I pronounce it correctly, Berker. I don't know how to pronounce it correctly in English with my French accent. Because I really like the perspective it has on the LinkedIn game, basically right? It has to be fun, it has to be easy, no headache, it doesn't have to be time consuming and painful. I mean, the moment it's starting to be painful or taking too much of your time, you should revise the way you do it or the way you see it, right?

even if the way, I really like the way he writes his post, even if I write it in a very different way. But the approach he has, the perspective he has, is very aligned with what I try to do. Or, I mean, in the near future, right? Because everything is quite unique. Everything is written like a, like he did in five minutes. And I'm pretty sure he writes all his post in five minutes, basically. And that's how it should be, shouldn't be complex, basically. So even my own process at the moment, I try to make it even more streamlined.

Yeah, I understand and I agree. Now, I know that in the beginning we talked about planning, that you like not to plan too much in advance, which I understand, but have you got like any goals or even like short-term plans, whether it's with our agency, with LinkedIn or even from outside to share with us? It's not a plan. It's like a project. So we are, of course, we continue to scale the agency, all right? The agency, just not even one year, a bit more than one year, actually.

But we have finished down what we are doing just a few months ago. So still the beginning, it's working well. But at the same time, we are building our own SaaS, our own tool that is made for our internal purpose as well to deliver the project, I mean, to deliver the project for our client. and we expect to release it public, right, by the end of the year. So that's one of the main focus that we have at the moment. That's not a plan, that's a concrete project that hopefully is going to be live in next few weeks. Oh, it sounds impressive and cool, so we'll be looking forward to it.

Yeah, well, you can expect some posts on this for sure. I know Adrian that I asked you this question before, but for people that are wondering, what's the reason behind the name of the agency? Crescendo you mean, yeah. As far as I can remember, so of course, we use CETT. So first, yeah, it's a Italian word, right? Crescendo.

It has a meaning right in English, I guess. It has the same meaning or it doesn't mean anything in English. I don't even know, to be honest. I honestly feel like that it's something from music, but I might be completely wrong. Yeah, but I don't know what it is. So to go crescendo, it's to go slow at first and then to accelerate, right? Or to start small and to expand, basically.

Right. So that's this idea, crescendo. It's to go to go crescendo. If I try to make it like French to English tradition, world to a tradition. So start small, expand, start slow and go faster. That's basically how we found it. We used Shagipati, of course, right, to come up with names. And we wanted something that doesn't sound.

like AI, like IT, like consulting firm, right? So he proposed a lot of options. Most of them were totally rubbish. And then I don't know how. Crescent Doe pops. And it was crystal clear that it's going to be the name of the agency. It sounds very nice. It's very easy to remember.

So yeah, we decided to go with this one. Yeah, it makes sense. And I like it as well. Then, Agen, before we finish, I like to ask a few lighter questions. So what is it that you like to do in your free time or what are some of your hobbies? You already mentioned the main one, which is golf. So I started during COVID. So that's a positive side of the COVID period, right?

Eating my co-founder and starting golf. So I got totally addicted. I mean, like most of the people that started golf and that started golf, sorry. Now there are an addiction, to be honest. So of course, it takes time. so I don't spend all my free time playing golf. That's my goal. You ask me my long-term goal,

if I can play two to four times a week, I would be extremely happy. That would be a goal, right? But now I play once a week. That's basically it. Otherwise, of course, I write. I mean, I write, no, I work a lot because we have lots of projects. Going on at the moment,

so other than that, yeah, playing golf started paddle because I needed to have like a second sport that doesn't take four to five hours to play, right? So that's basically it. Yeah. And do you read books? And if so, have you got any recommendations? I try to read book.

I mean, I try to read one book per month, approximately, or two books a month, depending on how big the book is. Recommendation. Problem is I still read a book in French language, right? Because, of course, I can read English, but I don't want to have to look for words and meaning or stuff I don't understand, so I still prefer to read a book in French.

So I guess it's something you can put in the comment of the video later because I can share it with you later, so I can find the name in English. I just have the name in French, basically. You can say it in French-speaking audience. I mean, one of the best book I ever read is definitely in 1984, which is one of the, I guess, a book someone, anybody has to read at least one.

in their life. And recently, even in France is going to be extremely difficult to say because it's a Russian name. So this one I'll provide it. It's a small book that share one day, just one day, like 24 hours of someone that used to be in the in the Gulag during the USSR, basically, at this period. Very interesting, very easy to read 200 pages, I guess. So no big deal. This one is quite cool. And another one that I read maybe. 10 years ago, but I still remember it, is I am Pilgrim. So this one is very, very good. The name of the author is Terry A's, I guess, if I pronounce it correctly. So I can send you like a list of 5 to 10 that are very important, I guess. And yeah, and also one of my favorite author will be Ken Follett. So it's an Englishman. He made two trilogies extremely good.

So I will recommend anyone to read this. as well. I'm not looking to lie. I don't think I know though, so I will have a look after as well. Then Adrian, we discussed it already, but can you summarize where people can find you, follow you, and promote any of your services? Yeah, so you can mainly find me on LinkedIn, right? That's the main social I used. I try to be a bit more active on X. That's for me, as a person, as an individual. Then for Crescendo, the agency, of course, we are our website, crescendo agency.aI, the YouTube channel, crescendo agency, you can find it quite easily.

Of course, we do have X profile and LinkedIn profile for the agency, but we're not posting anything directly on this profile, to be honest. So yeah, from an individual perspective, many LinkedIn for the agency, the website, and the YouTube channel. And as always, I will add any links to the show notes. And it sounds like that we can expect some more spicy content on X on your personal one. Yeah, on X, I

did it. It doesn't work because I guess I need to spend more time and I don't have this time at the moment. So I try more to interact on the stuff I like. You ask about Obes, I didn't mention it, but I'm a huge basketball fan. I don't play it anymore. But I follow the NBA every day. So I try to interact more with like big account on the NBA side, on the

Gulf side as well. So more to really interact as an individual aside from work, right? Rather than just copy pasting what I post on LinkedIn on X. I don't really see the value at the moment. What's your favorite NBA team? That's a problem. So when I was younger and I started to follow the NBA, it was early 2000. And one of the biggest team back then, one of the Indiana Pacers. So I'm supporting the Indiana Pacers, which is absolutely not common for most people, which has been extremely painful as a fan, franchise fan. I didn't truly follow it, but I was curious. I've got some knowledge, but I don't follow it actively.

But that's interesting, I didn't know. So no, I'm not a Lakers fan or a Boston Celtics fans. It's too easy or Miami fans. Everyone follows those. So then, Agen, very last question? Is there something that I should have asked you and did not, or any final piece of advice or anything you would like to share before we finish? Not that I can think of if I try to sum it up on the main two topics we have covered,

which is the content creation side and what we are doing with my agency, which is the AI visibility side, and I will start with this one. If any businesses is listening to this video or to this podcast, is you can't pass on this anymore. More and more people are only using LLMs for every single own search, right? They are ditching Google search. I don't know if it's your case, Thomas, but personally, I haven't used Google search for many, many months,

and now I'm only using chat GPT, GROC and perplexity, basically, right? And more and more people are doing it. More and more people are looking for services, are looking for product and actually people that are typing a prompt in chat GPT, that's someone that is ready to buy. So you call pass on your AI visibility and it doesn't mean you have to ditch your SEO. As I said, SEO still remain the foundation, but you need to cover the AEO part as well. That's going to be vital and the early movers are going to take a very strong edge on their competition.

That's one. For the content creation part, as I said, don't overthink it even if personally I overthink every post of course right we all do but start small start by commenting that's the most easiest way I will say to make you comfortable with writing

and sharing your ideas in public make it simple for yourself and you don't need thousands of tools to do it just use your brain just reflect on what you did yesterday or the week before to get new ideas use SGPT to get a first draft and just press the post button

that's it I can only agree with that. I encourage people to subscribe and check out your YouTube channel because I think, firstly, it's a great that you started because I know what it's like. It's like a step out of the comfort zone and you've got great content there. And also I think that you're doing a great work with your posting on LinkedIn. Because, for example, me, I do or didn't know much about what we discussed, like AI and SEO, geo and everything.

So it's great that you're spreading the word like that. So thank you for that. And of course, I appreciate you joining me on the podcast. You are one of my favorite people on LinkedIn because I feel like that you are always authentic and it's good to have someone that you have fun with on LinkedIn. So just keep doing the great work. Thank you again for joining me.

And I wish you all the best. Thanks for having me again, Thomas. And all the best to you too. soon on the podcast or on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening to Produce by with Tomen. Check the show notes for all the links. And don't forget to subscribe, like and share your feedback. Speak soon.