Set up your brand, personas, pillars, markets, and claims

Your posts and angles build on your brand, personas, pillars, markets, and claims, so set these up first. They are tabs on the Strategy page: Brand, Messaging, Markets, and Claims & sources. Open Strategy in the sidebar and it opens on Brand. On a phone, the tabs are a list you pick from. Messaging holds personas, pillars, and angles on one page.

Create personas and pillars before you create angles, because angles build on them. Angles have their own guide, Create and assign angles. Targets and Competitors, the last two tabs, have their own guides too.

Brand

Brand holds the facts and voice your posts should follow, plus your visual identity. It has five sections: Brand and voice, Offer, Content exclusions, Visual identity, and Entities and evidence. They're listed on the left, or in a row above on a narrow screen, and the page shows one at a time. Select a section's name to open it. A link to a section, or to Identity links, opens that section.

Under each name, the list shows the section's status:

• Confirmed, with a green check.
• Not confirmed, with an amber warning.
• Needs repair, in red, when its stored values can't be read.
• For Content exclusions, how many are active, like "3 active", or No exclusions.

Every section except Content exclusions is saved and confirmed on its own. Save and confirm sits in a bar at the bottom of the section, and the bar stays in view while you scroll. Once you edit the section, the bar shows "Unsaved changes" until you save. After a save, it shows "Saved and confirmed."

Lists

Brand fields hold lists in three ways:

• Chips for short values: Tone, Languages, Hashtags, CTA defaults, Secondary entities, and Wikidata ids. Type a value and press Enter to add it. Select the × on a chip to remove it.
• Rows for sentences: Differentiators, Doctrine, Principles, Do, Don't, Available now, Planned, not available yet, Promises, Claims to avoid, and Profile URLs (sameAs). Select Add under the list for another row, and the × next to a row to remove it.
• Cards for whole posts: Example posts and Posts that don't sound like us. Select Add a post for another card, and the × on a card to remove it.

Brand and voice

1. Open Strategy > Brand. It opens on Brand and voice.
2. Fill in each group:
   • Company facts: Company name, Website, Headquarters, Languages, and Product range summary.
   • Positioning: Positioning statement, Differentiators, and Doctrine.
   • Voice: Tone, Principles, Do, and Don't. A tone word can say what it is not, such as "warm, not gushing or sentimental". Drafts treat the "not" part as the limit.
   • Examples: Example posts and Posts that don't sound like us. Drafts read posts that don't sound like you as what to avoid.
   • Post defaults: Hashtags and CTA defaults.
3. Select Save and confirm.

Offer

Offer says what you sell and what drafts must never claim. It has three groups.

What you sell:

• What you sell today: one or two sentences on what a customer can buy now.
• Available now: the products, features, or services a customer can use today.
• Planned, not available yet: what's coming. Drafts never present these as available.

Pricing:

• How you price: optional, in the words you'd use with a customer.

Commitments:

• Promises: what you commit to every customer.
• Claims to avoid: claims drafts must not make, such as outcomes or guarantees you can't back up.

Select Save and confirm. Once Offer is confirmed, drafts read your planned items and claims to avoid. An offer that isn't confirmed doesn't shape drafts. Claims to avoid are guidance, like Don't; to have Mark block a literal phrase, make it a content exclusion.

Content exclusions

Content exclusions lists the phrases Mark checks every draft for. Each row shows the phrase, its severity, the channel it applies to (or All channels), and the reason, if one was given. Block stops a draft from going to review until the phrase is removed. Warn lets the draft through and shows the match to the reviewer.

To add one, select Add exclusion. Enter the phrase (up to 120 characters), choose Block or Warn, pick one channel or leave All channels, add a reason if you want, and select Save exclusion. Mark refuses a phrase that's already active on the same channel, even with different capitals.

To stop checking a phrase, select Retire on its row and confirm. A retired exclusion can't come back, and you can't edit one. To change an exclusion, retire it and add a new one.

An AI assistant connected to Mark can do the same, for example: "Block the phrase best-in-class on LinkedIn." To connect one, see Connect your AI agent.

The Don't list under Voice is different: it's guidance drafts read, and Mark doesn't check drafts for those phrases. To have Mark block or flag a phrase, make it a content exclusion.

Visual identity

Visual identity shows your logo, favicon, colors, and fonts as you set them:

• Logo: a preview of the logo. Select Choose logo (or Replace logo once you have one), pick one image or upload one, and select Done. To clear it, select Remove logo.
• Favicon: a preview of the image at Favicon URL.
• Colors: a swatch for each color. Select a swatch to pick a color, or type its hex code in the field under it.
• Fonts: Heading font and Body font, each with a preview in that font when your browser has it.

Select Save and confirm to keep your changes, a new or cleared logo included.

Entities and evidence

Entities and evidence tells drafts what to call your company and what proof you have. It has four groups: Entities, Identity links (optional), Approved experts, and First-party evidence.

Under Entities, Primary entity is required: your company or product name as you want it written. Add up to 3 Secondary entities, such as a product line.

Identity links are optional: Profile URLs (sameAs) for your company (such as LinkedIn) and Wikidata ids like Q42. Once you save at least one, Mark shows a ready-to-paste Organization JSON-LD block built from them, your primary entity, and your company site; copy it into the head of your home page. If you imported your Visual identity logo from a web address, the block includes the address Mark downloaded it from as your logo. An uploaded or Drive logo has no public address, so the block leaves it out. Drafts don't use identity links.

In Approved experts, select Add expert for each person drafts may name, with their job title and an optional profile link. In First-party evidence, select Add evidence for each study, audit, or dataset you own. Both buttons sit at the top of their group. Give the evidence a label, then pick one of your sources or choose A link and paste the URL. Sources live on the Claims & sources page; the Claims & sources page link opens it in a new tab with the Add source form already open. After you save the source there, reload Brand to pick it. If you list no evidence, drafts say the evidence is missing instead of making some up.

Select Save and confirm. If a field is wrong, the page shows the error under that field and saves nothing.

Export your context pack

Export context pack, at the top of the page, shows four markdown files built from what you saved: company, customer (your active personas), offer, and voice (with your content exclusions). Each file starts with your workspace name and the export date, and says when a section isn't confirmed. Select Copy or Download on a file, or Download all for the four. Use them to give an AI assistant your brand outside Mark. Make changes in Mark, not in the files, then export again.

Confirmed or not confirmed

Saving a section is how you confirm a person has reviewed its values. A confirmed section shows a Confirmed badge next to its name. A section is Not confirmed if nobody has saved it yet or an AI agent changed it since; that shows only in the list of sections. An agent's change stays Not confirmed until you save the section, or until you tell the agent you reviewed it and ask it to confirm.

Saving one section doesn't touch the others. Saving Brand and voice leaves Offer, Visual identity, Entities and evidence, and their confirmations as they were, and the same holds for each section.

Messaging

Messaging has three sections, listed on the left like on Brand: Personas, Pillars, and Angles. Under each name, the list shows how many are active, like "2 active". With none, Personas and Pillars show None yet with a warning, because angles need both, and Angles shows No angles.

Personas

A persona is an audience your content is built to help and persuade. Each persona is a tile with its name, slug, what they want, and counts of what it holds, like "2 objections".

1. Open Strategy > Messaging. It opens on Personas.

2. Select Add persona.

3. Fill in:

   • Name: what you call this audience.
   • Slug: a short, unique label for the persona.
   • What they want: the outcome this audience is after.
   • What convinces them: one entry per row.
   • Objections: one entry per row. Put your answer in the same row, as "objection: answer".
   • Pains: the problems this audience has, one per row.
   • Jobs to be done: what they're trying to get done, one per row.
   • Their words: phrases this audience uses, as they say them.

   For another row in a list, select Add plus the list's name, such as Add Pains. Select the × next to a row to remove it.

4. Leave Active checked unless you're adding it for later.

5. Select Save persona. The page shows "Persona saved."

To change a persona, select Edit on its tile, update the fields, and select Save persona again.

Pillars

A pillar is a theme your content returns to, with the formats that make it useful. Each pillar is a tile with its name, slug, notes, and formats, or "No formats yet".

1. Open Strategy > Messaging and select Pillars.
2. Select Add pillar.
3. Fill in:
   • Name: the theme.
   • Slug: a short, unique label for the pillar. It's fixed after you save.
   • Formats: the kinds of posts that suit this theme, one per row.
   • Notes: anything else the team should know.
4. Leave Active checked unless you're adding it for later.
5. Select Save pillar. The page shows "Pillar saved."

To change a pillar, select Edit on its tile, update the fields, and select Save pillar again.

A pillar's slug is fixed

After you save a pillar, Edit pillar shows the slug as text instead of a field. The info icon next to Slug explains why: "Set when the pillar was created. Tracking links already built from it carry this slug as their campaign, so changing it would split this pillar's reporting in two."

Pick the slug with care when you create the pillar.

Markets

A market is a place you prioritize: its country, the language people search in, and its local time zone. Keyword research and the weekly answer-engine check use it to know where to look.

Your markets comes first, as a table with Priority, Market, Search language, and Time zone. Each row has Edit and Deactivate. Search language shows the language with its search location under it. A row that says "No search location set" has no location and language yet, so AI search volume and answer-engine checks skip it. Select Edit to set them.

1. Open Strategy > Markets.

2. Select Add market.

3. Under Location, type part of a country's name, such as "germ", and pick it. Mark fills in the rest from it:

   • Language: the first language that location offers. Language only lists the languages the location offers, so change it if your buyers search in another one.
   • Name: the location's name, if you haven't typed one. Each market needs its own name.
   • Country: the location's country.
   • Time zone: the country's time zone, when it has one main zone. For a country with several, such as Brazil, open Time zone and pick one from the list. The country's zones come first. Type part of a city, such as "sao paulo", or a zone name, such as "central", to narrow the list. If a market was saved with a time zone the list doesn't offer, such as "EST", edit it and pick one from the list. You can't save until you do.

   Under Language you'll see the search codes Mark stores, such as "Search codes: location 2276, language de." You don't need them unless you work with DataForSEO directly.

4. Set Priority, a whole number. Lower numbers come first, and Research starts on the market with the lowest number. A new market starts after your existing ones.

5. Leave Active checked unless you're adding it for later.

6. Select Save market. The page shows "Market saved."

Every field stays editable after Mark fills it. Picking a Country on its own also fills in its location and language when there's one clear match.

To change a market, select Edit on its row, update the fields, and select Save market again. A market saved before the country list existed may show "Saved as" under Country. Choose its country from the list to save it.

If the location list can't load, Location shows "Locations unavailable". You can still save the other fields, and the market keeps the location and language it already had.

Workspace time zone

The Workspace time zone card comes after your markets. Calendar weeks and displayed post times use that zone. Only a workspace admin can change it: pick a Time zone and select Save time zone. Each channel keeps its posting time as a clock time when you change it, so its posts go out at different real times. Posts already on the calendar keep the times they were given. The info icon next to the card's title says the same.

Claims & sources

A claim is a fact your posts may state, such as a price, a customer result, or a certification. Each claim points at a source and quotes the part of it that proves the claim. A source is the text you quote from: call notes, an audit, a case study. Add both as proof comes in.

Open Strategy > Claims & sources. A strip at the top sums up how they connect: 1. Add a source, 2. Pull out claims, and 3. Drafts state only claims.

Sources is on the left. Each source shows an icon for its type (Pasted note, Google Doc, Website, Interview, or Intelligence) and how many claims quote it, like "2 active" or "1 active, 1 retired". Claims is beside it, with Active and Retired tabs. Claims are a table with Claim (with its quote under it), Category, and Source. Use Search claims and sources to find a claim by its wording or quote, or a source by its title, link, or text.

Read a source

Select a source to open it above the claims. Its text shows with each claim's quote highlighted and numbered, and the claims list shows only that source's claims, numbered to match. Select the × to show claims from every source again. Selecting a claim's Source, or Show source in its ⋯ menu, opens that source too.

Add a claim

1. Select Add claim. To start from a source, open it and select Add claim there. To start from a quote, select the words in the source's text and choose Add claim with this quote.
2. Fill in:
   • Claim: the fact, as drafts should state it.
   • Category: your own short label, like Price or Customer results. Mark suggests the categories you already use. A competitor page reads that competitor's prices from claims in Price.
   • Source: where the fact comes from. Pick one of your sources, or pick New source and fill in Source title and Pasted notes (Link is optional). When you pick a saved source, its text shows under Source text so you can copy the quote from it.
   • Quote from the source: the words in the source that prove it.
3. Select Save claim. With a new source, Mark saves the source first, then the claim. The page shows "Claim added." and the claim shows under Active.

The quote has to appear in the source's text. Line breaks, capitals, and curly quotes don't matter, but the words do. If they don't match, the page shows "This quote isn't in the source's text. Paste it exactly." and keeps what you typed. A new source is already saved at that point, so it stays picked when you try again.

Add a source on its own

1. Select Add source.
2. Fill in Source title and paste the text into Pasted notes. Link is optional.
3. Select Save source. The claim form opens with that source picked. Close it if you only wanted the source.

Edit or delete a pasted note

Pasted notes are the only sources you change in Mark. A Google Doc syncs from Drive, so edit it in Drive and the next sync brings the change in. Open the note to see Edit and Delete.

• Edit opens the note with its title, text, and link. Change any of them and select Save source. A title or link change always saves. A text change can't remove a passage a claim quotes, active or retired. If it would, nothing is saved and Pasted notes names those quotes. Keep the passage, or revise those claims first.
• Delete shows only on a note no claim has quoted. Mark asks you to confirm, then removes the note from the list and from the claim form's Source picker. Retired claims keep their source for good, so a note any claim ever quoted can't be deleted. Neither can a note your brand profile cites as evidence.

Revise or retire a claim

Mark never changes a saved claim, because posts may already cite it. Select an active claim to revise it, or use the ⋯ menu at the end of its row: Revise…, Show source, or Retire….

• Revise opens the claim with its current values. Retired claims from the same source are listed under the form, so you can see earlier wording. Select Save claim and Mark retires the old claim and adds the new one. The page shows "Claim revised."
• Retire asks you to confirm, then moves the claim to Retired. Drafts stop using it. The Revise claim panel has Retire too.

The Retired tab lists retired claims with the date they were retired. You can read them but not change or reactivate them. To use a retired fact again, add it as a new claim.

Deactivate or delete

Personas, pillars, and markets work the same way when you're done with one.

• Deactivate, on the tile or row, keeps the item but marks it Inactive. Inactive items move to the end of the list. Select Reactivate to bring one back.
• Delete removes it for good. It's at the bottom of the item's edit panel: select Edit, then Delete. Mark asks you to confirm first, because it can't be undone.

Mark refuses to delete an item while something still uses it, and tells you to deactivate it instead:

• A persona or pillar can't be deleted while posts, angles, or ideas still use it.
• A market can't be deleted while posts, answer-engine checks, or AI-visibility results still use it.

When you see a message like "Can't delete this market because posts, answer-engine checks or AI-visibility results still use it. Deactivate it instead.", select Cancel and use Deactivate.