Best content marketing and thought leadership tools in 2025

In the UK’s 2025 B2B marketing landscape, content marketing tools have cemented themselves as essential for helping building brand trust, generating demand, and positioning companies as industry authorities.

High-quality content is no longer a “nice-to-have” – it’s a competitive necessity. Studies show that content marketing drives significant top-of-funnel results: 87% of B2B marketers say content has improved brand awareness, and 74% credit it with generating demand and leads.

More importantly, decision-makers actively seek out credible thought leadership. In fact, 75% of business executives say a compelling piece of thought leadership content has led them to research a product or service they weren’t considering. And an overwhelming majority – 73% – view thought leadership as a more trustworthy basis for assessing an organisation’s capabilities than traditional marketing materials.

This report provides a comparative review of five top platforms shaping content marketing and thought leadership in the UK: Contently, PathFactory, BuzzSumo, Jasper, and Oktopost. Each tool addresses a different piece of the content puzzle – from content creation and ideation to content experience, analytics, and social amplification.

Platform comparison at a glance

 

Contently

Contently is often regarded as the gold-standard content marketing platform for enterprises, known for helping brands plan and produce top-notch content at scale. Think of Contently as the operating system for your content strategy: it combines technology, talent, and analytics in one solution. If your marketing team’s goal is to establish your company as a thought leader through consistent, high-quality content (be it blog articles, whitepapers, case studies, infographics, or even interactive pieces), Contently provides the infrastructure and expertise to make it happen.

What it does

Contently’s platform has multiple integrated modules. It starts with content strategy and ideation tools – you can map out content themes aligned to your personas and buyer journey stages. The platform can even suggest story ideas using an AI engine that looks at trending topics in your industry (so you focus on content that will resonate). Once you have a plan, Contently manages the entire editorial workflow. Marketers can create project briefs, set deadlines, and collaborate with writers/designers through the platform. There’s an editorial calendar that gives visibility into all upcoming content, and customisable approval workflows to ensure each piece gets the necessary reviews (legal or compliance reviews are common in B2B, and Contently supports that with ease).

A standout feature is Contently’s freelance talent network. Over the past decade, Contently has vetted thousands of professional journalists, writers, editors, and graphic designers. As a customer, you gain access to this network – meaning if your in-house team is stretched thin or lacks expertise in a niche topic, you can seamlessly commission a freelance subject-matter expert to create content for you. (For example, a fintech company could hire a writer with a banking background for a thought leadership article on open banking trends.) Contently matches talent to your needs, handles the contracts and payments, and all the content creation happens through the platform.

This is incredibly useful for UK marketers who might need native English writers in different regions or specialist contributors for technical topics. It essentially extends your content team on-demand.

On the creation side, Contently’s editor interface is user-friendly and can integrate with your CMS (like WordPress or Adobe AEM) to publish content directly. It offers SEO guidance (e.g. suggesting keywords to include, link recommendations) as you craft the content.

In 2025, Contently has also introduced AI assistance – similar to having a built-in writing helper. It can draft outlines or even first passes of sections of an article if you prompt it, although the emphasis is on aiding human writers, not replacing them. The AI might also analyse your published content to recommend what topics to cover next based on gaps or performance.

Where Contently really shines is analytics and ROI measurement. The platform doesn’t just track typical metrics like views or shares; it connects to business outcomes. Through integrations with Google Analytics or your marketing automation/CRM, Contently can attribute leads or revenue to each content piece. It even provides a proprietary metric in monetary terms – estimating how much value a piece of content generated. (For instance, if a whitepaper brought in 50 leads and historically 10% convert to sales worth £100k, it might estimate the content’s value accordingly.)

Contently claims that on average, content created on its platform is worth over $13 million per year to their customers – which they say is a 6+ times ROI on what those customers spend on Contently. While your mileage may vary, this illustrates Contently’s focus on tying content efforts to tangible results.

The analytics dashboard also compares performance by topic, content type, and distribution channel, so you can double down on what works.

Additional features include content personalisation (you can organise your published assets into a resource centre and personalise which case studies or papers a certain visitor sees based on industry, for example), and governance tools to ensure brand consistency. You can maintain a central content style guide in Contently, and enforce rules like approved terminology or compliance statements. This is valuable for large organisations or those in regulated fields – everyone creating content is on the same page, literally.

Strengths

Contently’s biggest strength is that it’s comprehensive. It handles strategy, creation, and performance tracking in one place. For a content team juggling Google Docs, spreadsheets, freelance marketplaces, and separate analytics tools, moving to Contently feels like upgrading to a purpose-built machine.

Marketers often praise the platform for streamlining their workflow – no more version-control nightmares or chasing writers via email. The access to a high-quality talent network is a game-changer; you’re not limited by your internal headcount to produce thought leadership content. And this talent pool isn’t random – Contently has a reputation system and matches writers based on their expertise and your industry (so a B2B tech firm gets a tech writer, a healthcare firm gets someone with NHS or pharma writing experience, and so on).

Another strength is Contently’s focus on quality over quantity. The tool encourages a strategic approach – helping you choose content topics based on data and then delivering polished content through professional creatives. In an era where AI enables churning out dozens of blog posts, Contently users often go the other way: fewer pieces, but truly authoritative ones that stand out (which is ultimately what thought leadership is about). The platform’s analytics reinforce this by showing the long-term value of a great piece of content (for example, an evergreen insightful whitepaper that keeps generating leads for 12+ months).

This aligns well with the mindset of many UK B2B marketers in 2025, who are focusing on quality, compliance, and depth of content rather than sheer volume.

Contently’s support and services are also a plus. They don’t just give you software and leave you to it – many packages include a content strategy expert who consults with your team, helping refine your strategy or conducting workshops. For UK clients, they have EMEA-based staff who understand local market trends and regulations.

The platform is fully GDPR-compliant (you can control data retention, and it doesn’t store personal data beyond what’s needed for content operations). Big UK companies in finance, tech, and professional services use Contently, which speaks to its ability to handle demanding requirements (e.g. approvals by legal departments, multi-language content or localisation if needed, etc.).

Pricing

Contently is positioned for mid-sized to large organisations, and its pricing reflects that. There’s no public price list; instead, they do custom quotes based on your scope (number of users, volume of content, and whether you need lots of freelance services or just the software).

As a ballpark, companies often invest anywhere from £20k up to £100k+ per year on Contently, depending on scale. A mid-market tech firm might be on the lower end of that range for the platform access and a handful of content pieces per month, whereas a global enterprise with multiple business units could be at the higher end.

Note that if you use a lot of freelance services through Contently, those are usually an additional cost (e.g. paying the writers for each article, often through Contently’s system). However, many clients find that easier than procuring freelancers on their own, and the rates are transparent.

There isn’t a self-service monthly option – Contently is very much a “talk to sales” solution. UK marketers considering it should be prepared to articulate the ROI of better content to secure budget. The good news is Contently can help make that case, using benchmarks from other clients or a pilot programme.

Limitations

The main drawbacks are the flip side of its strengths. Contently is an enterprise-grade product, which means it can be complex and expensive if you’re a small business. Smaller B2B firms or startups likely won’t have the budget or the volume of content to justify Contently. In those cases, simpler tools or outsourcing to an agency might suffice until they grow.

Contently really pays off when you have a sustained content programme with multiple stakeholders. If your team only produces one blog post a month, the platform might be overkill.

There is also a learning curve to fully utilise Contently. While the interface is modern, there are many features and it works best if you adapt your processes to it. Your team will need training (which Contently provides during onboarding). It’s not a plug-and-play blogging tool; it’s more akin to adopting a CRM for content – upfront effort to configure workflows and train users, which then yields efficiency.

Some users note that the content value metrics, while insightful, rely on models that you should customise (to reflect your average lead values, etc.) – so there is some analytics setup needed to get the most accurate picture.

Another consideration: turnaround time. Using Contently’s freelancer network is fantastic for quality, but these are human writers who will take days or weeks to deliver, not hours. If you just need quick content volume, an AI tool or cheaper copywriters might be faster. Contently is oriented toward thoughtful content creation, often with multiple revisions. You’ll want to plan a content calendar well in advance.

Also, if you have very domain-specific content needs (say, cutting-edge scientific content), you might still need to source your own experts – Contently’s network is large but not infinite.

Finally, some marketers mention that integration with their own internal systems (like their CMS or DAM for images) can require IT support. For example, publishing directly from Contently to a custom CMS might need a connector. The platform does have APIs and some out-of-the-box integrations (to WordPress, etc.), but custom setups might incur extra effort or professional services.

Summary

Contently is a top choice for B2B marketers aiming to elevate their content marketing into a truly strategic function. In the UK, where audiences value insightful, well-written content (and regulators value compliance), Contently provides the tools and talent to deliver just that. It turns content marketing into a well-oiled operation, ensuring that your thought leadership efforts aren’t just creative, but also consistent, collaborative, and clearly contributing to the business.

Use Contently if you’re committed to content excellence and want a platform that grows with your programme – but be ready to invest the time and resources to fully leverage its powerful capabilities.

PathFactory

If Contently is about creating great content, PathFactory is about making sure that content actually gets consumed and drives buyers toward a decision. PathFactory is a Canadian-founded platform (with a global customer base) that pioneered what they call “content insight and activation.” In simpler terms, PathFactory helps B2B marketers understand how prospects interact with their content – not just whether they clicked it, but how long they spent reading it and what they did next – and then uses that data to deliver personalised content experiences that move the buyer further down the funnel. It’s like creating a Netflix-style experience for your B2B content: when a prospect shows interest, you don’t make them wait days for another email or leave them to hunt through your site – PathFactory serves up a bingeable stream of relevant content immediately.

What it does

PathFactory has two core components: Content Insight and Content Activation.

On the insight side, PathFactory tracks content engagement at a very granular level. Traditionally, marketers rely on clicks or downloads as a proxy for content success (“500 people downloaded our eBook, it must be doing well”). But that doesn’t tell you if anyone actually read it! PathFactory solves this by embedding a tracking script in your content (whether it’s a PDF, a webpage, a video, etc.) to measure time spent and scroll depth. For example, you’ll know that the CIO from XYZ Corp spent 3 minutes on your whitepaper and reached page 5 of 8 – concrete consumption data instead of blind downloads.

It then ties that to pipeline: you can see which content pieces tend to precede a conversion or influence closed deals, enabling true content ROI analysis. This insight is incredibly useful for refining your content strategy (perhaps you discover that prospects who consume at least 10 minutes of content in one session are 2x more likely to book a demo, so you aim to facilitate that).

On the activation side, PathFactory enables “always-on” content journeys.

Instead of a user clicking one link, reading one blog, then leaving, PathFactory can automatically present the next relevant piece of content right after the first, keeping the prospect engaged. For instance, suppose a target buyer just finished reading a thought leadership article on your site; PathFactory’s widget might pop up, saying “Next up: See how companies are implementing these ideas – [Case Study]” with a clickable content piece. Because it’s analysing content consumption patterns with AI, it can make smart recommendations (like how YouTube or Netflix auto-plays the next video).

PathFactory essentially removes friction from content marketing – no more relying on the visitor to navigate to another page or fill a form to get the next asset. They can consume a “track” of content in one sitting, which accelerates education. Many B2B orgs see that when they implemented PathFactory, the average number of content pieces consumed per session shot up dramatically, meaning prospects are self-nurturing. In some cases, what used to be a 3-month nurture drip via email (one asset every few weeks) can happen in one afternoon on a PathFactory content track – because once interest is piqued, the buyer dives into a rabbit hole of your content (which is exactly what you want!).

Specific features include Content Tracks (which are basically curated playlists of content around a topic or for a specific account). Website “Content Concierge” which uses an overlay or sidebar on your site to suggest and Account-based Content targeting – you can create experiences for particular companies or industries, so when they visit, they see a tailored set of assets just for them. PathFactory also integrates with marketing automation platforms (Marketo, Eloqua, HubSpot) and CRM (Salesforce) so that it can update lead scores based on content engagement. For example, instead of scoring a lead +5 for downloading a PDF (which is crude), you could score them +1 for every minute of content consumed, or trigger an alert to sales only when someone reads at least 50% of a crucial buyer’s guide. This ensures only truly sales-ready leads get passed on.

PathFactory has also embraced AI in new features. In 2025, they introduced “ChatFactory”, an AI-powered content concierge chat bot.

Imagine a website visitor can actually ask for content: “I’m interested in how your solution can help improve supply chain efficiency” and the chatbot will serve relevant snippets or links from your content library. It uses generative AI to converse and then direct buyers to the best content, effectively combining chat-based engagement with content delivery. This is especially useful for complex B2B products where prospects have very specific questions – the AI can pull from your thought leadership articles or knowledge base to answer and then suggest a deeper read (all while capturing that interaction data for your insight).

Additionally, PathFactory’s analytics now include AI-driven recommendations in the dashboard – for example, highlighting a content asset that is performing above average and recommending you promote it more, or identifying a topic that many buyers binge on and suggesting you create more content around it.

For sales teams, PathFactory offers a feature (often called PathFactory for Sales) where reps can see what content their target account has engaged with. This is gold for a BDR or account executive doing outreach – they can tell, for instance, that the prospect is clearly interested in “cloud security” because they spent 15 minutes across three cloud-security-related pieces. The rep can then tailor their call or email to talk about that topic, making the interaction far more relevant. It breaks down the silo between marketing content and sales insight.

Strengths

PathFactory’s biggest strength is how it increases engagement and accelerates the buyer journey. By letting interested prospects consume more at their own pace, it capitalises on those moments when a buyer’s interest is highest. B2B decisions involve extensive research – PathFactory ensures that research happens with your content, not a competitor’s.

UK marketers have found this especially useful in content-heavy fields like technology, financial services, or manufacturing, where buyers want to educate themselves deeply. One analysis showed that effective use of content tracks can cut down the time to conversion significantly, because buyers who binge 10+ assets often move to sales conversations faster than those drip-fed over months.

Another strength is the rich data it provides. It’s almost an X-ray into your content’s effectiveness. You can move beyond vanity metrics (views/downloads) to actionable metrics (engagement time, drop-off points). For instance, you might discover that your 20-page eBook is mostly unread (people drop off after 3 minutes) – telling you it needs to be more engaging or shorter. Or you might find that video content is consumed more fully than text by certain audiences, guiding your investment. In the era of tightened marketing budgets, this insight is crucial: you can focus resources on content formats and topics that are proven to hold audience attention and influence deals.

PathFactory is also praised for being extremely focused on B2B needs. Unlike some generic content tools, it was built with the complex B2B journey in mind. It handles account-level tracking (so you see if multiple individuals from the same company are engaging – a sign of buying group activity). It also respects GDPR and privacy preferences: for known contacts, you obviously track individually (with consent), but if a visitor is anonymous, PathFactory can still log engagement tied to an anonymised ID or account (using IP-to-company matching) in a compliant way. Many UK companies use PathFactory without issues by configuring cookie consent and respecting “do not track” if a user opts out. The platform can filter out personal data and focus on behavioural data.

Customers often note that PathFactory’s support team is helpful and that the company is constantly evolving the product (as seen with new features like ChatFactory and more integrations). The ROI of PathFactory can be demonstrated in pipeline lift – e.g., marketers have seen significantly higher conversion rates for leads who engage with content through PathFactory compared to those who only get one-off touches. It effectively maximises the value of the content you already have, which is great for lean teams. If Contently helps you produce that brilliant whitepaper, PathFactory makes sure prospects actually read the whole whitepaper and then some.

Pricing

PathFactory is usually sold on an annual subscription. The cost will depend on the modules and usage. A mid-market firm might spend around £30k/year for a basic deployment, whereas a large enterprise with many users and advanced features could be £60k+ per year. These are rough estimates; actual quotes might vary. There aren’t publicly advertised packages because it’s somewhat tailored (for example, you might choose just the “website recommendations” piece or the full platform; pricing adjusts accordingly).

While not cheap, consider that PathFactory can replace or augment several things: parts of your marketing automation (for nurturing), some web personalisation tools, and manual analytics crunching. It’s often compared to the cost of an additional marketing FTE – and many conclude the software delivers more value in terms of insight and always-on execution.

For those unsure, PathFactory sometimes offers pilot programmes or proof-of-concept trials in a portion of your database to show the impact. They also have a free trial option or sandbox for two weeks (with limited functionality) which can be useful to get a feel for the interface. Budget-conscious teams in the UK might try to negotiate scope to fit what they need – e.g., focusing on one use-case like Account-Based Marketing content hubs first, then expanding.

Limitations

To benefit from PathFactory, you need to have a decent volume of content and visitors. If your website traffic or content library is very small, the impact will likewise be small. It’s not that PathFactory wouldn’t work, but the return may not justify the expense if only a handful of leads engage deeply. In essence, it’s best for companies that already invest in content and have enough inbound or outbound traffic driven to that content.

Another limitation is that using PathFactory effectively requires some setup and maintenance. You’ll need to tag and organise your content in the platform (like uploading PDFs or linking URLs, and tagging them by topic, funnel stage, format, etc.). The AI will do some heavy lifting, but you must provide it structured content and context. This tagging can take effort if you have hundreds of assets scattered around. Marketers sometimes underestimate the work to build great content tracks – you have to think through which pieces logically flow together and ensure you have content for each buyer stage. PathFactory provides analytics to guide this, but human strategy is needed.

In 2025, they introduced some automation in suggesting content groupings, but you still want a strategist’s eye on it.

There’s also a bit of change management involved. For example, if you’ve trained your sales team to only care about form fills, you need to re-educate them to pay attention to PathFactory’s engagement insights. Marketing might need to adjust KPIs (like focusing on content engagement score, not just raw lead count). Internally, teams that produce content need to coordinate with those setting up PathFactory experiences. These are manageable shifts, but worth noting – PathFactory can change your approach to nurturing, so the organisation should be ready for that.

Some users have pointed out that while PathFactory integrates with many systems, getting the most out of it means hooking into your existing stack (MAP, CRM, maybe your web CMS). Those integrations are provided (they have native connectors to Salesforce, Marketo, etc.), but you’ll want someone with a bit of marketing ops skill to set up the syncs and ensure data flows correctly (especially to push the engagement data back to lead records). Initially, the analytics interface can be overwhelming with how much data it offers – users should invest time in understanding the reports or working with the PathFactory customer success team to build useful dashboards.

In terms of content types, PathFactory handles most (PDF, HTML, video embeds, etc.), but really long PDF content might not report time as perfectly (if someone leaves it open in a tab, it could register time that isn’t actively read). However, PathFactory has logic to mitigate idle time. It’s a minor consideration: as with any tracking, it’s not 100% foolproof, but it’s leaps and bounds better than the old “they downloaded it, who knows what happened next” approach.

In summary

PathFactory is an ideal solution for B2B marketers who have invested in creating great content and now want to maximise its impact and measurability. For UK companies running account-based marketing or complex nurture journeys, it brings much-needed intelligence: you can cater to the “research-hungry” British buyer who wants to self-serve information, while also gathering insight to know when that buyer is truly sales-ready.

PathFactory ensures no interested prospect is left waiting for more content – it serves them a feast and in doing so, gives you visibility into their appetite. Use PathFactory if you’re ready to treat your content not just as static assets, but as a dynamic journey that can be optimised in real-time for each buyer. It turns anonymous content consumption into a guided, trackable experience – a powerful advantage in 2025’s content-saturated market.

BuzzSumo

Where Contently and PathFactory help you create and deliver content, BuzzSumo helps you decide what content to create in the first place and how to make it successful. BuzzSumo is a widely-used content research and social listening tool that has been popular among marketers for years (fun fact: it was originally a UK startup, and many UK marketing teams still rely on it). In 2025, BuzzSumo remains a go-to platform for uncovering trending topics, analysing what content competitors or industry influencers are putting out, and tracking content performance across the web.

What it does

At its core, BuzzSumo is like a specialised search engine that focuses on content and its engagement metrics. You can enter a keyword, domain, or author name, and BuzzSumo will show you the top content related to that query, along with data like how many times it was shared on social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), how many backlinks it got, and even an “evergreen score” indicating longevity of interest. For example, a B2B marketer could type “IoT in manufacturing” and see a list of the most shared articles or whitepapers on that topic in the past year, revealing which headlines and angles attracted the most attention.

This is incredibly useful for content ideation – it’s like having insight into the market’s content appetite. If you see that, say, a competitor’s thought leadership piece “10 Ways IoT is Transforming Factories” got thousands of shares, it’s a clue that the topic resonates and perhaps your company should weigh in with its own perspective (ideally a fresh or deeper one).

BuzzSumo also provides Trending Now insights. You can set up custom feeds for your industry or keywords and see what content is blowing up in real time. For instance, if a news story relevant to your field is suddenly everywhere, BuzzSumo will highlight those trending pieces. This helps B2B content teams jump on timely topics or at least be aware of what their audience might be reading this week.

Another powerful feature is the Question Analyser. It trawls forums (like Reddit) and Q&A sites to find commonly asked questions about a topic. If you input your product category or a problem you solve, it shows the real questions people ask. This is excellent for devising blog posts, FAQs, or webinar content that directly addresses your audience’s burning questions. It ties into the broader trend of search intent and content that educates – B2B buyers often start with questions, so if your content directly answers those, you’ll attract and engage them.

BuzzSumo’s influencer search is handy for thought leadership as well. It can list out influential authors or social media voices on a given topic (for example, top 100 people sharing content about “cybersecurity”). This can inform your content distribution and partnership strategy – perhaps you identify journalists you could reach out to when you publish a new piece of research, or industry experts who might amplify your content if you network with them. Some companies even use this to find potential guest bloggers or speakers by seeing who has engaged audiences on relevant themes.

From a competitive intelligence standpoint, you can plug in a competitor’s domain and see their most shared content. It’s like peeking at their highlight reel. If a rival company’s CEO wrote a LinkedIn article that went viral, you’ll know. BuzzSumo also lets you set alerts – for instance, you can get notified whenever your company is mentioned or when a new piece of content on a topic is gaining traction. This overlaps with PR and social listening functions, helping ensure you don’t miss important conversations or references to your brand.

Additionally, BuzzSumo offers content analysis reports that aggregate data, such as average shares by content type or network. For example, you might find that in your sector, infographics on average get more shares than webinars, or that LinkedIn is the dominant network for content engagement (common in B2B). These insights help you tailor your content formats and promotion channels for maximum impact.

In 2025, BuzzSumo has continued to refine its data sources. One challenge in recent years has been that some social networks (like Facebook) reduced public share data, but BuzzSumo has partnerships and methods to still gauge engagement. It also focuses heavily on backlink analysis now, since backlinks are a good proxy for content authority (and of course are crucial for SEO). Knowing who linked to a popular piece in your niche can open outreach opportunities (e.g., a tech blog that linked to competitor research might be interested in your research too).

Strengths

BuzzSumo’s strength is in its simplicity and actionability. Within minutes of using it, a marketer can uncover ideas for their content calendar or discover why a competitor’s content is performing well. It brings a lot of otherwise disparate data into one place – social engagement, SEO backlinks, influencer info – which would be cumbersome to gather manually.

For UK marketers, BuzzSumo also has the benefit of filtering by country or language, meaning you can hone in on what’s trending in the UK or EMEA region specifically (though much B2B content is global in nature, sometimes you want regional specifics, and BuzzSumo has a good handle on that).

The tool is also very useful for validation. If your team brainstorms a content idea, you can quickly check BuzzSumo to see if similar content exists and how it fared. It prevents the blind spots of creating content in a vacuum. For thought leadership especially, it’s important to know the existing conversation. BuzzSumo might show, for example, that everyone is writing about “AI in supply chain” this month – so to stand out, maybe your thought leadership needs a contrarian take or a more niche subtopic. It ensures you either ride the wave with a differentiator or find a gap that others haven’t covered yet.

Another strength is its ease of use – you don’t need extensive training to benefit. The interface is straightforward: search bar, results with metrics, filters on the side. This makes it popular across roles: content strategists use it, but also PR folks, social media managers, and SEO specialists. It serves as a common reference point when planning integrated campaigns (like informing both the blog content and the social promotion plan).

BuzzSumo’s freemium model historically allowed anyone to do a few searches, which helped spread its adoption. While the free version is limited (a few searches per month), it’s enough to demonstrate value, and then teams often upgrade to paid plans as they ramp up usage.

The Pro plan (around £80/month) is within reach for small businesses and gives a substantial amount of data. Larger teams or agencies might go for higher tiers to get more searches, alerts, and users. Compared to enterprise tools, BuzzSumo is relatively affordable – important for mid-sized B2B teams or startups that cannot invest in huge market research programmes. It’s like having a mini research analyst in your toolkit at a low cost, which is a high ROI if it helps your content hit the mark.

Pricing

BuzzSumo offers a range of plans. The Pro plan (around $99 USD, roughly £80) is often enough for a single user or small team to do unlimited searches and a few alerts. The Plus and Large plans go up to $179 and $299 (£140 – £240) and offer more features like more alerts, more users, and exporting capabilities. There’s also a custom Enterprise plan ($499 and beyond) for heavy users (like agencies managing multiple clients, or very large marketing teams).

It’s notable that BuzzSumo is much cheaper than heavy-duty social listening tools or analyst data platforms. This is deliberate – it focuses on content metrics and keeps the price accessible. For UK companies, billing can usually be done in USD or converted to GBP via credit card or invoice. The company behind BuzzSumo (now part of Brandwatch/Cision) does have UK offices, so support is available in UK business hours.

BuzzSumo also frequently offers discounts for annual subscriptions (~20% off) and sometimes has add-ons (e.g., a paid add-on for more historical data beyond the default range). But for most, the standard plans suffice. Even on the Pro plan, you get an awful lot of intelligence that would otherwise require multiple tools or manual research.

Limitations

While BuzzSumo is great for what it is, it’s not a content management or publishing tool. You can’t create content in BuzzSumo or push a button to distribute it (aside from sharing a found link). So you’ll still need your CMS, social scheduler, email platform, etc. BuzzSumo informs your strategy; execution happens elsewhere. That means marketers need to take the insights and actually act on them – sometimes teams gather great data from BuzzSumo but then fail to incorporate it into content production due to inertia or other priorities. It’s a tool that demands you be responsive to what you learn.

Another limitation is that it primarily measures public social/share data and backlinks. It doesn’t directly tell you things like “how many people downloaded X whitepaper” (that’s your internal data) or anything behind paywalls. So if a lot of B2B content is gated (which often it is), BuzzSumo might show fewer “shares” simply because people couldn’t access it freely to share it.

It’s wise to use BuzzSumo alongside your own analytics. For example, you might notice your infographic wasn’t highly shared according to BuzzSumo, but your marketing automation shows it was heavily downloaded via a landing page. That’s fine – BuzzSumo is picking up only the external signals. In such cases, you’d treat BuzzSumo as one lens on content performance, not the whole story.

However, many thought leadership pieces (like blog posts, press releases, reports summaries) are public, so BuzzSumo will capture a lot of relevant info. BuzzSumo’s social data is as good as the networks allow. Twitter and Pinterest data is quite complete; LinkedIn data is more limited (LinkedIn’s API doesn’t give full share counts publicly since 2018). BuzzSumo uses some approximations for LinkedIn engagement (like it might rely on aggregate share counts from content that has the LinkedIn share button).

As a result, you may find LinkedIn numbers a bit understated. In B2B, LinkedIn is huge, so one could worry about that. But practically, BuzzSumo still identifies top content even without exact LinkedIn data, because truly viral B2B content usually gets picked up across channels (or gets backlinks which BuzzSumo does measure). Still, if your strategy is heavily LinkedIn-centric (e.g., posts that stay on LinkedIn and not on a website), BuzzSumo might not capture those as it focuses on content URLs. For that specific use case, you might complement with LinkedIn’s own analytics or a social tool.

One other caveat: content quality vs popularity. BuzzSumo shows what’s popular, but that doesn’t always equate to quality thought leadership. Sometimes sensational or shallow content gets shares. So marketers should use judgement – the goal isn’t to copy whatever got the most shares, but to understand the interests behind it and then produce something even more valuable. Also, chasing shares shouldn’t override your brand voice or compliance; e.g., an edgy headline might get clicks but could be off-brand for a conservative B2B firm. So BuzzSumo is a guide, not a mandate.

Summary

BuzzSumo is an indispensable research companion for content marketers and PR teams. In the UK B2B context, where having a finger on the pulse of industry conversation is vital, BuzzSumo quickly surfaces those insights. It’s cost-effective and user-friendly. Use BuzzSumo in your planning phase to stack the odds in your favour – know what topics are hot, what angles competitors have covered, and which influencers might amplify your story. It turns raw data into content intelligence, helping you create thought leadership content that actually leads (to engagement, shares, and discussions), rather than just guessing in the dark.

Jasper

No discussion of content tools in 2025 would be complete without touching on the role of AI in content creation. Enter Jasper, the AI writing assistant that many marketing teams have adopted to turbocharge their content production. Jasper (previously known as Jarvis) is an AI platform built specifically for marketing content generation. While some might wonder, “Can AI really create thought leadership?”, the reality is Jasper isn’t here to replace your expertise – but it can handle a lot of the heavy lifting in drafting and brainstorming, allowing human marketers to focus on insight and polish. It’s become a secret weapon for lean B2B teams and also a force multiplier for larger teams aiming to produce more personalised content at scale.

What it does

Jasper uses advanced natural language processing (GPT-4 and similar models under the hood) to generate text based on prompts you give. The interface is designed for marketers – you don’t have to be a coder or data scientist. You simply tell Jasper what you need: e.g., “Write a 200-word introduction about the importance of cybersecurity in fintech, in a formal tone” – and it will produce a coherent draft in seconds.

It has over 50 templates for common content pieces, such as blog post outlines, social media captions, email subject lines, ad copy, product descriptions, etc. This helps guide the AI to produce relevant content for that format. For instance, a “Blog Post Conclusion” template can ensure it generates a nice summary paragraph with a call to action.

One of Jasper’s most praised features for brand-conscious teams is Brand Voice. You can feed Jasper examples of your company’s writing (or even your website URL to scan) and it will learn the style and tone. So if your thought leadership pieces usually have a witty, conversational tone with British spelling and grammar, Jasper can mimic that. This is critical – out-of-the-box AI might sound generic or distinctly American, which could require a lot of editing for a UK audience. With brand fine-tuning, Jasper narrows that gap. It can also store facts or key messages (through a feature called Jasper Knowledge Base or “Marketing IQ”) so that it weaves in accurate product info or value propositions you’ve provided, reducing the chance of “hallucinations” (AI making stuff up).

Jasper excels at generating first drafts and creative variations. Let’s say you have a solid outline for a thought leadership article – you can ask Jasper to flesh out each section. You’ll likely get a serviceable draft that you (or a subject matter expert) can then refine with real insights or proprietary data. This can save hours of staring at a blank page.

Likewise, for everyday content needs like social posts: you can input the gist of a LinkedIn update and have Jasper generate multiple versions, then pick or tweak the best. For email campaigns, Jasper can produce different copy angles to A/B test. It essentially reduces writer’s block and speeds up content iteration.

Another neat aspect: Jasper supports 30+ languages. If you operate across EMEA, for example, Jasper can help draft content in German or French – then you’d have a native speaker refine it, but it jump-starts the process. Even for English, you can toggle UK vs US spelling (it will do “optimise” with an s if needed, for instance).

Jasper also has a Chrome extension (Jasper Everywhere) that lets you use it in any web-based text field. This means you could be writing a message in LinkedIn or crafting a reply in an online forum, and call on Jasper to help rephrase or expand points on the fly.

In addition to text, Jasper has an AI Image generation module. You can generate custom visuals or illustrations to accompany your content. Need a quick abstract graphic for a blog header? Jasper can attempt that. The image quality is improving, though for formal publications teams often still use stock images or designers. But it’s handy for concept mocks or unique social media visuals.

Jasper’s analytics suite (recently introduced) can integrate with your content performance data to give recommendations. For example, it might learn that certain phrasing or tone yields better engagement for your audience and suggest that in future outputs. It’s early days for that feature, but the vision is an AI that not only writes, but learns what works for your marketing specifically.

For collaboration, Jasper’s business plans allow multiple users to share “projects” and templates. So a team can collectively feed it brand info, and each person’s usage contributes to refining the AI’s understanding of the brand. There are also features to set tone guidelines or banned words (so the AI won’t use jargon you dislike, for instance).

Strengths

The obvious strength is speed and efficiency. What used to take a copywriter a day might take Jasper a few minutes to draft, with the writer then spending a couple of hours editing. This can compress production timelines, which is incredibly useful when marketing departments are expected to output more content for more channels (without equivalent headcount growth).

For routine content (think monthly newsletters, product updates, minor blog posts), Jasper can handle a lot, freeing up human writers to focus on higher-level content (like complex whitepapers or original research where human insight is irreplaceable).

For thought leadership content specifically, Jasper is great at generating the framework and even populating it with general points. The heavy lift of inserting unique insights remains with your experts – but having an AI-written draft to react to is often easier than starting from scratch. It’s akin to having a junior copywriter on the team who writes reasonably well and very fast, but still needs guidance and polishing from the senior staff. Many B2B marketers use Jasper as that kind of virtual assistant.

Jasper also shines in personalisation at scale. Suppose you want to create slightly different versions of a case study for different verticals – Jasper can rapidly adapt the language to each industry by prompt, saving you from rewriting essentially similar content. Or for ABM, you might tailor outreach emails to 100 target accounts with company-specific tidbits; Jasper can help generate those variations provided you feed in the unique info per account. This scalability of custom content would be impractical manually.

Another strength is usability. Jasper’s interface, template library, and guidance (like its Jasper Academy tutorials) make it user-friendly for marketers who are not AI experts. You don’t have to craft complex prompts if you use their templates – just fill in a few fields (product name, key point, tone) and it does the rest. Over time, as one gets more comfortable, you can use the free-form “Chat” mode to converse with Jasper and give more nuanced instructions. It also has a community and support that share prompt ideas (e.g., power tips for writing listicles or ad copy).

The cost-benefit of Jasper is generally seen as positive. For around £40–£70 a month per user (on the standard plans), an active user can generate a lot of content. If you consider freelance writers might charge that for a single short article, Jasper starts to look very economical. Even their high-end Business plans (where they mention custom pricing, often starting around £4k–£5k/year for a team) can be cheaper than hiring an additional content marketer, depending on your needs. It’s not an either/or, of course – Jasper doesn’t have domain expertise or creativity on its own – but it augments your team’s output significantly.

Limitations

The most important limitation to acknowledge is that AI content is only as good as the input and can lack true originality. Jasper can write grammatically sound, professional-sounding text – but it regurgitates patterns from its training data. It won’t inherently know your company’s unique point of view or have new insights from the field.

Thus, if one were to use Jasper to create “thought leadership” and hit publish without human augmentation, it likely wouldn’t be thought leadership at all – just a rehash of what’s already out there. The value of Jasper in thought leadership is speeding up the writing, not formulating the insight. You still need to inject expert opinions, proprietary research findings, or novel frameworks. Jasper might draft “5 benefits of X” in a generic way; it’s your job to make number 5 a surprising benefit nobody else discussed, for example.

Quality control is another aspect. AI can make mistakes – factual inaccuracies, tone misfires, or subtle language that doesn’t fit your brand. It might use an Americanism where a Briticism is expected, or it might write a sentence that’s technically correct but slightly off in nuance. Therefore, human editing is mandatory.

Many teams implement a rule that AI-generated copy must be reviewed by a human (and some industries might even require disclosure or have compliance review for AI usage). This means Jasper doesn’t eliminate the need for skilled writers/editors; it changes their role towards editing and refining. If a team treats Jasper output as final, they risk publishing content that could contain errors or bland filler text. The good news is each revision cycle with Jasper tends to be faster than writing from scratch, but you cannot skip that cycle.

Another limitation: learning curve and prompt crafting. While Jasper is user-friendly, getting the best output often requires a bit of prompt engineering. For instance, saying “Write an article about cloud computing” will give you something, but perhaps too generic. You’ll learn to add detail: “Write an article about the benefits of cloud computing for small retail businesses, including at least one real-world example, in a conversational tone.” The more context and direction, the better the output. Training your team on how to communicate with the AI is important. Jasper’s templates mitigate this a lot, but creative uses will go beyond templates.

There’s also a matter of ethical and brand considerations. Some companies worry about over-reliance on AI eroding their authentic voice or inadvertently plagiarising (though Jasper is designed to produce original phrasing). It’s wise to use plagiarism checkers on AI content that’s going to print, just in case (Jasper has one built-in for premium users). For thought leadership, authenticity is key – so you wouldn’t want it to appear “robotic” or generic. That’s why blending AI output with human storytelling (personal anecdotes, case specifics) is the best practice.

One must mention data security: Jasper is a cloud service, and while they have a business-grade offering with data privacy options, very sensitive information shouldn’t be blindly fed into any AI service. For example, you wouldn’t dump unreleased financial figures for Jasper to write about (unless you’re sure they won’t be used in training or leak – Jasper does have a mode to not retain data for training on Business plans, which is important for enterprise compliance). Always review their privacy policy and use opt-out features if generating content that involves proprietary data.

For UK users, an interesting limitation is that Jasper (and underlying models) may occasionally produce text that sounds a bit more US-oriented by default. However, by specifying “British English” or providing UK examples, you can usually correct this. It’s just something to keep an eye on – e.g., ensure spelling is UK style and references or idioms make sense to your audience.

In terms of integration, Jasper is a standalone app or browser-based tool. It doesn’t integrate deeply with content management systems (except via copy-paste or the extension). That’s not a huge issue, but unlike, say, a Grammarly plugin in Word or a CMS, you’ll typically generate in Jasper then move the text to your publishing platform. Not a big hurdle, but worth noting.

Summary

In summary, Jasper is best seen as an assistant that boosts your content capacity and creativity, not a replacement for strategic thinking. UK B2B marketers using Jasper have found that they can turn around blog posts, social content, even video scripts much faster – which is crucial in fast-moving markets or when you have a small team. It reduces the grunt work of writing, allowing your experts to spend more time on differentiating insights and engagement with the audience.

As the AI era matures, having a tool like Jasper in your stack can keep you competitive (imagine your rival produces 4x the content because they use AI – you wouldn’t want to fall behind). Just remember its limitations: guard against any inaccuracies, maintain your brand voice (which Jasper can be trained to do), and continue to value human creativity and judgement. When balanced correctly, human + Jasper can produce high-quality thought leadership content efficiently. The human provides the leadership, and Jasper provides a lot of the content.

Oktopost

Finally, let’s shift from content creation to content distribution and amplification, especially via social media – which is where Oktopost comes in. You might create the best thought leadership content, but it needs to reach your audience and spark engagement. In B2B, that often means sharing content on LinkedIn, Twitter, or even nurturing prospects via social touchpoints.

Oktopost is a social media management platform built for B2B marketers, with a strong emphasis on employee advocacy and measurable ROI. Unlike generic social tools that focus on vanity metrics (likes, follows), Oktopost is all about driving business outcomes from social and proving the value of those efforts.

What it does

Oktopost provides a suite of tools to manage and track your company’s presence on social networks. At a basic level, it’s a social scheduling and publishing platform – you can plan your posts across multiple profiles and networks from one calendar interface. This is pretty standard, but Oktopost optimises it for B2B needs: for example, it has robust support for LinkedIn (company pages, showcase pages, and even individual employee profiles in some cases) since LinkedIn is the juggernaut for B2B engagement. You can schedule a LinkedIn post about your latest thought leadership blog and a matching tweet, perhaps even time them for when your UK and European audience is most active (Oktopost can suggest optimal times based on engagement data).

Where Oktopost sets itself apart is employee advocacy. It includes a module where you can curate content (both your own content and relevant third-party industry content) into a library that employees can access via the Oktopost app. Your salespeople, consultants, or executives can then easily share those pieces to their personal social networks with a couple of clicks – amplifying reach far beyond corporate channels. The platform tracks these shares and can even gamify it by showing a leaderboard of which employees are most active in sharing or generating engagement (which can be fun and motivating in a sales team, for instance).

This is incredibly useful for thought leadership: say your company publishes a new research report – with Oktopost, you ensure that dozens of your team members share the key findings on their personal LinkedIn profiles in a coordinated way. Each of those individuals might have networks of relevant contacts, vastly increasing visibility. In markets like professional services or tech, buyers often trust individuals more than brands, so employee advocacy turns your staff into brand ambassadors.

Oktopost provides tools to make this safe and easy – you control the content suggestions and messaging (and can even pre-write suggested share text), so employees don’t go off-piste or worry about what to say.

Listening and engagement

From a listening and engagement perspective, Oktopost offers social monitoring streams (for mentions of your brand, keywords, or even competitors). This ensures you catch any conversations that you might want to join or at least note. For example, if someone on Twitter asks a question that your whitepaper answers, you can have your social manager (or the advocacy user network) respond with a link.

Analytics and attribution

The analytics in Oktopost are quite rich. It doesn’t stop at counting likes or impressions; it integrates with your marketing automation and CRM so you can see how social interactions generate leads or pipeline. For instance, Oktopost can track if someone clicked a link in a social post and ended up filling a form on your website – attributing that lead source properly. It can even go further: if that lead becomes an opportunity in Salesforce, Oktopost can attribute revenue to the social campaign (multi-touch attribution).

This is the kind of data B2B marketers need when justifying social media spend. The platform basically helps answer: does sharing our thought leadership on social actually bring in business? With Oktopost, you’re likely to see a clearer “yes,” by tying activities to outcomes (something only 29% of thought leadership producers currently can do, per the earlier Edelman/LinkedIn study – so it’s a gap many need to fix).

Oktopost also supports social listening for intent signals. For example, you could monitor if people are asking about solutions like yours or complaining about a competitor – intel that can be passed to sales or inform content needs. Its integration means these interactions can even trigger actions: one might feed a highly engaged social user into a specific nurture track in marketing automation.

Compliance

From a compliance perspective, Oktopost is built with the needs of industries like finance or healthcare in mind (which often require archiving of social communications, approval workflows for posts, etc.). You can set up an approval process so that, say, any LinkedIn post by marketing goes through a manager or legal for sign-off before publishing.

The platform also enables “social governance” – if an employee tries to share something off-brand through the advocacy app, you can have policies to filter or prevent certain content. This helps large organisations ensure brand and regulatory compliance across potentially thousands of social posts per week.

AI features

One more feature to highlight: Oktopost has started leveraging AI (notably after 2023) to help with content curation and scheduling. It might analyse past engagement data to suggest what types of posts work best at what times. Or even recommend content from third-party sources that your audience would find interesting (keeping your social feeds from being just self-promotional by including industry news, for example).

This light AI is more about optimisation rather than writing posts – though expect more in the future (e.g., auto-generating social copy variations from a blog link could be plausible soon, perhaps via integration with GPT).

Strengths

Oktopost’s biggest strength is that it is purpose-built for B2B. Many social tools cater to B2C or general use and emphasise volume of posts and shallow metrics. Oktopost focuses on the channels and features that matter to B2B: LinkedIn above all, but also the idea that every employee can be an influencer (employee advocacy). For UK B2B firms, which often have strong sales teams or subject experts on staff, this is a game-changer. It enables a structured employee advocacy programme, rather than hoping individuals share content of their own accord.

Another strength is measurement and integration. Oktopost makes social a measurable part of your lead generation strategy rather than a silo. Marketing teams can finally give concrete answers when the CEO asks, “What are we actually getting from our Twitter or LinkedIn activity?” Using Oktopost, they might respond, “Our LinkedIn thought leadership posts last quarter generated 50 new sales leads, of which 5 have progressed to proposals, representing £200k in pipeline” – because they tracked it through to CRM. This level of attribution is essential in 2025’s climate of accountability (and tight budgets), where every channel’s contribution is scrutinised.

Oktopost is also praised for its UI and ease of use for both marketers and employee advocates. The advocacy app (sometimes branded as “Employee Advocacy Board”) is simple for non-marketers to use – they log in, see a feed of shareable content with suggested captions, and with one button can share to their accounts. They can even schedule or queue up multiple posts. This means higher adoption among employees, which is often the hardest part of an advocacy programme (people are busy, or unsure what to share – Oktopost spoon-feeds them good content). Marketers, meanwhile, get to expand reach exponentially with minimal extra effort: one person can manage the advocacy feed that fuels dozens of sharers.

For pure social media managers, Oktopost’s publishing tools cover all the basics: you can collaborate on a content calendar, use UTM parameters easily for tracking links (and shorten them), tag people or companies in posts, etc. It might not have some frills that B2C-focused tools have (like TikTok scheduling or advanced Instagram stories features – but most B2B firms aren’t centred on those anyway). It does handle LinkedIn tagging and video posts, which are crucial.

Customer support and success are another noted strength. Being a smaller niche player (compared to giants like Hootsuite or Sprout Social), Oktopost often gives more attentive support. And they understand B2B challenges – like helping a client integrate social data with Marketo properly, or advising on advocacy launch strategies. This expertise is valuable, especially for UK clients where local support and understanding compliance (GDPR, etc.) is needed.

Pricing

Oktopost doesn’t publish pricing openly, as it’s usually a custom quote depending on number of users (both for the core platform and how many employee advocate seats), number of social profiles, and any add-ons (like social listening or analytics modules). Generally, companies should expect a starting investment of at least £10k–£15k per year for a basic deployment, and it can range upward to £30k–£50k/year for larger teams or extensive advocacy users. Enterprise deployments could go higher if thousands of employees are involved.

This positions Oktopost as a mid-market to enterprise tool – more costly than DIY solutions or small business tools, but typically less than huge enterprise social suites like Sprinklr. The value comes from potentially replacing several things: a social scheduling tool, an advocacy platform (some companies buy separate software just for that), and parts of marketing analytics. If you currently pay for LinkedIn Elevate (now discontinued) or similar for advocacy, Oktopost rolls that function in.

They usually offer platform demos and maybe trial periods. If a UK company is interested, Oktopost has a London presence (they have clientele across Europe) which helps in tailoring the quote. It’s worth noting that if you’re only looking for basic social scheduling and don’t plan to integrate or use advocacy, Oktopost might be overkill – you could use a cheaper generic tool. Oktopost’s real ROI is when you leverage its full B2B feature set.

Limitations

For very small organisations or startups, Oktopost likely isn’t the right fit – it’s priced and built for those who have a dedicated marketing person for social or a team to manage an advocacy initiative. If you’re a one-person marketing team with modest social activity, a simpler tool (or even native platform posting) could suffice until you scale.

Another limitation is that Oktopost focuses on the key B2B networks; it’s not the choice if you need strong support for Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok. It can post to those (except TikTok currently), but it doesn’t focus on visual planning like an Instagram grid or TikTok analytics because B2B demand there is low. For example, if a B2B company does employer branding on Instagram or video marketing on YouTube, Oktopost can push content out but the analytics might not be as deep as it is for LinkedIn/Twitter.

It also doesn’t manage advertising – it’s for organic social management, not running paid ad campaigns (that you’d do in LinkedIn Campaign Manager etc., and possibly track results in your marketing automation).

When launching an employee advocacy programme, a limitation might be cultural rather than technical: employees may be hesitant to participate or may share but without authentic engagement. Oktopost provides the toolset, but companies need to motivate and possibly train employees on building their personal brand, using social media professionally, etc. Without that, you might have low adoption or mechanical shares that don’t resonate. This isn’t Oktopost’s fault per se, but success depends on internal marketing of the programme. Some organisations incentivise sharing (the leaderboard helps, maybe even small rewards for top advocates). Leadership buy-in is crucial – if your CEO and directors actively share content via Oktopost, others will follow. So, marketers implementing Oktopost should be prepared to do an enablement campaign internally.

In terms of product limitations: some users have desired more advanced features like integrated social listening sentiment analysis (Oktopost has basic listening by keywords, but not AI sentiment or sophisticated trend analysis that big tools have). If you need super granular listening (like tracking every mention and sentiment across millions of posts), a dedicated social listening tool might still be needed. However, for most B2B needs (monitor industry keywords, competitors, and brand mentions), Oktopost is sufficient.

One practical consideration: data volume. If your company’s social reach is limited, the analytics might not have big numbers to show. That’s obvious, but for very niche industries, social may not be a major lead generator in the first place. Oktopost would quantify that, which could be enlightening or could reinforce that more effort needs to go into building an audience for your content (e.g., growing your LinkedIn followers or encouraging more employees to share). Essentially, you need a minimum social presence to fully benefit from a platform like this.

Lastly, user interface feedback – while generally good, new users might find the array of features a bit complex initially (there’s the publishing part, the advocacy part, integrations, etc.). There is training and Oktopost’s team helps, but any multi-faceted platform requires some onboarding time to master.

In conclusion

Oktopost is a powerful ally for B2B marketers aiming to turn social media into a lead-generating, thought leadership-amplifying machine. In the UK, where LinkedIn networking and content sharing is standard practice in many industries, Oktopost gives you the control panel to orchestrate it and measure it.

It’s particularly valuable if your marketing strategy involves content marketing (you’ll want to push that content on social and track it) and if you have knowledgeable employees or sales reps willing to be voices on social (advocacy can dramatically expand reach and credibility). By using Oktopost, you ensure that your painstakingly crafted thought leadership doesn’t just sit on your blog – it gets in front of the right eyeballs via social channels, and you can prove it contributed to eventual sales. It aligns social marketing with ABM and demand gen efforts, making it a truly integral part of the B2B marketing arsenal. Use Oktopost when you’re ready to take social from “soft marketing” to a strategic, trackable contributor to pipeline.

Conclusion & selection guidance

Bringing it all together, we’ve explored five top tools that each address different facets of content marketing and thought leadership in 2025. Choosing the right ones for your organisation will depend on your strategy, team size, and where your current gaps are. Here’s a recap to help guide your decisions:

If you need to elevate content quality and consistency, and you have the budget for a comprehensive platform: Contently is your go-to. This is ideal if you’re looking to transform your content operation – perhaps your company is committing to a big thought leadership push, or you’re in a content-heavy industry (like consulting, tech, finance) where publishing articles, reports, and case studies regularly is essential. Contently will bring order and excellence to that process, ensuring you have top-notch content and clear ROI tracking. Choose Contently if you value quality over quantity and want an all-in-one solution to strategise, produce (with freelance support), and measure impactful content. Do make sure you have enough content throughput to justify it (at least a few pieces a month and a desire to scale further), and an internal owner for the platform who can champion and administer it. For many mid-to-large UK B2B firms, Contently can be the engine that drives a successful thought leadership program year after year.

If your content machine is running but you’re flying blind on engagement data – or prospects aren’t engaging as deeply as you’d like: PathFactory would be a smart addition. It’s particularly useful if you already have a library of content (blogs, eBooks, webinars) and want to maximise its impact. Ask yourself: do we really know if prospects read our whitepapers or just download and ignore them? Are we giving interested buyers enough to chew on, or making them wait for drip emails? If those questions make you uneasy, PathFactory can provide the answers and the solution. It essentially upgrades your lead nurturing and content utilisation. It’s a bit of an investment and requires some setup, but the payoff is stronger engagement and faster lead progression – which in a complex B2B sale can make a significant difference. UK marketers who have long sales cycles or ABM strategies will especially appreciate the insight into account content consumption. PathFactory is best if you’re ready to treat content like the strategic asset it is, moving beyond clicks to real engagement intelligence.

If you want to craft a content strategy backed by data and keep a pulse on industry conversations without breaking the bank: definitely use BuzzSumo. In fact, BuzzSumo is the easiest recommendation of the bunch because it’s low-cost and immediately beneficial for virtually any content marketer or comms professional. Whether you’re a team of 1 or 20, creating 1 article a month or 10 a week, knowing what content resonates externally will improve your efforts. For UK teams, BuzzSumo can highlight regional trends (e.g., what UK decision-makers share vs. US audiences might differ). It’s also great for competitive benchmarking – UK B2B marketing can be a tight-knit scene in some industries, so you’ll want to know if a competitor’s thought piece is making waves. BuzzSumo is a quick win: minimal investment, no complex implementation, just richer insight to guide your content creation and distribution. Essentially, use BuzzSumo as your content compass to ensure you’re heading in the right direction with topics and formats.

If your content team is stretched thin or you need to drastically increase output (while maintaining quality) – or if you just want to empower every team member to contribute to content without adding headcount: Jasper (or a similar AI writing tool) should be in your toolkit. It’s particularly useful for short turnaround needs and high-volume tasks. For instance, if you’re localising content for different regions, or tailoring ABM assets for 50 target clients, or simply trying to feed the ever-hungry content beast on social media daily, AI assistance is the only practical way to scale. Jasper offers a nice balance of power and marketer-friendly design. Just be mindful to use it wisely: have humans in the loop to provide the insight and review the output. In the UK, where perhaps maintaining a certain tone or avoiding overhype is valued, you’ll want to train Jasper with those preferences. But once that’s done, it can save precious time – letting you respond faster to trending topics (e.g., quickly blog about a new regulation change using Jasper to draft) or freeing up senior marketers from first-draft writing so they can focus on strategy. In summary, Jasper is like an intern who’s read the entire internet – harness that to increase your content velocity, but always add the final human touch to ensure genuine thought leadership calibre.

If you have solid content and need to maximise its reach and track its influence on pipeline, especially via social channels: Oktopost is a strong choice. This is particularly true if LinkedIn is a major arena for you (which it is for most B2B firms) and if you have a willing cohort of employees who can act as brand advocates. For example, say you’re a SaaS company in the UK – your sales team and consultants on LinkedIn can massively amplify your content. Oktopost will give them the ammo and make sharing as simple as a click, while you centrally orchestrate the messaging. It ensures consistency and lets you measure the outcomes, connecting those social touches to lead gen. Another scenario: if you’re investing in personal branding for execs (a common element of thought leadership – e.g., your CEO posting on LinkedIn regularly), Oktopost can help coordinate that and gather results. While Oktopost requires budget and some program management (for advocacy), the return in brand visibility and traffic can be substantial. I’d especially recommend it for mid-size and larger B2B companies in sectors like technology, consulting, manufacturing, or fintech, where peer recommendations and professional networks heavily influence buying. One more thing – Oktopost’s focus on compliance is a plus if you’re in a regulated industry; it’s easier to convince compliance officers that a platform is in place to monitor and archive social posts. So, if expanding your share of voice on social and proving social ROI are priorities, Oktopost is purpose-built for that mission.

In closing, the B2B marketing landscape in 2025 is both exciting and challenging. Buyers crave insightful content and genuine thought leadership, but they’re also overwhelmed and sceptical. To succeed, marketers must produce content that truly educates or inspires, deliver it in the right way at the right time, and often do so with limited resources – all while measuring what works and what doesn’t. The tools we’ve discussed are like a high-performance toolkit to meet these demands: from creation (human or AI-assisted) to optimisation and distribution, and finally to analytics and attribution.

Importantly, these tools don’t operate in isolation. In fact, many leading B2B teams deploy them in tandem. For instance, you might use BuzzSumo to identify a hot topic, Contently (or internal resources) to create a stellar article on it, Jasper to generate some repurposed content (like turning that article into a slide deck or series of tweets), PathFactory to ensure those who click through consume multiple pieces of related content, and Oktopost to drive traffic to it via employee shares – all the while measuring the journey of those readers into your CRM. That’s a sophisticated playbook, but entirely feasible with a bit of planning.

Not every organisation will need all five of these solutions; it depends on your maturity and focus. Smaller teams might start with BuzzSumo and Jasper to get immediate improvements in strategy and capacity, then add PathFactory or Oktopost as they scale up their content volume and need deeper engagement analytics or more structured social amplification. Larger teams or those with aggressive thought leadership goals might invest in a platform like Contently from the get-go to build a strong foundation, alongside one of the distribution-focused tools to hit the market hard.

As you consider these investments, keep the big picture strategy front and centre. Tools should map to your goals: Are you aiming to increase brand awareness? Then focus on BuzzSumo (to pick the right topics) and Oktopost/advocacy (to widen reach). Is your goal to improve lead conversion? PathFactory’s content journey optimisation and Contently’s quality boost might be key. Need to increase output without hiring? Jasper’s your friend. And if you simply want to become the trusted voice in your space, consistent high-quality content via a platform like Contently combined with savvy promotion via Oktopost will get you there.

In the dynamic UK B2B environment, those who combine great content with great delivery (and iterate based on data) will win the trust and attention of buyers. The tools we reviewed are enablers of that formula. With the right mix in your marketing stack, you can amplify your team’s capabilities – doing more with less, personalising where others genericise, measuring what matters, and ultimately building a pipeline and brand equity that leadership will love.

Remember, technology is an enabler, not the strategy itself. But when aligned with a solid strategy, the right tools can significantly amplify your impact. The five platforms covered in this report each excel in their domain; used wisely, they will help transform your content marketing and thought leadership from a series of tasks into a finely-tuned engine driving your business forward.

Here’s to making 2025 the year your content truly leads – and delivers leaders (as clients) to your business. Good luck, and happy content marketing!

Want the latest B2B marketing news straight to your inbox? Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter!

Interested in sales, marketing or business skills courses and training? Check out our training partner, Learning Room.