Your AI Spokes-Bot Resources and Runbook — How to Build Your Own Lil Miquela (If That’s What You Really Want)

This is a resource document/runbook specifically for the attendees of my talk at Ragan’s Social Media Conference 2026.

Full Disclosure: I used Google Gemini and ChatGPT (pre-nuking) to research some elements of this post, but it is written by my meat-hands and meat-brain. In even fuller disclosure, I’ve created agents like this for external deployment on the web and use across internal comms channels, but I’ve never designed a “Lil Miquela” and don’t want to intimate that I have.

Ok, so you sat (or are currently sitting) through my revolutionary call-to-arms at Disney World, and maybe you’re thinking, “when will this guy shut up and tell me how to make a spokes-bot.”

Well, I’m not gonna. At least not in person. But I understand nobody wants to be bait-and-switched so I’m creating this runbook for anyone who – despite my warnings – wants to deploy the next blunt-cut-bangs-sporting AI avatar to pretend to try on makeup or whatever.

In this document, we’re going to do character design work and operational backstopping, so we can do some fun imaginative stuff with our spokes-bot and then position it (or “him” or “her” or “them”) as a real full-service marketing channel.

Resources

First, here are the AI third-party resources and tools I use throughout this process.

The Basics

You know ‘em, you’ve used ‘em, you might be bored of them, but you’ll need them for this project:

ChatGPT: Personality, dialogue, scripting, and brand voice

Midjourney: Visual identity and character design

RunwayML: Turning still images into video content

ElevenLabs: AI voice generation

HeyGen: Combines voice, avatar and script into a working product

Next Level

These are more esoteric and specific apps that are needed for this project:

Audiense: Audience segmentation and cultural intelligence.

Flick: AI-assisted social scheduling, captioning and hashtag (findability) strategy.

Predis.ai: Competitor monitoring plus AI content/ad generation and auto-publishing.

FeedHive: AI-powered publishing workflow and content recycling.

Metricool: Cross-platform planning, analytics, competitor tracking, and link-in-bio conversion support.

Process

Now let’s put these tools to use. This is a project that is rife with specificity, and since I can’t know all the specifics of your particular use case, I’ll need to be general or vague in some steps. I’d ask your forgiveness, but hey, you’re the one bringing another AI avatar spokes-bot into this world, so maybe you should be the one apologizing lol.

Step 1 — Define the Character

Before opening any AI tools, define the character concept. Your spokes-bot needs a clear identity. Treat it like a creative brief: write a one-page “character dossier” that includes these basic identity elements:

• Name

• Age or perceived age

• Occupation or role

• City or region

• Personality traits

Brand Alignment

Then, define the way the character interacts with the brand. Is he an employee? A superfan of the product? A tongue-in-cheek troublemaker? A Statler-and-Waldorf kind of critic of the industry, taking shots from the balcony?

Questions to answer:

• Why does this character exist?

• What perspective does it represent?

• What type of content will it create?

Good spokes-bots act like characters in a show, not mascots.

Step 2 – Create Personality and Tone

Ok, now that you’ve done some human thinky-work you can use your first actual AI tool. Pop open ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Copilot, and ask it to develop the character’s personality after feeding it your brief. Some prompts for personality generation:

• Backstory

• Speech style

• Slang or vocabulary

• Humor style

• Social media tone

Example: “Write a personality guide for a digital travel influencer who works with a luxury hotel brand.”

Use the output to document the following aspects of your nascent spokes-bot:

• Tone rules

• Catchphrases

• Favorite emojis or expressions

• Cultural references

• In-jokes

Altogether, this provides the basis for the character’s brand voice guide.

Step 3 – Design the Visual Character

Let’s move onto visual identity. We’ll design our character’s look using Midjourney. Start by generating hundreds of character variations until you find a look that works.

Prompt example:

“Photorealistic Gen-Z travel influencer, cinematic lighting, fashion editorial style, natural pose.”

Be sure to export several types of images. Character assets can include:

• Headshots

• Lifestyle photos

• Full-body images

• Expressions

• Poses

Consistency matters. Your character should look identical across posts. Continue to home in on this “true” look through iterative prompting and correcting. Many brands build a character reference sheet to maintain visual continuity.

Step 4 — Animate the Character

Now let’s turn this character into video. Useful tools include. Runway is your best bet, but I’ve also had success with Sora and HeyGen, to lesser degrees.

Runway ML

Best for for stylized AI video generation and short scenes.

Sora

Useful for cinematic video sequences or storytelling.

HeyGen

Best for talking avatar videos where the character speaks directly to camera. (I’ve also used Synthesia for this, but it is more limited.)

Use these tools to create:

• TikTok style clips

• Product explainers

• Travel footage

• Influencer style content

Start with short 10–30 second clips – a lot of subscription levels cap you at this length anyway, which is a limitation unless you have significant budget for the project.

Step 5 — Create the Voice

What’s a spokesman who doesn’t speak? Give your character a voice using the clear sector-leader, ElevenLabs, to generate a custom voice that soundes natural and recognizable.

You can create:

• Narration

• Dialogue

• Podcast-style audio

• Multilingual versions

Once you choose a voice, never change it unless there is a narrative reason to do so. Voice consistency reinforces the illusion of a real personality.

Step 6 — Create the Social Presence

This character has to occupy the “real” digital world, not just your desktop, so give them a real social footprint. The most conducive platforms to deploy AI spokes-bots include (in this order):

• Instagram

• TikTok

• YouTube Shorts

• LinkedIn (for B2B brands)

• Facebook (yes, still)

I don’t recommend deploying these campaigns on X or Reddit, frankly, because they don’t jibe with the core dynamics of those platforms.

Be sure to write posts in the character’s voice, not the brand voice. Also, be sure to “de-AI” the dialogue. You know what I’m talking about: like those cringey LinkedIn-style posts, “That’s not X. That’s Y.” Ugh, scratch all that. Make them talk like a person. They should feel like a personality interacting with the brand, not a corporate spokesperson.

Step 7 — Plan the Content Calendar

Your spokes-bot should have a consistent content rhythm. You’ve created a content calendar before, this is no different. In fact, you could easily graft this calendar onto your brand’s larger slate of content. Make your avatar one integrated piece with your overall social efforts.

Like most new social initiatives, I recommend about 3–5 posts per week including things like lifestyle posts, product features, behind-the-scenes, industry commentary, and some funny or trendy takes. This keeps the character from becoming a one-dimensional marketing tool.

Step 8 – Add the Social Media Operating System

Running a spokes-bot requires the same infrastructure as running a social media team. Use AI-assisted management platforms such as:

• Flick

• FeedHive

Use them to automate your grunt work:

• Schedule posts

• Generate caption ideas

• Optimize hashtags

• Manage content calendars

Step 9 – Understand Your Audience

Use audience intelligence tools such as Audiense to analyze social communities and identify:

• Audience interests

• Demographics

• Online behavior

• Cultural trends

This allows you to segment audiences like:

• Luxury travelers

• Budget travelers

• Travel advisors

• Frequent fliers

Your spokes-bot can then tailor posts to each audience.

Step 10 — Monitor Competitors

You should track what other brands in your category are doing on social media – not to copy or steal, but to inform yourself of the organic direction of your sector. You can use tools like Predis.ai to analyze competitor accounts reveal the following:

• Posting frequency

• Content format trends

• Hashtag strategies

• Engagement performance

This helps you find content opportunities competitors are missing.

Step 11 — Track Performance

Your spokes-bot is a marketing asset, so performance matters. Trust me, you’re going to be grilled at some point over whether this thing is working or not, and you’d better be able to defend it. I’ve used Metricool to track performance, including:

• Traffic

• Link clicks

• Follower growth

• Campaign performance

These are pretty chalk categories of measurement, but you should take some time to create a custom performance dashboard. You can also track which posts drive users to:

• Product pages

• Newsletter signups

• Brand websites

Step 12 — Create a Measurement Dashboard

As I said, be ready to defend your little pixel-baby. At a minimum track:

• Followers

• Engagement rate

• Reach

• Traffic to brand website

• Conversions

Most companies review these metrics monthly, but I prefer having a dashboard that is live. Do that.

If the spokes-bot does not generate engagement or traffic, the character likely needs:

• Stronger storytelling

• Better visuals

• Clearer brand role

Step 13 — Scale the Character

Once the character works, consider expanding its presence.

Possible extensions for your spokes-bot include:

• Livestream appearances

• Customer support chatbots

• Podcasts

• AR or metaverse experiences

Eventually the spokes-bot becomes a digital brand personality. And then you’ll finally be ready to hand it the reins and ride off into the proverbial sunset.

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