Deviation – the “Search Everywhere Agency” – has launched a new partnership with Upwork, the online freelancing platform, to build the brand’s share of search and visibility.
Following a pitch process, a strategic partnership was agreed, with both agency and brand acknowledging the changing state of search and the need to demand attention across the emerging search universe.
With modern consumers now discovering and evaluating products/services across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, blogs, forums, and AI-generated summaries long before engaging directly with brands, traditional search engines are no longer the primary gateway.
Deviation will primarily deliver a stream of social search content, fuelled by content creators to engineer discoverability in key categories for the brand. These strategic outputs are designed to grow Upwork’s share of search, its AI/LLM citations, and its associated branded search queries.
Ashley Liddell, co-founder at Deviation and pioneer of “Search Everywhere” strategy, said: “The US tech market is at the forefront of how search behaviour is evolving. B2B Audiences are increasingly platform-agnostic, moving between YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, and AI/LLM tools to inform decisions.
“For a brand like Upwork, connecting businesses with the talent they need in an increasingly AI-shaped world, showing up consistently across the entire search landscape isn’t optional, it’s essential. Search Everywhere is designed to do exactly that, building visibility, authority, and preference wherever discovery happens. This partnership reflects both the growing demand for this approach in the US and our ambition to help tech brands lead in this new era of search.”
Blair Witte, director brand and social marketing at Upwork, added: “Too many brands are still optimizing for where search used to happen instead of where it’s going. Our customers are learning, comparing, and forming preferences across social platforms and AI tools. Partnering with Deviation allows us to meet that shift head-on and ensure Upwork is not just present, but leading the conversation around how work gets done.” Blair Witte, Director Brand + Social Marketing at Upwork.
Founded by Liddell and Sam Broadhead, Manchester’s Deviation launched in January 2025, and quickly saw rapid growth across the industry, with a current team of seven. The latest partnership marks Deviation’s first client on US soil, enabling the team to implement its Search Everywhere strategies across new territories.
