My friend Joe Pulizzi attended my Uprising retreat and was so moved by the experience that he wrote a beautiful lesson about it in his newsletter for content creators, The Tilt.

Joe and I are aligned on most marketing ideas, and his conclusion at the end of the post was profound and eloquent: “You don’t start with the room.”

He was reinforcing the idea that nobody just starts with a premium event, a smash YouTube channel, or a must-read newsletter. You have to earn that “room.” Or, in the case of my retreat, literally a room.

He wrote this so elegantly that, with his permission, I’ve quoted some of his highlights here. I think you’ll love his wisdom:

Last week I spent three days at Mark Schaefer’s The Uprising marketing retreat in Tennessee. It was small, around 40 people, and that was the point.

The room was filled with smart marketers, entrepreneurs, authors, consultants, and creators. But what stood out was not just the intelligence in the room. It was how quickly people became useful to one another. Helpful. Honest. Shockingly vulnerable.

That does not happen by accident. It happens when the right people are brought together around the right idea, with enough trust already in the room for something meaningful to happen.

Over three days of conversations, presentations, sidebars, meals, and big questions about where all this is going, one idea kept coming back to me.

In the next 12 to 18 months, small, trusted communities will matter more than ever.

Not because community is trendy. And not because AI is going to destroy everything tomorrow.

Because uncertainty is rising.

Search is changing. Discovery is changing. Content is exploding. Trust is harder to earn and easier to lose. People are overwhelmed, distracted, and suspicious. At the same time, they are desperate to find other people who understand what they are dealing with. That is where community becomes incredibly powerful.

But there’s a problem.

Everyone now wants to “build a community.”

That sounds wonderful. It is also mostly wrong.

Community Is Not the First Step

You do not build a community first. You build the reason a community should exist. That’s the part most people want to skip.

They launch the group. They open the Slack channel. They create the Discord server. They announce the membership. They schedule the webinar. They build the event page.

And then they wonder why nobody shows up.

The mistake is simple. They built the campfire before anyone had a reason to sit down in front of it.

A community is not a Facebook group. It is not a LinkedIn group. It is not a membership site. It is not a monthly Zoom call. It is not an event. Those are containers.

The community is the trust inside the container.

It is the shared language, shared struggle, shared progress, and repeated interaction. It is the feeling that says, “These are my people.” It is the sense that if you disappeared, someone would notice.

Mark Did Not Start With a Room

This is what made The Uprising such a good reminder.

Mark did not just rent a space, invite some people, and magically create a community. He had already done the work.

For years, Mark has published, spoken, written books, shared ideas, challenged assumptions, and built trust around a clear point of view. People came to The Uprising because they already had a reason to believe the room would matter.

The event was not the beginning of the community. It was an expression of the community. It’s where the community happened to be at that particular moment.

This is what so many people miss. They see the outcome and copy the container. They see the event, but not the years of trust. They see the membership, but not the audience.

Back to me.

Joe and I preach from the same hymnbook when it comes to community and its importance in the AI Age.

So how do you get there?

There is a process. It is not quick. It is not easy. But it works. This is the process I teach in my personal branding master class:

1. Where do you fit in your industry or marketplace?

Figure out your unique angle. What problem do you solve, and how do you uniquely solve it?

How do you finish this sentence: “Only I …”

That might seem intimidating but I’ve never had a class participant where we haven;t been able to figure that out. There’s still a big world of opportunity out there.

2. Find Your Space

Now you have the story to tell the world?

Joe was also very specific on this advice: Pick One Main Platform

“This is where people get overwhelmed,” Joe wrote. “They think they need a podcast, newsletter, YouTube channel, LinkedIn strategy, Instagram Reels, TikTok presence, webinar series, book project, and community all at the same time. Do not do that. Pick one main platform. One.”

To stand out, you have to be great. And you can’t be great in 12 places.

3. Stick to a Consistent Schedule

If you take my class, you will hear one word more than any other — “consistency.”

Consistency is more important than genius.

Once you begin, give yourself 18 months at least to see if it’s working. You can build your “room,” but you have to keep showing up. This also has powerful SEO and AI visibility advantages, of course.

You’ve implied to your audience that you’re going to help them solve a problem.

“The promise does not need to be clever, ” Joe said, “It needs to be clear.”

Over time, you become part of your audience’s weekly routine. Your goal is to become a habit.

4. Build Your Audience

Joe advised, “Audience building is not just publishing. It is relationship building. This is the part that gets missed because it is not scalable at first.”

He offered specific advice:

Make a list of 20 people who matter to the future of the audience you want to serve. They could be peers, customers, readers, event organizers, authors, podcast hosts, niche experts, future collaborators, or people already gathering the audience you care about.

Then help them. Share their work. Comment with substance. Interview them. Send the useful email. Introduce them to someone. Buy their book. Attend their event. Meet them in person when you can.

The future may be AI-powered, but trust is still built person by person.

5. Audience Precedes Community

Most creators miss the biggest opportunity. Once they build an audience, they stop there. But the most value, the most fun, the most connection comes through a community.

A community differs from an audience in three ways:

1. There is communion. People know each other and become friends.
2. There is a shared purpose.
3. There is a shared direction (which might change over time as the community pulls you forward).

This is the room. This will matter the most in the AI Era.

How do you know you’re ready? Do you have a few super fans? It doesn’t have to be a big group. Maybe 5-10 people who just want to know more. They comment on your posts. They ask questions. They’re excited about your ideas.

If you want to know a whole lot more about community-building, please take a look at the book Belonging to the Brand: Why Community is the Last Great Marketing Strategy.

Build the Reason First

I’ll let Joe Pulizzi take us home on this post. Here are some of his concluding comments:

I keep thinking about that room at The Uprising.

The trust. The conversations. The openness. The willingness to help. The feeling that the people there were not just attending another event, but participating in something that mattered to them.

That is rare. I believe more of us are going to need that.

The people who have real trust with a specific audience will have an advantage. The people who have direct relationships will have an advantage. The people who are known for something will have an advantage.

Start with the person you want to serve. Start with the problem they are embarrassed to admit. Start with the one platform you can commit to. Start with the 20 people you can help. Start with a promise you can keep every week.

Do that long enough, and the community has a chance to appear.

Build the reason first. The campfire comes later.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

The post Content creators don’t start with “the room” appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

On every post I’ve written for at least two years, I’ve included a badge that states: “100% Human Content.” And this is, too (as you’ll see) but I used AI to compose most of it. I’d like to use this as a teachable moment on a smart way to use AI.

This post is about my annual Uprising Retreat. Nearly everyone there noted that this event is impossible to describe unless you’re there, but I’ll try. It’s a gathering of curious and brilliant people who openly share and teach one another, creating a bond that fosters career relevance. We also have a lot of fun in a breathtakingly beautiful place.

Now, during this event, I am psychologically and emotionally immersed. There is no way I can capture all the great highlights. This is where AI comes in.

Many of the attendees used the Plaud voice recorder to record and transcribe the talks. Dr. Matt Wilkinson uploaded these transcripts to Notebook LM, where we could all slice and dice the commentary. I used this to create a first draft of a highlight post and then used Claude to massage it a bit and put it in my voice.

So … what you are about to read is fully human content, parsed and assembled by AI.

The gift of uncertainty

Before each event, I send out a survey to let attendees prioritize the agenda. This year, one word kept popping up as they wrote about their careers: Uncertainty. So, I set the tone for the event with a brand new talk called “The Gift of Uncertainty.”

We are living in a “poly crisis.” Not just a hard moment. A genuinely disorienting one, where the norms and traditions and even laws that used to orient us feel like they’re shifting in real time. We are in a world of malignant uncertainty.

I opened the Uprising by saying this isn’t a flaw in the system — it’s our fuel, especially if you’re in marketing. I encouraged everyone to explore the “courage dividends” that come from overcoming fear and acting on opportunity,  even when the outcome is uncertain.

We live in chaos. But that sets the stage for hope. And leaders who can genuinely dispense hope — not spin, not optimism theater, but real grounded possibility — are going to matter enormously in the years ahead.

The agentic economy is here, and most people aren’t ready 

Dan Nestle, Dr. Matt Wilkinson, and Brian Piper built the technical foundation for the event with a live demonstration of what an AI-orchestrated workflow actually looks like end-to-end. They showed how they used Gemini, Claude, and other tools in parallel to explore every angle of a new product launch.

They laid out the technical reality clearly: We are moving from B2B and B2C toward an agent-to-agent economy. Your customers will soon have personal AI agents filtering what they see. You will have agents producing content. The question is whether there’s anything human left in the middle.

Brian introduced what he called the “human-in-the-loop sandwich” — and the image stuck with me. Your unique expertise and stories form the foundation. AI synthesizes and organizes. But human judgment sits at the top, as the final filter. Strip that out and you get what everyone is starting to call AI slop.

Dan made a point I think is genuinely underappreciated: keep your intellectual property separate from your tools. Your brand missions, your frameworks, your SOPs — those belong in a tool-agnostic library you can plug into whatever model is performing best this month. Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT. The models change. Your thinking shouldn’t have to change with them.

Matt demonstrated a system that turns static buyer personas into interactive AI simulations. Impressive. But he noted something that grounded the whole presentation: the real reason people show up to an event is still the humans in the room. No simulation replaces that.

The scariest AI risk isn’t replacement. It’s surrender.

Dr. Jasmine Gruia-Gray named something I think we all feel but don’t say out loud. She opened with a line that landed hard: “One day I couldn’t tell which parts of my thinking were mine.”

She cited a Wharton study where roughly 73% of participants followed faulty AI advice — not because they couldn’t tell it was wrong, but because the model was confident, and they stopped checking. That’s cognitive surrender. AI doesn’t replace your thinking. It keeps you from noticing you’ve already stopped thinking.

Her solution is a Socratic framework she calls BRACED — boundary testing, reversal from stakeholder, assumption surfacing, counter-hypothesis, disconfirming evidence, decision with tradeoffs. The specifics matter less than the principle. She ran it as a live game called Prompt Arena, where the goal wasn’t to get a better AI output. It was to build better thinking habits. That distinction is the whole ballgame right now.

The body knows things the brain ignores

Nicole Donnelly, the founder of Hello Moxie, gave what I thought was the most unexpected talk of the event. She’s been studying the intersection of trauma, workaholism, and leadership — and her argument is that most of our professional systems reward us for managing our bodies like machines. We optimize for output. We suppress the signals that slow us down. And we pay for it in creativity, in empathy, in the quality of our decisions.

We don’t need to move faster. We need to stop long enough to think. Embodiment is the last moat.

You can see her TEDx talk here.

Safe marketing compounds irrelevance

Jason Dressel, CEO of The History Factory, pushed back on what he called “confidence porn” — the performance of authority that substitutes for actual expertise. The market is correcting for that. People are hungry for real knowledge delivered through real stories.

His framework is simple: great stories need purposeful characters, a three-act structure built around conflict, and what he calls touchstones — the specific language and images that make a world feel real. Stories are 22 times more memorable than talking points. That’s not a preference. It’s neuroscience.

John Kowalski of BYK-Gardner Instruments said something I want to stitch on a pillow: safe marketing compounds irrelevance. He told the story of a company whose bear-resistant trash can failed spectacularly in a field test — and turned that failure into an unforgettable brand. The gap between what an industry expects and what an audience actually craves is where brand equity gets built. He called it the Awe Gap. I’m going to keep using that term.

Emotion is the experience. Full stop.

Stacy Sherman of Doing CX Right made a case that I think is more important than ever. As AI ingests public sentiment at scale, every micro-moment in the customer journey builds or erodes a ledger. The failed QR code. The boring hold music. The email that was obviously a form letter. These small failures accumulate, and AI systems are now reading that accumulated sentiment to rank brands.

Dana Malstaff, CEO of BOSS MOM, added a critical nuance on vulnerability — the kind that actually builds connection versus the kind that undermines authority. Her distinction: share your scars, not your wounds. Processed experiences with a lesson attached. Not active pain that you’re still in the middle of. Amen to that!

Dana also led a session on the future of brand communities, driving home the point that the best communities emerge from a dissatisfaction with the status quo. What do you want to change in the world?

Trust is the only distribution strategy that scales

Sarah Stahl, VP Marketing for Lake.com, shared how a startup resort hit $2 million in revenue on a $30,000 budget by out-trusting rather than out-spending. The mechanism was micro-creators with real proximity to real audiences. Sixty-eight percent of consumers trust a creator over a brand. That number should reorganize your marketing budget.

Chad Parizman of Ader Communications entertained everyone with a brief analysis of predictive markets and the potential dangers of addictive betting markets.

His argument was that prediction markets — platforms where people bet on real-world outcomes rather than company stocks — represent an underutilized seam for brands. 8.5 million monthly users, 25 trades per day. The conversations already happening around these markets are data-rich, audience-specific, and almost entirely untouched by brand strategy. The brands that figure out how to own those conversations are sitting on something.

It was the right mix of mind-blowing information and entertainment to end the day.

The future of content marketing

What an honor it was to sit side by side with the legendary Joe Pulizzi and hold court on the future of content marketing. Over the years, Joe and I have not always agreed but we have always been friends. As always, this was a spicy, energetic, and insightful 90 minutes.

Joe and I talked about what he calls the Trust Portfolio — and I think it’s one of the most practical ideas to come out of the event. Don’t bet everything on a single brand voice. Build a diversified network of employee creators. Give them room to be specific, to be themselves, to be a little weird. The marketing team becomes a media operations hub. The employees become the signal that cuts through the synthetic noise.

Our main debate centered around the most likely role of humanity in an AI-dominant content world. Joe thinks the window is closing. I think human art will persist. We’ll have to meet again in a few years to see what happens.

The future of your brand

Sarah Neely of Signal Swell has presented several times over the years and always has a fresh and relevant message. This year, she updated her core word-of-mouth marketing wisdom with a spin for the AI Age. She introduced a new framework — the Five C’s of AI Discoverability.

• Clarity
• Conversation
• Current
• Credible
• Composition

Mary Lague of Pilot 44 ran a foresight exercise that’s worth sitting with. If AI agents are mediating $3-5 trillion in commerce by 2036, and culture has fragmented into hyper-niche communities, what signals should we be watching now?

She hosted an interactive exercise that let every attendee create a vision of their own brand emerging from a set of megatrends such as brand communities and virtual humans.

But here’s the best part

These highlights are only the tip of the iceberg. Most attendees will tell you that most of the learning came from questions and answers, small group discussions (led by Valentina Escobar-Gonzalez, Lauren Colbert, Alice Ferris, and Chelsea Rae Stuck), breakout sessions on branding and personal branding, and late-night conversations at the bar.

For example, here are some takeaways from several attendees:

“I learned to not just embrace uncertainty, but to be grounded in it.”

“The biggest shift wasn’t a tactic. It was realizing that staying still long enough to understand what’s happening is often more powerful than reacting quickly to what’s changing.”

“Growth starts to feel heavy when nothing is compounding. That was the moment I realized the issue isn’t effort, it’s what the effort is building toward.”

Sarah Stahl, Founder, Market Movers

“Community creates the space for people to feel safe enough to move toward the future.”

“What do we hold onto and what do we release — that is our wisdom.”

Brian W Piper, Founder of AIreFlow Solutions

Melanie Borden, Author, “Theatre of the Mind” · Founder, The Borden Group

Mike Carr, Cofounder of John13.org &  Autism Labs

“When Mary Lague said 44% of Gen Z workers try to sabotage their company’s AI, it reordered my worldview. Leveraging AI is far more than mastering prompts and learning tools. It also involves helping people understand and work through massive change, many fear or don’t understand, so they seek to control it, apparently often to the detriment of their employer.”

“As Mark Schaefer said, leaders dispense hope. And when he exhorted us to create pockets of hope, order, and meaning, it landed as a clarion call to action for me and my business.”

Dan Christ, Owner and founder of Dan Christ Digital Services

“It’s possible not to be completely freaked out and overwhelmed about AI.”

Lisa Kohn, International Speaker, LisaKohn.com

“When you can’t tell if you’ve become part of the AI hive mind, you realize you’ve done it to yourself. Jasmine Gruia-Gray’s session on cognitive surrender was a moment that turned the conversation inward. While every other session was about forces changing the world around us and how to respond, she asked what we might be doing to our own thinking in the process.”

“Mark opened by making the case that uncertainty is the entry point for original thinking, and John Kowalski’s awe gap session reinforced it from a different angle. Safe marketing compounds irrelevance. The seam, the real opportunity, is in the unexpected.”

Elizabeth Humphries, Marketing Strategist, Market Your Marketing

“I was in awe of the people in the room at Uprising! Inspiring and engaging. It reminded me of the importance of presence and being fully present at an event like this will allow you to get the most out of your experience. If you’re distracted and disengaged, you could miss something that could change your life.”

Sid Meadows, President of The Collaborative Network and Host of The Trend Report Podcast

“The jaw-dropping moment for me was when I was encouraged to break through a self-limiting belief about what type of speaking engagements I could get paid for. For the first time in 25 years, I saw a path forward to market myself.”

Mike Garrison, founder of Values Based Mindset and author of Can I Borrow Your Car?

“Leaders dispense hope… giving your team, your customers, and your industry permission to believe something better is possible. When you stop selling features and start offering a vision worth following, you stop being a vendor and become the reason people show up.”

“The sheer volume of knowledge, expertise, and insight in this room was mind-blowing.”

John Kowalski, Disruptive Awe Architect, Disruptive Awe

“Our humanity is being stripped from us. Each talk pointed back to specific actions we can take to be more human, including choosing to be hopeful, more discerning, actively cultivating community by creating spaces where people feel valued, and reframing failure as experimentation. The more we lean into these things, the more we will become the trusted leaders and brands of the future.”

“Nanocommunities of 40 or fewer will be the future! This affirmed our company’s strategy. Scale is not always the answer.”

Nicole Donnelly, Founder, Hello Moxie

“Personal consequence is the real work. The breakout conversations are where ideas become valuable because they become personal. The unique element of The Uprising is that we get to intentionally take the time to unpack it and ask: What does it mean for me now?”

“Malignant Uncertainty” looms over livelihoods. The time needed (and spent) to process this feeling, with other smart folks, became the difference-maker.

“The Uprising had a contagion of bravery and a level of openness that elevated everyone.”

Lauren Colbert, Principal—Strategic Facilitator of Strategy, Innovation, & Collective Intelligence at Filament

“The fireside chat between Mark Schaefer and Joe Pulizzi reframed how I think about trust at scale. Mark mentioned that Cisco had trained more than 10,000 employees to speak on behalf of the brand — certified, equipped, and amplified. Joe called this building a Trust Portfolio. Distributed authorship. Distributed trust. Distributed reach. That changes the marketing job.”

Matt Wilkinson, CEO, Strivenn

“In an era of automation, bots, and synthetic content, care becomes premium. People want guidance, reassurance, belonging, support, and human attention. This made me rethink how I show up online and how I position my own services—not just as a consultant, but as someone who helps people navigate change.”

Valentina Escobar-Gonzalez, MBA, Bilingual Marketing Consultant and Founder of Beyond Engagement

“I’m energized by Mark’s idea of ‘uncertainty as fuel.’ It’s a powerful reframe in a time of so much chaos. ‘Negative capability’ is another reframing that speaks to intentionally and patiently pausing to connect new dots. I learned so much over the two days, and I know that I will continue to learn from this circle of smart humans.”

Sarah Neely, Vice President of Strategy at Fuzz and Founder of SignalSwell

“Each courageous moment rewires you to believe in yourself. This is the courage dividend.”

“I appreciated Sarah Neely’s new perspective on the future of discoverability — the S.H.A.R.E. framework (surprising, helpful, authentic, relevant, experiences).”

Jasmine Gruia-Gray, Managing Partner at Strivenn and co-host of A Splice of Life Science Marketing podcast, Product Marketing Tips newsletter

“Courageous actions rewire who you believe yourself to be.’ —Mark Schaefer. I found this particularly pertinent because every time I have taken a leap professionally or personally, it has paid off, and helped me douse some of that imposter syndrome or lack of confidence you get when you’re in a room that you’re not quite comfortable in.”

Stacey Miller, Vice President, Communications at Auto Care Association

“I need more community in my life! (inspiration, empowerment, safety).”

“Trust = safety. Nurture messaging creates belonging.”

Knox Keith, Author of Validated

“I’m inspired by how domain experts forge and build AI solutions. Just as my agency is building AI to address concerns related to accuracy and contextualization, I was so impressed by Dr. Jasmine Gruia-Gray’s work focused on critical thinking and cognitive decline. Her Socratic method-based BRACED framework was excellent.”

“Joe and Mark’s discussion has me completely re-imagining our leaders and employees as characters of our story, and how we tell that story through both company-owned and employee-owned platforms. This will likely be the biggest actionable takeaway in my strategic and tactical shift.”

Jason Dressel, CEO, History Factory

“We shouldn’t treat AI LIKE an audience. AI IS an audience—multiple audiences, in fact.”

“Negative Capability is the skill we need to cope with chaos. Marinate in an issue before acting under pressure to respond, and that’s how insights will be revealed.”

Dan Nestle, Founder and CPIO of Lilypath

“Within the first 15 minutes, I had my first ah-ha moment, when Mark said: ‘Every time I feel afraid, I do it!’ I need a poster of this in my office.”

“We are in the eye of the AI storm, but it also presents so many opportunities. I realized that I don’t have all the answers about how businesses will assimilate or adopt AI platforms, but I do know that the most powerful force in business is still human connection. Spending three days with 39 of the most knowledgeable, forward-thinking leaders in AI and new technologies left me feeling inspired and full of hope. The Uprising was an Executive Education course on steroids!”

Anne Deeter Gallaher, Owner/CEO of Deeter Gallaher Group LLC

“In a world that constantly competes for our attention, we need to ‘control the inputs.’ In other words, be deliberate about how much news we consume, which social media we engage with, whose opinions we give weight to, and how much access the outside world gets to our inner peace. Those inputs shape our focus, our fear, our energy, and ultimately, how we show up at work and in life.”

“We’re living in a time of ‘malignant uncertainty,’ where change isn’t only constant, it’s harder to predict. Companies need to let go of overly rigid plans and pay closer attention to what customers and employees are thinking, feeling, and doing in real time. The brands that earn trust will be the ones that build emotional connection when everything else feels uncertain.”

Stacy Sherman, International Keynote Speaker, Influencer & Podcaster: DoingCXRight.com

“AI is evolving and changing how we operate at a personal and work level faster than ever before. There is opportunity in seeing this ‘seam.’ Uncertainty makes room for me for creativity, growth, and progress.”

Debra Feresten, Debra Feresten Homes

I used to believe more content would grow my business, but now I see that trust is the real currency—and content is just the vehicle to earn it. That changes everything: from chasing reach to building a small, intentional audience that actually cares.”

“My AHA moment was realizing we’re not heading toward a world with better ads—we’re heading toward a world without them. When there’s no ‘skip button,’ only brands that create trust, community, and meaning will survive.”

Yevette Lynn, Kingsport Headshot Photographer and Studio Owner, The Journal

“AI tools become personal. They are like the hammer that a carpenter uses every day. They form to his hand and are customized to his needs. There is beauty in the wear of such tools, but if you were to pick one up, it feels foreign. To use them properly, one must interact with these tools and shape them to one’s personal needs.”

“Being raw in our content gives our community permission to share. But that sharing should come from scars, not wounds.”

“The tension between the obligation to react to the world and the value of marinating in uncertainty is the obligation of leadership.”

Atom Freeman, Founder of Prana DM, Host of Comic Industry Insiders podcast

“Building a personal brand is not a project, it’s a LIFESTYLE.”

“The customer journey is the cumulative effect of every interaction, good or bad.” Every micro moment shapes perception, and people are constantly evaluating, even when you are not thinking about it. What they remember is not necessarily the process, it is how it made them feel. “Emotion IS the experience”, and that is ultimately what defines your brand.

Your most powerful, underutilized influencer channel is already on payroll. Employees are a built-in network of credible, motivated nano-influencers, but only if you replace control with trust and give them a clear, supported way to share. If your own people are not advocating for your brand, why would someone else?

Chelsea Rae Stuck, CEO Craeve, and Host of the Curiously Stuck Podcast

And … back to me.

We can’t stay relevant on our own. Everybody who attended The Uprising has a new set of tools and a professional network to help them navigate the future.

The 2026 Uprising was a call to stop trying to be “safe” and instead build a future where our humanity is our most discoverable and durable asset. I hope you will join us May 04-07, 2027. Registration is open.

Some photographs provided by Yevette Lynn Photography

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

The post Human Renaissance in the Agentic Age: Insights from The Uprising Retreat appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

My career has a clear dividing line.

For most of my professional life, I was a marketing executive with a Fortune 100 company. To drive the stock price, we needed to make great products and continuously innovate. In my marketing role, I created more customers so we could ship more stuff, more often, at higher prices.

Act 2 (the dividing line) started when I launched my own company about 17 years ago. Most of my income now derives from earning the attention of an audience through blog posts, podcasts, keynote speeches, and books. This is the promise of the creator economy. Anyone can monetize attention, and I’ve taken full advantage of that opportunity.

But the days of the attention economy are coming to a close, and we need to embrace a new mindset to succeed in the AI Era.

Let’s dig in.

From attention to intimacy

The term “attention economy” is widely attributed to Herbert A. Simon, the Nobel Prize–winning economist and cognitive psychologist.

In a 1971 paper titled “Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World,” Simon wrote:

“In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

Blogging pioneers like Chris Brogan, Julien Smith, and Gary Vaynerchuk codified this radical business model: Give away all your best ideas. If you earn attention, the money will come.

This became the foundation of the modern content marketing movement. In 2006, “Inbound Marketing” was coined by Hubspot founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah. The strategy: Overwhelm a niche with relevant content, and it’s game over for competitors.

In 2014, I characterized the downside of this new dynamic as Content Shock — once a niche becomes saturated, the cost of winning a content arms race forces some companies to drop out. Content becomes commoditized.

Here we are in the AI Era. The cost of creating excellent content is near zero, or heading that way. The attention economy model, which drove so much success, is nearly obsolete. Marketers are battling:

1. Fragmentation of media channels
2. Ability to massively scale custom content through AI
3. Lack of competitive content “moats” — everything is easy to copy and steal
4. Heightened competition due to low (or no) entry barriers
5. Diminished importance of SEO due to AI and knowledge panels

The cumulative pressure is so severe that even Joe Pulizzi, the “godfather of content marketing,” declared:

“Most creators who build audiences that monetize generally take between 18 and 36 months. We may not have that kind of time. The major platforms are bending more to synthetic content (of course, they are and will). Synthetic creators (AI’s) are booming and will continue to boom where they will outcreate humans at an unfathomable rate. It will simply be near impossible (not impossible) for a new creator to break through and build momentum in 2-3 years (I think).

“Synthetic content is going to move from slop to amazing in a very short period of time.And then, our devices will begin to create content on demand for us … original stuff (well, from the LLMs original) that will be like magic. No creator needed for that stuff.

“But we have the now. And right now that hasn’t happened yet. And right now businesses need to be leveraging their employees as creators and building their own personal brands because now it’s possible.”

Human content will survive and thrive. But we’ll need to re-focus and tap into something new: intimacy.

The intimacy economy

I was in conversation with my brilliant friend Mitch Joel when we first tossed around this idea. When everyone is chasing attention, perhaps the future is intimacy.

“I care less about what everyone else is obsessed with and more about what deepens what I already care about,” he said. “It’s about how deeply one message can land… and where it leads me next. Content that moves from viral reach to emotional proximity.”

There is a word for that type of intimate content: Art.

No matter what happens in the world of AI, art will persist.

I will always love the human creator named Bruce Springsteen. An AI song that sounds like Springsteen might be a curiosity, but I will only pay my money to see The Boss, not a bot pretending to be Bruce.

I have an emotional connection to the way Bruce’s songs interpret the intimate human experience. Our content must do the same. It will have to be intimate. It will have to be vulnerable. And that takes courage, especially if you work for a company that is still focused on battles over keywords.

Anyone, or anything, can earn attention. AI created an oil painting that sold for over $1 million, won writing contests, and mimicked the works of our greatest musicians. Tragically, organizations are creating rage farms that industrialize attention.

But intimacy … humans can always win that game.

The imperative for art

The idea that corporate content must approach the level of art is probably uncomfortable. Maybe this post is the first declaration of this new reality.

But take a hard look at our world. What choice do you have?

If you’re competent, you’re vulnerable. AI is more than competent, and it will overwhelm you. Worse, if you’re merely competent, you’re ignorable — the worst marketing sin.

But as the world moves inexorably toward AI slop, real, raw, vulnerable human stories will be a luxury.

I don’t see AI as a competitor. The world is already overrun with content. What does it matter if I have a million competitors or a billion? I’m never going to win at SEO.

But I can win with intimacy. I can earn your trust and love, just like Bruce Springsteen. He’s real, he’s honest, and he gives his all. When I publish content for you, there is only one sentence pounding in my brain: “I will never let you down.”

I was interviewed on a podcast this week, and the host — with emotion in her voice — said, “We’ve never met, but I feel like I know you as a friend. I’ve read your content for so long.”

I doubt she will ever gush those words to an AI bot. I have achieved intimacy with her. I am part of the fabric of her life. I am her trusted friend.

Every post I write carries a badge that says “100% Human Content.” It’s my pledge to you that this is me. I am here. You can count on me. And isn’t that rare? Isn’t that the assurance we all want in this world?

Now, how are you going to achieve that intimacy for your business?

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy Mid Journey

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In more than 12 years of blogging, I have never devoted a post to a single book (other than my own, naturally!). But the release of the second edition of Content Inc. represents a milestone in marketing history that is worthy of recognition.

Joe Pulizzi wrote the first edition of Content Inc. in 2016 and it became one of the seminal books in the digital marketing field. And I don’t say that lightly. There about 10 books I keep on my desk at all times and Content Inc. is one of them. The other nine? Well … maybe that’s a story for another day.

Content Inc. became an important part of marketing history and now, with an updated and expanded edition, the book becomes part of our marketing future.

Joe writes with distinctive passion, clarity, and honesty. This is not your typical business book featuring one valuable idea and 250 pages of fluff. This is a book that is comprehensive, useful, relevant, and grounded in reality. I must also add that it is beautifully written.

Joe and I have disagreed over the years but we probably violently agree 99 percent of the time. The “system” articulated in Content Inc. is completely aligned with the success patterns I’ve highlighted in my own books.

For example, he forcefully argues for distinctive and relevant differentiation, also the first step in my KNOWN personal branding book. He insists that you can find a platform niche you can own — the “space” I urge people to seek in KNOWN. And he hangs success on finding your “sweet spot” — an intersection of talent and customer need I call “the seam” in Cumulative Advantage.

So if you love my books, you’ll love this book, too!

The new value delivered in this second edition comes from a continuation of the story and personal content marketing journey Joe started in 2011. He provides context for our current time (including the pandemic), delivers diverse and inspiring new case studies, and expounds on the options for monetization and eventually cashing in. There is something to learn for every type of business, but I think this book would be especially useful for entrepreneurs trying to start a web-based company.

My favorite part of the book is where Joe offers ideas on how to use commonly available databases to discover unsaturated content niches. I’ll be able to include some of these helpful ideas in my own classes and workshops.

In the past, I think Joe had a tendency to over-sell the potential of content marketing. I suppose that’s natural to expect from a guy who founded something called the Content Marketing Institute!

But this edition provides an appropriate and balanced perspective. Joe emphasizes that success requires really hard work, consistent effort, iteration, and most of all patience. There is no such thing as an overnight success, something he comes back to over and over again in his book.

If you’re a marketing geek like me, there are certain publications that are something more than books. They become friends. Content Inc.. is one of those books and deserving of a permanent place on your desk, too.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of several best-selling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

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I had an interesting exchange on LinkedIn worthy of sharing with you today. Should you take a stand on the web even if it’s controversial, or should you aim to be liked?

When I published a post encouraging people to keep blogging, a LinkedIn connection left a fiery commentary encouraging us to take on the naysayers, stand up for our truths, and let the rest of the world be damned.

She said that it doesn’t matter if we are liked in the process. Our personal truth and taking a stand are the only things that matter in the end.

This might seem weird, but today I’m going to disagree with that impassioned statement … at least partially.

Taking a stand is important. But being liked does matter … and I’ve seen the other side of that.

Creating content, taking a stand

Whether I create a post, podcast episode, or book, my aim is to:

1. Tell the truth to the best of my ability
2. Be nice about it
3. Never let my readers down.

That last one is vitally important. Every time you spend time with me I want it to be worth your time!

As I have navigated through more than a decade of blogging, I have publicly disagreed with almost every thought leader in our space. Off the top of my head, I can remember writing posts that disagreed with

• Seth Godin
• Gary Vee
• Jay Baer
• Marcus Sheridan
• Joe Pulizzi
• Chris Brogan
• Gini Dietrich
• Christopher Penn
• Mitch Joel

There are many more. I have probably disagreed with almost anybody you can think of at some point in the life of this blog.

I am not a disagreeable person, and I’m not creating these positions simply to be contentious. It is a very heavy decision to take a stand when it means taking an opposite opinion from a friend.

But it’s so important.

Disagreement equals growth

I disagree with people because it’s necessary. We will never grow in our profession if everybody out there just agrees with everybody. If we all just say “yes” all the time, the web will be nothing more than a worthless echo chamber of guru-speak.

I grew up in a corporate culture that encouraged disagreement. I once had a boss who told me, “If you don’t state your true opinion, you’re cheating the company. We’re employing your whole brain.”

Let’s extend that to the social media world. If you want to stand out, if you want to be seen as an authority, can you achieve that by contributing just half your brain?

I want to set an example and show that you can have a debate in a professional way and the world will not fall apart. As far as I know, I have a friendly and positive relationship with everybody on this “disagreement list.” Any of these folks would come over to my house for dinner, and some of them have.

I also encourage people to disagree with me in return. At least I hope people feel comfortable doing so.

But telling my truth and taking a stand is not always easy. Sometimes, it hurts.

It is important to be likable

In business, it is important to be liked.

I know that flies in the face of this whole “take no prisoners” philosophy of telling your personal truth through your blogs or videos.

But it is an undeniable psychological and sociological fact. Likable people get ahead more than contrarians. I know many average performers who had stellar careers almost entirely because they were so darn likable.

Likable people get hired. Likable people get promoted. Likable people have more friends to help them along the way. Likability matters.

Contrarians fade away

Over my long career on the social web, I’ve seen many people come and go. The nice people are still standing. Every person who created a destructive or toxic online persona is either gone or irrelevant.

Every single one.

Bullies can attract a lot of attention. It’s sort of like watching a fight on the school playground. The bully may command attention for a short period of time, but nobody really wants them to succeed long-term or trusts them to be a friend.

Hateful people just don’t last in this space.

So, it’s important to disagree. Just don’t be an ass about it.

Personal impact

Overall, I think I have done an OK job speaking my mind and remaining a likable person. But without question, taking a stand creates awkwardness, and many times I’ve felt like an outsider in my own industry.

Perhaps the most dramatic example of this was the Content Shock article I wrote five years ago, a post that is still widely referenced and discussed today.

This was a post that upset a lot of people. Why? Back then, half the world had “content evangelist” in their job description. When I said there are economic limitations to the value of content when there is too darn much of it, it posed a personal threat.

I was attacked for more than three weeks after that post came out. I was ridiculed and even laughed at on one memorable podcast episode. All of this came as a surprise. To me, what I wrote was just common sense. I was just telling the truth.

With that blog post, and a few others over the years, I had not earned a place at the top of the content marketing “friends and family list.” I was shunned.

On one level … that hurt. It ALWAYS hurts when you’re not in the inner circle with your friends, no matter who you are.

But I have no regrets about any stand I’ve taken because I’ve never attacked people — I attacked issues — and opened a debate that needed to be opened. In some ways the Content Shock post, and the manner in which I responded, helped define my career.

The game plan

So, let’s get back to my LinkedIn friend who wants to take on the world at any cost.

I want you to speak your truth and say what needs to be said. But follow a few guidelines.

1. Never disagree on an emotional level. Write what you need to write but don’t publish it in the heat of the moment. Come back to it three days later — after you’ve calmed down!
2. Do your homework. Get your facts straight. Do your best to speak the truth with accuracy and compassion.
3. Attack issues, not people.
4. Expect pushback. If people disagree with you, that is a gift. It shows you are prompting discussion and making people think. Good job.
5. Take the heat with grace. Stay positive.
6. Don’t just dwell on one negative comment when there are nine positive comments.
7. If somebody disagrees with you in an uncharacteristically harsh way, pick up the phone and talk it out like a friend.
8. Be patient. For a time, you might feel distanced from the “in crowd.” Sometimes, there is a trade-off between winning friends and earning respect. Respect will pay long-term dividends and your true friends will always be your true friends.

My message is, be brave. Be bold. Tell the truth. Take risks. But take care of people along the way, too.

Make sense?

Mark Schaefer is the chief blogger for this site, executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions, and the author of several best-selling digital marketing books. He is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.

Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com

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By Mark Schaefer

In a recent This Old Marketing podcast episode, Robert Rose and Joe Pulizzi of the Content Marketing Institute had a lengthy section disagreeing with two of my conclusions from a recent blog post.

Which is … excellent.

People don’t disagree with each other enough in this field of marketing, so I am incredibly grateful for these gentlemen and their willingness to dissent and start a respectful discussion on relevant topics.

Joe and Robert speak from a perspective of experience and wisdom. However, I disagree with their perspectives on a few issues. I believe the views they expressed on the podcast are historically accurate … but potentially disconnected from the marketing dynamics we face today. Their keen points are worth additional dissection today.

The issues

In a blog post entitled “Does corporate storytelling work? Some mega-brands say no,” I used several high-profile case studies (Coke, Fiskars, Sharpie) to show that even well-funded, ambitious, and successful content marketing programs had crashed and burned.

It’s a short read, and if you didn’t catch this post before, reading it now might help you understand the points I am about to make in defense of my position.

I made several recommendations at the end of the post, and this is where Robert and Joe disagreed with me. Let’s look at these two points and their dissent.

“Think like a marketer”

Let me tell a little story.

One of the greatest marketing successes in my career came when I convinced my company to build specialized trucks to deliver a custom-sized product to our largest customer. This custom product optimized our plant’s manufacturing path, created incredible new efficiencies for our customer, and frankly screwed my biggest competitor. Creating this innovative new product distribution method resulted in a significant, long-term profit windfall for my company.

To accomplish this marketing feat, I did not “think like a publisher” (as our industry so often advises), I thought like a marketer, which involves taking a holistic view of the competitive environment and what it takes to win.

In my original post, I mentioned that there is a danger when marketers only view the world through a content-marketing or social media lens. In the example in my story, and for many businesses in this world, being a “publisher” may not be a top priority.

Joe Pulizzi partially agreed with me, saying that he suspected that the root cause of the content failures featured in my post might be because the companies did not fully know their “why” before embarking on a content strategy.

But then he reiterated that marketers SHOULD think like publishers because “a publisher is somebody who monetizes an audience. That’s what marketing does. It’s the same thing.”

As I demonstrated in my trucking example, “publishing” and “marketing” are not the same thing. Marketing is not just about monetizing an audience through content, in fact it rarely is. Let me demonstrate this: How many brand content channels do you subscribe to, or even consume on a regular basis? My prediction is that you said “less than five.”

But how many products do you buy in a year? Thousands! In reality, an extremely small percentage of all marketers in this world monetize an audience primarily through content. How are marketers getting you to buy those products? It’s not through great storytelling, is it? Perhaps it’s a convenient location, a lower price, a personal relationship, free delivery, a coupon, or even a special truck that brings you a custom product.

I’m not saying content isn’t important. It can be absolutely critical to a company marketing strategy (It is to me and many of my customers). But direct (or indirect) monetization through content is unlikely for the vast majority of businesses. Robert pointed to Red Bull as a content monetization success example, but we need to stop comparing the normal world to extreme case studies like that. It’s like saying, if Elon Musk can create a rocket to Mars, I can do it, too. Elon Musk is a once-in-a-generation entrepreneur. Red Bull is a once in a decade content success story.

Business people do not need to “think like publishers” to be successful. That’s a great catch phrase, but it’s not how the marketing world works for most businesses. Marketing people need to think like marketers, first and foremost, and then figure out if content should be a priority in the mix.

Content in the cloud

On to disagreement number two!

Here is the evolution of corporate content distribution in one sentence: Content moved from paper to websites, websites to apps, and now apps to social media news streams.

It’s hard to argue with this progression. It’s not an opinion, it’s a fact, and this evolution is by far the most powerful trend publishers are fighting right now (one newspaper chain just eliminated their websites and they’re putting ALL their content on Facebook). The content is migrating to the social news feeds because it benefits the powerful social channels and also because people don’t WANT to visit company content websites any more. They want to consume all their content conveniently in one place.

In his new book The Inevitable, futurist and internet pioneer Kevin Kelly describes content as being in an unstoppable state of flow. We can’t contain it, corral it, or try to keep it boxed up on a website. Nor should we want to.

Your car dealership or pizza parlor is not going to outwit Facebook and you’re not going to out-gun Google. We need to submit to these giants and publish our content in those places, in addition to our “home base.” There is no power in content, only in content that moves and we need to do whatever it takes to unleash it — including publishing in the places where people want to see it.

Pulizzi and Rose disagree.

“Do you chase your audience or do you build something that ultimately your audience will rally around?” Rose asks. “I think it’s the latter because ultimately, the value to the business is in the relationship to the audience. If you have an intermediary between you and the audience like Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc, you do not have a relationship with your audience. You are building someone else’s business, not your own.”

Pulizzi added: “If we try to play by the rules of Facebook and Google to reach an audience then you’re just playing with the devil. You’re going to go to all this effort to build an audience on someone else’s platform and then you’re going to wake up and it’s going to be gone.”

Theoretically, I agree with them — that’s how content works in an ideal world. Maybe it even worked that way in the world of 2014. But we no longer live in an ideal world and it hasn’t worked that way for some time now. As you peer into the future, trying to drag people to your website to view your blog post or video seems increasingly fruitless. So, we need to adapt our strategies to this new world of flow.

Facebook, Google, Apple, Snapchat, and others want our content. Not a link … the content. Should we play by Facebook’s rules? YES! We should! We should publish our content where they want us to publish, and more important, where our customers want it! Rose asks, should we chase our customers? Absolutely we should chase our customers, rather than expecting them to chase us.

I will simply let Joe and Robert themselves confirm my point that we need to publish in the news feeds, or wherever people want to see our content. How did Rose and Pulizzi find my original post? On Facebook. That’s right. I published on “rented land!” They saw my entire post on Facebook. They didn’t go to my website. They didn’t visit my web pages and learn about about my books and speaking career and clever calls to action. They found my article (and even linked to it) on Facebook! And THAT is how the world works today. They didn’t come to my content. My content went to them.

Rose, Pulizzi and I all agree that the key to success is maintaining a direct relationship with the customer (especially with an email list, if possible). That is certainly being challenged by these new dynamics but we’re not going to change the dynamics, we need to change our strategy.

The conversation needs to evolve to be: “How do we maintain a direct customer relationship when people aren’t visiting our site to consume our content?”

On a personal note …

It’s a new era. Yes, publish on your website, but also fearlessly publish wherever people will find it. Unleash your content. Give your content to customers wherever THEY want it, not where YOU want it.

If a content marketing strategy fits for you, your economics aren’t driven by “publishing.” Your economics are driven by transmission — people seeing and sharing the content, and if the best chance of that happening is on Facebook or LinkedIn, do it there and don’t think twice about it.

Does this jeopardize the “inbound” content model we have espoused for six or seven years? Yes, it does, and I hate that. Does it screw up the way I have taught my own marketing classes for the last seven years? Yup. But we have to adapt and adopt, instead of playing the same old tapes on how things used to operate. I’m updating my courses, workshops, and consulting materials every quarter to reflect the realities of this new world.

Content marketing still works, but not in the way it did two or three years ago. We have to run our businesses based on what is, not on what we wish for.

On a personal note, I want to express appreciation for Joe and Robert and the leadership and intelligence they have brought to the field. They have been true friends and supporters for many years. In truth, we’re not that far apart in our views of most things … or even these points. I love the fact that they disagreed with me and I hope this sort of dialogue sets an example that any of us can disagree with each other without being caustic or disrespectful. That’s how we move the world along.

I hope you’ll join all three of us at Content Marketing World in September. Perhaps this dialogue is just beginning.

Mark Schaefer is the chief blogger for this site, executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions, and the author of several best-selling digital marketing books. He is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world.  Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.

Book link is an affiliate link.

Cartoon licensed for use from The Marketoonist

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I recently had a chance to hear entrepreneur and author Joe Pulizzi speak about his wonderful new book Content Inc and my mind was buzzing over some of the interesting new ideas he presented. One of these topics was a discussion on the most reliable ways to deliver your content.

With organic reach on Facebook declining for most businesses and content saturation occurring for many industry verticals, this is certainly a vital topic.

Today I’d like to connect the dots on a few ideas about the most reliable content channels to reach customers.

The goal of reliable reach

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post describing the importance of attaining “reliable reach,” a concept first coined by author and consultant Jay Baer. When you first start publishing content, it might feel like you are simply tossing it into the wind. Is anybody reading it? Does anybody care?

But if you persist and deliver helpful, insightful and quality content over time, something magical happens. People subscribe. They sign up. They opt-in. And this is a great thing because now you have some chance to actually know you are reaching these people. They have sort of raised their hand in a virtual way and said “market to me.”

The best content channels for reliable reach

So, when we attain that magical level, what are the very best ways to reliably reach those customers?

In Joe’s fine speech, he provided his view on the channels most likely to actually reach your customers, from best to worst:

1. eMail subscribers
2. Print subscribers
3. LinkedIn connections
4. Twitter subscribers
5. iTunes (podcast) subscribers
6. Medium/Tumblr/Instagram/Pinterest
7. YouTube subscribers
8. Facebook fans

So for example, Joe is stating that email is the very best way to deliver reliable reach while Facebook is the worst.

In terms of the very best and the very worst … Joe and I agree. But what comes in the middle, well it’s probably up for debate. So here’s my ranking with a short explanation of the logic:

1. eMail
2. Pinterest
3. Blog and video communities
4. Podcast subscribers
5. Print subscribers
6. LinkedIn connections
7. Streaming video
8. Instagram
9. Facebook

1. eMail subscribers

Yup, I agree with Joe. “Open rates” vary by topic and industry but this a reliable way to reach your customers and also have a pretty good idea of who is actually seeing your content. I consider email marketing as the “glue” connecting your social media content.

2. Pinterest

This one may surprise you. Research shows that Pinterest drives more web traffic — and more purchases — than any other social media channel. It is a sleeper in some ways because many people view content on Pinterest and then go to the actual website to buy or learn more. So Pinterest does not always get the credit it deserves for driving actual customer behavior.

The other thing I like about Pinterest is the fact that for relatively little effort — you’re curating photographic content — you can build tremendous loyalty. It’s not for everybody but it is undeniably an effective way to build a loyal following.

3. Blog and video communities

Joe sort of mashes together Tumblr/Medium/Instagram and Pinterest but I think the connection to a blog or YouTube community is distinct, important, and powerful for this reason: this is your most actionable audience because this is where the emotional connection resides.

How many people read my blog every day? Who knows. Tweets do not equal page views. Page views do not equate to people actually reading a post. What is the open rate on an RSS feed? How many people print the thing out and send it around the office? You can only take a guess on how many people read your blog each day.

While actual daily connection might be difficult to calculate, I believe a blog or video community is your most actionable audience because that is the place you can grow real emotional connection and loyalty — and in business, loyalty trumps everything.

Just look at how many people are making millions off of personal YouTube channels. That is a powerful indication of reliable reach translating into money.

While there is certainly pressure on both blogs and video channels from Facebook (and to some extent LinkedIn), I still place high value in building your own community, your own conversation.

4. Podcast subscribers

If analytics on reach are poor for text and video, the situation is even worse for podcasts. But that’s the only reason your podcast audience is not right up there with blogs and video. The second ding against podcasting is lack of connection and feedback. No comments.

So, it’s difficult to know what is going on with a podcast audience. However … let me tell one little story that shows podcasts are on the rise.

Every year I go to the giant SXSW conference in Austin. As I walk down the bustling hallways, people often stop me to tell me how much they love my blog or my books. Except this year. Every person — without exception — stopped me and told me how much they loved my podcast, The Marketing Companion, which I create with my friend Tom Webster. I think that means something … even if I don’t have the data to go along with it!

5. Print subscribers

This was high on Joe’s list, lower on mine. If you are going to the trouble of printing a publication, certainly this is a reliable way to reach people, since they have likely asked for the subscription. The problem is, of course, it is difficult to opt-out (so is your list reliable?), there are no metrics on “open rate,” and once you spend the money on the print edition, it probably goes in the trash, often before it is read, with no opportunity reach people forever like a digital edition.

6. LinkedIn connections

Joe and I concur on the relative importance of LinkedIn. I don’t have a lot of data on the reach of LinkedIn posts, but the platform is certainly growing dramatically as a publishing tool. This is especially significant for new businesses or new websites with low site authority. Not reaching any readers? Why not tap into the millions on LinkedIn each day?

7. Streaming video

I am not usually an early adopter of technology — I’m far too busy to be testing things all the time, so I let others figure it out! But in the last 10 years there have been three platforms I recognized immediately as powerful — Twitter, Instagram … and Blab.

Haven’t heard of Blab? It’s a combination of Periscope, Google Hangouts on Air, and Twitter. I love it because it’s simple and fun. It’s like sitting around the dinner table conversing with friends.

How “sticky” is the streaming video audience? Too soon to tell, but I think this is a very encouraging development. In a year, Blab (or something like it) could be higher up on this list.

The other advantage of this technology is when you complete a discussion, you get a free audio and video file you can use as a podcast or YouTube video so the content you create through your discussion LASTS. Your content can potentially connect with new people for years.

8. Instagram

Instagram is HUGE, by some estimates the second-biggest social network behind Facebook. The advantage of Instagram is that it reaches a large demographic (because who doesn’t love photos?) and it is “unedited” by its parent company Facebook.

The problem is that the content is Twitter-like in that the impact is fleeting. You are also quite limited in your ability to link or promote, which of course is the strength of the site. Snapchat is even worse. Your content essentially disappears in moments. Powerful, growing … but difficult for many businesses.

9. Facebook

Joe and I are aligned in our view that Facebook is a difficult and unreliable way to connect with customers for MOST businesses.

Year by year, Facebook has made it more and more difficult to connect with followers on a consistent basis. Why? Simply put … Content Shock. There is just too much stuff, too much competition for attention, so the cost of Facebook connection has become astronomical for many companies.

A Facebook customer now could see nearly 2,000 stories in their news feed each day … far too much. So Facebook has no choice but to ratchet back on the reach, beginning with our businesses.

If you’re not high in the conversation hierarchy (a sports team, a university, a celebrity), it is going to take a tremendous investment in branding, content, and promotion to cut through and connect. And even then, Facebook is rewarding content pasted to their site, not links, which will have a profound impact on the classic inbound strategy.

Google+ fans may howl that neither Joe nor I included their favorite platform on our lists. I’m sure there are some wonderful case studies out there but should G+ be a priority for reliable reach with customers? Not in my estimation. SEO value? Yes. But that is not the focus of this post.

So that’s my take on it. The fun thing about the web is that there are so many exceptions and other opinions. What’s your take on achieving reliable reach with your audience?

Disclosure: Book link is an affiliate link. I was provided with a free copy of Content Inc.In the last two years, I have received compensation for my work on various projects from both Jay Baer and Joe Pulizzi.

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Last week I attended an explosive panel discussion at SXSW. With the mild-mannered title of “Debating Brands’ Role as Publisher” sparks flew as Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute and Lora Kolodny, a contributor to the New York Times and Money, sparred with the aggressive moderation of Tom Ashbrook , the host of NPR’s On Point, egging them on.

While there was actually five on the panel, the explosions between Pulizzi, Kolodny and Ashbrook made the highlight reels.

Pulizzi earnestly defended the growing corporate commitment to content as a viable marketing device — even filling the vacuum left by the declining traditional media. He said consumers don’t have three seconds for a brand but will have 30 minutes for a story. Kolodny lamented the trend and sneered at the idea of companies providing anything in an altruistic manner. Ashbrook stopped Pulizzi in his tracks when he asked him if companies would tell a story about killing babies with Bisphenol A

At various times both sides garnered applause but in the end the viewpoints remained far apart.

It didn’t have to be that way.  I think marketing professionals simply need to state the obvious: We’re not journalists, and we can’t try to be.  Similarly, Lora could probably admit that the plentiful corporate coffers are funding some useful and entertaining content.

As individuals and as a nation, we need fiercely independent journalists, It is essential to democracy.  And that role can never be served by public corporations and content marketing efforts. I think that is all marketing professionals have to say to take the emotion out of the conversation. There is no reason these disciplines can’t happily co-exist by simply acknowledging the limits and opportunities on both sides.

What do you think?  Are there threats presented when corporations try to fill the gap left by the decline of traditional media?

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