I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

We tend to overcomplicate marketing.

At its core, marketing is simple… connect with people and get them to act. That’s it.

Everything else (content, campaigns, tools) is just tactics.

You’re told to scale content 10x. Adopt AI. Ship more. Ship faster.

If you're a solo marketer or on a small team, you're probably drowning.

Here’s what I’ve learned from dozens of conversations with smart marketers on the pod this year:

The value of “making more content” has dropped to near zero.
AI made sure of that.

So what still matters? Connection.

The kind that makes someone think, “I know this person,” even if they’ve never met you.
That feeling is what drives trust and choice.

Kieran Flanagan at HubSpot said creator-led content will be a top marketing investment in 2026. Why? Because people crave human signals. Personality. Perspective. Lived experience. He’s right.

In 12 months, AI will flood every channel with more content than ever.
Your only defense? Being someone people actually want to hear from.

That’s what I’m building my business, Orchard Strategy, on.
And honestly? It’s what every growing marketer I know is doing, too.

Start now. Because in a year, everyone else will be playing catch-up.

But people hear "creator-led content" and immediately do it wrong.

I spent the last year talking to 16 marketers who are actually building real businesses, not just playing the content game.

And the ones who are driving real results? They're not asking, "How do we produce more?"

They're asking: How do we make people feel like they know us?

So I started looking for the pattern. And once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it.

Content-driven growth happens in three stages. In this specific order.

You're not building a faceless audience. You're building the right relationships faster.

Most people skip this entirely. They jump straight to "what should I post today?"

Without a clear identity, you just end up with random content that doesn't connect to anything.

Marketing Waiting Room creator Justyna Ciecierska told me that most "what should we post?" anxiety is actually a positioning problem.

"When your positioning isn't clear, you're always stuck asking yourself what should we post today. All these questions eat up your energy, and you end up creating surface-level, very generic content."

Her solution? Define what you're against.

When you say what you're against, what you're for gets clearer. She has an entire enemy framework SOP for this. "You have to stand for something, you have to fight against something. If you're fighting the same enemy, that unites people."

When she said this, I stopped asking "what should I post today?" and started asking "what am I against?" That one shift changed everything about my content strategy.

Ines Lee (former head of content for Ali Abdaal) learned that micro-decisions create voice. "But" makes you sound like a person. "However" makes you sound like a robot. She has a brand voice capture doc to figure out these rules so you don't lose yourself as you scale.

The specifics looked different for everyone. Erica Bonser showed me brands sometimes need funerals before they can be reborn. Nicole Gottselig proved authenticity beats polish.

But here's what I kept seeing: constraints actually help you get clear.

I know this feels abstract when you're under pressure to post. But almost every marketer I talked to who's building something sustainable did this work first. Very few exceptions.

Ryan Law at Ahrefs said something at their conference earlier this year that stuck with me: the only skills that will AI-proof your marketing career are your own taste and identity. You can't automate what makes you, you.

Once you know who you are, you need to express it in a way that gets attention. You’ve gotta stop the scroll and compete for your audience’s limited attention.

Finn McKenty (Punk Rock MBA, 1.1M followers) recommends taking something broad (that thing you want to be known for) and niching it up. "What Kim Kardashian taught me about email attribution."

This works especially well for YouTube as it’s entertainment first, but I think also works for other social platforms like LinkedIn.

"How are we going to get a larger audience to care about a niche thing? You would take something like attribution modeling and connect it to something people care about that has wider appeal."

Sarah Hart (brand designer) talks about how our brains have "weird detectors."

"When someone sees you for the first time in the feed, their brain perks up and goes, that's different. Distinctive design gets remembered because you're almost like this glitch in the system." She has a contrast check prompt to help you find your visual differentiator.

Your job is to trigger that detector.

And developing taste takes reps.

You can't shortcut this. Taste means knowing what will resonate before you hit publish, and you only develop that through repetition.

Try formats. Watch what gets responses (not just likes, but saves, DMs and replies). Recognize patterns in what works.

AI can help with production, but it can't tell you what story to tell or what format will resonate with your specific audience.

You probably won't be able to measure it in your dashboard. But you'll know it's working when people tell you.

Important: You're not trying to amass 100K followers who "feel like they know you." You're trying to be memorable to the 100 people who actually need what you sell. Big difference.

This is where most people stop. They get attention and think that's the win.

You need to activate it.

There are two ways to do this: amplify through trusted partners, or convert directly.

Amplify through partners:

This isn't about pitching influencers or paying for exposure. It's about authentically activating relationships with people who already reach your audience.

Jason Saltzman (head of insights at CB Insights) started with zero distribution. Instead of building an audience from scratch, he built a real relationship with someone his target audience already trusted.

Here's how: One night he saw Lenny Rachitsky post on Twitter asking if anyone was still a scrum master. Jason had the data to answer that question. He responded with a chart. Lenny asked where he got the data. That comment turned into a DM, which turned into a partnership creating job market insights for Lenny's 200K newsletter subscribers.

He led with value, not a pitch. He helped Lenny solve a problem, not asked for a favor.

One partnership = instant access to 200K qualified readers.

Three of Jason's collaborations with Lenny became top 10 most-read articles in Lenny's newsletter. That's earned distribution, the kind you can't buy.

This is what Emily Kramer at MKT1 calls ecosystem marketing. As Jason puts it: "How do you do cool things with cool people in a way that elevates everyone, the rising tide that lifts all boats."

Convert directly:

Lee Densmer (founder of Globia content marketing agency) doesn't get leads from content alone. She gets them from systematic DM outreach. Content makes people notice. DMs make them connect and want to work with her.

Lee had a full book of business within a year using this approach. Now she's on a wait list for new clients.

When Lee told me this, it clicked with my experience at Arc. For high-ticket, high-trust purchases, DMs are often the critical piece of social selling. People would see my content about hiring talent, trust what I was saying, then DM me to hire through Arc.

Content built my credibility. Conversation closed the deal.

And that's the pattern: relationships require activation, not just content.

You're not looking for clicks or vanity metrics. You're looking for real business outcomes.

Here's what happens when you skip:

Skip identity and jump to attention? Your content looks like everyone else's.

Post religiously but never activate? You're collecting vanity metrics while your competitors are closing deals.

This framework works best for B2B consultants, agency owners, and founders selling high-ticket services in crowded markets.

If you're doing pure product-led growth, selling low-ticket offers, or working enterprise deals with 18-month cycles, your path will look different.

But if you're a small team competing for attention, here's where to begin:

No clear identity?
Use Justyna’s “enemy” framework. List 5 things in your industry you’re actively against: outdated tactics, flawed beliefs, bad advice. For each one, write why it’s harmful and what you do instead.

Not getting attention?
Niche up like Finn to get more eyeballs. Or improve your design to make it like a glitch in the feed, like Sarah does.

Getting awareness but no action?
Build partnerships like Jason. Or start a DM system like Lee.

Content is getting cheaper.
Connection is getting more expensive.

That gap will only grow in 2026.

Let’s continue building together.

-Christine

P.S. All 16 conversations from season one are available as full podcast episodes on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Stay tuned for season two dropping in early 2026!

For the detailed frameworks mentioned above, see each episode highlight.