Curiosity Is a Competitive Advantage

I know exactly where a businesses owners mindset is at when they receive unsolicited business advice. 

A couple weekends ago a friend and I went to an art festival and I’m pretty sure that next to none of the booths we went into knew that we were business consultants of some caliber.  But the one thing that got my attention was how most of them had out a notebook to join their email list.  But only one person asked us to sign up for their email list.

So in my truest fashion I asked them what they send emails out about and they were very receptive and honest to the question that they didn’t know what exactly to send out in emails. 

Also in my truest form I offered a suggestion. 

They were plein air painting the park the festival was being held in but they were leaving out the human aspects of the festival- you know traffic cones, tents all the human things that interrupt nature. So I suggested why not put this in an email as I pointed at their easel. Talk about plein air and about how you choose not to include everything that is actually happening, how a painting is different than photography and then add in where the next art show you are going to be is and the schedule. And when we left their booth the genuinely seemed excited to try that out and thanked us. 

We kept walking and then a few rows down another artist grabbed out attention and we walked in, their branding was on point but I noticed something that looked like it was marketing  a subscription of sorts and when I asked about it. They seemed to get defensive that it was not a subscription just a way of announcing some themes that they have. Then curiosity got them and asked well what a subscription would look like and I said I had no idea but just the way it was laid out was what a bunch of other subscriptions looked like. Then all of the reasons why they couldn’t do a subscription started coming out. 

Two artists, two completely different reactions to the same kind of unsolicited attention. One took a stranger's observation and ran with it before we'd even left their booth. The other took the same kind of observation and built a case against it in real time.

And I see this all the time in consulting sessions but I keep coming back that neither reaction was really about email marketing or subscriptions. And that's exactly how I know where a business owner's mindset is at the moment they receive unsolicited advice — not by what they say, but by whether curiosity or defense shows up first. The first artist had already made peace with not having the answer, so a suggestion just felt like help. The second artist had already made a decision, put it on display, and branded it, so a question about it felt like a challenge to defend. Neither one told me where their head was. Their first reaction did.

That first reaction is also the tell for who's actually ready to grow. The open, curious mind hears a stranger's question as a door. The guarded mind hears it as a threat and locks up before it even sees what was on the other side. Same festival, same two strangers walking up, same kind of comment. The only real variable was which one of them was still curious enough to let it in — and that's the mindset I can spot every time.

Opportunity doesn't knock loudly — it usually shows up disguised as a stranger's offhand question at your own booth.

Stay curious my friend. 

The Future of Marketing Belongs to Trust

If you're still building your marketing strategy around the way social media worked five years ago, you may be preparing for a future that isn't coming.

Not because Instagram is disappearing.

Not because TikTok is going away.

And not because people are suddenly spending less time online.

Three years from now- August 2029

The platforms will still exist. The audiences will still exist. But the rules that made social media one of the most powerful marketing channels in history are quietly being rewritten.

Many business owners can already feel it. Posts that once reached thousands now struggle to reach hundreds. Creating more content doesn't necessarily produce more customers. Going viral has become less valuable than becoming trusted.

The businesses succeeding today aren't necessarily posting more. They're building relationships that continue long after someone closes the app.

This isn't the end of social media, it is the end of algorithm-first marketing.

The last decade has been about visibility and for years, marketing rewarded businesses for being seen. The advice was simple: post every day, follow every trend, learn the algorithm, create more content, go viral. The assumption was that attention would eventually become customers.

Sometimes it did. But since then things have changed.

Consumers became overwhelmed. AI made it possible for anyone to create endless amounts of content. Feeds have became crowded with businesses saying nearly identical things along with identical looking graphics and butter yellow text overlay.

The problem isn't that people stopped scrolling, it’s that they stopped trusting everything they saw while they were scrolling.

Visibility became abundant. Trust became scarce. And scarcity always creates value.

We're on the cusp of a new era of marketing- I was so bold as to call it a digital renaissance.  And similar to the Italian renaissance the next generation of marketing won't be defined by who creates the most content. It will be defined by who creates the most confidence. Just like the Renaissance wasn't just about new technology or new inventions. It was a cultural shift—a time when people began questioning old ways of thinking and rediscovering what made human creativity, connection, and craftsmanship valuable.

People are looking for human signals that help them reduce risk before making a purchase. They ask friends. They read reviews. They join local communities. They subscribe to emails they actually want and then they open and read them. They attend networking events. They listen to podcasts. They search Google with buying intent. They watch someone consistently show expertise over time.

Let’s imagine for a minute that we have time traveled and are now sitting in 2029 together- social media hasn't disappeared. Its role has changed. Instead of being the entire customer journey, it's becoming one piece of a much larger trust ecosystem.

And the people in 2026 who are the winners now in 2029 thought beyond social media and have started to create that trust ecosystem. 

Ok Ok enough of the future- let’s time travel back to 2026- bringing it bringing it bringing it back. 

The businesses that grow over the next five years won't abandon social media, but they will stop depending on it.

Instead of asking, "How do we beat the algorithm?" they'll ask, "How do we become the obvious choice wherever people are looking for answers?"

That means investing in:

• Relationships before reach

• Referrals before followers

• Email or other one-on-one one to many ways before endless posting

• Search before scrolling

• Authority before attention

• Customer experience before content volume

Social media then becomes the amplifier — not the foundation. Which in my marketing philosophy is what it was essentially always meant to be. 

2029 and the future belongs to trust- I’m calling it right now.

I truly don't believe social media is dying- I believe we're watching it mature or morph whichever adjective is of your liking. 

And the businesses that thrive through this transition won't necessarily have the biggest audiences- but they will have the strongest reputations.

Because the next era of marketing isn't about convincing strangers to notice you. It's about becoming the business people already trust before they ever need you and they remember your name when they need you.

And that my friend is a much harder advantage for an algorithm to take away.

Welcome to the Digital Renaissance

If you’re a nerd like me or even if you’ve paid attention for a second history has always moved in cycles.

The Renaissance wasn't just about new technology or new inventions. It was a cultural shift—a time when people began questioning old ways of thinking and rediscovering what made human creativity, connection, and craftsmanship valuable.

I believe marketing is entering its own Digital Renaissance.

For the past nine years, we've optimized for algorithms, reach, and scale. We measured success by impressions, followers, and viral moments. Those metrics aren't disappearing, but they're no longer enough.

The next era belongs to businesses that earn attention instead of chasing it. Businesses that build communities instead of audiences. Businesses that become known not because they posted the most content, but because they consistently delivered value, solved real problems, and built genuine trust.

Social media will still matter 3 years from now.

But it will no longer be the center of your marketing universe.

It will become one instrument in a much larger orchestra—working alongside search, email, referrals, community, partnerships, thought leadership, customer experience, and real-world relationships.

That's the opportunity in front of us.

The businesses that continue playing by 2017’s peak rules will spend more time fighting algorithms that no longer reward them.

The businesses that embrace this Digital Renaissance will stop asking, "How do we get more views?" and start asking, "How do we become the business people trust before they're ready to buy?"

I believe that's the question that will define the next decade of marketing.

And those who answer it first won't just adapt to the future.

They'll help create it.

The #1 Thing Killing Your Social Media Ad ROI (And It's Not Your Content)

One of the things that truly gives me the ick is  when a brick-and-mortar business owner takes the time and invests in running a really awesome social media ad — but when I click over to their profile (which I rarely do, btw), I can’t even find where they're located.

Their about section doesn't list a state, a city, or even a vague area.

This happened to me recently with an ad that had everything I'd love in a boutique. So when I couldn't find their location on their social profile, I took the extra step of clicking over to their website — which I also almost never do. Still no address on the front page. I had to dig to find a location, and even then it was vague.

This matters: because we are dealing with a 2.5 second attention span and your customers are not going to do this much work after seeing an ad. I won't say none of them will — some will — but most won't.

Them’s the social breaks.

You're going to be lucky if someone even clicks over from the ad to your profile. And if you're a standalone business without your physical location — even just a general area — and your business hours listed clearly, you're cooked.

Burnt even. 

Because chances are they are going to tap away, forget who you were and never think twice about you again. 

I also want to remind you that even though you dial in tight demographic parameters when setting your your ads they are still going to get fed to the entire world wide web. I live in Colorado but I will get ads for boutiques, restaurants and museums all over the place. And it totally sucks when their content is so aligned with my vibez and what I’m into but they are in Paris or Boston or somewhere equally as far that I do not have current travel plans to. 

I've been watching this particular ad since I got it suggested to me, and thanks to Instagram showing view counts, I know it had 40k views at the time of writing. That's a great return on investment — it brought them a few extra followers and who knows what else, since I'm not involved or invested enough to know more.

But here's the thing: five days after I got the ad fed to me, they still hadn't posted anything new. If you're going to commit to a social ad campaign, you also need to commit to keeping your content fresh for the duration of that campaign.

The same goes for going viral (which I know is so many businesses strategies lately ooof). If one of your posts or videos takes off, you have to pay attention to when it’s starting to pop off and get the next post lined up to ride that momentum. Follow it up with something — anything. Don't let your next post be days or weeks later. Because the algorithm doesn’t give gifts like that often. 

At the end of the day, a great ad is only half the job. If people can't find out where you are or when you're open, or if your feed goes quiet right when eyes are on it, you're leaving money on the table. Make it easy for people to say yes to you — clear location, clear hours, and content that shows up consistently, not just when you're paying for it.

That’s what successful marketing looks like- not the coolest graphics or edits the basics where people can find them. 

Before you boost another post, go make sure someone who's never heard of you could actually find your front door. That's the ad campaign that really matters.

The Summer I Bought A Refillable Cup

This has been one of the hottest summers on record where I live and I have one window ac unit the can’t quite keep up. Which is why I have found myself at a local movie theater on their weekly discount day to just sit in that sweet sweet ac.

I actually can not remember a time that I ever went to this many movies in one summer and the majority of my core group of my friends in high school all ended up going to film school.

So as a full grown adult with bills and opinions about loyalty programs, I bought a refillable cup at the movie theater.

But not before I did the math first to make sure that I would “beat” the cost of the cup based on the number of movies I had left to see before the promotion ran out of course like any good marketing person trying to think like the ideal audience.

Not refillable in the vague, marketing-copy sense. Refillable in the actual, physical, "bring this exact cup back clean and we'll fill it up again for a couple bucks" sense. It's this oversized plastic thing with the theater's logo on it, already a little scuffed, and after I clean it it lives on the bench by the door waiting for our next movie outing together.

That cup is the whole loyalty program- because I am not a member of the loyalty program. No app. No account. No phone number typed in at the register. I just show up with the cup, and whoever's behind the counter fills it up, checks me out and waves me on.

If I lose it, that's on me. If I bring it, I get the deal. That's the entire system.

I did not expect a plastic cup to make me feel something. And yet it has.

Because what's hilarious: that cup does everything a modern loyalty program is trying to do. It gets me back in the door week after week. It makes me feel like I’m getting something the regular ticket-buyer isn't. It turned a single transaction into a running relationship between me and that specific theater, all summer long.

And it does it without ever asking who I am.

Nobody needed my name to fill that cup. Nobody needed my email, my birthday, or a phone number to text me about "exclusive summer savings."

The cup itself was the credential.

You had it, or you didn't. The loyalty lives in a piece of plastic sitting in a cupholder, not in a database somewhere collecting information about how often I chose between coke and coke zero or popocorn or pretzel bites.

It's such a simple and throwback idea that it almost feels naive to bring up now.

Of course a business can build loyalty without collecting data. We used to do it all the time.

Anyone remember the Pepsi points and the catalog of stuff you could get with your UPC points and they guy who saved enough to get a Pepsi jet? If you don’t remember, don’t worry there’s a documentary .

But somewhere between 1996, the cup and the UPC’s became an app

and I don't think anyone sat down and decided physical loyalty was outdated. It just sort of got replaced, piece by piece, the way most things do now. The punch card became a phone number at checkout. The phone number became an app. The app became an app with notifications, and location and income tracking, and a feed of "personalized offers" you didn't ask for.

Each step probably felt like an improvement at the time. More data, better targeting, smarter personalization. And a lot of it genuinely is more convenient, when it works, and when you actually wanted the app in the first place.

But somewhere in there, the tradeoff changed. That cup asks nothing of me except to remember to bring it. The apps that replaced it are asking for a lot more, and a lot of people are starting to notice.

Here's the part I keep coming back to: I love the cup and it works because the reward is immediate, physical, crisp, bubbly and obvious. You could hold it in your hand. You didn't need to trust that points were accumulating correctly in some backend system, or hope a coupon code would actually apply at checkout. The theater fills the cup, right in front of me, every single time I hand it over.

A lot of digital loyalty programs have lost that. The reward is abstract. The trust is one-directional — you hand over data now, on the promise of a benefit later, administered by a system you can't see into. That's a much bigger ask than "bring the cup back."

Now I’m not saying every business needs to hand out plastic cups again, although honestly, some of them probably should. I’m merely suggesting that it's worth asking what the cup version of your loyalty program would look like. What's the simplest, most tangible way you could reward someone for coming back, without needing to know anything about them except that they showed up?

Somewhere out there, a version of one of your customers is deciding, right now, whether a business is worth trusting with their information and unsubribing from the loyalty program (if they even can). And a lot of the time, the answer is no — not because they don't want the deal, but because the deal isn't the cup anymore. It's a lot more spam and breached data for a lot less obvious of a reward.

I’m not saying convenience is the enemy. The refillable cup is convenient too. But it is convenient in a way that didn't cost anyone anything they weren't willing to give. That's the part worth bringing back to make you accessible to all.

If you're trying to figure out what the cup equivalent looks like for your business, that's a conversation I’m always up for.

The Digital Leash: Why Your Customers Are Quietly Rebelling Against "Convenience"

I don't want to download an app to pay for parking.

I don't want to scan a QR code to see a menu.

I don't want a pop-up asking me to "provide feedback" the second I land on a website.

I just want to exist in the physical world without a digital leash.

And here's the thing — so do your customers.

I'll admit the irony of a digital marketer writing this. But that's exactly why it matters. We're the ones building these experiences. We're the ones who need to notice when "convenience" has quietly become friction.

RIP to the $15 I Didn't Save

Last week I got a coupon in the mail. Physical mail — the kind that used to just work. Fifteen dollars off my grocery bill. All I had to do was redeem it.

Except I couldn't. Not without downloading the store's app first.

So I didn't. I walked out $15 poorer than I needed to be, on principle.

Did I mention this to the cashier, who had absolutely no say in the decision? Yes.

Did the cashier agree with me? Yes.

Did I fill out the "how was your experience today" survey afterward? Also yes.

But none of that is really the point.

This isn’t just about me yapping because I’m annoyed…

It would be easy to write this off as one person's mild inconvenience. It isn't. More and more people are growing uneasy with the "conveniences" companies keep bolting onto everyday transactions — and even more uneasy with what those conveniences quietly ask for in return: an account, a login, location access, notification permissions, your email, your data.

Every "just download the app" moment is a small transaction of its own. You're not just asking someone to save time. You're asking them to hand something over — attention, information, a little piece of trust — in exchange for a menu, a parking spot, a coupon.

For a growing number of people, that trade no longer feels worth it.

We’ve reached the crossroads where all of this stops being a personal pet peeve and starts being a business problem.

If a meaningful segment of your customers are opting out of the app, skipping the QR code, and ignoring the pop-up — you don't just have a UX quirk. You have an accessibility gap.

People are choosing friction over surveillance, and choosing to walk away from your brand entirely rather than download one more app for one more single-use interaction.

The question every business now has to sit with is simple: do we have an accessible alternative for the people who are opting out of "convenient"?

Because right now, for a lot of companies, the answer is no.

The app is the experience.

The QR code is the menu. T

here's no parallel path — just a digital-only front door.

Only having a digital front door is starting to be a problem. Seriously even your house or apartment has multiple ways to get into your cozy abode.

This isn't just a product or ops issue. It shapes how your brand gets perceived, talked about, and ultimately marketed.

A customer who couldn't use their coupon doesn't just lose $15 — they walk away with a story about your brand being difficult, tone-deaf, or extractive. That story gets told to a cashier, in a feedback survey, to a friend, on social media, or in this case all of the above.

None of it is the messaging you intended, but all of it is the messaging people receive.

Marketing doesn't stop at the campaign. It lives in every interaction a customer has with your business — including the ones that force them to download something they didn't want just to get what they came for.

To set yourself apart these days it’s time to be accessible, Not Repulsive

We're at a digital crossroads. Businesses can keep stacking apps, QR codes, and pop-ups in the name of convenience, or they can start asking a different question: how do we stay accessible to the people who are opting out?

That might mean a printed menu next to the QR code. A meter option next to the app-only parking meter. A coupon that works without a login. Small things. But small things are exactly what determine whether a customer feels welcomed into your business or repelled by it.

Interested in figuring out how to be accessible instead of repulsive at this digital crossroads?

That's a conversation worth having.

Nobody Wakes Up Hoping a Brand Has Something to Sell Them

Let me hold your hand while I say this one, because I say it in almost every strategy meeting I'm in:

Nobody wakes up and opens a social app hoping a brand has something to sell to them.

Not once. Not ever. Nobody has unlocked their phone, opened TikTok, and thought, I hope today's the day I finally hear what this company has to say. Nobody scrolls with the quiet wish that a stakeholder's Q3 priorities get the audience they deserve. That's not why the app is open. It's never why the app is open.

And yet so much of what gets greenlit in business social media is built on the opposite assumption — that if the message matters to us, it will matter to them.

That's the gap I spend most of my time trying to close. Not "is this on-brand," not "does this hit the talking points," but the much less comfortable question: does anyone actually want this in their feed?

And this is the part that gets argued with the most, so let's sit in it: just because someone follows you doesn't mean they signed up for your update.

Stop. Go Back. Read that part again.

It doesn't mean they requested your announcement. The follow is not a standing invitation. It's not a subscription to whatever you feel like posting. It's closer to a maybe — a "you were interesting enough once, prove it again" — and the algorithm doesn't even guarantee they'll see it.

They opened the app for the same reason they always do: to be entertained, distracted, moved, amused. Not to check in on you specifically. Not to see what's new in your world. They opened it for themselves, and your content showed up in the middle of that, uninvited by the moment even if it was technically invited by the follow.

That's why "but they follow us" doesn't hold up as a defense in the room. It's the thing stakeholders reach for when a post underperforms — as if the follow is a contract, as if it obligates attention. It doesn't. A follow just gets you in the building. It doesn't get you a seat at the table. Your content is still a guest in that moment, not the host of it. It still has to justify being there, the same way everything else in that feed had to earn its way in — the ex-text song, the pots-and-pans DJ set, the stranger's storytime.

None of it gets grandfathered in because someone tapped follow six months ago. Every single post starts from zero. That's not the algorithm being cruel. That's just what attention actually is — something re-earned, not something owed.

That's the whole game. Not "how do we get this in front of people," but "why would this person, mid-scroll, on their own time, choose to stay on it."

If you can't answer that honestly, no amount of distribution strategy will save it. You'll have gotten the content in front of people. You just won't have given them a reason to stop.

If any of this is landing a little too close to home — reach out. If you're ready to stop asking for a bigger distribution plan and start asking a harder, better question, we should talk.

Flex Your Soft Skills While Everyone Else Trains Their Bots

We are currently halfway through the year and I am halfway through what I’m calling my personal “rebrand” summer. 

I feel like as a collective we are standing between two worlds right now. The human world and the ai world. And while we’re all hanging out here and congregating marketing is shifting.  I went into a whole thing about it over in this BLOG.  

As difficult as it is to tell businesses apart physically it is now getting EXTREMELY difficult to tell businesses events apart because whatever prompts people bought or searched from some leading ai expert is kicking out the same garbage that looks like it was designed at 2:42 a.m. when someone sat up straight in their bed because they forgot to do it, and were passed out from a raging party night with 3 percent battery left on their device.

And the worst part is someone else definitely looked at what got kicked out and said “Yeah, post it.” But I’ll talk more on that another time- pinky swear.

But while we are standing at this marketing crossroads of Wall- E or the Humans I think it’s a good time to remind you about your marketing soft skills and that it might be time to begin to flex those muscles again while other businesses are enthralled with the ai agents they are building. 

So let's talk about it. While everyone else is out here fine-tuning prompts and outsourcing their personality to a chatbot, here's your permission slip to get weird, get human, and get good at the stuff that can't be automated at 2:42 a.m.

The Marketing Soft Skills Worth Flexing Right Now

Storytelling that doesn't sound like it came out of a template
AI can generate copy. It cannot generate your story, your brand's actual voice, or the specific, slightly unhinged way you talk about your product because you actually care about it. That's not a prompt. That's a personality.

Reading the room (aka emotional intelligence)
An algorithm doesn't know your audience is tired, distracted, or scrolling past their fifth "AI-powered" post of the day. You do. Or you can, if you're paying attention. That's the whole game right now — noticing what people actually feel, not what the data says they should feel.

Actual, real-life relationship building
DMs, comments, follow-ups, remembering someone's name after a networking event — none of that scales in a spreadsheet. It scales in the "oh my god she remembered" department, which is where loyalty actually lives.

Handwritten cards (yes, actual paper, actual pen)
I send handwritten cards to clients for their birthdays and our work anniversaries together. Not an automated email that says "Happy Birthday from all of us at Maven & Muse!" — an actual card, with an actual sentiment in my actual handwriting, that I put in an actual mailbox, that took me actual minutes I could've spent doing something else. That's the point. In a world where everything can be generated in half a second, the thing that took time is the thing that means something. No AI is licking an envelope for you.

Creative risk-taking
If everyone's output looks the same because it came from the same five prompts, the fastest way to stand out is to do something a machine wouldn't think to do. Weird headline. Unexpected format. A badly lit phone photo. A joke that only your audience gets. That's you. That's not replicable.

Judgment — knowing when to say "no, don't post that"
This is the one nobody's talking about enough. Somebody has to be the person who looks at the ai output and says "yeah, this isn't it," instead of "yeah, post it." That instinct — taste, basically — is a soft skill, and it's becoming a rare one.

So here we are, at the end of my thoughts and still standing at the crossroads. Wall-E or the humans. And honestly? I feel like you don't have to pick a side to win this one. Use the AI. Use the tools. Just don't let them replace the parts of you that were never meant to be automated in the first place.

Because your audience isn't just scrolling past sameness — they're craving the opposite of it. They want to feel like a real person made this, thought about this, cared about this. They're starving for it, actually, whether they could name it or not.

These soft skills are how you get remembered in a sea of sameness. Not because you outsmarted the algorithm, but because you gave people something the algorithm never could the opportunity to feel seen. 

So here's your homework: this week, do one thing a machine wouldn't think to do. Send the card. Make the call instead of the auto-reply. Write the weird headline. Let's see who actually remembers it. Then drop what you did in the comments so we can all learn and be supportive of each other.

Go be memorable my friend. The algorithm will catch up eventually. Your people are waiting on you now.

Card Images bought from: : Viola and Beatrice and Ginger P. Designs

The metrics nobody's talking about (but should be)

I'm here to tell you today that you've been chasing the wrong numbers.

Let's yap about one most not talked about marketing things that you need to be paying attention to when you are creating content: Saves and Shares have becoming way more valuable than passive likes and followers.

 Likes feel good - to your ego.

Follower counts look impressive in a deck. 

But while everyone's been optimizing for applause, a quieter, more powerful behavior has been reshaping how content actually spreads — and most brands are completely missing it.

Here's something the marketing industry has been slow to admit: the playbook that worked in 2016 is failing the brands who are still using it in 2026.

The "create for likes" era had a very specific look. 

Perfectly staged flat lays. 

Motivational quotes in branded fonts. 

Trend-chasing content designed to feel familiar enough to earn a quick double-tap. Content engineered for the moment of the scroll — optimized for stopping the thumb, not for anything that came after.

And for a while, it worked. 

Likes drove reach. 

Reach drove followers. 

Followers meant something.

But the game changed. 

Platforms shifted their algorithms away from follower-based distribution. 

Organic reach for like-bait content collapsed. 

And more importantly — audiences evolved. 

People got savvier, more selective, more fatigued. 

The content that used to feel engaging started feeling like noise.

Here's the cultural shift nobody talks about enough these days: people have largely stopped performing engagement for engagement's sake. 

The era of liking everything in your feed is over. 

And you've gotta stop being sad about people not liking your stuff.

We're all just lurkers now aren't we?

Younger audiences especially don't engage publicly the way they used to — they consume quietly, they share privately (hello, DMs and group chats), and they save intentionally.

So if you're still building posts designed to rack up likes — relying on pretty aesthetics with no depth, jumping on every trending audio, creating content that says nothing in a visually appealing way — you're investing in a currency that's lost its value.

The brands winning right now aren't the ones with the most polished feeds. 

They're the ones creating content that does something — that teaches, that challenges, that makes someone feel understood, that earns a spot in someone's saved folder or gets forwarded to a group chat at 11pm.

The aesthetic still matters. 

The craft still matters. 

But it has to be in service of something real.

You know- kinda like the entire reason we are incarnated here as humans.

To be of service to each other.

People aren't just scrolling to be entertained anymore. They're curating. 

They're building personal libraries out of content that actually means something to them. They're sending posts to friends with a "this is literally us" or "you NEED to read this." 

They're screenshotting recipes, saving outfit inspo, bookmarking business advice to revisit on a Sunday morning with coffee.

Your audience has become an editorial team — and they're deciding what makes the cut.

A like says: I saw this. 

A save says: I want to come back to this. 

A share says: Someone I care about needs to see this.

And from a pure algorithm standpoint? 

Platforms reward both. 

Saves tell Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest that your content has shelf life. 

Shares tell every platform that your content travels. 

Both signals push your posts further, longer, to more people.

So how do you actually implement this?

Well dear reader this is going to require a mindset shift to where strategy meets creativity. 

You've got to move on from the “likes” means this is good content and instead create content with the intention of it going out further.

Liked content is often: visually satisfying, relatable, funny, trending.

Saved and shared content is: useful, surprising, clarifying, or deeply resonant.

Ask yourself before you post: Would I save this? Better yet: Would I send this to someone?

Here are the content types that consistently earn saves and shares:

"Save this for later" content — Tips, tutorials, checklists, how-to guides, resource roundups. If it solves a real problem or teaches something, people will bookmark it.

"This is exactly what I needed to hear" content — Perspective shifts, honest takes, the thing everyone's thinking but no one's saying out loud. Emotional truth travels fast.

"I have to send this to [name]" content — Highly specific, niche content that speaks to a particular person's situation. Counterintuitively, the more specific you get, the more shareable you become — because the right person feels seen, and they know exactly who else needs to see it too.

Aesthetic content worth collecting — Moodboard-worthy visuals, beautiful quotes, aspirational imagery. People build digital identities through what they save, and they'll save what reflects who they are or who they want to be.

One of my secret ways to decompress online isn't dog videos — shocking, I know. It's watching Disney pin traders.

Full disclosure: 

I don't collect pins. 

I am not a Disney adult. 

I'm just an auntie dreaming of the day taking the littles there.

So….

I genuinely cannot explain why this content has me in a chokehold. 

And yet here I am, deep in Instagram reel rabbit holes watching people trade small pieces of enamel like it's the stock exchange.

Here's why I think it works — and why it's a perfect case study for everything I just said.

These creators aren't just making content about pins. They're also sharing tips for navigating the parks, insider knowledge only a passholder would know, and genuine community-building around a very specific shared obsession. 

The pins are the entry point. 

The value is everything surrounding them.

I save those videos for a future Disney trip.

I send them to friends who might be planning a Disney trip. 

I've watched the same park navigation breakdowns multiple times.

That's the magic. 

The creator wasn't trying to go viral. 

They were creating something genuinely useful for a very specific person — and it found me, someone who doesn't even fit the target audience, because the content was worth something.

That's the type of content that I want you building toward. 

Content so good, so specific, so genuinely useful that even people who weren't looking for it end up keeping it.

If you're ready to create content worth saving — hit reply or grab a time on my calendar. 

I'd love to yap with you. 

You're Not a Visionary. You're a Vendor.

I went to opening night of The Devil Wears Prada 2. Because of course I did.

And no — I'm not giving you a single spoiler. Partly because I have manners. Partly because I'm already planning to go see it again.

But there is one line from that film I have not been able to shake. And I pinky swear — seen it or not — it won't give a thing away.

"You're not a visionary. You're a vendor."

The moment I heard it, my brain went straight to us. All of us in this space.

Because some of us are vendors. And some of us are visionaries. And the gap between the two is not closing — if anything, it widens a little more every single day.

Nowhere is that more visible — or more costly — than in your marketing.

A vendor shows up with a plan that works for everyone. They post consistently, follow the trends, use the sounds and templates and hooks that are already performing. They hit the calendar. They check the boxes. They deliver.

And your brand ends up looking exactly like every other brand in your space. Because it does.

Here's the thing about a vendor — they don't need to understand you. They just need to understand the formula. And right now the formula is everywhere. Anyone can buy it, copy it, outsource it. AI can produce it in seconds flat.

A visionary does something different entirely. They start by asking the question nobody else is bothering to ask: what does this brand actually stand for — and does anyone feel that the moment they land on your page?

They're not chasing trends. They're building the thing people point to when they try to explain the trend. They're not filling your content calendar — they're crafting a point of view so sharp that your audience starts to feel like they discovered something. Like they found you before everyone else did.

A visionary makes your audience feel seen. A vendor makes your audience feel marketed to.

People have always been able to tell the difference. They're just a lot less patient with it now.

This is why it matters so much right now. The noise has never been louder. The feed has never been more flooded. AI can churn out vendor-level content around the clock — which means vendor-level marketing has essentially zero barrier to entry anymore.

In that world, the only thing that actually cuts through is a perspective that couldn't have come from anyone else. A brand that feels like a person with something real to say.

That's what a visionary brings. Not just content — conviction.

So the real question isn't who's doing your marketing. It's whether they're showing up with a template or showing up with a belief in where you're going.

Because one fills a feed. The other builds a movement.

If you read that and felt a quiet little gut check — that's your sign.

Let's get on a call and talk about what visionary marketing actually looks like for your brand.

I Meant to Stop at Nordstrom. I Ended Up in Taos.

Some of the best lessons don't arrive in a boardroom or a business podcast. Sometimes they show up on a stretch of highway south of Denver when you've blown past your exit and suddenly realize you have absolutely nowhere to be.

That's exactly where this one found me.

It's been a minute since I've shown up here — personal lives will do that sometimes, won't they?

I won't bore you with the details, but in the weeks I've been MIA I was once again reminded of how you can only connect the dots looking backwards. And how powerful the ancient ritual of the referral truly is.

After all of my eldest daughter tasks were complete, my soul needed some nourishing of its own. If you are an eldest child — specifically a daughter — I know you know exactly what I mean. There's a particular kind of depletion that comes with that role, and a particular kind of responsibility you feel to refill your own cup quietly, without making a fuss.

So I threw a few bits into an overnight bag just in case and took off south. My plan — if you could even call it that — was to stop at Nordstrom for lunch, a coffee, and some excellent customer service. A little retail therapy for the soul.

I however drove past the exit and found myself in Taos.

Here's the thing nobody tells you about spontaneous trips: the logistics get complicated fast.

The place you planned on staying is booked up. And the place that place recommends is booked up. But then the place that place recommended has the exact room that your soul needs.

This is exactly what happened.

Two referrals later from essentially competing BnBs — and the third one was the one I was meant to stay in. The room was perfect. The timing was perfect. The whole thing felt less like a booking and more like an arrival.

And somewhere between unpacking my overnight bag and exhaling for the first time in weeks, I started thinking about what had just happened. Not just the room. The path to the room.

Think about what actually happened in Taos. Three businesses, all essentially competing for the same traveler, the same dollar, the same night. And yet BnB number one didn't hesitate. They couldn't help me, but they knew who could. BnB number two did the same thing. No ego, no scarcity mindset — just here, try her, she's wonderful.

That is the ancient art of the referral. And it is one of the most powerful marketing tools in existence — not because it's clever, but because it's human.

We talk a lot in the business world about marketing strategies, lead generation, conversion funnels, and content calendars. And those things matter. But underneath all of it, the most durable, most effective, most trusted form of marketing has always been one person turning to another and saying you need to talk to her.

No algorithm can replicate that moment. No ad spend in the world buys the trust that comes pre-loaded in a referral. When someone sends you a person they care about, they are putting their own reputation on the line.

That is not a small thing. That is everything.

We live in a world absolutely saturated with content, noise, and options. Every platform is louder than the last. Every inbox is fuller than it was yesterday. Everyone is shouting to be seen, to be chosen, to be remembered.

The referral is a whisper — and somehow, it's the only thing people actually hear.

Think about the last time you made a meaningful purchasing decision — hired someone, booked something, invested in a service. How did you find them? Chances are, someone you trusted said go here or call her or you have to try this. That's not a coincidence. That's the referral doing what it has always done.

The businesses that truly understand this aren't just good at what they do. They are generous with what they know. They play a long game. They understand that sending someone away today often means that person comes back to you tomorrow — or sends you ten people who do.

There is no scarcity in a referral culture. There is only abundance.

What This Means for Your Business

The third BnB didn't run a single ad to find me. I didn’t even look at their social- just found their number on their website and called. When I did peek their social they didn't have a sophisticated content strategy or a perfectly optimized Instagram grid. They just showed up so beautifully for the people before me that the trail led right to their door.

That's the whole lesson. That's the whole thing.

So here's what I want you to sit with after you finish reading this.

Who in your world deserves a referral from you right now? Not a tag, not a vague oh you should check her out — but a real, intentional, hand-on-the-shoulder introduction. The kind where you say I trust this person, and I think you need them. Those referrals change businesses. Sometimes they change lives.

Are you the kind of business that someone feels proud to refer? This is the harder question. Are you showing up so completely, so generously, so memorably that the trail naturally leads to your door? If the answer isn't an immediate yes, that's your work right now. Not a new funnel. Not a new platform. Just showing up more fully in the work you're already doing.

And are you thanking the people who refer you? Seriously. When did you last reach out to someone who sent you a client, a customer, a connection — and genuinely thank them? Not a quick DM. A real thank you. Make it a practice. Make it a ritual.

Because the algorithm changes. The ads get more expensive. The noise gets louder. But the referral? That's been working since before the internet, before social media, before any of this. It worked for two BnBs in Taos on a spontaneous weekend. It'll work for you on a Tuesday.

The third BnB didn't find me. The experience of the first two led me there.

That's it. That's the whole marketing strategy.

Show up fully. Make/Accept a Phone call. Be generous with your referrals. Trust that the right people are always finding their way to you — sometimes they just need two stops first.

Are you building a referral culture in your business — or leaving it to chance? I'd love to hear how referrals have shown up for you. Drop a comment below or send me a message.