You are the media now.

Weekly insights on all things brand strategy, audience marketing, and experiences.

Elon Musk has become somewhat of a controversial figure.

But love him or hate him, it’s clear that in our lives outside of work, traditional media is fast becoming disrupted by social platforms like X, YouTube, Instagram, and the others. Some experts have credited the rise of “independent media” as playing a major role in the outcome of our recent election cycle here in the US.

Prominent journalists have announced departures from major global media networks such as Sky News, CNN, Fox News, and others, to launch their own media networks — going direct to their audiences rather than relying on legacy distribution channels.

How will this disruption impact our approach to B2B content?

The “Old Way” No Longer Works

Without going too deep into a history lesson here, recall that the status quo for B2B content marketing was developed in the early 2000s out of the marketing automation boom.

These vendors championed content as a way to either solicit traffic from third-party channels (think written articles and SEO) or to convert an unknown visitor into a known conversion (think a gated ebook). But over the last twenty-five years, our audiences have become smarter, the primary content formats have changed, and no-one wants to fill out a form anymore.

Said another way, our industry attempted to convert 100% of our participating audience into demos of our product, when the data suggests that only 5% of them were ever in market.

Bad.

We also had a very different relationship with social media back then. Our efforts were focused on company pages and brand accounts, sharing recent blog posts (links included!) only to be increasingly suppressed by those networks. In my own story as a CMO, we would have our most junior employee run our social strategy.

These factors (and many others) have contributed to the harsh reality of the B2B marketing practice today. We find ourselves stuck between this realization that the old playbook has run its course, and the looming threat of AI agents to take our jobs.

Welcome to your Sunday morning pep talk.

But I happen to believe that we’re about to enter a new golden age for marketing — an era where creativity, connection, and belonging will be at the center of how we operate. One of the best (and cheapest) ways for B2B marketers to lean into this exciting future is to embrace this “independent media” trend from the journalism and creator economies and become a first mover for your category.

Five Changes to Content Strategy in 2025

The application of this trend for B2B companies is to become the media network for your software category. To “become known” for something requires thoughtful articulation of your narrative, and relentless activation (via media) to have your story seen and valued by your audience.

Here are five changes to consider in 2025:

1. Founders (and key execs) have a responsibility to create content.

Founders and CXOs are the spokespeople for your brand. There’s no one more important on the payroll to establish trust with your ideal audience than the people on top. I’ve run into cases in the past where CXOs have been shy or unwilling to get in front of the camera. In my view, this responsibility will become a core part of the job description of any executive, and marketing will play an important role to support them and make it as easy and time leveraged as possible.

2. Audience building will become a key marketing KPI.

Social, rather than your marketing website, will become the new top-of-funnel for marketing teams. We’ll need to manage weekly growth in impressions, new followers, and engagements for each channel, as well as for each executive spokesperson. While brand accounts will play some role in the future of audience marketing (I think), increasingly most distribution will come from the collective of personal accounts from your internal creators.

3. Audience borrowing plays become a strategic lever.

Your spokespeople will build their audience just by posting every day — but the outsized growth in followers and engagement will come from collaborations with other creators who have built similar audiences to yours. This means pitching your spokespeople as guests on other podcasts, advertising in relevant newsletters, and even hiring creators to produce content on your behalf.

4. Companies create in-house studios for content production.

If you don’t know the letters B&H, you will soon. The equipment cost to shoot great audio & video content in-house has dropped significantly. In order to scale production (and meet the cadence requirements to stay relevant), companies will transform a breakout room in their offices into full production studio. For remote use cases, the cost to stand up an at-home production kit will be even less.

5. The Content Marketing Manager job is changing rapidly.

Historically when recruiting a Content Marketing role, we would look for written communication skills, ex-journalists, and other profiles aligned to the blog/SEO game. In 2025, we will hire creators to fill that same position — experts in creating short form video content, understanding the nuances of the platforms, and have demonstrated an ability to build an audience.

The Golden Age of Marketing

We’ve had a brutal run as a marketing industry over the last 2-3 years, but I think 2025 will usher in a new era of optimism.

It may seem like everything around us is changing (with AI, new playbooks, channels, etc.), but the reality is that the fundamental job of marketing will never change:

• To create compelling stories that wins the hearts and minds of our buyer audience.

• To produce authentic content that activates our story into our audience, building trusted relationships with our brand.

• To facilitate a sense of belonging and community within our audience.

…and the belief that these elements, executed well, will lead to more pipeline, improved win rates, and better retention.

In many ways we are going back to basics as a marketing practice.

That’s a future I could get excited about.

You can always reach me directly by emailing [email protected] or simply by replying to this email.

I’d love to hear your questions, thoughts, or any ideas you might have. Thanks again for subscribing! I’m thrilled to see where this journey will take us.