How to thrive in this modern content marketing landscape

Last week I told you how I’m using content to grow my business in 2026. I heard from several people thanking me for the ideas and inspiration.

I also heard from one client who said, “I know I should be creating more content, but my network and email list is so small, I feel like no one is even listening.”

She’s not wrong. No one is listening at this point. But that’s not a reason to wait. In fact, it’s a reason to publish more.

The only way to grow an audience is to extend your hand and introduce yourself. To say, “Here I am, this is what I do, and I’d love to talk to you about my ideas.”

That’s what publishing content is all about. It’s how you introduce yourself to new people who might want to get to know you better. You can’t wait until you already have an audience, because publishing even when no one is listing is how you get that audience.

The state of online content

My client went on to say, “But Cindy, there’s a ton of information out there already. Me publishing more feels like shouting into the void.”

Again, she’s not wrong. There IS a lot of content already out there.

• This blog post is one of 7.5 million that will be published today. (And yet, here you are reading it, so there’s that.)
• YouTube is worse. Every day 20 million videos are uploaded.
• Even book writers aren’t immune. Amazon’s KDP platform sees between 2,000 and 4,000 new books uploaded every single day.

When you add AI into the mix, the stats become even more disheartening.

• A 2026 study found that more than 20% of videos shown to new users are classified as “AI Slop”—videos with AI-generated scripts, stock footage, and cloned voices.
• A study by Amazon Web Services found that 57% of all internet content is generated by AI.
• 50% of digital marketers create content using artificial intelligence to complement their efforts.

If the internet is literally flooded with content, with more appearing every single day—and most of that is generated by AI—why am I still banging on the content drum?

Because all of that is not the bad news you think it is. In fact, it’s very, very good news for you, for me, and for my client.

This is your content marketing cheat code

I believe we’re seeing a shift in marketing.

Where once it was about volume—bigger audiences, bigger email lists, bigger launches—what’s been missing in the rush to do more is actual personality. Yours, to be specific.

The cheat code you’re looking for is you, with all of your imperfections and half-formed thoughts and controversial ideas. It’s your unique perspective and the way you connect two random ideas and the way you tell a story.

The answer to audience growth isn’t simply more content. If it was, I’d be sharing my latest prompts and AI tools that let you publish 3,245 pieces of content every hour at the push of a button.

While that might feel like how you compete in an LLM content-scape, it won’t work. At least not to build the kind of business you and I want to create.

What your customers are craving now isn’t more information. They have enough to last them several lifetimes. What they’re desperately looking for is connection to someone real. Someone who didn’t just engineer a smart prompt and let the LLM take it from there. Someone who actually put some thought into their words.

Someone who knows what the hell they’re talking about, and who cares enough to say it.

If more information was the answer, then we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.

~Derek Sivers

Your customers need your controversial opinions and your hard-earned insights. Give them the things no one else will talk about because the AI gods didn’t say it first. Share your messy, disorganized, half-formed ideas. Let your customers know you’re human.

Anything else is just adds to the noise. It’s a waste of your time to create it, and a waste of your readers’ time to consume it.

What if you’re not confident in your content-creation skills?

My client had one more objection.

She told me she’s “not a good writer.” As if she should have been born with that skill.

Here’s the thing: The way you get good at writing is to write. The way you get comfortable on camera is to be on camera. There is no shortcut. There’s no fast-track, and no AI tool will save you from the “I’m not ready” feeling.

You simply have to stand up and do it.

I know that’s not what you want to hear. It’s not what I wanted to hear when I was new. I wanted the comfort of hiding behind the screen until everything was perfect.

I’m sorry to say, that doesn’t work. You have to hit the publish button when you still have the butterflies in your stomach. You have to be willing to put out cringe-worthy content.

If you’re not willing to do that, you will never grow that audience. You will never compete with the flood of AI generated words. You will never stand out in that crowded space.

You must start before you’re ready. It’s the only way.

What to do now

“Ok,” you might be thinking. “I need to start. But where, exactly?”

First, choose your format. You have three choices here:

• Written (blogs, for example)
• Audio (podcast)
• Video

Which one feels the least overwhelming? Don’t overthink it. Don’t worry about what your audience wants at this point, or where they’re hanging out, just ask, “Which one of these feels like the best fit for me?”

Next, choose a platform. This is easy if you picked video. You’ll start a YouTube channel. For audio, it’s a podcast.

If written words is your choice, you have a few more options. You can publish on your own website, or if you don’t have a website and want something quicker to get online, choose Substack or Beehiiv or Medium. Again, don’t overthink it. Choose one and move forward.

Now comes the hard part. What will you create?

Here’s a list to get you started:

• Something in your industry you disagree with
• A tool or strategy you personally use
• A story about how you got started
• Resources you recommend
• A mistake you made
• A plan you’re, well, planning
• A question you can answer
• Something you wish you’d done sooner
• A different way of thinking about a common problem

I recommend planting an idea garden so you never run out of things to share.

Finally, make a promise to yourself and to your audience. Choose a day (I like Tuesdays, but any day will work) and commit to publishing something on that day each and every week. No exceptions.

The first week will be hard. You’ll say, “I’m not ready. I’ll do it next week.”

Ignore that voice! You won’t do it next week. You’ll just keep putting it off and before you know it, another year will have gone by and you’ll still be telling me, “But I can’t because I don’t have an audience yet.”

Do this: Click the publish button starting this week.

Right now even, before you talk yourself out of it. Next week and every week after that it will be easier, until you can’t even remember why you were so intimidated by the thought of sharing your ideas with the world.

One last thing: When you publish that blog post or video or podcast, drop me a link in the comments so I can share it with my audience, too.

P.S. I fired ChatGPT

I’ve been thinking about this shift in the content marketing space for a while, and last week I realized something.

While I never let an LLM create my content for me, I was letting ChatGPT have too much say in what and how I write. So I fired it.

Just for fun, I ran this post through my AI engine—the one I’ve “trained” on my ideal customer, my products, and my voice. Here’s what it had to say:

• The piece is too long. Chatty thinks you have the attention span of a gnat, and that you won’t read longer pieces. I know that’s not true.
• I’m not explicit enough. ChatGPT tells me that you have to be hit over the head with an idea in order to understand it. I know better.
• The call to action isn’t strong. Of course it’s not, but again, it is implied. I’m trusting you, the reader, to decide if you want to hear more from me or not. You’re smart enough to figure out how to do that without me saying it.
• There’s not enough emotional punch. I should, in fact, poke harder at your insecurities to make you see the high cost of not publishing content.

And the LLM engine offered to rewrite my piece. It made sure to throw in lots of “it’s not this, it’s that” and plenty of one-word sentences (for punch, you know).

I don’t write like that, but ChatGPT does. Those are exactly the kinds of things that would de-personalize my message and make it sound like more AI generated words. 

My goal isn’t to sound like everyone (and everyTHING) else. It’s to build real relationships with real people. I hope that’s your goal, too, because that’s what will make your business stand out in 2026 and beyond.