120 | 3 years on! How has online marketing changed in 2026?
Personal brands, long-form content, and 2016 vibes: How online marketing has changed since my last podcast episode!
After 3 years away (a wedding, a honeymoon, a baby, and a whole lot of nappies & sleepless nights later 🫠) The Freelance Fix is officially back. And oh boy, has the online business world changed while I've been gone!
Why AI, personal brands and long-form content are changing how you market your business
In this comeback episode I'm catching you up on where I've been, then getting into the two big shifts I'm seeing in how we market our businesses online: how AI has completely changed the value of content (and why personal brands are the one thing it can't replace), plus the comeback of long-form content and why 2016 energy is back.
(As someone who has now been creating content - blogs, emails, social, the lot - across two different brands myself since 2015 and the blogging BOOM, this excites me a lot 🤣).
LINKS MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE:
In Demand Identity Kit (build your personal brand): https://www.byrosanna.co.uk/in-demand-identity-kit
Sign up to my weekly ‘Re:Fresh’ emails): https://www.byrosanna.co.uk/newsletter
Say hi on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/by.rosanna/
More about byRosanna (website design & business resources): https://www.byrosanna.co.uk/
What happened to marketing in the last 3 years?
If I had to sum it up in one word: AI.
Not that long ago, typical marketing advice (including a lot of what I used to teach) was: create educational content. Share your how-to tips, position yourself as the expert, teach your audience things, build authority that way. And to be clear, that still has its place.
But now that anyone can type a question into ChatGPT or Claude and get a decent step-by-step answer in seconds, that kind of generic how-to content has become a total commodity. It's ridiculously easy to churn out, which means the internet is drowning in it and audiences are either bored or simply suspicious a robot wrote it!
Personal branding in the age of AI (the one thing AI can't replace)
The one thing AI genuinely cannot replicate right now is you as a personal brand.
And I don't just mean sticking your face on camera. I mean sharing your actual experiences, your opinions, your specific takes, your way of approaching things, your humanness. The stuff that is unique to you and only you.
While AI can generate a flawless "5 tips for X" post in 30 seconds, what it can't do is tell your story about the client project that went sideways, or the hot take you'll happily die on a hill for, or the weirdly specific way you've figured out how to do something.
This is exactly why building a personal brand has gone from "nice to have" to genuinely one of the most future-proof things you can do for your business. When you're known for you, you can pivot, scale, launch new things, and never be at the mercy of an algorithm or an AI tool in the same way.
Resource: Uncover your unique personal brand positioning & stories with my In Demand Identity Kit.
The long-form content comeback (hello again, 2016)
The second big shift is I feel like long-form content is having a serious moment again.
Short-form (Instagram, TikTok, Reels) absolutely isn't going anywhere, but have you noticed the rise of people starting YouTube or creating Substacks? This blog-meets-email platform has basically brought back exactly what long-form content was doing back in 2016.
And I get why! There's a huge conversation happening online right now about short-form content being a bit of a dopamine slot machine (the endless scroll, the frazzled attention spans, the screen addiction), and I think the natural antidote to all of that is a swing back towards long-form: podcasts, longer YouTube videos, Substacks, blogs, proper email newsletters. Content you actually connect deeper with.
It's genuinely better from a creator's point of view too. I don't know about you, but I am so tired of feeding the Instagram and TikTok algorithms just to get 200 views and feel shit about it 🥲 - long-form content flips the focus from algorithm and virality to audience and connection, and honestly, stepping off the content hamster wheel is a lot more enjoyable!
2016 was peak "follow a blogger because you genuinely want to hear their opinions” and I feel like we're circling right back to that.
What this means for how you market in 2026
So what am I actually doing with all this? Because coming back to work after having a baby, I have way less time and I have to be ruthless about what's actually worth it. Here's where I'm putting my energy:
Less Instagram and TikTok, more podcasting. I'll still show up on social, but my priority is going deeper here where I can actually build trust and connection.
My email newsletter (The Re:Fresh). Going deeper on topics with the people who actually want to hear from me.
More YouTube tutorials. So many people find me through my tech tutorials so I'm leaning into that.
Updating and adding proper blog posts. Partly for good old SEO, but increasingly for AIO / GEO too - optimising your website so AI search tools can find and recommend you. That genuinely wasn't a thing three years ago, and good in-depth blog content really helps.
FAQs
Is educational, how-to content still worth creating?
Yes, but it can't be the whole strategy anymore. Because AI can spit out generic how-to answers instantly, plain educational content has lost a lot of its edge. The fix is to wrap your expertise in your actual experience, opinions and stories, the things AI can't replicate, so it's clearly, unmistakably you.
What is AIO / GEO (AI search optimisation)?
AIO (AI Optimisation) or GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) is the practice of optimising your website content so AI search tools (like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI overviews) can find, understand and recommend you. In-depth, genuinely useful, clearly-authored content tends to get surfaced, which is why good blog posts matter more than ever.
Is short-form content dead?
Nooo, not at all. Instagram, TikTok and Reels are here to stay and still brilliant for reach and discovery. The shift is that long-form content (podcasts, blogs, newsletters, longer videos) is coming back alongside it as the place you build real connection and trust, rather than just chasing views.
How do I build a personal brand if I don't want to show my face all the time?
A personal brand is about far more than your face. It's your experiences, opinions, takes and the specific way you do things. You can build a strong one through your writing, your stories and your point of view, without living on camera. Getting clear on those pieces is exactly what my In Demand Identity Kit walks you through.
Online business marketing is changing again, and this time the winners are the humans: the personal brands with real opinions and real stories, and the creators brave enough to slow down, go long-form, and actually connect instead of chasing the algorithm.
I find that genuinely exciting, and a bit of a relief, honestly. If you've been feeling burnt out by the content hamster wheel, consider this your permission slip to step off it and do things a bit differently.
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast on your podcast listening app, leave a review, and join my re:fresh email list too to keep these good vibes going 🤣✌️
