One of the primary discussions among top marketers at the conference was the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in revolutionizing content creation and marketing strategies.

I brought home a notebook full of notes, and instead of letting all that sit in a folder, I uploaded my notes into ChatGPT to spot the patterns and priorities. What emerged was a clear picture of what the experts agree on and a few refreshing shifts in how they approach content creation.

Today, I’m walking you through 7 smart content moves that are helping personal brands build trust, stay visible, and show up with purpose.

• How to use podcasting as your content hub and simplify your workflow
• The shift toward authentic, unpolished video that builds real trust
• Why AI isn’t your voice—it’s your amplifier, and how to use it wisely
• What to do weekly to grow your LinkedIn visibility without burning out
• Why your email list and newsletter might be your most valuable asset
• A behind-the-scenes peek at how I used ChatGPT to prioritize post-event actions

If this episode helps, I’d love for you to rate and review it on Apple Podcasts. It really does make a difference.

AI in Marketing: Dive into how AI is transforming online marketing and why you might still be early to the game if you’re hesitant about jumping on board. Michael Stelzner’s breakdown of AI adoption statistics is a must-hear for understanding where you stand in the tech curve.

Content is King: Discover the consensus among top marketers that not all content is created equal. Learn the crucial importance of delivering consistent value rather than just focusing on volume.

Video Evolution: Uncover the shift from polished video content to authentic and slightly imperfect videos. Learn why authenticity is key and why platforms like LinkedIn are favoring short, real video clips.

• “It’s not just about volume. It’s about value.”
• “An AI-enhanced employee performs better than a team of employees without AI.”
• Make your podcast the engine that fuels your personal brand.”

Ready to Simplify Your Lead Generation with AI?

If you’re looking to grow your email list without getting lost in tech or spending hours creating content, I’d love to invite you into my private membership—Amplify Your List Building with AI.

Here’s what’s inside:

• Stay current with smart, ethical AI strategies
• Get access to custom GPT tools built to simplify your lead gen
• Join live coaching sessions for real-time strategy and support
• Use done-for-you templates to create lead magnets, opt-ins, and more
• Master your email sequences, sales pages, and planning workflows

This isn’t about doing more—it’s about doing what matters, faster and smarter.

Founding member spots are still open, but not for long.

Join now and lock in the lowest price this offer will ever be.

Visit Community.MarisaShadrick.com to learn more.

As always, I’m grateful for your support and would love it if you could rate and review our podcast on Apple Podcasts. It helps this podcast reach more people while continuing to bring you valuable content.

Thanks so much for your support! CLICK HERE!

If you’re watching on YouTube, please hit subscribe!

 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/

 Subscribe and receive each episode in your email inbox: https://marisashadrick.com/listen

Marisa Shadrick [00:00:00]:When top marketers begin to say the same thing and they seem to be in alignment as far as what’s working in 2025 for online marketing, you lean in and you listen. That’s exactly what we’re gonna cover today in this week’s episode. Stay tuned. Hello. Hello. And I’m so glad you’re here for this episode. I recently went to San Diego and attended social media marketing world, where there’s always, like, incredible speakers there that talk about branding, and marketing, and video content, and social media, and they go on and on. But the big topic today has been AI.

Marisa Shadrick [00:00:40]:So what I did was I took various notes, and this time I took handwritten notes just so that I wouldn’t have to worry about being all charged up. And then when I came home, I decided to take those handwritten notes. I took a snapshot with my ChatGPT, the phone app, and then I had it summarize and be able to give me a summary of the things that these marketers agreed upon and where they differed. And I did that to give you kind of a snapshot of what’s happening today in 2025. So you, as a personal brand, can begin to work on the things that will give you the most bang for your buck and your time. So without further ado, let me go through some of this, and I’m gonna pull my notes because these are perspectives of different marketers. I was only able to attend 14 of the sessions with 14 speakers. It was a two day, two and a half day event, and I took about 35 pages of notes.

Marisa Shadrick [00:01:34]:By the way, if you’re one of those people that takes notes at conferences and you take typewritten notes, you can upload those into Chat GPT and have it create not only summary, like, clean summary sheets for you with subtitles and in sequential order to make sense of your notes, but you can also ask it to give you one action step based on the expert. So you can immediately implement something that’s relevant for your business. And, of course, you give ChatGPT a little bit about your business, who your audience is, so he can give you some great advice. Those are some tips. Now I happen to do handwritten notes, and so I had to take a snapshot, but same thing. So either way, you can use ChatGPT for that, because most of the time, those notes get buried, and nobody benefits from it, not the person that listened, because after a whole three days of conference, you forget what you learn on day one. Right? So let me pull my notes, because I want to give you some value. And the way I set this up so that we’re not here, like, forever for three days, I wanna keep this very succinct, is that I’m going to do it more like a q and a format, and I’m gonna share where they agreed, and then I’m gonna share where they differed.

Marisa Shadrick [00:02:45]:Now it differ doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It just means that they do it differently. And you have to assess for yourself what works for your business, what the best strategy is for your business. But we’re incorporating all the tips of video, AI, everything that you need for a personal brand. So let’s start with the first point. Many marketers still agree that content is king, but so is consistency and clarity. It has to be content that your readers are looking for or interested in, are clamoring to get their hands on so that it’s effective. So your podcast, your newsletter, your videos, even AI assisted content, as long as it comes from you and you’re writing this and you’re having AI help you clean it up, as long as it delivers consistent value, you’re good to go.

Marisa Shadrick [00:03:34]:It’s not just about volume. It’s about value, and they all agreed with that. AI can help you do that much smarter, much easier, and faster. And many of the experts, including Michael Stelzner, shared this. Dan Sanchez, Judy Fox, Jerry Potter, they all agreed with this. Now the interesting thing about this when I listened to Michael Stelzner’s keynote was that not everyone is on board with AI yet, and he gave kind of a a breakdown. I’m gonna give you that breakdown. He said those marketers, those businesses that have never used AI, they’re in the 12% bracket.

Marisa Shadrick [00:04:11]:Those that have used it for less than six months, seventeen percent. Those that have used it between six to twelve months, twenty seven percent. Those that have used it between thirteen and eighteen months, nineteen percent. Those that have used it between nineteen and twenty four months is twelve percent. And more than twenty four months or more than two years is only thirteen percent. So what does this tell us? If you’re not on board yet with AI, you’re not too late. In fact, Michael Stelzner even said that you might be early, so you’re not too late. And it’s interesting because as I look at this, I’ve been using AI for I’m probably within the two, two and a half year range.

Marisa Shadrick [00:04:57]:So I’m right in there within the 13%. And so this is very telling. So if you’re thinking, oh my gosh, I hear it all the time. I see it all the time. Especially now on LinkedIn, if you scroll through that video feed, that’s all you see. Everyone is talking about AI because everybody’s affected by it. All our tools are using AI now. We can’t get away from it because it is here, it is here to stay, and there’s more to come.

Marisa Shadrick [00:05:23]:Wait till the AI agents start coming in. We’ve got, tools that do workflows now, and there’s gonna be tools in the future here very soon that’s going to be able to help make decisions for you. So it continues to evolve. We haven’t even started yet. So this information, I hope, is gonna be very helpful for you today. So Michael Stelzner also shared that and I’ll quote this, because I found it very interesting. He shared a graph, and he said an AI enhanced employee, that means non human, an AI enhanced employee performs better than a team of employees without AI. I’ll say that again.

Marisa Shadrick [00:06:04]:That’s a brain twister. Right? An AI enhanced employee performs better than a team of employees without AI. That’s quite telling, quite telling, and so we want to realize that the future is going to embrace AI whether we’re ready or not. The best thing to do is align yourself and become ready and begin to learn and just take it one step at a time. I have a private membership where I bring people kind of up to speed with AI, and we talk about list building, and we help them with their branding, with their audience persona, with strategy, implementing with custom GPTs, all of this because I’ve had to. Frankly, to be totally transparent, I saw the writing on the wall. And as a copywriter, I knew I had to pivot and begin to figure out how I integrated AI with my coaching to be able to be aligned with the trend and with the changes that are going on. And so I think it’s been very helpful to do that because now my clients can execute much faster as I teach them how to use AI in marketing through that filter of copy, and be able to use custom GBTs to get work done faster.

Marisa Shadrick [00:07:21]:So the other point that came up is, should you start a podcast? Now this is an interesting question, because podcast is one of those, although I love the podcast after I create it, before I create it, not so much, because it’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of work. Right? But the consensus was yes. And to make it the engine that fuels everything else. That’s what Jerry Potter said. Make it the engine that fuels everything else. Why? Because these days, podcasts are not just audio, they’re video. And so you have a long form content that you can then take and repurpose because it takes so long to create a podcast.

Marisa Shadrick [00:08:03]:Because you’re doing keyword searches, you’re trying to figure out the topic that’s gonna resonate with your audience. You’re creating all of the notes when you’re recording, then you do all the show notes, then you create the video, and you create the audio, and you put it on your website, and it’s just on and on and on. Right? So there’s a lot of work. But they’re saying that it is a great idea to use a podcast as your long form content, because then you can turn that long form podcast into a newsletter, short video clips, carousels, emails, blog posts. There’s so many ways that you can do that. So they said it’s a great idea to do that, and so that kind of fueled my fire because I was like, oh, do I really need to do this? But they said, yes. Do it. And by the way, if you’re listening to my podcast or watching on YouTube, would you please go to Apple Podcasts and rate and review it? I would really appreciate it.

Marisa Shadrick [00:08:58]:That would help a lot. And some of the tools of choice, a lot of people mentioned Descript. I don’t use Descript because I use Riverside. There’s those people that love Riverside. Those people love Descript. I’m happy with Riverside, and so I continue to use it. But a lot of people recommended Descript. So if you haven’t started a podcast yet and you’re thinking about it, you might wanna take a look at that.

Marisa Shadrick [00:09:17]:And they said that once you do this, you create this ongoing feed of content. It makes it a lot easier. And then you can also create your short little posts for social media as well from that. Okay. The third point, is video still worth the effort? Is video still worth the effort? Well, there’s a couple of speakers that really, really, said absolutely, and most of them said, yes. This is what’s going on. And especially on LinkedIn, video seems to be something that LinkedIn is favoring. We never know what’s gonna happen tomorrow, but right now, yes.

Marisa Shadrick [00:09:54]:And video in short form. So, for example, on LinkedIn, it would be a short video, kind of like a reel that you would see on Instagram, not so much like TikTok, but something short that’s valuable about a minute and a half to two minutes that gives value to your audience. And they said, even though video is still worth it, the style has changed in how we produce videos. They said and recommended to skip over all the polished videos. To stop. Just be authentic, be real, even be slightly imperfect is better because people are starving for authenticity. They want something that looks real, not something like, oh, yeah. How long did that take you? Like, three hours or you pass it on to your team to clean it up and put all the emojis and all the other stuff to it? They want something that’s real.

Marisa Shadrick [00:10:46]:And so this was a relief to me because those are the kind of videos I like to shoot. I just now got a mic for my phone. I mean, that’s how bad it was. I was just literally took the phone and recorded something when I was at the conference. And I thought, man, the audio is really bad. You could hear the wind blowing. But I said, hey. It’s the value.

Marisa Shadrick [00:11:05]:I’m bringing them some tips hot off the press. Right? So but they said, not that bad. I mean, don’t create videos that are that bad. But the point was, you don’t have to try to figure out how to grab another tool, how to add all this flowery stuff to it. They said, just skip over being overly polished and just make it real. Even if you make a mistake, that’s human. And so they said, just keep it real, keep it simple. Simplicity and slightly imperfect is good, is not bad.

Marisa Shadrick [00:11:35]:And then they, they also said to create how to videos that answer a specific question that people are already looking for. The next point is, what’s one underrated strategy? And again, my friend, Michelle j Raymond, she loves to really support and help people. This is what I’m so aligned with her. She said amplify others, and I love it because she used the word amplify because my podcast is Amplify Your Authority. She said amplify others. Lift others up. Don’t be the spotlight. Put the spotlight in other people.

Marisa Shadrick [00:12:07]:And she recommended once a week on LinkedIn to take ten minutes to find three relevant posts and comment on these. Comment, share, create a follow-up post that adds value to that person that has posted. She is very much a LinkedIn expert, and she talks on company pages as well. And she said everything is really relationship based marketing. You know, that’s what we need to do and focus on. And when you do that, as I’ve always said before, take random out of random acts of kindness, it goes a long way. The next point is where should your content live? Should it live on social media? Where? So Michael Stelzner and Dan Sanchez, who are part of Social Media Examiner, and Michael Stelzner was the host of Social Media Marketing World. They said that your content will best serve you if it lives in the form of email newsletters, not just putting things on your website and trying to get organic traffic to your website.

Marisa Shadrick [00:13:09]:Google’s generative search is changing. It is changing. What we’ve known as SEO, that is changing. That’s evolving, and I’ll talk more about this as well. But they said focus on owned media, which is your list, your email list, your newsletter, your voice. So email marketing came up as one of the very valued means of connecting, of engaging, of meeting your audience where they are. If you have a well built out form, and you know if they’re just kicking the tires, or if they’re thinking about maybe working with you, then your emails are going to reflect where they are in the customer journey. And it’s one of the best ways to communicate with your audience, those people that have raised their hand and have become part of your email community.

Marisa Shadrick [00:14:00]:And so we wanna make sure that we send what they need when they need it. So in the customer journey, they may be unaware, they may be aware, they may be engaged, they may be ready to buy, but we don’t know that unless we ask questions. And we can ask questions in forms. We can ask questions. If we have private communities, we can ask questions. We need to find out where they are and know so much more about them than what we have known about them. We need to find creative ways to be able to send them exactly what they need to hear, and not too much, and not be salesy or pushy or spammy, because nobody likes that. Right? If somebody is kicking the tires and they’re looking at something and they download some information just because they wanna learn and they wanna understand, and all of a sudden they get blasted with all these opportunities to buy and, you know, this is a last minute thing, a last call.

Marisa Shadrick [00:14:53]:You’re gonna have to pay twice if you don’t get it now. I mean, nobody likes that. Right? And so they said that your best content lives in the form of email newsletters, not just what you put on the website. It’s really nurturing that email list, and email came up a number of times. So moral of the story, grow your email list. The next point is what’s a smarter way to use AI? Now, there’s lots of ways to use AI, but one of the things that came up, and I think we’re preparing for what’s to come, is to systematize. Create systems with AI. Now this is something that some people are using Make to do this.

Marisa Shadrick [00:15:32]:They are using Zapier or Zapier, whatever you wanna call it. I I call it Zapier. You can do that, but those tools are still, you’re setting the parameters. You’re telling it what you want it to do. After very strategically thinking through, and you probably have some custom GPTs that it goes through the GPT process, there’s something already set and created they go through, so that by the time it goes through the system and you receive whatever the output is via email or some other form, everything has already gone through its checks. It’s already started. It’s already checked keywords. It’s already gone through AI.

Marisa Shadrick [00:16:10]:It’s already been delivered to you to review. But what’s coming with these agents that are coming is that it’s going to start making decisions. It’s going to predict the next action, and so it’s taking it one step further than just you creating a workflow. So the systemization of what we have right now is important, and we need to kind of realize, or at least get our feet wet a little bit on what’s happening, so that we can understand what’s to come. So she suggested, Nicole Leifer, she suggested to build custom GBTs for tasks that you repeatedly do, like for email writing or content strategy or research. She suggested to create those prompts either in a chat g b t or a prompt library. Some people like a library, some people don’t. If you begin to give a lot of input and knowledge to the AI tool, you may not even need to create a library anymore, because you’ll have these PDF files.

Marisa Shadrick [00:17:13]:And a lot of the even in projects in ChatGPT, you can give it files. And even though the project is, for example, producing a podcast or creating a LinkedIn post, and that’s all that project is for, it has the knowledge it needs to be able to use it for each and every post that you do. So I know it’s really hard to understand when I’m just talking about this, but I just want you to know that the systemization using AI to systematize is important now for what’s to come. And then also to let AI do some of the heavy lifting. Now, today, we can have AI do things that we don’t know how to do. Isn’t that crazy? It could create code. I have it create code so that I can create certain charts on Notion, or creates a certain chart maybe on Google Drive or Google Sheets. It will code it and give me all of that, so all I have to do is copy and paste or upload it.

Marisa Shadrick [00:18:13]:So I don’t even know how to do the code, but it can do it for me. And so it’s getting to the point where AI can do things that we don’t even know how to do, so that you can do the things that you do best. Right? The next point is, how do you grow your YouTube channel? Okay. We had some experts share about YouTube, and one expert, I think it was Nick Nimmin, n I m m I n, he shared not to start with the video, but to start with the title. Very much a a copy thing. Because the reason behind it is if the title doesn’t stop the scroll, if the title doesn’t catch them, right, they’re not gonna even click or even look at the video. So he was really emphasizing the importance of having a good title. And the title on your thumbnail doesn’t necessarily have to be the title of your video.

Marisa Shadrick [00:19:07]:They could be different. In fact, they should be different. And so you’re leveraging all that real estate. But he said, don’t start necessary with the video, do everything, and then figure out the title. Start with the title. And if you’re gonna work backwards even further, look for keywords. And he said test titles and thumbnails first before filming. He said use polls or use Google Trends to pick the most clickable angle.

Marisa Shadrick [00:19:32]:And so you want to do a little bit you don’t even have to nerd out on this. If you just do a little bit, if you even just go on Google Trends, and you can have ChatGPT even recommend some keywords, and then just put them through the test and and use some of these keyword tools, or just at the very least use Google Trends and see what it shows so that you could be more strategic in the titles that you choose. And then build the video around what people actually want. So now we’re gonna transition into where some of these experts differ. Now it’s not like they disagree. They don’t disagree, but they just have a different perspective. I mean, you have a different perspective. I have a different perspective, but I thought it’d be interesting to see where they differ.

Marisa Shadrick [00:20:14]:And the one is SEO. Some people live and breathe by SEO. Some people are saying SEO is dying. Experts like Michael Stelzner, and Dan Sanchez, and others said, no. SEO is not really staying the same. It’s not that it’s changing or not relevant anymore or dying. It is evolving. It is evolving.

Marisa Shadrick [00:20:39]:SEO is evolving. SEO is shifting. Because of AI, SEO is shifting from search to suggestion engines. Not a search, but suggestion. I mean, it’s crazy. Right? And I looked this up, and here’s what I found as far as this SEO shift, and I’ll read it to you. Google is indeed evolving from traditional search engine into what can be described as suggestion engine, leveraging advancements in artificial intelligence, AI, machine learning, and natural language processing. This transformation is reshaping how users interact with Google’s platform and how information is delivered.

Marisa Shadrick [00:21:25]:So where is the opportunity? Is this a bad thing? There’s an opportunity here. Create content that’s helpful and searchable. If you create content that’s helpful, and again, we’re going back to content is king, but there needs to be value. You need to give people what they’re looking for. Right? You’re gonna be fine if you do that. So this is one of the things that is happening right now. You might hear more about it in the future. SEO isn’t dying.

Marisa Shadrick [00:21:53]:It is evolving. It is changing, but there’s still plenty of opportunity for visibility. So the next point where things differ is what’s the best way to stand out as a brand? So Rory Vaden, he spoke on the focus of one niche to be seen and known. And he challenged everyone to find what is the one word that you help people with. Put the problem, pain, problem, struggle, all of that into one word. What is it? And then what’s the one word answer that represents your brand that brings a solution? So he gave some examples. I had to think about this, and I had to think of complexity. I help people with the problem around complexity.

Marisa Shadrick [00:22:38]:Complexity about copywriting, complexity about marketing, complexity about AI, and the value I bring through my brand is simplicity. So you want to think of one word. It’s pretty challenging. It’s kinda like Brene Brown. You know her for shame. Right? And so that is the word. So he says, find the word, and then what is it that your brand brings as a solution? So I I found mine. I was thinking about it a little bit on the plane, and I thought, well, it’s complexity.

Marisa Shadrick [00:23:05]:I wanna simplify everything, And the solution is simplicity. And then Pat Flynn, he, he did a a great presentation on branding. And again, we’re talking about the best way to stand out as a brand. Pat emphasized magical moments that create connection at every stage. I love that. Magical moments. Can you create magical moments? It’s almost like back in the day when we used to say over deliver. Right? What can you do to create a magical moment that your brand provides some kind of solution, your brand provides some kind of answer, but how can you make it magical? How can you just give it that little extra? And Roy, again, emphasizing the domination of one space.

Marisa Shadrick [00:23:50]:Being clear about what you wanna be known for. What is the one word that you tackle with your business? The next point is should you focus on short form or long form video? Well, I think this one we kinda covered earlier, but I’ll go ahead and cover it again. We need to focus on both, not one or the other. We need to create long form content that’s really thought out really well as far as what the topic is, keywords, all of that. Create it, and then you begin to cut it up into smaller pieces of content or repurpose it into newsletters, blog posts, and so forth, which we covered earlier. Short form might convert fast if you’re just focused on short, but the long form builds depth and trust. And And I think it also builds your credibility too. So think of that as far as creating the podcast or some long form content that you can cut up into smaller pieces of content.

Marisa Shadrick [00:24:44]:The nice thing about a podcast with audio and video, you can create video clips. You can also create all the other pieces of content like we mentioned earlier. The last question where experts differed a little bit in their point of view was this, do you need fancy tech to succeed? And the answer was no. You don’t need teleprompters. You don’t need fancy cameras. You don’t need a whole bunch of AI tools. You don’t need all of these gadgets and gizmos. You can come very easily with just your phone and create great content.

Marisa Shadrick [00:25:16]:It’s really about what’s in the content more than the things that you add to it. So they agreed that the iPhone with a good mic would be just fine, and natural light. You don’t even need a ring light or a special light if you don’t have it. You can just use natural light. You can use your iPhone, and you might wanna just get a little mic that’ll cost you about $10.20 bucks. It’s not a big investment whatsoever. You can really simplify your tech stack and not over complicate things with tons of tutorials and begin to just create excellent content. If you wanna grow your brand, if you wanna increase visibility, those are some tips, and you can kinda hear the common thread.

Marisa Shadrick [00:25:58]:It really is about valuable content, figuring out what is it that your audience wants to hear, learn about, discover, understand, and then start there. And once you create that large piece of content, break it up into smaller pieces. And if you’re one of those that likes to blast it on all the social channels, go right ahead. If you’re one of those that likes to stick to one and really engage and deep dive, that’s okay too. Test. Figure out what works for you. Right? Because it’s your business, so you make the decisions. So hopefully, this was helpful for you.

Marisa Shadrick [00:26:30]:I found it really interesting, some of the things that they were saying. I kind of felt in my gut this was a direction, but it’s always nice to hear confirmation from leading experts. Because sometimes, you know, even myself, you know, you kind of doubt and you go through imposter syndrome. You think, is this all in my head, or am I going the right direction? It’s kinda nice to hear that they’re all on the same page. And I love how people are really leaning into relationship marketing. It really makes my heart feel good. So I hope you got a lot of value out of this podcast. And if you enjoyed it, I would love it if you would rate and review the podcast on Apple.

Marisa Shadrick [00:27:05]:I would appreciate it so much. I’m trying to get a few more ratings and reviews to boost the podcast, and I’ve got some expert speakers that are gonna be coming up here this spring and summer. So I hope you’ll be looking forward to it as I am. And until next time, take care.