Erin Balsa

Content Marketing Consultant and Writer 

I build and execute content marketing strategies for sales-led B2B SaaS startups that sell complex, enterprise-ready solutions.

Erin enjoys B2B content marketing, keeping the Halloween spirit alive year-round, and talking about herself in the third person. 

No but really ... 

I've been working in content since 2011 when I landed my first job as an editor. Since then, I've worn a bunch of hats like:

- Content marketing agency leader
- Inc. 5000 B2B SaaS marketing director
- Freelance content strategist, writer, and editor

Over the years, I've written for a bunch of brands you probably know including:

- HubSpot
- Drift
- G2
- Intuit
- And a Fortune 100 that shall not be named

These days, I help marketing teams at B2B SaaS companies (Series A-C) survey a representative sample of their ICP and write a 𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒆𝒗𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆 original research report that positions their brand as a credible authority — to secure press mentions and close enterprise deals.

If you're ready to publish research that builds trust instead of skepticism, let's chat. And if you just want to connect with a fellow marketing nerd who decorates for Halloween in July, I'm here for that too.

Hausofbold.com

Content Marketing Consultant

I build and execute content marketing strategies for sales-led B2B SaaS startups that sell complex, enterprise-ready solutions. 

Unlike some strategists and agencies, I don't hand you a content strategy and say, "Best of luck!" I ensure your success by helping across four buckets:

▶ People 
▶ Process 
▶ Strategy
▶ Execution 

Learn more and read client testimonials at: hausofbold.com

Anyone else feeling like a bear coming out of hibernation today?

After taking extended time off for the holidays, I'm simply not ready for the onslaught of peppy "Behold my 25 top New Year's resolutions!" posts.

I want less of that and more of this:

- I need a nap but also a marketing strategy. 
- Slowly remembering how to be a professional human.
- Desperately searching for things to say at the start of the Zoom call.
- Pretending to remember what we decided before the break.
- Trying to inspire others while feeling like a potato. 
- Eh, that can probably wait until Wednesday. 

Here's to giving yourself (and others) some grace. 🥂

I help B2B marketers create original research reports

An influencer once posted about how to publish an original research study in a week. 

When I asked a technical question about data analysis, it was clear we weren't talking about the same kind of "research."

I could end the story here because IYKYK. 

But for those of you newer to publishing survey-based research reports, I'll add a pinch of color.

*𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘵 𝘚𝘢𝘭𝘵 𝘉𝘢𝘦 𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘫𝘪*

You can NOT publish a 𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙗𝙡𝙚 study in a week. 

Even if you collect enough quality responses in two business days — and even if you use AI to analyze the data and surface trends — that leaves you only THREE business days to do everything else:

Report strategy
Survey design
Soft launch
Data cleansing
Human review of AI output
Outline building 
Outline review
Copywriting
Editing
Revisions
Graphic design
Proofreading
More revisions
Autoresponder creation and testing
Nurture campaign creation and testing
Rev ops
Sales enablement
PR
Launch day prep
etc. etc.

Shoot, I spend an entire day writing survey questions!

So yeah, it's possible to publish 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 in a week. But there will be trade-offs, like:

- Potential inclusion of AI hallucinations 
- Rushed survey design that produces obvious, shallow insights
- Limited analysis (no time for meaningful cross tabs or synthesis)
- Weak narrative cohesion that undermines thought leadership
- A report that screams "we built dis 4 leads!"

If your goal is credibility, increased trust, and research that actually shapes the conversation in your space, one week simply won't cut it.

I help B2B marketers create survey-based research reports 📈 Next available report kickoff date → April 6

Turns out the rumors are true. 







Washing machines really DO eat socks. 

I’m enjoying a typical morning of juggling work and home responsibilities. 

Today, the appliance repair guy is here fixing our front load washing machine, which has been leaking due to a rip in the door gasket. 

As the guy was fishing around inside the recesses of the machine, he pulled out a freaking sock. 

45 years old and I’m still learning something new almost every day. 🤭

The most difficult part of transitioning from a retainer-based biz to a project-based biz?

Scheduling 

Survey-based research reports are complex projects with lots of moving pieces. 

And even though I’ve developed — and refined — my report project management template over the past 8 years, scheduling multiple overlapping timebound reports has been surprisingly challenging. 

That said … 

Back in my agency days, I used to manage writer resources for 15+ full-time writers to the 30-MINUTE UNIT! 

Imagine your agency has 350 clients.  Each client gets different types and amounts of content. In order to maximize profits, you need to assign each writer as much work as they can humanly handle — and keep their assignment log full at all times, in spite of frequent delays on the client side. And now imagine that one 30-minute unit is equal to 200 words of “standard content,” 150 words of “premium content,” 100 words of “responsive content,” 1 page of an e-book, a 250-word “gold infographic,” a 500-word “silver infographic,” a 300-word video script (and so on and so forth). 

It was nuts. 🥜 

But that’s the kind of workload I managed — by hand, inside various spreadsheets, long before ChatGPT — for 3.5 years. 

So yeah, scheduling multiple report projects for myself is tricky, but I got this.

No alternative text description for this image

🎬 Behind the scenes of making a Navattic research report 🎬 l

Multiple marketing leaders have told me they love Navattic's reports, so Natalie Marcotullio and I figured it would be cool to show you how Navattic "makes the sausage."

I'll be sharing bits of our 30-minute Q&A across a few different posts.

Erin: When did the idea for your "State of the Interactive Demo Report" first come about?

Natalie: The first report was published in 2023, which means the idea came about in 2022. We kept getting questions from customers and prospects asking for data. When you sell to marketers, they really love data — so it was a no brainer! Let's build a resource that succinctly answers all these questions that we can share whenever someone asks a question.

Erin: What questions were your customers and prospects asking?

Natalie: Customers ask questions like, "How long should I make my demo?" and "What kind of language should I use?" Prospects usually want help making their case internally. So with the benchmarks in hand, they can say to their leadership: "Demos convert at a higher rate than other assets we use," or "If we invest in this, here's what we can expect."

Erin: What was the primary question you were trying to answer when you created your first report?

Natalie: What do top-performing interactive demos have in common? 

Erin: How has that primary question evolved, if at all?

Natalie: In the 2026 report, we're still trying to answer what top-performing interactive demos have in common ... but we're getting more granular. People don't just want to hear how their demo compares against ALL the demos built on Navattic — they want to measure performance within their industry or for their company size. Also, we now have lots more features, and people have specific questions about those. For example, "That extra CTA banner that's always across the demo — is that commonly used in the top 1% of demos?"

👉 Navattic's 2026 State of the Interactive Product Demo 2026 report drops next week. 

Want to be the first to see it?

Get early access here: https://lnkd.in/edZ_e7aJ

Meanwhile in Boston ... 

Just sitting here playing the "Should I try to get some work done even though there are five children in the next room?" game. 

Considering it took me 15 minutes to hear myself think long enough to write this three-word post, I’ll see myself out.

Your research report launched ... and nobody seemed to care. 

What do you do?

Welp, your first instinct might be to stick your head in the sand in shame. Totally understandable. But just know that this is fairly common.

(I recently spoke with a former colleague who spent MONTHS and THOUSANDS on a survey-based research report that didn't do a damn thing for the business.)

Fortunately this is a solvable problem — if you're willing to run a project post-mortem. Here's a simple plan of attack plus the kinds of questions that reveal what went wrong:

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝗼𝗻𝗲 - 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝘆 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗱. 

𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘱 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘸 𝘪𝘵?
𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘱 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘥?
𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘱 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘵?

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝘁𝘄𝗼 - 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗰.

𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘢 𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘤 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘐𝘊𝘗 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵?
𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘢 𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘤 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨?
𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘤 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘢 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘩 𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘴?

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 - 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗱𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆.

𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦?
𝘞𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵? 
𝘐𝘧 𝘢 𝘴𝘬𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴, 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮?

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗿 - 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴. 

𝘋𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘳 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘨𝘶𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘴 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘸?
𝘋𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘺 𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘴𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘦?
𝘊𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘢 𝘫𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘭 𝘢 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴?

And if you'd like an outside opinion on where things broke down, I'm always here to help!

The 2026 State of the Interactive Product Demo report just dropped! 👀 

Navattic analyzed the top 1%, 10% and 25% of demos built on their platform to uncover what actually works.

They found that top 1% interactive demos do 7 specific things:

1) They keep it short (5-13 steps).

2) They offer choices. 

Demos that give people options (explore different product lines, personas, or use cases) have a 57% completion rate vs. single-flow demos, which have a 35% completion rate.

3) They get Step One right.

On step one, 29% use "you/your" language, 24% add visual beacons to indicate where users should look, and 15% give explicit instructions. 

4) They use multiple CTAs inside the demo.

Believe it or not, they use 4-5 CTAs per demo on average! Most CTAs are actionable (Try for free, Book a demo, Get started).

5) They deploy interactive demos all over the dang place.

50% of top performers have demos in multiple places:

- Product pages: 62% (up from 19% last year)
- Homepage: 48% (up from 8%)
- Demo centers: 45%

6) They tend to be ungated. 

7) They use HTML/CSS web capture. Web captures refer to HTML/CSS cloning of the front end of your product. This means the demo looks and feels real and you can edit the product data for personalization. 

👉 Download the full report for more helpful insights — like interactive demo performance and adoption by industry! 

Link in the comments.

And keep an eye out for more posts from my "Behind the scenes of making a Navattic research report" interview with Natalie Marcotullio!

Chart from Navattic's State of the Interactive Product Demo report

Yesterday I was a bear coming out of a cave. Today I'm a marketer talking about research reports.

More specifically, how brands do it wrong.

Mistake no. 1: Sloppy methodology.

You may have heard the phrase "Garbage in, garbage out."

If you build your report on a foundation of garbage data, you wind up publishing a garbage report that spreads misinformation.

And that's likely at odds with what you're trying to accomplish as a brand. 

Got 30 seconds? Watch the clip.
Got 30 minutes? Watch the full video. 

Thanks Justin Vajko for inviting me on your podcast!

What's the ROI of a research report?

As I told Justin Vajko, while there's nuance, you should generally see two outcomes:

1) In the short-term, press mentions.

There are three things you gotta get right here. 

- Your research has a newsworthy angle.
- Your report is built on high-quality data.
- You let the market know about your study.

If you get those things right, you should see press hits right away. As an example, one of my clients got a write up in an industry publication with 2.6 million daily readers on day one of their report going live.

2) In the longer-term, deal impact.

It generally takes a couple of months to see deals you can confidently attribute to the report, which is why I check in with my clients at the 3-month mark.

At the time of this recording, the same client had just told me that their report had already influenced a few enterprise deals and a few renewals.

Enterprise deals are big, and they take time. 

If the report was that one thing that helped buyers think, "This brand gets it. They seem credible," then I've done my job. 

👉 Liked this clip? Check out the full interview where I explain my approach: Believable Research.  

I'll drop the link in the comments as per usual.

My face when I see someone make sweeping claims about an industry based on their survey of 50 people.

(jk jk — I’m not here to judge, I’m here to help.)

If your survey sample was itsy bitsy teeny weeny, don't present your findings using words like:

everyone
no one
all

That's like walking into a room where all 50 people are wearing Nike sneakers and declaring, "Everyone wears Nike sneakers!" 

No. 

Everyone in that ROOM wears Nike sneakers.

There’s nothing wrong with surveying a small group and sharing what you found. It's a great way to spark interesting conversations on social. 

Just don't frame your findings as universal truths.

Instead, use language like:

"Of the 50 senior leaders we surveyed ... "
"The majority of respondents said ... "
"1 in 3 surveyed BDRs ... "

That way you come across as credible instead of just another vendor who stretches the truth to push their narrative and sell shit.

Ashley Faus

Director of Integrated Product Marketing, Atlassian

Marketer, writer, speaker by day... singer, actor, fitness fiend by night!

I've handled all aspects of marketing strategy and execution, from product marketing, to demand-gen, to content and events. I love telling the high-level stories that resonate with an audience and connecting the dots between types of assets and distribution channels.

My writing has been published on TIME, Forbes, The Journal of Brand Strategy, and The Muse, and I've spoken on various marketing topics for INBOUND, Harvard Business Review, and MarketingProfs.

Visit https://ashleyfaus.com/ for more information about my book, "Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI".

(Views are my own)

Head of Lifecycle Marketing, Portfolio

"A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one."

Funny how we only ever hear the first part of that^^ quote, often said with a derisive tone.

Nobody wants the "master of none" 😬

And yet... I proudly claim the moniker of "marketing generalist"!

My superpower is connecting the dots, working across multiple teams, and integrating across channels.

If you need someone who sits at the intersection, I gotchu.

And this is why I'm always slightly surprised but delighted when I'm recognized in a specific marketing discipline.

My current title is "Lifecycle Marketing", but I contributed enough PMM-related content to earn a spot on the 2025 Product Marketing Influencer list.

And Alt Marketing School offers courses across allllll the marketing disciplines, including trendier topics, like the creator economy.

Personally, I think we're in a generalists' economy right now.

With teams running lean, leaders looking to bring in more AI and automation, and the rise of the fractional or solopreneur, generalists are making a comeback!

So cheers to all the folks who are making their mark in each (or every) discipline 🎉 

See the Alt Marketing School list: https://amschool.click/top

See the Product Marketing Alliance list: https://lnkd.in/dTmpNtJ5

Buy my book, "Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI": https://amzn.to/4jqaKDW

Head of Lifecycle Marketing, Portfolio at Atlassian

I almost ended up naked onstage 😳

I was playing a bride, wearing this ridiculous '80s-style dress (pictured below), with a dropped waist, heavy beading, and a ridiculous train.

And on opening night, the zipper down the back of the dress started coming undone...

Inching.
Down.
My. 
Back.

And no one could help me 😬

I felt the sleeves start to slide towards the edge of my shoulders.

I felt an unpleasant breeze on my lower back.

And I realized that I'm just hoping I don't end up naked in front of the audience.

So... when I tell you that I've had things go wrong onstage, I'm not talking about a momentary hiccup with the slides or stuttering over a few words or going blank on my next sentence 😅

What this means for you, as a professional sharing your knowledge at a conference or Town Hall or QBR: it's gonna be ok.

YOU CAN DO IT!

At minimum, you won't end up naked onstage.
And the audience probably won't even notice a flub!

I get a lot of questions about how to overcome the fear, swallow the nerves, and feel confident stepping onstage.

One of my counterintuitive exercises is to catastrophize.

What's the WORST thing that could happen?

How would you react (and recover) if it happens?

Thinking through the worst-case scenario takes the surprise and sting out of it, because usually, it's not that bad.

And now you know how to react 😎

I said I ALMOST ended up naked onstage... handily, I've had a lot of practice reacting to things going wrong.

I straightened my posture to widen my shoulders, put my hands on my hips and across my chest to keep the dress from slipping off completely, and angled my back away from the audience to maintain a little dignity.

And then I asked the costumer to secure the zipper before the next performance, 'cuz we're not trying to have things go wrong twice 💃

Wanna be on a podcast? 

Drop your name and topics in the comments 👇👇

What hosts want to know:

💡 What's your expertise and unique angle?
🎤 Can you speak in an engaging way?
📣 Will you help bring in listeners?

Don't have prior appearances? 

I gotchu:

--> Go live on LinkedIn or post a short clip to share your advice

--> Confirm that you'll share about your episode on LinkedIn (and any other channels where you are active, like a newsletter, website, etc.)

Let's connect some hosts and guests!

(Full disclosure: I'm trying to streamline my inbox a bit, so my goal is to make this an easy place for folks to connect without a middleman 😀)

AI can be the epitome of a productivity mirage.

It FEELS productive to craft the perfect prompt, thinking of all the details that an LLM might need to tailor its response to your specific use case.

It FEELS like progress to refine and refine again and refine just once more for perfection.

It FEELS like insight to ask, "But what about _____?" over and over again.

And. Yet.

Blathering on with the chatbot is not, in fact, DOING anything.

Did you actually use all that research that it pumped out for you to take action?

Did you make the updates to the slide deck or blog post, based on the recommendations?

Did you go to the event and see for yourself whether your ICP actually attends?

I've been struggling with this mirage over the last few weeks 😳

In particular, I'm sparring with Claude to improve my talk track and slides, based on session scores and audience comments from my fall speaking engagements.

I feel like I've been so productive!
I spent so much time typing!
I considered so many angles!

My slide deck has not changed.
My speaker notes are not updated.

And as I go back through the chat history, I'm left feeling a bit overwhelmed, annoyed, and generally unmotivated to take the necessary action to ACTUALLY IMPROVE.

AI is only as good as the action it enables.

You can "doom scroll" and "water cooler chat" and "push pixels" around in an LLM just as easily as any other tool (maybe more so 😅).

Don't fall prey to the productivity mirage.

There are MANY smart marketers in the world.

They have great ideas, they've executed impactful programs, and they've written useful books.

The difference between what they share and what I share is literally THEM and ME.

It's not just about the idea.
It's about the person sharing the idea.

WHO says it is just as important as WHAT they say.

People trust people like themselves.
People resonate with different people.

So using your authentic voice, talking about your lived experience, and sharing your unique expertise is the reason someone trusts you, follows you, and listens to you.

If you're looking to be more visible, get more opportunities, and accelerate your success in 2026, you gotta listen to this episode 😀

Thanks for hosting a great conversation Wednesday Women!

Hear the full conversation: https://lnkd.in/e-BwQmxb

Join my Stanford class, starting on Jan. 26: https://lnkd.in/eCe697Zx

Buy "Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI": https://amzn.to/4jqaKDW

Got big goals in 2026? 

I joined Erica Anderson Rooney to talk about my career journey, and I gave some SPICY takes:

♟️Chess vs. Checkers promotion advice

☑️ Minimum Viable Action (MVA)

💡The trouble with "bright" girls

✨ The real pitfalls of perfection

This episode tackles a few more personal issues than my usual fare, so if you want a candid conversation to kick off the New Year, I gotchu 😎

Listen to the full episode: https://lnkd.in/eMp-UCs5

Exercises to help you speak confidently: https://lnkd.in/e8wvrZpD

Grab my book, "Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI": https://amzn.to/3YjquAk

"But what if they build a personal brand and then leave!?!"

🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

This is common pushback on not only allowing employees to share their insights, speak on podcasts, build a following on LinkedIn, etc., but encouraging and enabling them to do this.

The ironic part is that these statements are usually sitting alongside a mandate to "get the employees sharing company content on social media"!

Here's the thing: NOBODY wants the soulless company content 😬

Not the employee you're nagging to share it.
Not the viewer scrolling the feed.
And frankly, not even most of your users.

People want to hear from people, which means helping your employees share in their unique voice is a much better approach, all the way around.

And yes, some employees will attract recruiters and brand collabs and advisor offers, such that they might just decide to leave your company.

But the valley is small, and careers are long!

These former employees might become customers, partners, investors, or brand champions... there's so many ways to exchange value 🙌

And in the age of AI?
HUMANS are even MORE important!

I covered several related topics in my conversation with Finn Thormeier on The Executive Brand podcast, tune in for more details on:

- Why and how to build internal influencers
- The 4 pillars of thought leadership
- Choosing the "best" B2B creator

Rant: Freakin' LinkedIn, you are BUGGY!! Pull yourself together!!

I've noticed that when I schedule posts, they often show up wonky.

It un-tags accounts that I at-mention.

It replaces images and videos with link previews.

The formatting in generally is just not what it looks like in the preview.

But apparently, now it's DOUBLE POSTING content?!?!

I schedule a post, went to "post now" and fixed the issues noted above, and then published... only to find that it apparently posted the same content, but with the mistakes, later in the day.

WHHHHYYYY!?!?

I didn't catch it in time to delete the rogue post, so I figured I'd ask if anyone else is seeing this janky behavior.

It's VERY frustrating.

I'm using native features and trying to follow whatever stupid rules the algorithm randomly enforces.

But good grief.

FIX THE BUGS.

/rant

"All effective marketing is human-centered. While we're busy being distracted with shortcuts, Faus helps us refocus on what matters." ― Seth Godin, Author “This is Marketing”

"Trust is under siege from nearly every angle. Yet marketers like you and me want (need!) to build trust with our audiences. The question is... How? Ashley draws you a map." ― Ann Handley, best-selling author and Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs

"Most of the go-to playbooks are outdated, but it's hard to find a replacement for stale marketing practices. Ashley constructed a powerful new set of frameworks, along with practical advice and real-world examples. "Human-Centered Marketing" brings us back to what actually matters: the people behind the screen." ― Nancy Duarte, best-selling author and CEO of Duarte, Inc.

If you've been on the fence about grabbing a copy of my award-winning book, "Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI", this is the perfect time to buy 😀

On Wednesdays, we keynote 💃

Honored to present keynote session at B2B Marketing Exchange with ADWEEK, talking about human-centered marketing!

Grab your tickets with special pricing through Feb. 16, and yes, you CAN sit with us 😎

"Don't panic, bring a towel."

We're going on an adventure!

Join me on January 14 to talk about the B2B creators you need in your galaxy this year.

I'm talking with Nadia Davis, MBA from CaliberMind about how to:

👩‍🚀 Find the RIGHT voices for your marketing mix

🚀 Build a thought leadership program that delivers the RIGHT outcomes

💫 Measure the RIGHT metrics across B2B creators

Register for free: https://lnkd.in/eYsKtvYN

taplio

The Battle

Erin Balsa

Ashley Faus

Followers

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Performance ScoreErin Balsa's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreAshley Faus's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Erin Balsa

Ashley Faus

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Erin Balsa's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreAshley Faus's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreErin Balsa's LinkedIn Performance