Be honest. Who would you willingly listen to for 30 minutes?

Your best friend? 

Your partner?

Your favorite podcast host?

Maybe your mom?

Probably not your boss. Okay, maybe your boss. (Hey, Abby… 👋)

That’s what makes launching a podcast, newsletter, or YouTube channel so different from posting on LinkedIn. You’re not just asking for someone to glance at your content, but for them to give you part of their day.

That question came up during a storyarb planning meeting a few weeks ago.

Before we started making a list, we decided to chat with someone who's spent years helping creators make those decisions.

Hannah Tarnow sits on the Talent + Business Development team at Dear Media, where she finds top podcast talent speaking to female audiences. She got her start in the Creators group at United Talent Agency, helping turn podcasts into businesses.

She met our question with another: “How will this reward the extra time we're asking someone to give us?”

Let’s get into it.

Every time a new platform takes off, marketers have the same thought:

“Damn. We should probably be doing that too.”

Podcast.

TikTok.

Bluesky (although that FOMO didn't last long).

The instinct makes sense, right? You don’t want to be the one who misses out on the next big opportunity.

But after helping hundreds of creators grow their audiences, Hannah has noticed the most successful ones make every format worth the extra time it asks of them.

Here's how she frames it: Your audience is real estate. Most brands rent it, borrowing reach from whomever's algorithm is hot that week. The creators who win build the house, own the land under it, and give people a reason to keep showing up.

Give every format its own job

A viral post might earn thousands of impressions. A podcast might look impressive on a marketing plan. But long-form content asks for something much more valuable: someone's time.

That's why each format can't be treated as another marketing checkbox. Every issue, every episode, every video has to answer the same question: Why should someone spend more time with us this week than they did last week?

Think of every format as having a different job.

• A LinkedIn post introduces an idea.

• A newsletter unpacks it.

• A podcast lets people hear the conversation behind it.

So before you build, here are Hannah's 4 steps. Think of it like putting up a house (yes, we’re running with the renting vs. owning analogy).

The 4 steps to building a house in the attention economy

Step 1: Pour the foundation.

“Sometimes quality is more important than quantity,” she says. “Creators reach a roadblock when they fall into the trap of ‘Everyone's doing this, so I should too.’" Not all formats make sense for all creators or all audiences.

Before adding a new channel, look for evidence that people want more:

• What questions does your sales team answer every week?

• Which topics generate real conversations instead of quick likes?

• What do customers keep asking you to explain?

If nobody's asking for more in that format, they're probably not waiting for you to launch it.

Step 2: Make it recognizable from the street.

Cover your logo. Would anyone still know it's you?

“The No. 1 thing is a cohesive brand,” Hannah says. “What is my visual identity? What does my content look like? What am I talking about? If you're able to launch a newsletter or a podcast, that content should feel familiar on all these platforms.”

The best creator brands feel familiar wherever you find them. Their visuals, voice, topics, and point of view all reinforce each other.

If your answer is no, your audience is doing too much work.

Step 3: Put in the windows.

Video is how people see inside the house instead of just hearing about it.

“Podcasts are no longer an audio-only medium,” says Hannah. “It elevates a show, and it makes people feel more a part of the conversation. You're listening to people talk, and people like feeling like they're there with them, learning from somebody. It expands the experience.”

For B2B brands, that doesn't mean becoming a full-time YouTuber.

It means giving your audience a chance to see the humans behind the expertise. A five-minute conversation with your founder, customer, or subject matter expert can build more trust than another polished carousel.

Step 4: Leave the porch light on.

One great episode gets attention. Showing up every Tuesday earns trust. 

“Timeliness is another thing,” says Hannah. “Making sure you're doing it every week at the same time. It creates a habit in your audience.”

The more time you ask your audience to invest, the more value you need to give back.

Our full conversation with Hannah goes deeper into how creators decide which formats are actually worth launching, why video is changing audience expectations, and how to build an audience that chooses to come back.

Read the full playbook ->

Campaigns that got us talking: Brita’s TikTok is unhinged. The water filtration system company is using its channel to create humorous, weird, hydration-focused content that over 440K people tap into daily. We’ll leave you with our latest favorite Brita Shark video.

AI spotlight: Australia has entered the AI regulation chat — water caps, net-energy requirements, and a hard no on training models on local creators' work. The rest of the world is watching to see if this is leadership or noise.

Stuff that makes us scroll back up: A SaaS brand launched their new tool with a video shot at Chili's. On purpose. In a sea of SaaS brands that take themselves extremely seriously, the phrase "secret sauce" hits differently when you're actually sitting in the corner booth.

So, your CEO said, "use AI for marketing” and then walked away.

There was no budget attached or brief guidance. Just a mandate and a deadline that's ... somehow already passed. If you're nodding, we built something for you.

🎈NEW: a 30-day, AEO-informed strategy sprint — basically our onboarding month, unbundled.

Walk away with:

• A content strategy built for how people (and bots) are searching

• Your tone of voice, calibrated

• A 90-day content calendar

• SME recommendations mapped to your highest-opportunity topics

All backed by our AEO/SEO research. All adding the storyarb touch of understanding your audience and nailing your voice.

We're meeting the moment, people. Your content plan can too.

Book time with Abby + Shaye to learn more.

An "honest review" from someone who got the product for free, a discount code in their bio, and a 15% cut of every sale. But sure. Totally unbiased.

The bar for “worth someone's time” has always been high. We've just spent the last decade pretending it wasn't because the algorithm did the heavy lifting.

The brands building the strongest audiences right now pick a lane and make it worth the commute.

See y’all next time. 

— the storyarb writers’ room 🫡

Oh! And another thing... 

The first official podcast debuted in 2003 when broadcaster Christopher Lydon published an audio interview using subscription technology built by software developer Dave Winer. It was the first time listeners could automatically subscribe to and download episodes. Guinness World Records eventually made it official, recognizing it as the world's first podcast.