Picture the content planning meeting. A new platform is having a moment, your competitor just launched a podcast, and someone at the table says the sentence every marketing team has said out loud at least once:
Should we be doing that too?
Hannah Tarnow thinks that’s the wrong question. Every new format — podcast, newsletter, YouTube, even LinkedIn — asks for the one thing that's hardest to earn: somebody's time.
In the attention economy, that time is currency. And most brands spend it renting.
Hannah has spent her career turning that currency into something durable within the creator space. She currently sits on the Talent & Business Development team at Dear Media , where she identifies top-tier podcast talent speaking directly to female audiences, and began her career within the Creators group at United Talent Agency
After watching hundreds of creators build audiences, her biggest lesson is that you should be treating your audience as valuable real estate.
Smart creators build the house, own the land under it, and invite people in — and here's how you do it in B2B. Let's get into it.
Key takeaways:
Start from what your audience is already asking for, not the format your competitor just launched. Go video-forward. It's the difference between hearing an expert and feeling like you're in the room with one. Build an identity someone recognizes in 2 seconds — before they read your logo. A small, engaged, owned audience beats a big rented one. Every time.
Your audience doesn’t owe you 30 minutes 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 and sustained attention.
It's the attention economy,” says Hannah. “It's so hard to find people who are willing to give you their minutes." That's why newsletters and podcasts can't be treated as another box to check. 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?
Too many marketing teams celebrate reach before they've earned a second visit.
Instead, in the attention economy, you should think about building attention like building a house, one that people want to come back to.
Your newsletter should say something your LinkedIn post didn’t If there's one lesson marketers can borrow from today's creators, it's that every format should deepen the relationship, not duplicate it.
Hannah sees creators and brands through the same lens.
“At the end of the day, a creator is a brand,” she says. “Having that content feel cohesive across platforms is super important. When someone is being asked to consume content that's longer, such as a podcast or newsletter, the consumer needs to be more engaged. The content should be deeper. It shouldn't just be the same exact thing repeated over and over again.”
A LinkedIn post might introduce an idea. A newsletter expands it. The podcast lets people hear the full, unedited conversation behind it. Each platform asks for a little more time and pays it back with a little more depth.
How to build a house in the attention economy Before you launch a podcast, start a newsletter, or invest in video, ask yourself, “Is this something my audience is actually asking for?”
That's Hannah's litmus test.
“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.
If nobody's asking for more from you in that format, it's probably the wrong place to invest. Instead of following what competitors are launching, look for evidence that people want more from you.
Look for the signals you already have.
What questions does your sales team answer on every call? If they're answering the same question 40 times a week, your audience is asking for that content out loud.Which topics attract comments from your ICP? Comments = curiosity.What do customers email asking you to explain? If it's worth an email, it's worth an article.Once you know who you're building for, give the place a shape they can spot from a block away. (Think of those neighbors with the bright blue door — you know exactly which house it is.)
“The number one 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.”
L’Oreal’s podcast “This is Not a Beauty Podcast ” and the goop podcast are great examples of this, Hannah adds.
The best creators are recognizable before you ever read the username. Their style, topics, and point of view all point back to the same identity. Far too many B2B brands miss the opportunity to distinctly brand themselves visually and therefore fade into the “sea of corporate blue.”
Your LinkedIn posts, newsletter, podcast, and videos should all feel like they came from the same place. They should feel like different ways of meeting the same brand.
Video is how people see inside the house instead of just hearing about it.
As the creator economy has exploded, there’s still a huge opportunity for B2B brands to think creator first, starting with video.
“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.”
Video lets people get to know the person behind the expertise.
“It's another opportunity to further the visual identity of what this brand looks like,” Hannah says. “Even having a mic flag or a header, it's a real opportunity to reinforce, ‘This is who we are. This is content from us.’”
You don't have to become a video company overnight.
Start with one great conversation.
Record your executive explaining an idea that matters to your customers. Then turn it into LinkedIn clips, podcast audio, newsletter pull quotes, blog articles, and social posts.
One conversation becomes weeks of content.
A recognizable, trusted show only becomes an owned audience when showing up becomes a ritual.
“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.”
A newsletter that arrives every other Tuesday for two years will do more for your audience than one that starts weekly and quietly disappears three months later.
That's how habits are built, and habits compound like equity.
People forward your newsletter to colleagues, send your podcast to a friend, show up at your live event because they've been showing up for your content all along. These are the creators that may not have the biggest followings, but sell out live shows in 2 seconds, Hannah says.
Build a house people want to return to For B2B teams, there’s a clear lesson from Hannah’s experience in the creator economy: stop asking which platform to add, start asking whether every format gives your ICP a reason to come back.
If you do this well, people feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves — which is what turns a passive viewer into a subscriber, a reply, a seat at your event, and hopefully a future customer.
FAQ How do we figure out what format our audience actually wants without running a full research project? Your audience is already telling you what they’re most interested in:
What questions does your sales team answer on every call? If they're explaining the same thing over and over, your audience is already asking for more. Which posts get your ICP commenting, not just liking? Comments signal curiosity. Likes often mean someone kept scrolling. What do customers email asking you to explain? That's your editorial calendar. If none of those signals point toward the format you're considering, that's probably your answer.
We already have a decent LinkedIn following. Why isn't that enough? Because followers belong to LinkedIn. Subscribers belong to you.
A social post introduces someone to your thinking. A newsletter or podcast gives them a reason to come back for more.
Use social media to earn attention. Use owned channels to keep it.
How do we know if our content is recognizable without the logo? Pull up your LinkedIn page, newsletter, and podcast artwork side by side and cover the logo.
Ask:
Does this feel like the same brand, or 3 different companies? Would someone scrolling their feed recognize this before reading the name? Are we known for 1 clear point of view, or a little bit of everything? If you’re not clear in any of these areas, your audience is working harder than they should to recognize you.
We don't have a production team. What's the minimum viable video setup that doesn't look cheap? Start with 1 high-quality conversation on video, then repurpose it everywhere: LinkedIn clips, podcast audio, newsletter pull quotes, blog articles, and social posts.
You don't need a studio but a setup you can repeat. Think good lighting, clear audio, a consistent camera angle, and a recognizable backdrop or visual style.
What you want to avoid is recording a Zoom meeting, publishing the full hour, and calling it a show.
How long does it take to build a consistent publishing cadence before we see engagement lift? There's no magic number of weeks. The bigger question is whether your audience believes you'll still be publishing 6 months from now.
Choose a cadence you can realistically maintain for a year, build a backlog before you launch, and protect that schedule like you would a product release.
A biweekly newsletter your team publishes every time will outperform a weekly one that disappears after 3 months. The payoff comes when readers start expecting your content.
