The Algorithm Trap: Understanding Marketing’s Disconnect
Algorithms don’t have wallets. AI can’t become loyal customers. Machines don’t have friends to refer. And yet most businesses are building their entire marketing around serving them. Gaming search engines, feeding platforms content for the sake of content, prompting AI to write social media posts designed to perform well inside algorithm systems — which, if you think about it, is just machines talking to machines, hoping a human eventually shows up.
And the result is marketing that generates clicks but no connection. And without connection, there’s no reason for anybody to stay, care, buy again, or even tell their friends about it. You end up constantly hunting for the next person to extract from.
That is what I call the algorithm trap. And this show is about getting out of it.
So welcome to Anti-Viral, an educational podcast centred around how to add a human touch to marketing. My name is Jiun and I have been in marketing for more than 10 years now. I’m a marketing strategist and I consistently do a lot of presentations around marketing and coaching, as well as doing strategy for companies. I decided to do this podcast particularly because I have a slightly different view on how to tackle marketing in general that I think is really, really valuable and really important. But I’m also doing this because I think a lot of people could benefit from understanding marketing.
Human Marketing: Building Relationships Over Numbers
Because primarily, I think a lot of people, whenever they think of marketing, think of social media, a website, advertising, and stuff like that, especially for digital marketing. But the reality is that all of those are just simple tools. How you use them is the important part. Having social media doesn’t really mean anything or do anything on its own. That’s not the marketing part. The marketing part is how you think about doing it, the content that you put out, et cetera. So I think being able to understand marketing and give people the proper context for how marketing should work is going to be very valuable for a business of any size, whether you are just starting up or whether you have employees and a larger company structure.
I mentioned that I do things a little bit differently than most people, and that is my views and my style of marketing. I like to call my style of marketing human marketing. And what that means is essentially just treating people like people. That’s how I like to express it.
Because a lot of people, especially when it comes to reporting, see numbers and immediately want to make those numbers go up. That’s the standard way of viewing things. But nobody stops to think that these numbers are all actual people on the other side, and treating them well is partly what makes good marketing.
Because again, one of the big misconceptions around marketing is the idea that you have to be selling all the time. You see it everywhere now where no matter where you are, people are trying to sell something to you. But I consider marketing to be a relationship-building engine. And I usually talk about how in corporate marketing, there is a marketing department and there is a sales department, and that’s because those two don’t do the same job.
Sales is about selling something, and marketing is about what comes before the sale. Sort of like a pre-selling situation. And what is that pre-sell? It’s building a relationship. The goal for marketing is to be worth paying attention to.
So this podcast will talk about different topics around marketing from this human marketing angle. We’ll talk about major topics like SEO, advertising, and that sort of thing. I’m thinking about doing it kind of like a season format, where we talk about SEO for an entire season and then move on to the next topic, as opposed to talking about SEO or advertising in one episode and then moving on to the next thing. I think that might be a little bit more usable, but if you have any thoughts about it, feel free to let me know.
And all of this is kind of meant to help you create better marketing and grow your business the same way you did when you first started out. Because I think that is a common theme I see all the time. Whenever we start a business, we usually get people who are friends or family members who come and help us, refer us, and we build a network of people willing to help kickstart our business. Then we get referred to people we don’t know. And that again starts to create this relationship-building cycle where referrals start to happen. Everybody who is a successful business usually tends to have referrals at the core of how they grew their business at the start.
The Stages of Relationship Building in Marketing
So having this scenario in place, you start to realize that as you grow and get bigger, you don’t have the time to continually build relationships. There are more time-intensive things that require your attention. So you end up hiring your marketing out, going to agencies, going to tools like advertising. And then because these agencies want to give you some sort of results that keep you coming back, they use metrics, reports, and numbers. They tell you these numbers are good or these numbers are bad.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. Reports are actually quite useful for understanding the landscape of how things work. But they’re also very limiting in terms of information. The number of people that visited your website is good, it tells you how many people visited, but did they leave? Did they move? Did they not like what they saw? A lot of little bits of information get washed out because we’re only looking at one number.
Numbers are very limiting. They allow you to view things at a glance, which is great, but it’s also very limiting, period. I don’t usually try to rely solely on reports. I like to take everything with a grain of salt, because what I want to know is: am I building a relationship? Am I doing the pre-selling properly? And those things tend to be hard to put into a number, hard to quantify.
Think about trust as an example. If my goal is for people to trust me before they get to a certain level of relationship, how do I quantify trust? That is where my concept of relationship building comes into play. I have this set of stages that everybody has to go through in order to build a proper relationship that ends up in a sale. The way I like to describe it: it starts with not knowing, then it goes into knowing, then liking, then trusting, and then “here’s my money.”
The way people interact with your marketing is never completely rational. They don’t follow steps one, two, three, four. They go all over the place, similar to how they navigate your website. If you’ve ever looked at reports on your website, you see people going from your homepage directly to your contact page, and then back to the about page, or they look at the products and then something completely random. And eventually they all fall back into something. They either leave or they don’t.
And I think it flows the same way when it comes to building a relationship, and everybody has a unique way of building a relationship with people.
So what you essentially want to do in your marketing is figure out where your audience is in these specific channels and tools like social media, advertising, et cetera, and what stage of relationship they are in. What are you building for that specific stage?
Because if someone doesn’t know anything about you, and the first thing that they see is your product at $29.99 as an example, what does that say about your relationship with them? They don’t care. They probably won’t pay attention unless it’s something they’ve already decided they want and are actively trying to buy. And if they were, I’m not sure they would be on social media. They would be searching on Google, they would be on Amazon, they would be somewhere where things make a little bit more sense.
So it’s about having that context. And a lot of marketing requires a lot more context. Once you have that context in place, it makes making decisions around your marketing significantly easier. If you’re creating a post for people that don’t know anything about you, you’re going to approach it very differently than when you’re creating for your existing audience that already knows you and probably already likes you, and now you want to get them to trust you or you’re ready to sell.
The Shift from In-Person to Online Marketing
And I think that’s where a lot of things start to fall apart for people. As soon as they get busy and start farming things out to agencies or automated tools, they see those numbers go up. And because they don’t have the right context in place for how to understand the marketing and how to build relationships, it really starts centering around: how do I game the algorithm, which seems like the only limiting factor for my marketing? How do I end up on top?
And that’s when you start seeing people follow trends, try to manipulate the algorithm. You used to see it very clearly with SEO, where people knew that Google uses keywords to figure out what your website is about, so they would stuff as many keywords as possible inside a couple of paragraphs just to get those keywords in. That’s called keyword stuffing. And Google will actually penalize you for that. But it’s just an example of how a lot of people end up developing this mentality of building for algorithms instead of building for people.
Because those numbers are for the algorithm. They are not for people. And it’s very easy to get stuck in this trap of trying to go viral, trying to get as many likes as possible, just to gather attention. Your whole premise then becomes about getting attention as cheaply as possible, and that is a very dangerous way of viewing people.
How we got here is actually an interesting story. When there was no internet, there was just a newspaper maybe, and a radio station maybe, marketing used to be a lot simpler because those channels are very limiting. All you needed to do in a town to stand out was essentially get a slightly better product, be a slightly more personable or professional person. Just do slightly better things. And you would stand out because the competition was Bob down the street and that was it.
In-person marketing did most of the work. If people came through the door, you could do something about it. And people still carry that thought to this day: if they came through the door, I can sell them something. But when I go online, I can’t do that. Why is it so hard? Because in person you are you. You’re able to deliver yourself, your expertise, and what makes you special, right in front of that audience.
But online, you’re not doing that. Online you’re just selling. And when people ask how to stand out, they’re often not doing the things that actually make them stand out, which is being themselves.
As marketing started growing and getting more channels, this idea of getting attention to bring people in through the door stayed and crept into the online world when the internet came out, when advertising started coming into play. All of those tools relied on this concept of: I just need to get them through the door.
But now with social media and how things have evolved, you have another space where you can actually exist and be present without being in the same room as other people. And that’s a very different way of looking at marketing. Because now you’re trying to do something without being in the same room, which means that who you are and what makes you special and unique is something you need to showcase in this space, not just in person.
The people who are going to come to you no longer just come to your office or your store in person. People are getting to know you online. And that carries a very different way of viewing things that I think a lot of people just don’t think about.
Now, instead of trying to attract someone into your store so you can talk to them, ask how their day is going, and find a way to connect, you need to put yourself out there first. You need to develop a relationship with people before they actually contact you. Because by the time they do contact you, the whole point is to have already done that pre-selling. To have gotten to know someone to the point where they think, I like this person better than the others.
Because now you’re competing not just against Bob down the street. Now you’re competing against the entire world. There are all sorts of solutions for the same problem you’re trying to solve, and your job is to showcase who you are in front of people so that they develop a relationship with you.
Whenever you meet someone, even through Zoom, you usually get a feeling for who they are. You see their body language, how they interact, how they explain things. And you get that sense of: I really get this person, or I really like this person, or I really don’t like this person. That feeling is exactly what people are trying to assess online. They’re constantly trying to figure out, whenever they read something that you wrote, whether it’s a social media post or an email or your website, who you are, whether this is right for them, whether this is someone they can trust.
Being Real: The Key to Standing Out
And that’s the same reason why, when you’re looking for a product on Amazon, you immediately click on the reviews. Instead of reading the description from the company, you trust real people. You trust the ones that have actually gotten the product and have something to say. Good, bad, or ugly. Because it feels real. It feels actually valuable.
Because right now the internet is inundated with noise. It’s inundated with this sense of professionalism, this sense of every company wanting to feel like they are a multi-conglomerate with 200-plus employees. Everybody wants to appear successful. But what people really want is reality. They want something that they can feel is actually true. And now with AI creating videos and pictures and all these things, you can’t even trust what you see on the internet anymore.
What people want is that sense of trust. I trust that this company is going to take care of me. I trust that what I’m seeing is real. I trust that when I give my money to someone, they’re actually going to do right by me. What people want is not professionalism, and it’s not product features anymore, because nobody cares. There are a million different ways of solving a problem.
If I want the most effective solution, I would go to the most effective tool. But if I want the right solution for me, which is a large portion of the population, then I’m looking for someone’s hand that I can shake. At least I know where to find them. At least if I have a problem, I know who to contact. Or I’m looking for someone that has a lot of reviews because I trust that if a lot of people have gone through the product, then most likely it’s a good product. All of these are different iterations on the same concept: being real.
And that, I think, is the main concept I want people to understand around marketing and around getting out of this algorithm trap that we have put ourselves into in the modern marketing world.
Just be real. Be you. At the end of the day, that is the best way to combat the noise and everything we see on the internet. The best way to stand out online is by being yourself, because you are a unique human being. The way your experience shaped you, the way you were raised, the way you view the world and describe it, amounts to something that only you could say or do or interact with the world in the way that you do.
And that’s what makes you special. That’s what makes people say, hey, I like this person, or I think I’m going to keep following this. And it’s okay if people keep going. There’s nothing wrong with that, because those people are not for you. What you want is to find the people that are for you.
So be yourself online. It’s the best antidote for everything.
Navigating the Post-Algorithmic Marketing Landscape
And there is a quote I came across from [VERIFY NAME: Reggie James] that captures one of the big questions of this decade: how do you become post-algorithmic while remaining economically viable?
That’s a lot of people’s worry when it comes to marketing right now. They see the writing on the wall. They see that there’s too much noise, too much advertisement, too much of everything, and they know that they have to either pare down, be different, or be more themselves. However they think about it, they’re scared. They’re wondering: if I do this, will I still have a business tomorrow? Will this work?
And I think the big answer, like I said, is by being yourself. That is the only answer worth giving to that question. But there are no guarantees. I can’t tell you that just by being yourself, it’s going to make all the difference and change everything. But it’s going to make your marketing a lot simpler. Because now you’re not looking to be someone that you’re not. You’re not forcing yourself to be something that you’re not. You just need to be you.
And that means: if you like fishing, how can you use that in your marketing? If you like painting, how do you use that in your marketing? If you like riding horses, how do you become more unique and different?
One of the tips I have for being more yourself in marketing is to actually spend time thinking about how you build relationships in person. It’s a very common thing. A lot of people come to me and say, if I can get someone in person, I can sell them something, no question about it. But they never actually stop to think about how they do it.
So one of the things I usually tell people is to spend some time thinking through the recent conversations you’ve had that eventually ended in a sale, or that you just really enjoyed. And actually start thinking about: what are the things that I typically do in that in-person conversation? Do I try to connect with them in some way? Do I like to make a joke? Do I like to ask questions? Because those are technically all the tiny different things you can potentially bring into your marketing when you’re on social media, when you’re putting content on your website, when you’re trying to get people to know you.
Doing the same things that work for you in person is not a bad thing. You just have to think about it differently. That is all digital marketing needs to be. It’s a different way of thinking about doing the exact same things that already work for you in person.
And start using the idea of building trust as a metric for your marketing, not just whether you got enough clicks this month. It’s more about: did I deliver enough trust? Did I get people to trust me a little bit more than last month? If you consistently do that, people will come to you when they’re ready to buy.
Intentional Marketing: Quality Over Quantity
Trust is not an easy metric to create. It requires a lot of patience and a lot of figuring out internally what trust means for you. It’s fairly unique to each business because you may see trust in a different way, through different metrics, depending on what you choose to do for your marketing.
But it’s there. It is possible to figure out. And at the end of the day, just follow your gut. If you think something is a good post or a good ad, because you wrote it and you feel proud about it and you feel like this feels like me, just go with that. Chances are other people are going to feel that as well.
And I think one of the last things about remaining economically viable in a post-algorithmic world is the idea of being a lot more intentional. This may not appear as a big tip or a big reveal based on everything we’ve talked about, but it’s really, really true. Just being intentional with what you’re choosing to do.
It’s very common on social media that it’s Friday at 4:59 p.m. and you forgot to post, or you’ve been busy all week and you haven’t been posting anything and you think: I need to post something. So I’m just going to do the first thing that comes to mind. And the first thing that comes to mind is usually: hey, why don’t you buy something from me? Because you don’t have the time to actually pay attention to your marketing.
And that’s one of the big drawbacks that I think a lot of people run into, and why people end up not liking marketing in general. They don’t spend enough attention on it and they don’t understand enough about marketing to see that this is all just a big relationship-building engine.
With that thought in mind, it allows you to be a lot more intentional. It’s like: how am I going to build a relationship today? As opposed to: how am I going to sell something today? Because most people aren’t trying to sell for the sake of selling. Most people are trying to make the world better. You came into this business primarily because you could offer a better service, a better product, or you thought that this would make a big difference in people’s lives. You thought that opening this business yourself, rather than letting other people do it, you could make a bigger impact in the world.
And that’s amazing. But it’s about being more intentional with your marketing for that purpose as well. What are the best choices I can make to build a relationship with people today?
Being intentional usually means thinking about it more and being honest with yourself: this feels like me, or this does not feel like me. And one of the things I usually also like to tell people is the idea of slowing down your marketing. Don’t try to be everywhere all at once, which is the common advice a lot of people try to get you to follow. Again, attention is seen as the single most important factor: if you get enough attention out there, somebody eventually is going to call you or come to your store and you’ll be able to sell them something.
And that megaphone of attention is what creates all the noise on the internet, because everybody is doing it. Everybody is using AI to write their blogs and their posts. Everybody is doing the exact same thing. Doing something different from that is what makes the difference. It’s what makes the big impact. It’s what makes you stand out.
So I usually tell people not to focus on just being everywhere, but on being more intentional. Less, but better.
Even if you decide to create less content, if every content piece is something that you like or something that you’re proud of, you’re going to eventually like your marketing more. Because it’s a lot more fun to build something that you actually want to build. If you like what you do, if you like the posts, if you like writing blogs, if you like the things that you are putting out there, chances are you’re going to be doing it for a lot longer. And consistency is actually a great marker of trust, because you show that you are there for the long term, that you are constantly doing this, that you must be an expert at something if you’ve been doing it for a long period of time. Can you do something consistently? If you like what you do, it becomes a lot easier.
And I’ll leave you with one single idea that I heard somebody say. I’m not entirely sure who it was, but it was something along the lines of: I am terrible at marketing, but I know how to make friends. And that’s really all you need to be better at marketing. Do you know how to make friends? Everybody does. That means you can be good at marketing as well.
So thank you very much for listening. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you follow the podcast on all available channels. It’ll be on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all the regular podcast channels. If you like it, I hope you follow along on my journey, and I’ll see you on the next episode.