The Ins and Outs of Marketing in 2026

(And why most brands are still optimising for the wrong thing)

If marketing in 2025 felt fragmented, unpredictable, and occasionally contradictory, that wasn’t because the industry lost its way. It was because we were in the middle of a transition that most brands hadn’t fully named yet.

What looked like chaos on the surface was actually a slow, uneven shift away from channel-led marketing and toward something far more human, relational, and resistant to shortcuts.

The “Contradictions” Were Actually Signals

You could feel that tension everywhere:

• Long-form content was quietly regaining relevance, at the same time short-form video continued to dominate discovery.

• Influencers still drove results, yet the term “influencer marketing” increasingly felt too narrow for what was actually happening.

• Community appeared in almost every strategy deck, even as most brands continued to communicate in one direction.

• While AI became embedded into nearly every workflow, trust, credibility, and personality emerged as the real differentiators.

These weren’t contradictions to resolve. They were signals that the market had already moved on from a single playbook.

The Real Question Brands Avoided

The mistake many brands made was trying to solve this moment with better tactics, instead of asking a more uncomfortable question:

What is marketing actually optimising for now?

When you zoom out, the shift isn’t really about platforms rising or falling, or formats going in and out of fashion. It’s about where power sits.

Power Has Moved (And Marketing Hasn’t Fully Caught Up)

Brands no longer own distribution.

Algorithms mediate reach.
Culture determines relevance.
And people decide what gets repeated, shared, and believed.

Attention can still be bought, but belief has to be earned and belief travels differently. It moves through:

• conversations

• DMs

• screenshots

• community spaces

• the personal feeds of people who genuinely care
  
  

Why the Advocacy Economy Is Now the Operating System

This is the context in which the Advocacy Economy has stopped being a “nice to have” and started becoming the operating system for modern growth.

OUT vs IN: What Marketing Is Actually Becoming

This Isn’t a Tactical Swap — It’s a New Growth Model

At first glance, this table can feel like a list of tactical swaps.  Do this instead of that.

In reality, it’s showing something much bigger. It’s showing how growth is actually working now.

What’s falling away are approaches built around:

• quick hits of attention

• short campaigns

• borrowed audiences

• the constant chase for what’s new

What’s replacing them are things that build over time:

• formats people recognise

• communities people return to

• groups of people who genuinely believe in a brand and are happy to talk about it

This is the real shift, from trying to buy influence to actually building Advocacy.

Why “Influencer Marketing” Is Too Small a Frame Now

That’s why the move away from “influencer marketing” matters so much.  Influence hasn’t disappeared; it’s just never lived exclusively with a small group of paid creators.

It’s always been spread across:

• customers

• employees

• founders

• community members

…who hold trust in smaller, more personal spaces.

Follower Growth Isn’t the Same as Discovery

The same is true for follower growth.

Most discovery happens among non-followers. The data shows it. The platforms say it openly. Our own behaviour proves it every day.

And yet many brands still optimise as if growth only starts once someone clicks “follow.”

Big numbers still look good on a slide, but real discovery happens through:

• recommendations between people who already know each other

• conversations in places brands can’t see

Which, if we’re honest, isn’t new information. We’ve just been very good at ignoring it.

The Thread Connecting Every “IN”

What connects every “in” on this list is a simple idea.  Being involved matters more than being exposed.  Showing up consistently matters more than constantly doing something new.  And relationships matter more than reach.

Marketing in 2026 works best when brands stop acting like broadcasters and start acting like something people can actually be part of.

Where Brands Still Get Stuck

This is where a lot of brands still get stuck:

• Campaigns still matter, but they don’t create momentum on their own anymore.

• Content still matters, but it works better when it invites people in.

• Large audiences still look impressive, but trust is being built in much smaller, quieter spaces.
  
  

Why These Strategies Work (And Why They’re Harder to Fake)

That’s why:

• private communities

• employee-led content

• customer Advocacy

• repeatable content series

…are working so well.

They don’t depend on constantly grabbing attention from scratch. They grow because people come back, get involved, and share with others.

What Marketing’s Job Actually Becomes

All of this changes what the job of marketing actually looks like.

The question isn’t where to put the next budget increase or which platform to prioritise. It’s how to make it easier for people who already care to speak up and be seen.

That means:

• investing in existing customers

• letting employees show up as real people

• committing to formats you can stick with over time

• accepting that the most valuable work won’t show immediate results even though it’s the work that lasts
  
  

Conclusion: Growth Runs on People Now

The ins and outs of marketing in 2026 are not a checklist or a trend forecast. They are signals of a market that has moved away from rented reach and toward earned relevance.

Ultimately, this comes down to understanding a simple shift:
People, not platforms, now power growth.

The brands that accept that and are willing to build for it, even when it feels slower and less certain at the start are the ones setting themselves up for what comes next.

Book a demo today and see how Duel can turn Advocacy into your biggest growth lever