The Digital Picnic Comeback Conference: Day Two Recap
- 38 minutes ago
- 5 min read
If Day One of The Digital Picnic Comeback Conference lit the match, Day Two burned the whole content strategy down and rebuilt it from the ashes. In the best possible way.
Here's what went down... other than this caffeine monstrosity.
Cherie Clonan Opened With A Personal Branding Wake-Up Call
Cherie kicked things off by listing every excuse founders use to avoid showing up in their brand. "I'm too busy." "I'm not an influencer." "I don't want to be cringe."
Her response? "This is all just avoidance dressed up as strategy." Brutal. Accurate. Noted.
She introduced the concept of "brand safe invisibility," which is when your business appears active even when you are absent. Think polished posts with no point of view, hiding behind "we" when your audience wants to hear from you, and over-polishing until nothing sounds human.
The highlight was her trust velocity framework. Same 100 leads, same 20 discovery calls, but a visible founder closes 18 while a hidden founder closes 5. Same top-of-funnel, wildly different revenue. If that doesn't make you want to turn on your camera, nothing will.
She also dropped the VOICE framework (Visibility, Decision, Opinion, Insight, Credibility Execution) and drew a sharp line between oversharing and storytelling. The difference is in processing. If you've made sense of it and there's a lesson, it's storytelling. If you're still in it and looking for someone to hold your feelings, that's a journal entry, not a LinkedIn post.
Zara Jarvis Made Us Rethink Every Metric We've Ever Celebrated
Zara, content manager for Steven Bartlett (casual), reframed the entire content game around one idea: "Attention is a decision." Every time someone stops scrolling for your content, they're actively choosing to spend their time on you. Respect that.
She dismantled the traditional marketing funnel and replaced it with a trust score likened to Brene Brown's marble concept.
A helpful post? Plus one marble in the jar. Promotion without purpose? Minus one marble in the jar. Opening with "in today's modern world"? Smash jar against wall and start again.
People buy when they've banked enough trust, not when they've been pushed through a neat little sequence. She also made the case for retention over follower growth and quality of comments over quantity, because a meaningful sentence beats a "love this!" every single time.
Nikita Crockett Said the Quiet Part Out Loud
"People don't connect with content. They connect with values. You can't just post a pretty picture anymore." Nikita's session on the rise of the relatable brand hit different in 2026, where AI slop has flooded every feed, and audiences are more numb than ever.
Her standout point was that people don't follow brands for content; they follow brands they see themselves in. If your values-aligned content turns some people off? Good. They were never your people. Snap.
Nadine Aridi and Joseph Rako: The Tina Fey and Amy Poehler of Marketing
Look, if you weren't in the room for this one, I'm truly sorry. The chemistry between Nadine and Joseph was off the charts (in a work way, get your mind out of the gutter), and if marketing doesn't work out for them, I could genuinely see them writing a very funny sitcom.
Probably about marketing. Or mocktails. Or marketing for mocktails. Which brings me in to their session.
Content-wise, they took aim at catalogue content, aka "A presence built to sell, not built to capture attention." They walked through an Altina Drinks case study, showing what happens when you shift from product-review-repeat to founder-led, emotionally driven content.
Their 50/30/20 funnel split (50% top of funnel, 30% middle, 20% bottom) is the content calendar ratio everyone in the room scribbled down, and their "Your Next 10 Posts" slide had half the audience reaching for their phones to photograph it.
Sarah Agboola Now Works For A Space Company
I'm mentioning this because it's incredible, and also because it's the only context in which I ever want to see a rocket ship emoji used on the internet again. You're welcome.
Sarah'a Survive, Deliver, Scale, Sustain framework was a reality check for anyone trying to do everything at once. The standout advice was on customer service: don't just teach your team how to reply to a stressed email, teach them how to read one. That's how you hand off judgment, not just tasks.
Cherie Came Back for Round Two: Return on Intimacy
Cherie made the case that the ROI to focus on in 2026 is return on intimacy. Not reach, not impressions, closeness.
"If your grid is 90% information, you're not building intimacy, you're building a library."
She set the target at 40% closeness content and introduced four content strategies: "I see you" content "This is how we think" content "Come closer" content "I made this for you" content
The Intimacy Ladder was the framework of the day, taking us from Awareness ("I have seen you") all the way up to Advocacy ("I talk about you when you are not in the room"). Honestly, the "is it DM-worthy?" test alone is worth the ticket price. This session has undoubtedly changed the way I will approach founder-led content from hereon (because holy f*ck, who made me a founder?!).
Sean Galway Redefined Influence
Sean brought a vital perspective as a queer, neurodivergent, disabled person of colour. The shift from "I want to be them" to "I want them in the group chat" captured the entire evolution of influence in one sentence.
They shared that attention is rented, trust is earned and if your brand doesn't represent the community it wants to serve, people will never feel like you're for them. Boom.
Something that came up in Sean's Q&A that stuck with me: the conversation around seeking diversity in content and partnerships. Here's the thing. It's not virtue signalling. Nobody is going to be mad at someone who is literally trying to boost diversity in marketing. We need more of it, not less, and frankly, we need to get our heads out of our asses on this one.
Take note, middle-aged white men who may or may not be running countries.
Victoria Obieglo Closed With a Comeback Story
Victoria revealed that TDP actually retired their social media management offering, then rebuilt it from scratch around clarity, alignment, and capacity. Within 12 months, the department grew 5x not just in people but profitability.
The lesson Victoria shared is one every founder needs to hear: every business has a "this version isn't it" moment. The brave ones act on it.
The One-Line Summary Of The Digital Picnic Comeback Conference
People don't buy from the brand they saw most. They buy from the brand they feel closest to.
Anyway, brb. Burning my content calendar and rebuilding it with feelings.
