Marketing Dopamine • October 6, 2026
The Feed Is Only the Introduction
Most of us treat posting as the relationship. It is only the introduction.
A post can introduce you to hundreds of people. It cannot get to know any of them. The feed moves too fast, and attention there is borrowed for a few seconds at a time.
The real conversation happens somewhere quieter.
It happens in the comments, when someone takes the time to add a thought and you take the time to answer it well. And more often than people realize, it happens in a short direct message after someone has engaged with your work more than once.
When someone comments on your work twice, that is not a metric. That is a person.
I used to see those repeat comments as a sign the post was working. Now I see them as an invitation. Someone has raised their hand, quietly, in a crowded room.
Answering that invitation does not require a pitch or an agenda. A simple note works. Thank them for the thought, ask what drew them to the topic, or share something useful related to what they said. That is how a stranger in the feed becomes someone you actually know.
This is the same principle behind everything I write about trust. Attention is rented. Relationships are owned. The feed rents you a moment. The conversation is where ownership begins.
Post to be found. Reach out to be known.
The feed will always matter. It is just the beginning of the story, not the whole of it.
Lisa Carmichael is the author of The Marketing Dopamine Workbook: From Awareness to Action, available now, a companion to her book Marketing Dopamine: What Your Brain Is Really Doing When You Think You’re Building a Business, coming soon. Learn more at marketingdopamine.com
Great etiquette tip for all the writers out there. In this crazy world of bot comments and spams it’s easy to forget that genuine comments are by real humans and it’s only right to acknowledge and reciprocate.
Exactly. I think that human connection matters even more now. Taking a minute to acknowledge someone who took the time to read and respond goes a long way.
Thank you, Lisa. I am working a little harder with comments on this challenge. A meaningful comment is hard to get these days. It means alot when someone take the trouble to respond in a meaningful way.
I agree. I’ve been trying to do the same thing. If someone took the time to write something, I want to take the time to actually read it and leave a comment that shows I did.
Great post, I very much agree. The more we can treat our content marketing as we do networking, the more we can focus on the community building aspect of all this.
Yes! That’s exactly how I’m starting to think about it. Less about broadcasting and more about building relationships. The community part is what makes it valuable.