New year, same avalanche of bad marketing advice, and Jay Schwedelson and Daniel Murray are calling it out in the most cathartic way possible. From the myth that you need to be everywhere on social to the dangerous habit of letting "I don't like it" kill good ideas, they walk through the worst guidance floating around your feed right now and what to do instead. If you have content guilt, AI anxiety, or a content calendar you secretly hate, this Bathroom Break will make you feel seen and send you back to work with a much saner playbook.

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Follow Daniel on LinkedIn and check out The Marketing Millennials podcast for sharp, no-fluff marketing insights. Subscribe to Ari Murray’s newsletter at gotomillions.co for sharp, actionable marketing insights.

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Best Moments:

(02:16) Jay rants about how every marketer suddenly becomes a futurist in January and why most of that big-brain advice is "epic toilet paper, garbage, trash."

(02:46) Daniel rips apart the idea that you need to be on every social platform and explains why being A-plus on one channel beats being C-minus everywhere.

(03:38) Jay goes off on the classic "I wouldn't click that" feedback and lays out why you are not your audience and testing culture has to beat personal opinion.

(04:34) Daniel demolishes the obsession with perfect content, arguing you should ship above-average ideas and obsess over distribution and formatting instead.

(05:38) Jay calls rigid content calendars a waste of time and shows how the best performing posts are usually the unplanned ones that move at the speed of culture, Gap hoodie and all.

(06:40) Daniel and Jay tag team the AI panic, insisting it will replace lazy, task-only work long before it replaces real marketers with taste, strategy, and curiosity.

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Check out Jay’s YOUTUBE Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@schwedelson

Check out Jay’s TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@schwedelson

Check Out Jay's INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jayschwedelson/

Daniel Murray: Welcome to a new special series called The Bathroom Break, that extra 10 minutes, you either have to listen to marking tips or use the bathroom or both, but I don't recommend. But

Jay Schwedelson: that's your choice. This collab is gonna be super fun. We have Daniel Murray from the Marketing Millennials and me, Jay Schon from the Do This Not That podcast@subjectline.com.

Jay Schwedelson: Each episode in this series, we are gonna go over with tips about different marketing topics. And if you want to be in the bathroom, fine, just don't tell us about it. Thanks for checking it out. We are back for the bathroom break. I'm Jay Sch Swen from Do This, not That, and I'm here with the guy himself, Daniel Murray from the Marking Millennials, and here we are.

Jay Schwedelson: It is a new year, Daniel. We're only like. A few days in here. Have you broken your resolutions? Are you, are you holding strong? Where are you at?

Daniel Murray: On, well, I think I took, I took your advice from a previous podcast and I ate a lot over the holidays. So like net zero I am like down, um, weight. Because I gained like 10 pounds on the holidays, so I, I'm currently crushing my resolution of that, so I'm proud of myself for that.

Daniel Murray: What about you? What are you, are you crushing yours?

Jay Schwedelson: Um, I, I am trying to crush it, so, uh, my wife thinks I'm like very, I'm always very stressed, so she made me, uh, start taking my blood pressure every morning. That's such a, and taking a picture of it. She's such a doctor. I've been doing that and thankfully it's not been, it's terrible.

Jay Schwedelson: I was taking it in the middle of the day. I didn't know that your blood pressure's really, you're supposed to take it in the first thing in the morning. It's in the middle of the day. It's like 4 billion, over 4 billion, and it looks like you're in trouble. So,

Daniel Murray: um,

Jay Schwedelson: it's better. I didn't know that. I didn't

Daniel Murray: go to the doctor all the time and they like if I, sometimes I'm, it's perfect.

Daniel Murray: And sometimes they say you need to go on blood pressure medication. Oh, I've been on blood

Jay Schwedelson: pressure medication for 25

Daniel Murray: years. Oh my god,

Jay Schwedelson: so bad.

Daniel Murray: Okay, well that's, that, that's a, that's a fun fact for everybody here. That's, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't do

Jay Schwedelson: whatever I'm doing. But speaking of don't doing stuff this time of year is very unique.

Jay Schwedelson: Everybody becomes no strategist this time of year. Everybody gives advice. They have outlooks. They tell you what's gonna happen, and everyone's. Full of it. Nobody knows what's going on. And the thing that annoys me the most is everyone's giving advice and the majority of marketing advice that's given out there, not just about the new year rolling out, but in general, is epic toilet paper, garbage, trash.

Jay Schwedelson: So I wanna rip through with you, Daniel, some marketing advice overall that you think is an epic piece of garbage.

Daniel Murray: I think the one I'm thinking about because I'm a, I love social, and I think people do this, is, I hear this all the time that you need to be on. Every social platform without thinking about where your audience is.

Daniel Murray: And I honestly believe that it's better to be a plus on one platform than CS on 10 platform. And I think if you don't focus on being dominant on one platform, 'cause when once you dominant on one platform, it's easy to re recreate the winners on that platform or another platform. But this theory that.

Daniel Murray: You need to be on every platform, posting every day is not maybe have some sort of presence just to look, looks like you're alive as a business, but. Posting every day and being on every platform, being great, on every platform is not something you need to do. And I think it's horrible advice.

Jay Schwedelson: It is horrible advice, and I think you're better off not being on a platform than being on a platform with barely any exposure.

Jay Schwedelson: 'cause then you look like you're, like, you don't even know what you're doing, which is a negative signal. The advice that I think. I cannot stand and I don't even know if it's really advice is you'll, everybody has probably number one problem in marketing. You'll be in a market, you'll be in a meeting with your higher ups, whatever, and somebody come up with an idea marketing idea and they're be like, somebody be like, well, I don't like that, or.

Jay Schwedelson: I wouldn't open that or I wouldn't click on that and then everyone piles on. Yeah. I wouldn't either, uh, I wouldn't, I wouldn't interact with that. We shouldn't do it. And the problem is you are not your audience, and if you don't have a testing culture and you're not testing first, as opposed to whatever your opinion is, you are in a bad.

Jay Schwedelson: Marketing environment because this idea of, I don't like it, dictating what you're doing is absolutely the worst thing in the world of marketing.

Daniel Murray: I, I'll piggyback off that and say that a lot of people, which is bad marketing advice, is create this great piece of content and not even think about the distribution of that content.

Daniel Murray: So they just like, just create something great and post it and see what happens. Just because you've created something that you think is great, like air quotes, a lot of the things that you think is great, aren't great to your audience, um, doesn't mean. So stop waiting to create this perfect piece of content, this perfect piece of, and just post above average things that you think your audience might like and.

Daniel Murray: Let it rip. I think that's a horrible advice 'cause and also when you posting a piece of content, think about the distribution plan. 'cause that's honestly in this day and age, with all the slop out there with AI and stuff like that, distribution is gonna be way more important than creating, 'cause everybody can create now.

Daniel Murray: Like how you distribute it and how it gets on the platform and how the formatting matters Way more than like. Um, making this a plus piece of content,

Jay Schwedelson: you know, along those lines, especially this time of year, the thing that I'm, I stink at, and I'm telling you right now, is a waste of time. It's great if you have one, but content calendars, everyone sits back and they go, okay, this is our content calendar for the year.

Jay Schwedelson: And then you put it in like stone. You're like, we have to follow this thing. And don't feel bad if you don't have a content calendar. It's more than fine. And the reason I say that is sometimes you have to move at the speed of culture. Okay? That is how you win. You wake up in the morning, there's something going on.

Jay Schwedelson: You can participate that in that. And whether you're a boring B2B brand, a nonprofit consumer, doesn't matter, but oh, no. It's not on our content calendar this week, so we can't do it. The, the social posts, the emails that perform the best for my clients and for my organization are usually the ones that we didn't have a plan for.

Jay Schwedelson: It's like when I, I'm somewhere on a trip and I'm cold, I go to the Gap and I buy a hoodie. That hoodie winds up being my favorite piece of clothing that I own for the next 20 years. I don't know why that always happens, but it's not the thing that you plan for that's gonna always work.

Daniel Murray: I think it's gonna replace. Tasks that suck, but it's gonna amplify people with taste, people with strategy, people who understand marketing. So stop listening to everybody that says it's gonna replace marketers. It's gonna replace marketers. Uh, it's actually gonna help you as a marketer and think of it as a tool.

Daniel Murray: I hate this like narrative that it's just gonna get rid of people, especially right now. Um, maybe. Far down the line, but in this moment, AI is not replacing marketers.

Jay Schwedelson: I could not agree with you more. AI is not taking people's jobs. Let me just tell you. WII, I think it's the most annoying. First of all, everything you read, it says the career you have to go into is become a plumber, become an electrician, which is wonderful.

Jay Schwedelson: Those are great jobs, trade jobs, whatever. But the amount of times people are saying it, there's gonna be 4 billion plumbers. There's gonna be more plumbers than toilets with how often people are saying everyone should go get a trade job. It's outta control. And, and here's the reality of it, okay? The only jobs AI will take is if your job, and now where did I hear this?

Jay Schwedelson: I have no idea. Your job is a task. If your job is a singular task, yeah, you might be screwed, but that's not the job of a real marketer. You're not doing a task. So if you're not doing a task, get good at AI and lean into it and stop being a tool and think it's taking your job. Why do I get so worked up?

Jay Schwedelson: I'm outta control. I probably have high blood pressure right now. That's

Daniel Murray: not good. No, you're probably in your six Celsius. That's, let's be honest, that's what's really

Jay Schwedelson: happening right now. Alright, so wait, wait before we wrap up. Since it is the start of the year, I know you're on your tennis kick now.

Jay Schwedelson: You're trying to lose weight from this giant number that you're at. And I'm not calling you big or no, Jay. Jay. What is the,

Daniel Murray: luckily is not video right now, so Right.

Jay Schwedelson: What is the other health tactic that you are doing as this new year rolls out?

Daniel Murray: Yeah. One, I need to start walking more. Um, when baby just like makes me not, so I'm just like forcing myself to just take the baby out more.

Daniel Murray: So that's, I feel like walking's the best option. And one thing me and Ari suck at is like cooking at home. So we're trying to at least like. Cook at home. Yeah. Step it up at home is so, it's so hard to cook at home when you, two of the people have jobs, but it's, I know. Oh, please.

Jay Schwedelson: Tonight's salmon night, I'm cooking salmon as soon as I get home.

Jay Schwedelson: What's wrong with you? Oh

Daniel Murray: yeah. Salmon night.

Jay Schwedelson: It's the best night of the week. There we go. And then I get hungry an hour later and nauseous simultaneously. You need your omega threes for your heart There. Yeah. There you go. I, I need to do something. Well, another amazing episode. Listen, go follow the Marking Millennials, the greatest podcast in the universe.

Jay Schwedelson: Uh, the one that's terrible is mine. Do this, not that. And we'll see you the next one.

Jay Schwedelson: Daniel, come on man. I gotta get back to work. Get out of there. Alright, while he's still in there, this is Jay. Check out my podcast. Do this, not that for marketers. Each week we share really quick tips on stuff that can improve your marketing, and I hope you give it a try. Oh, here's Daniel. He's

Daniel Murray: finally out.

Daniel Murray: Back from my bathroom break. This is Daniel. Go follow the Marking Millennials podcast, but also tune into this series. It's once a week, the bathroom break. We talk about marketing tips that we just spew out, and it could be anything from email subject line to any marketing tips in the world. We'll talk about it.

Daniel Murray: Just give us a, a shout on LinkedIn and tell us what you want to hear. He's out later.