Anti-Viral: A Human Approach to Marketing

About Anti-Viral: A Human Approach to Marketing

Marketing became about going viral. Anti-Viral is about making it human again. This is a podcast about human marketing strategy for business owners who want to grow by building trust instead of chasing algorithms. Each episode unpacks the thinking behind marketing that actually connects with people. The kind of clarity that usually stays behind closed doors in coaching sessions and boardrooms. Hosted by Jiun Liao, with occasional guests who push the conversation further. New episodes biweekly.

Publisher

Jiun Liao

Category

business · education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

31 Mar 2026

Latest episode

12 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

10 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   12 Oct 2026

   Friction Maxxing

   Everything keeps getting easier, and somehow there's never more time. Every new tool promises to take something off your plate, and the plate never seems to get any lighter. It's hard to say what's missing, only that the shortcuts aren't giving back what they promised. This episode is about friction. The kind we pay to get rid of, and the kind we might be better off keeping. Not every hard thing is worth holding onto, but some of it is doing more for you and your business than you realize, and you usually only find out once it's gone. --- This show is hosted by Jiun Liao, owner of Lobo Media Marketing: website: https://lobomedia.ca (https://lobomedia.ca) newsletter: https://lobomedia.ca/subscribe/ (https://lobomedia.ca/subscribe/) --- Chapters 00:00 Intro 03:00 The Promise of No Friction 06:39 Three Worlds 12:00 Where Friction Goes 14:59 Why It's Hard to Go Back 19:36 What Friction Is Telling You 23:12 Good Friction vs Waste 27:55 What Changes in You 30:48 Human Marketing Is High Friction 34:47 Earned Connection 38:22 Playing the Long Game Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts or questions on this episode. Send me a voice note. (https://rss.com/podcasts/anti-viral-a-human-approach-to-marketing/voicemail)

2. 

   28 Sept 2026

   Becoming Irreplaceable

   If a tool can do most of what I do, faster and for less, what's left that's actually mine? It shows up when you're staring at a blank post, or when a client wonders why they shouldn't just do it themselves. Everyone around you seems to be making more than ever, and somehow it's getting harder to tell anyone apart. This episode is about exploring what makes us irreplaceable as humans. And the answer isn't about working faster or putting out more content. It's in the parts of your work that only make sense because a person did them. They're usually slower, impractical, and also very hard to copy even for AI. --- This show is hosted by Jiun Liao, owner of Lobo Media Marketing: website: https://lobomedia.ca (https://lobomedia.ca) newsletter: https://lobomedia.ca/subscribe/ (https://lobomedia.ca/subscribe/) --- Chapters 00:00 Intro 02:53 Where Marketing Is Right Now 11:59 A Recognizable Human Signal 13:04 Point of View 20:48 Taste and Awe 31:50 Care 35:38 The Cost of Being Human 39:54 Ignore the Wrong Audience

3. 

   17 Aug 2026

   Is AI Good Enough?

   Ask almost anyone whether they'd rather talk to a person or AI when they are looking for customer service support and they'll choose a person without having to think about it. Yet they're asking AI things they used to Google, and create things they used to hire people for. Wanting human work and paying for it are two separate decisions, and only one of them ever shows up in a survey. The reality is that AI doesn't have to be better than you, it only has to get close enough that the difference of hiring someone isn't worth the cost. Especially when convenience is most of what we've been selling. This episode is me working through what's left. Where human work still holds its ground, what it means to be different instead of slightly better, and why the people most willing to pay for judgment tend to be the ones who've already paid for not having any. --- This show is hosted by Jiun Liao, owner of Lobo Media Marketing: website: https://lobomedia.ca (https://lobomedia.ca) newsletter: https://lobomedia.ca/subscribe/ (https://lobomedia.ca/subscribe/) --- Chapters 00:00 Intro 02:57 What's Happening to the Marketing Industry 07:05 Good Enough Is an Old Pattern 11:02 Convenience Is What We've Been Selling 13:41 The Problem With Close Enough 20:34 What's Left to Sell

4. 

   26 Jul 2026

   Getting Found After Google

   Most of us built our entire approach to being found around one company's rules, Google. We learned them, we followed them, and it more or less worked. Now there's a new acronym going around, GEO, and entrepreneurs are trying to learn how it works when most marketers barely know either. I think the rush to understand this new system is the same rush that ended up giving us the internet we have now. Full of slop, blogs no one reads, and an intense need to cater to algorithms. So this episode is less about tactics and more about why being found works the way it does, and what it takes to be the answer someone gets handed rather than the result they scroll past. Some of it is going to sound like advice you've heard before. That's kind of the point. If you've been wondering whether your website still matters, or whether the SEO work you've been paying for was ever worth it, start here. --- This show is hosted by Jiun Liao, owner of Lobo Media Marketing: website: https://lobomedia.ca (https://lobomedia.ca) newsletter: https://lobomedia.ca/subscribe/ (https://lobomedia.ca/subscribe/) --- Chapters 0:00 Intro 1:40 Why SEO Advice Sucks 3:35 How AI Picks Local Businesses 6:58 How AI Picks Products 10:27 Authority, Content, and Experience 17:52 Writing for Machines Instead of People 20:12 A Short History of Blogging and SEO 26:13 Where the Term GEO Came From 30:26 How to Get Found by AI 32:36 Give People a Rabbit Hole 36:42 Why Trying to Reach Everyone Fails 40:09 SEO Ranks, GEO Answers

5. 

   29 Jun 2026

   What AI Can't Do

   Everyone's telling you to use AI for everything right now. And if you're being honest, part of you probably wants to. It's fast, it's cheap, and it doesn't complain about deadlines. But there's a hesitation because we all get the feeling that something gets lost when a machine writes the thing that was supposed to sound like you. This episode is about finding the line. Not whether AI is good or bad for your marketing, because that conversation is already tired. The real question is what you're willing to hand over and what you're not. Because trust is getting harder to earn, and the things that build it aren't the things a machine is good at. There's a difference between saving time and giving away judgment. Between letting something do the work and letting it do the thinking. That distinction matters more than most people realize, and it's going to matter even more as the feeds fill up with content that nobody actually sat down to write. If you've been trying to figure out where AI fits in your business without losing the thing that makes your business yours, this one's for you. --- This show is hosted by Jiun Liao, owner of Lobo Media Marketing: website: https://lobomedia.ca (https://lobomedia.ca) newsletter: https://lobomedia.ca/subscribe/ (https://lobomedia.ca/subscribe/) --- Chapters 0:00 Intro 1:38 AI in Marketing 4:03 Everyone Is Using the Same Tools 8:17 The Trust Penalty 10:25 The Authenticity Premium 14:41 Using AI Without Losing Your Voice 19:08 AI for Reporting, SEO, and Grunt Work 25:15 Why AI Generated Content Rings Hollow 28:53 How I Actually Use AI in My Business 35:07 Why Human Marketing Still Wins

6. 

   1 Jun 2026

   Make Me Care

   The part that trips most people up isn't the channel. It's knowing what to actually say in it. We blame attention spans for this. People have the focus of a goldfish, three seconds and they're gone. But that's not really true. You'll sit through a two-hour movie or read a whole book if it's good. So it was never an attention problem. It's a "do I care about what you're telling me" problem. This episode is about the oldest fix there is, which is storytelling. It's the thing you already do without thinking. When something interesting happens to you, you don't lead with the ending. You go "you're not gonna believe what just happened," and the person leans in. That instinct is the same one your marketing keeps forgetting it has. Your marketing doesn't have to be about your product at all. Nike isn't selling shoes, they're selling the dream of what happens when you keep pushing. Patagonia talks about the planet more than the jackets. When a company tells you what it cares about and you care about the same thing, you don't feel sold to. You feel found. That's what branding actually is, by the way. Not the logo or the colours. The story underneath. I also get into two ways I build stories, the three-act structure and a way of working backwards from the end, so you walk away with something to try this week and not just a nice idea. Because the goal underneath all of it is simple. You want people to remember you and choose you over the noise. And the only way that happens is if you make them feel something first. This show is hosted by Jiun Liao, owner of Lobo Media Marketing: Website: https://lobomedia.ca (https://lobomedia.ca) Newsletter: https://lobomedia.ca/subscribe/ (https://lobomedia.ca/subscribe/) Chapters 02:02 Storytelling Is in Our DNA 05:11 Marketing and Storytelling 07:17 Storytelling Examples in Marketing 11:28 It Doesn't Have to Be About Your Product 13:28 What Branding Actually Is 16:30 The Three-Act Structure 20:13 Building Stories Backwards 23:32 Making People Feel Something

7. 

   19 May 2026

   Busy Is Not a Strategy

   You already know the internet is noisy. You know the algorithm isn't your friend. So you did what everyone told you to do. You got busier. More posts, more platforms, more ads. And it worked, sort of. But the clients that actually came? They came the same way they always did. A referral, a conversation, someone who already trusted you. That's the gap most business owners don't talk about. All that activity, all that effort, and the thing that actually moves the needle is something you weren't even doing on purpose. You've been treating busyness like it's the same thing as strategy, and nobody told you it wasn't because everybody around you was doing the same thing. In this episode, I get into what strategy actually is and why it's different from planning, from tactics, and from just doing more of everything. I talk about why the marketing funnel, a model that's over 126 years old, doesn't fit the world we live in anymore. And I introduce a different way of thinking about it that I call world building. Instead of a linear path that you push people through, you build a world they choose to explore. Like a choose your own adventure book where every path eventually leads somewhere meaningful. I also talk about why your audience is a community whether you think of them that way or not, why 85% of the people who are perfect for you aren't ready to buy right now, and what marketing strategy actually looks like when you stop confusing it with being busy. --- This show is hosted by Jiun Liao, owner of Lobo Media Marketing: website: https://lobomedia.ca (https://lobomedia.ca) newsletter: https://lobomedia.ca/subscribe/ (https://lobomedia.ca/subscribe/) --- Chapters 00:00 Strategy Is the Thing Nobody Does 01:30 Strategy Is Context 03:00 Strategy vs. Planning 05:05 Busy Is Not a Strategy 07:48 The 126-Year-Old Funnel 15:33 World Building 22:06 Your Audience Is a Community 28:56 The 85% Aren't Ready Yet 31:08 What Marketing Strategy Actually Is

8. 

   1 May 2026

   Zero To One

   Every business owner I've met has the same story. They started something because they're good at it. Then they Googled "how to market my business" and fell into a hole they haven't climbed out of yet. It's not that the advice is bad. It's that there's too much of it, and all of it sounds urgent. So you try to do everything, and you end up doing all of it poorly. Meanwhile the thing that would actually move your business forward is sitting underneath the noise, waiting for you to slow down long enough to notice it. In this episode, I talk about what actually matters when you're going from zero to one. Why picking one or two channels beats spreading yourself across everything. Why being yourself saves more time than building some corporate alter ego. I get into the only number that matters in your reports and a concept I think every new business owner needs: the kill switch. A way to know exactly when something isn't working so you stop dragging it along out of hope. The gap between zero and one doesn't close by doing more. It closes by doing less, better, and showing up again tomorrow. --- This show is hosted by Jiun Liao, owner of Lobo Media Marketing: website: https://lobomedia.ca (https://lobomedia.ca) newsletter: https://lobomedia.ca/subscribe/ (https://lobomedia.ca/subscribe/) --- Chapters 00:00 Intro 00:59 A Brief History of the Internet 05:41 Why Everyone Sounds the Same 10:02 How Algorithms Got Here 12:30 AI and the Content Flood 14:49 The Attention Paradox 17:23 Small Communities and the Rise of Real 23:19 The Meaning Economy 27:16 Perspective Over Productivity 30:27 How to Show Up Differently

9. 

   17 Apr 2026

   The Quiet Advantage

   The internet is getting louder. Every business with a social media account can now publish endless content without anything worth saying. Every platform responds by showing more of it. And we scroll faster just to get past the noise. That's not an accident. It's what happens when the cost of making content drops to almost nothing and the only playbook anyone knows is to do more of everything. But something is shifting. People are forming smaller communities. They're starting to check if something was made by a real person. They're starting to value things that took time to make. I think we're at the beginning of a different kind of economy. Not the attention economy we've been talking about for the last decade. Something that runs on meaning instead. In this episode, I trace how the internet went from a loose collection of microblogs and genuine curiosity to what it is today. I get into why loud used to be a competitive advantage and why it isn't anymore. And I talk about what standing out actually looks like now, which has almost nothing to do with how much you can produce. --- This show is hosted by Jiun Liao, owner of Lobo Media Marketing: website: https://lobomedia.ca (https://lobomedia.ca) newsletter: https://lobomedia.ca/subscribe/ (https://lobomedia.ca/subscribe/) --- Chapters 00:00 Intro 00:59 A Brief History of the Internet 05:41 Why Everyone Sounds the Same 10:02 How Algorithms Got Here 12:30 AI and the Content Flood 14:49 The Attention Paradox 17:23 Small Communities and the Rise of Real 23:19 The Meaning Economy 27:16 Perspective Over Productivity 30:27 How to Show Up Differently

10. 

    31 Mar 2026

    The Algorithm Trap

    Most businesses are building their marketing for something that will never buy from them. Algorithms don't have wallets. AI can't become a loyal customer. Machines don't have friends to refer. And yet here we are, feeding platforms content for content's sake, prompting AI to write posts designed to perform well inside systems built by other machines. I call that the algorithm trap. And this show is about getting out of it. In this first episode, I introduce the idea behind Anti-Viral and the marketing philosophy I've been building for the past ten years, which I call Human Marketing. It's less a strategy and more a reorientation. It starts with one simple premise: people are not numbers, and treating them like people is actually good marketing. I talk about why most small businesses grow through referrals at the start, and how that same relationship logic gets abandoned the moment they try to scale. Why reports are useful but deeply limited. Why marketing and sales are not the same job. And why the best metric you can build toward isn't clicks or impressions, but trust. --- This show is hosted by Jiun Liao, owner of Lobo Media Marketing: website: https://lobomedia.ca (https://lobomedia.ca) newsletter: https://lobomedia.ca/subscribe/ (https://lobomedia.ca/subscribe/) --- Chapters 00:00 The Algorithm Trap: Understanding Marketing's Disconnect 02:36 Human Marketing: Building Relationships Over Numbers 08:56 The Stages of Relationship Building in Marketing 17:45 The Shift from In-Person to Online Marketing 23:55 Being Real: The Key to Standing Out 26:01 Navigating the Post-Algorithmic Marketing Landscape 30:03 Intentional Marketing: Quality Over Quantity

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

19 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

2 ratings