I've Outsourced My Marketing to My Friends. Unfortunately, I Have No Way of Knowing If They're Doing It.

An entirely unhinged approach to marketing a small business in 2026.

I've done something rather ridiculous. I've recruited an entire marketing department.

They're enthusiastic, supportive and seem genuinely excited about the product. They're also unpaid, largely unqualified, and I have absolutely no way of knowing whether they're doing their jobs.

Welcome to Gen + Tonic's latest marketing strategy.

You see, a little while ago, I decided to step away from social media. Not because I hate people. Quite the opposite, actually. I love people. I love conversations. I love hearing what someone's been up to, what they're making, what they're struggling with, what they're excited about.

What I don't particularly love is spending 45 minutes watching strangers reorganise their pantries when I originally opened Instagram to find out what time the local market closes.

So I left. And honestly? It's been lovely.

Except for one teeny, tiny logistical issue.

I'm launching a product.

HAHAHAHAHAHA. Excellent timing, Gen.

The world's first witness protection marketing strategy

I've been working on something called Feel Your Giant Feels. It's a colourful, occasionally sweary card deck designed to help people understand their feelings, find the words for them, and have better conversations.

It's still in development, and I'm gathering a community of curious humans ahead of a planned Kickstarter in 2027. Which means, at some point, I need to tell people it exists.

Traditionally, this is where someone would announce a launch on Instagram, share some stories, check their engagement, obsess over the algorithm and wonder why a photograph of their lunch performed better than six months of creative work.

But I don't have Instagram. Well, technically, I have an account. I just refuse to go in there.

So I've started asking my friends to share things for me. I've made them graphics, written captions and supplied links. I've essentially handed them a little marketing starter pack and said, "GO FORTH, MY BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE."

Exhibit A: The official marketing materials distributed to my entirely unsupervised workforce. Please note the complete absence of reporting requirements.

And then realised something.

I WON'T KNOW IF ANY OF THEM ACTUALLY DO IT.

Not a clue. They could be sharing it with hundreds of people. They could be sharing it with their mums. They could be forgetting entirely because their toddler has just poured yoghurt into the couch. All entirely reasonable possibilities.

Meanwhile, I'll be over here making cups of tea, designing cards and occasionally checking my mailing list like a detective investigating a particularly wholesome crime.

"WHO ARE YOU? HOW DID YOU FIND ME? WAS IT CANDLES!?"

Introducing my unpaid marketing department

To be clear, these people are legends. They've offered to share something I'm making simply because they believe in it. No affiliate codes, no commission, no influencer contracts. Just people helping another person get something off the ground.

Although I am considering implementing a performance review system.

"Thank you for your service, Sharon. Unfortunately, we've noticed a concerning lack of screenshots."

KIDDING. Mostly.

The whole thing is a little bit hilarious, but it's also making me think.

What if we don't need to see everything?

Social media has made it incredibly easy to measure things. Views, likes, shares, reach, engagement. We can watch people interact with our work in real time, and sometimes that's useful.

But sometimes I wonder whether all that measuring gets in the way of the actual thing we're trying to do.

Connect.

Because when someone shares something with a friend, recommends a small business over coffee, forwards an email, or says, "Hey, I think you'd really like this," something lovely happens.

A little bridge gets built.

And I don't necessarily need to stand there counting everyone who walks across it. I just need to keep making something worth sharing.

Which, incidentally, feels rather fitting for a card deck about human connection.

So here's the experiment

I'm going to see whether I can build a little community around Feel Your Giant Feels without returning to social media. With emails, stories, conversations, people telling people, and an entirely unregulated, unpaid marketing department operating independently across Australia.

Will it work? NO IDEA.

Will I know who's doing the sharing? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Will I continue checking my mailing list and interrogating new subscribers in my imagination? ONE HUNDRED PERCENT.

But perhaps that's part of the fun.

And if you happen to stumble across this blog because somebody sent it to you, please know that somewhere out there is a very proud, completely unsupervised member of my marketing department.

Give them a raise.

Oh wait. They're volunteers.

P.S. If you'd like to see what all this nonsense is actually about, you can have a peek at Feel Your Giant Feels here:

https://www.genandtonicart.com/feel-your-giant-feels

You can join the interest list, follow the development, or put your hand up to help trial the cards.

P.P.S. If you're one of my friends reading this, consider this your official annual performance review.

You're doing amazing, sweetie.

Probably.

I have absolutely no evidence.