EE510: The 2026 Social Media Playbook for Founders with Michael Corcoran

Michael.

Well, it's free therapy versus free consultancy, isn't it? [laughs]

Free therapy. Welcome back to Free Therapy on the pod.

How are you?

How are you?

I'm good.

Third time's the charm.

Third time's the charm. Um, yeah, I feel every time I'm here, I lose more of myself and gain something else.

You're just re- being reborn-

Yeah

... in a better way.

You, you're like my mentor.

[laughs]

Your pu- public mentor, maybe.

[laughs] Um, yeah, you've had a turbulent couple of years. We, we'll get into that probably the next time. Things are a little bit clearer.

I think, I think we need to stop getting into this stuff-

[laughs]

... because it'd be nice if, uh, people just went, "All right, there's no red-"

You didn't cry this time. That's good

... there's no red flags. Not yet, anyway. I'm so passionate about strategy, I'll cry.

Yes.

Um, yeah, no, it's, uh, yeah, I wouldn't mind spending it 12 months and not having any drama.

Just steady. So, 2026, we're in May now. Um, what is the current state of social?

I think I've thrown this word around a lot of times, and if you wanna beep it out, do, but, like, I think social media to me right now is a steaming sack of shit, but I do see light at the end of the tunnel. Um, I think it's very hard for everyone on these platforms as a whole. Um, think of the, the normal human being and what they're consuming on it. It, it's quite overwhelming. Um, when you also look at the platform owners and how they're using it as a tool to benefit-

Mm

... uh, I would call social media quite fragile. And then you try to be a brand who tries to step into this world to try and build a brand that people want to know, um, and try, and also sell stuff, um, I think it's becoming harder and harder. Um, and what do I mean by fragile ground? I, I mean that, you know, a lot of what's happening on these platforms now and how people are succeeding is driven on outrage and sensationalism. And when you think about [coughs] four or five years ago when I was on the first time and I was celebrating really great work about being outrageous and sensationalizing content on the internet for attention, it was a tool to actually get reach and create tension.

It feels darker, though.

It's mu- Yeah, to me, and it is, and it is different because-

Even now, I have a real issue with TikTok, and back probably then I was like, "Oh, this is kind of cool. It's fun and it's different and it's, it's shorter." Whereas now I'm like, "I don't like it."

I think it's how people are reacting to every piece of content that goes out there is what makes it darker. It's-- You probably had more centered people in the world four or five years ago, at least you'd hope, where you'd see something put out there, they would either like it or they wouldn't, and then there'd be a small pool of people who'd take it out of context for a number of reasons.

Mm.

They either don't like you, they either, uh, you've done something in the past that annoyed them, or there's just dickheads on the internet who likes to do this sort of stuff. But when you see how the world's evolved over the last four or five years, you're either on one side or the other, or at least that's what the platforms and everybody else is