Episode 10
· 01:11:14
Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us for the latest installment of the Brick Marketing Live Podcast. Where we talk about all things digital marketing, AI marketing, SEO, content marketing, social media, industry trends, and things that we feel are very important that you should all know about. So I would like to welcome the Brick Marketing team, Catherine and John. Thank you for joining us.
Nick Stamoulis:So let's get started. First topic of today is an article actually from search engine land. What 1,000,000 keywords reveal about AI's impact on search. So I thought this was a really great article. And it basically, in a nutshell and I I encourage everyone read it at search engine land.
Nick Stamoulis:It's about it's according to search engine land, it takes about a nine minute read. So it's it's pretty in-depth. But basically, it was a large study scale study, essentially, that analyzed search behaviors in which industries are increasing demand from traditional SEO to AI search and which ones aren't by industry. Tons of great data here. I think, you know, and and rather than kinda getting in the weeds kinda talking about it, because it's just there's so much great data here.
Nick Stamoulis:The I think the end result that I see is something that we've seen at Brick Marketing with our clients, which is search is redistributing, not dying. I mean, seems like for maybe about ten years or so or maybe longer, I always see these, you know, industry folks always say, oh, SEO is dead. SEO is dead. SEO is no longer effective. That's not the case.
Nick Stamoulis:Search is search like we've been talking about. And search is redistributing, not dying. So yeah. So, Katherine, John, what do you all think on this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yeah. We've been observing for a while that people's search behavioral patterns appear to be shifting and changing because of AI, but that has all just been observation up until now. Now data and studies and things coming out that basically validate what we've been seeing. And I feel like this article shows some nice information that gives us some concrete data for what we've been observing for a while now.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. Yeah. It really it truly does. John, what do you what do you think on this one?
John:Yeah. We've talked about it a lot. It's just the way that people are searching is completely different. And I feel like that goes, you know, deeper into just overall patterns with, you know, how people are how how people are are using, you know, LLMs and all that sort of stuff to find information. And, yeah, it's interesting to see how now there is, you know, people reporting on that and there is actual data to support that.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. Yeah. It's so again, I encourage everyone to check it out on the Search Engine Land website. Moving on. Next article is one from the MTC, Insights for Modern Marketers website entitled short form video ads leading b to b marketing conversions in 2026.
Nick Stamoulis:I thought this was wonderful because what it's doing is it's essentially talking about b to b marketing, specifically how traditional marketing strategies that have previously worked really well, demand generation type activities have lost their edge in today's Gen AI kind of world that we're in. And specifically, what it talks about is that video ads, short form video ads tend to be doing really well from a conversion perspective. I mean, we're seeing it with clients. We're seeing with clients. We're seeing with in our own social media, not necessarily maybe in the lens of ads, but short form videos for b to b actually work extremely well.
Nick Stamoulis:And that's something, again, that's very refreshing to see Because for years we've heard from our b2b clients, many like the same thing over and over, which is, oh, video doesn't really work for our industry. It's really boring. It can't possibly work. Know, now thanks to AI, it is working. People are especially in the b to b world, they're craving real connection.
Nick Stamoulis:And even if that means in short form video format, whether it's a video ad as this article alludes to, but also just in general from a social media perspective, that short form videos do work on the b to b side of things. So what do you both think on this? Care to chime in?
Katherine Tsoukalas:I I feel that video has always had the potential of doing well. But prior to this AI era, it has taken a lot of resources to assemble a video. And now with technologies changing, not necessarily even because of AI, But now with technologies changing and the process getting easier, it's gotten more accessible, but also the human connection element too. Having a person sit there and talk is a surefire way to prove that you're not generating it's not AI generated content, and people want that authenticity.
Nick Stamoulis:I agree. I agree. And and I think your point about it's the barrier to entry, I would say, for videos is a lot easier now. I think all these wonderful AI tools, literally, every AI platform helps with videos, whether it's editing, whether it's, know, removing different, you know me even saying, you know. Removing little things like that or creating transcripts, creating subtitles and videos, even the video production pieces themselves.
Nick Stamoulis:Like, John, all the stuff you work on for Brick and our clients. I mean, all of the tools that you use, they're awesome tools. Five years ago, it was so labor intensive for us to, you know, include video in any way, shape or form. So I I think it's great. I really think it's great, and it's nice to see the industry starting to really kinda catch up on that, hey, it works great.
Nick Stamoulis:So Yep. So, John, what do you think?
John:Yeah. Not only that, but people are just watching videos, especially short form all day, whether they're, you know, on a bus or train or something like that, or sitting on their couch. And since the videos are so short, they're just, you know, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. So it's just a place for you to be. And I think that if you're posting short form content, you're just going to show up in the right places at the right times.
John:So it makes sense that a lot of people are starting to do content in short form.
Nick Stamoulis:Absolutely. Absolutely. So I believe that this trend will continue. No doubt. Especially where we know, for instance, video on YouTube helps from an AI perspective, from an AI search perspective.
Nick Stamoulis:Video on Reddit helps as well and content on Reddit helps. So it'll be interesting to see. But again, this is just really a positive thing, I believe. So moving on, next is an article on our website. But before we get to that, I just wanna remind everyone that we are streaming this live, the Brick Marketing Live Podcast.
Nick Stamoulis:We stream it live on the Brick Marketing website at brickmarketing.com/live. Also, this will be available later today on all major podcast platforms. So I recommend everyone that finds this in any way, shape, or form, follow, tell all your colleagues, tell all your friends that are interested about the Brick Marketing Live Podcast. Essentially, go to any platform, search for brick marketing, and you'll find it. So moving on, there's an article on the Brick Marketing website.
Nick Stamoulis:Why AI search visibility is a business advantage. And the gist of this article that we published essentially talks about how AI search is a new emerging industry here, right, marketing medium. We've we talk about this over and over and over, but it it absolutely is a business advantage. I can't tell you how many companies that I see. Not just companies themselves, but agencies, colleagues, other firms.
Nick Stamoulis:AI search isn't even on their realm. Right? Like, I've seen it literally. Other marketing agencies, digital marketing agencies, SEO firms, they don't even mention AI in the mix. We know that a you know, SEO is SEO, but a AI, it's a different medium than SEO.
Nick Stamoulis:What works for us traditional modern SEO doesn't necessarily work as well for AI search. The point is businesses should be investing in this. We sound like a broken record, literally. We say the same thing over and over because it's true. We see still see so many companies that are reluctant and hesitant and quite frankly, I believe afraid.
Nick Stamoulis:Afraid of change, afraid of a new marketing medium. But look, the way we see it and the way our clients see it is it's a business advantage. You wanna be where your competitors are and aren't. And if not a lot of larger companies and enterprise companies are ramping up their AI SEO or generative engine optimization or answer engine optimization efforts, you absolutely should. And so that's the point of this article in the Brick Marketing site.
Nick Stamoulis:So, Katherine, John, if you wouldn't mind chiming in on this one.
Katherine Tsoukalas:So it takes forever for a lot of businesses to implement something new. I I understand that. It has to be in the budget. It should have been in the budget for this year. We're in you know, we're we're midway through the year, a little bit more than that at this point.
Katherine Tsoukalas:So it's time to get it in the budget. If you really can't carve out the space for it for 2026, do it for next year. But it's I'm not gonna say it's too late because it's never too late, but you wanna get there before your competitors do. Just like this article
Nick Stamoulis:It's so true. And here's the thing. Like SEO, like content marketing, like email marketing, like social media marketing, they're all building process type marketing medium. So what that means is it's they're they compound results and they take time, especially, you know, if your company's b to b and, you know or even if it isn't b to b. If it's b to c and you have a a longer sales cycle for your products or services that you're selling, Right?
Nick Stamoulis:By the time you know, it could take six months to ramp up your efforts properly for AI search and gen having a good citation program, having a content marketing strategy that aligns with SEO and GEO and the outcomes that you're looking to accomplish from a business perspective takes time to do all of that work and implement it. And it's not a quick thing. It's not advertising. So the point is the quicker you start that process, the quicker you'll see results on the back end of it and actually see growth and outcomes that you wanna accomplish. So
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yeah. And that doesn't necessarily mean you'll have to spend money. You might have to carve out some time to start thinking about these things, and it isn't necessarily going to be a money thing. It depends on your situation, but you do have to use resources for it.
Nick Stamoulis:So Oh, yeah. Yeah. Start now. And, also, it's changing. Just because something is changing quickly doesn't mean you don't do it.
Nick Stamoulis:That means you wanna get in on it, but then work with companies like us, quite frankly, that are experts at this, that can help you as it evolves and adjusts and changes, which it's it's most certainly gonna change in the next six months, next year, next two. It already has a year ago from where we were a year ago to now. But, you know, but now, you know, again, the time is now, literally. So, John, what do you think on this one? Get your thoughts.
John:I think the good thing, especially for people who are a little bit hesitant or a little bit late to the trend, so to say, is that if you already have good SEO, you already have a good basis to jump off of. And you don't have to invest, like Catherine said, a lot of money into it. You just have to sort of go in and and retool what you already have to fit better for AI search. Right? So it's not necessarily, you know, an incredible money sink or time sink.
John:You just have to be intentional about how you're doing it. And and even just getting, like, a basic level of AI search visibility is going to be helpful in the long term and just starting. Yep.
Nick Stamoulis:Absolutely. Agreed. Moving on. Next, article from Search Engine Journal. Great article.
Nick Stamoulis:Should I block AI crawlers or measure their value first? So this is an interesting article. So for those of you that don't know what the heck we're talking about, the AI, like search engines, search engines crawl content. The AI agents are bots essentially that they're learning mechanism that's different. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:They're not it's not algorithmic in nature, but they actually crawl content on your website at different levels. And and so this article goes in into the details and talks about the different types of AI crawlers. There's an AI training bots, search indexing bots, user triggered fetches, and then it talks it gives a whole scenario about blocking AI bots. So So those of you that ask, well, why the heck would I want to block it? Right?
Nick Stamoulis:If I'm doing all this work optimizing, right, having an AI SEO or a gender of engine optimization or answer engine optimization type of strategy, why would I wanna block them? So where I where this is stemmed from are publishing type websites. So publishers that publish content into their informational in nature, news websites, blogs that have massive amounts of content that essentially have taken a hit in traffic from SEO. Right? We this concept of zero click search, which we talk about.
Nick Stamoulis:And, you know, AI kinda eating into their kinda market share of traffic. Now in my opinion, if you're generating revenue on your website through advertisements, then you may wanna look at something like this because you may not be getting credit. They may be utilizing your content that you've spent a lot of time, effort, and resources building, and you're not getting any traffic or compensation from that. But even if you are even in many scenarios, and I would say if you're not an advertising supported site, in my opinion, let the crawlers crawl your site. Let the AI bots crawl your site.
Nick Stamoulis:Because the reality is even if you don't get that initial traffic now, what you're getting is brand visibility. What you're getting is you're building your brand and you're associating it contextually at a massive scale. And so in my mind, like on on the Brick Marketing website, for our clients, I would never want to block, my opinion, an AI crawler. Why do you want to mess with that? That's my opinion.
Nick Stamoulis:Again, if you're a you know, if you own a large blog or, you know, or an informational type site that's advertising supported and you get a few million uniques a month on your site and you know that, okay, since AI in the advent of AI Answers and and all the AI LLM platforms out there, because of that, I'm not getting, you know, Gemini, people going to chat in Gemini, and I'm not getting the traffic anymore. And you have direct evidence of a traffic hit blocking those crawlers, what's going to happen? You're still not going to get that revenue back. Right? What's going to happen?
Nick Stamoulis:Right? Not you know? Now you're just not going to be cited as much, which again, I I don't see as I see as a very short short term type of short minded thinking, I would say. I don't know. My opinion on this, I mean, it's a great article.
Nick Stamoulis:It brings a lot a nice debate in my opinion, but I personally wouldn't block any AI crawlers on any website. So but I don't know. Catherine, John, what are your opinions on this?
Katherine Tsoukalas:I'm trying to figure out the motivation behind why somebody would even think that they need to block it because all the evidence that we are seeing suggests that in order to take ourselves to the future and to the next next level on our our marketing and our visibility, we need to embrace AI, and we would need to let the crawlers do their thing. However, there are special exceptions. There always will be. One that I can think of is if there's perhaps some outdated content on a site that you don't want the crawlers to touch because we know from experience that that can cause the drift that we discuss all the time, some inaccurate information. Also, if content is behind a paywall or something like that Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:A block to the crawler is gonna be good because you don't want people to get that information through AI answer situation or something. You want that information to be protected. Other than that, I would say if you have a business, you want your content seen because AI needs to see it. They need to see your website as the most accurate source out there for who you are and what you do. Yeah.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And you can't block that.
Nick Stamoulis:I think an analogy to this, Catherine, is you know how in Google Search Console from an SEO perspective, you can block countries from right? That's an exact analogy. I don't recommend blocking countries. So, like, for instance, on some of our client sites that are large sites, we've had spam issues from certain countries. And what we what how do we deal with that?
Nick Stamoulis:We don't go to Google and block it. Why would we do that? We go to the server level, go to the CDN, and have the CDN block them right away, like a Cloudflare or something like that. You can block those countries. And so it's I think it's a very similar scenario on this.
Nick Stamoulis:I just we'll just leave let it go. Leave it open. I mean, and if you're worried about monetization, I mean, it's just is not the way to go about it, my my my opinion. John, what do you think on this?
John:Yeah. I'd say for like 95 plus percent of businesses, you're gonna benefit from crawlers and showing up in AI answers and stuff like that. But I think that for a very certain type of business or type of person who might have their own website or whatever, it might not be good for them. Like you said, paywalled content and things like that. But also maybe if you're an artist and don't want your art to be training AI models so that they can replicate your art style or things like that, you might want to consider blocking them because that would, you know, directly hurt, you know, how you make, you know, your money or the perceived quality of your own work if AIs are able to scrape and then copy what you've been able to create.
Nick Stamoulis:Exactly. Agreed. Good point. Moving on. Next is an article, a really good one from Forbes, forbes.com.
Nick Stamoulis:Five reasons why identity is becoming b two b marketing's most critical asset. So let me read through it. This is a great article. It says, first key point is b two b marketing systems aren't built for today's buyers. It then goes on to talk about how we have more data than ever, but it's not connected.
Nick Stamoulis:Attribution is often an identity challenge in disguise. An omnichannel success depends on continuity. That was a huge point. And identity will shape the next era of b to b marketing. And it goes in and talks about how connecting the customer journey will be a competitive advantage, that blurring the line between b to b to b and b to c audience strategies will continue to happen.
Nick Stamoulis:So I think it's a great article. The key points here that really stood out for me is it's true. B to b marketing systems right now are not built the way people are shifting on how they buy, how they do business, and it's all related to AI. People are now like in the b to b world. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:We see it with our clients. We've seen it for years now, actually, several years with our clients that before in the past, you know, you would have really great content and maybe a good SEO presence with some good CTAs and maybe you launch a PPC campaign and maybe you know, do a little bit of trade show marketing. You know, you have a white paper campaign thrown in the mix, maybe a webinar and you're good. You're literally good. You you really don't need to do much more than that.
Nick Stamoulis:Your pipeline's nice and full and, you know, you know, in the b to b side. But now it's different. You need all of what I just mentioned, but on top of that, you need to understand who you are as a company. What does your brand look like? Right?
Nick Stamoulis:Attribution is true. You it's hard to attribute where leads are coming from on the b to b side of things right now. Google is actually doing a good job. Google Search Console is rolling out AI search visibility reporting in Google search console, which is great. But again, it's not tying it all together.
Nick Stamoulis:You know, you can't easily go into a platform and say, oh, all these conversions came from AI search. Not the case. People, it's taking the traditional b to b funnel and flipping it on its head completely. Upside down. Completely.
Nick Stamoulis:Where it's like, okay, someone may see, and this is why we advise our clients, investing in branding is essential today. Investing in multichannel prong approach to your digital marketing and all your marketing is essential. But then understanding that, hey, just because your SEO isn't driving the traffic it used to or the leads it used to, you still need that good precedence. That's a credibility factor. Some of your potential customers are seeing your brand there.
Nick Stamoulis:They may not click. They're seeing it. They then go to Chatter, Gemini, or Claude. They're searching, doing research, deep research. Not surface level, but deep level research.
Nick Stamoulis:They're seeing your brand come up in in overviews. Then they then they they see it's not linked. They do it to direct visitor. So the point is, I think that b two b marketing b two b marketing has always been slower to change. It just it has.
Nick Stamoulis:You know? Where b two c tends to be at the forefront for two reasons. One, it's lower dollar value products and services. And typically, there's much shorter sales cycles. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:If someone is looking to, you know, is promoting a plumbing company, for instance, or a heating company or something like that has like so, okay. Your heating system or your AC system doesn't work. That's an immediate fast thing. That's not a you know, there may be people that are researching for future. Oh, we need a new furnace.
Nick Stamoulis:But they usually doesn't get to that once it gets to that critical point, then they need to go and they need to research and get it done fast. B to b to a certain extent tends to be a lot longer, higher dollar value, longer sales cycle. So the point is, I think this is a great article at forbes.com, but b to b marketing is definitely slow. But those of you that are b to b marketers, definitely continue to innovate, continue to test, continue to invest in all these new marketing mediums. Just because it's new, nothing to be afraid of.
Nick Stamoulis:It's like you have to test it, continue to evolve your marketing. So, Catherine, John, what do you what do you both think on this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Prior to AI intervening on the way we gather information, we have been lulled into a false sense of security that all of the things that had worked will always work. Mhmm. This means our identity too. We let our identity and our branding sort of not slip, but we haven't really looked at it or identified it or made any changes or made sure it was strong enough until it became crucial because AI requires that you have a strong brand in order to be visible. So we're seeing that all of these marketing activities that we probably should have been nurturing and working on all along, now we're at the point where we've been coasting.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And we as a collective, not us necessarily because we've helped our clients through this all along. But now all these things that we maybe have let slip, we shouldn't have let slip in the first place. Now it's become important to look at it again Right. Because it's important again. But we always needed identity.
Katherine Tsoukalas:We always needed strong brands to have a place in our market, and we just need it more now than ever because of how important it is for AI visibility.
Nick Stamoulis:Absolutely. John, what are your thoughts?
John:Yeah. Definitely, who you are and what you do is the most important thing in like the time of AI. Right? Because that's how AI also knows you. Right?
John:It's going online and figuring out who you are and what you do. And if it's not consistent everywhere, it's going to get confused. And that's why that's becoming more and more important in that sense. And then there's, you know, directly to customers. For myself, I'm looking at who a company is rather than exactly what they do.
John:Right? I'm going to find a company that or a list of companies that do what I'm looking for. Then I'm going to look at each one who they are and decide based on their identity who I'm going to choose. Especially during the time of AI where you can go to a website and not really know if it's done by people or the service that you're paying for is being done by AI. Right?
John:So you need to have those markers on your website or social medias that you are real people and your brand is real people doing real things because if those markers aren't there, then people are going to be turned away from it.
Nick Stamoulis:Agreed. Yeah. It's great points. It's very, very true. Moving on.
Nick Stamoulis:Article on the Brick Marketing website. Does your marketing strategy drive business growth? So the point of this article that we're trying to get to here is we see the same thing. It's amazing. How many years we've been doing this, how many companies we've worked with, and not all, but some still don't get the fundamentals done correctly.
Nick Stamoulis:And that is understanding what are the goals of the business? What are the goals of the marketing? What outcomes do you want to accomplish with every channel of your marketing? Whether it's digital marketing or offline marketing. And, you know, as we said in the article, there needs to be a purpose.
Nick Stamoulis:Right? And so how many times we see, you know, companies and they they, I would say, silo their marketing? They'll put them in little buckets and just leave them kinda fester on their own separately. They need to be integrated, working in a coordinated fashion over time, and they need to be tied in together. So I think this article is really you're really trying to talk to business owners that, you know, may have forgotten some of the fundamentals.
Nick Stamoulis:Because let's face it, you know, if you're c suite or if you, you know, you own a small business or a mid sized company, you didn't go to school for marketing most. Right? You're not a expert marketer. Sure you understand how to sell obviously and you're a marketer, I'm sure, to a certain degree, and you have vision for your company, whatever it happens to be. But these fundamentals of marketing are so important.
Nick Stamoulis:I don't care what business it is, how long they've been in business, whether they're a startup, well funded, bootstrapped, or established brand, these are things that need to be revisited on a regular basis. So, Katherine, John, what do you all think on this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:A lot of times, c suite of a company doesn't quite understand what marketing does. I'm just gonna say it. We've all seen it happen before.
Nick Stamoulis:We've talked about it, Katherine, over the years. We really have.
Katherine Tsoukalas:There have been some weird stories that have come across my ears of companies telling marketing to do random things like take photographs and create a Christmas card to distribute internally because, oh, marketing's in charge of communications. Right? Okay. I think the end result of what marketing does means that they are communicating, but what they should be doing is communicating to your audience Right. To grab potential business.
Katherine Tsoukalas:So if marketing is not aligned with business growth, then all it is is marketing sitting and talking about a bunch of random things that look like it might relate to the company. But if marketing is aligned with business growth, then it's all of the activities are gonna be connected, and marketing should be used for what it could do best, which is attract potential customers. Get them in your pipeline. Get them going. Get some leads.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Give your leads to the sales team. But if c suite doesn't understand that marketing is part of the process of creating business growth, then that's a completely underutilized department, and you're totally missing out on what could be possible.
Nick Stamoulis:Yep. Agreed. John, what do you think?
John:Yeah. I definitely think that there's a disconnect between, like, you know, people who don't necessarily 100% know what marketing is, and they might think it's like one small bubble, or they also might, like overexpect that marketing can do different things, like Catherine was saying. And I think that as a marketer, you need to be able to communicate what that is and what you can potentially be doing. And a lot of the times, you're you're gonna get, you know, you might get rejected, whatever they're they might think that your idea or your strategy might not be for them, but I think that it's something that you still have to do. You have to keep coming with new ideas and and new ways of of marketing and and doing these things to help drive business.
John:And even if you're not going to get the credit for it in the end, in the eyes of some people, I guess you still have that, you know, self motivation in a way.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. Yeah. Great point. Moving on. Next article, a really good one, Search Engine Journal.
Nick Stamoulis:This is interesting. Google data shows AI search users moved past keywords. Your content hasn't. So great article. The I recommend everyone check it out at Search Engine Journal.
Nick Stamoulis:But I'll tell you the point of this article is a very important point, which is content that's been created on many many sites. Right? Many people for years created so much content and it was all geared to, you know, sure, maybe for your audiences, which is we recommend obviously, always. It should be for your audience first. That's the approach that we take at Brick Marketing.
Nick Stamoulis:But many brands haven't taken that approach. They they would just create a volume situation of content that may help them from us for from an SEO perspective. And for years, it actually was viable. It did great. It would help you drive traffic.
Nick Stamoulis:The problem is now we're in this a point where all this awesome content that was created for many, many years used to do very well, was very effective from an SEO perspective, and now it's not effective as much from an SEO perspective. But now it's really not effective from an AI search perspective, from an AI SEO perspective. So the point is, how you solve that is what we do on we do this for our clients, which is audit your content. You need to audit your content, look at every piece of content, first of all, and say, is it still viable? Is it still relevant?
Nick Stamoulis:Is it still accurate? Is it does it still align with the outcomes that are looking needed to be achieved? Goal, business goals, marketing goals. Is it still fit into these? If yes, then it's very simple.
Nick Stamoulis:It needs to be optimized, continue to stay optimized from an SEO perspective, but now be optimized not for keywords anymore, but for concepts that are relevant for people as the shift in behavioral shift is moving from traditional modern SEO to AI SEO, general of engine optimization, answer engine optimization, whatever you wanna call it. But as that transition is moving, you got to use that content. So that's the advice here. The advice is it's a great article, but the advice is audit your content. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:If something isn't driving any traffic, longer is relevant, no longer aligns, either rewrite it or delete it. It's that simple. So Cath Catherine, what do you what do think? Know you're the content expert. So what do you think?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Keyword rich content has not been a thing for a long time. No. At least ten years, if not longer.
Nick Stamoulis:Yep.
Katherine Tsoukalas:There was a round Google did issuing penalties to content that displayed keywords too prominently or too, stuffed with keywords. Keyword rich content has stopped working. However, we have been honoring that keywords are still kind of a thing. For me, for a long time, keywords have been used to guide, like, the topic of a piece, and it's not been about the keyword for a long time. It shouldn't have been.
Katherine Tsoukalas:But what is happening now is the intervention of AI on search has caused a complete behavioral shift that wasn't present even when Google was issue issuing all those penalties for keyword rich content. So AI is is forcing us to really honor this and take seriously that keywords should not have been a thing for a while. Yeah. We need to understand that we're always writing for our audience first, like you mentioned. What does the audience need to know?
Katherine Tsoukalas:And if we have stuck with that all along, the transition between AI search and SEO is going to be a lot easier on you. Let's just say it hasn't. Do the audit, see what content has performed, what hasn't performed. But another factor is that what we're also seeing is sales cycle related. A lot of back in the SEO days, people were doing all of the information gathering pretty much on on the site.
Katherine Tsoukalas:So the quicker you can get somebody on your site back then, the better. And this meant that a lot of early to mid sales cycle content, our blogs were filled with it because that's what was gonna attract the people. Now with zero click search, they're not using our site to gather that early stage information. They're using AI search, and they're trusting what AI is saying. So that's been a factor as well.
Katherine Tsoukalas:So how do we navigate that? We figure out how can we alter our content style to honor the new audience. But we have to also make sure that if all of a sudden somebody tells us that questions are what works for AI content, we're gonna end up in another pickle soon as soon as that falls out of favor. So we we can't keep embracing these new rules and change this and change that. But if we stuck to delivering the content our audience wanted to see all along, the transition is so much easier because people get annoyed with incessant questions.
Nick Stamoulis:And that that's a good point, Catherine, because it's not about we always talk about this at Brick. It's not about tactic. It's about strategy. And just like wheel spinning, like, taking all my keyword rich content and now let's make it into chunks of content and FAQ content, q and a content. Oh, that's not working anymore.
Nick Stamoulis:Now what does AI want? AI wants this other type of content. You know, you don't wanna sit and be chasing. You wanna naturally incorporate these newer strategies into your larger content marketing strategy. I think that's the point here.
Nick Stamoulis:So, John, what do you think on that?
John:Yeah. And we talk about a lot about how, like, the mid and late sales cycle content is what people are going to look for on your website the most now, but it's still important to have that early stuff because what is the AI getting its information from? Still need that content on there so people can do that early sales stuff through whatever chat, GBT, or whatever they're using to ask their questions. So it's not completely get rid of all of your old, you know, early sales cycle stuff, rewrite it, retool it for AI, and then it's it still has its use on there. Don't get rid of it.
Nick Stamoulis:I agree. I agree. Moving on. Great article from Marketing Dive. How brands can improve chances of showing up in AI search overviews.
Nick Stamoulis:So the high level overview, it says over 40% of brand citations in organic search results do not appear in AI overviews for the same query, and 28% of brands cited by AI do not appear in organic search results. It says YouTube videos are four times more 4.3 times more likely to appear in AI overviews compared to search results, suggesting that marketers should invest in content on the platform to help AI visibility. Reddit is 3.9 times more likely to be cited in organic. And how a how a query is worded impacts how brands or representatives are in overviews. When it comes to evaluation and how to questions, brands are more likely to show up in organic search.
Nick Stamoulis:Category queries are more likely to produce brand search results at a rate of 63.9% in AI overviews and 55.7% in organic search. So highly recommend everyone go and and read the article at Marketing Dive. But the key takeaway here for me is is that disparity, that kind of that difference of brands being cited and shown in organic search but not an AI search. This literally goes exactly what we've been talking about, about brands needing to invest in both AI search, generative engine optimization, answer engine optimization, and traditional search engine optimization. We are in that transitional area period like we've talked about.
Nick Stamoulis:Behaviors are changing, but that does not mean that SEO is dead. There's billions of people still search on Google. Billions of people still use YouTube as a search engine. So the point is you wanna be visible everywhere, but, you know, and our the approach that we take for our clients is we integrate it as one channel. We optimize for traditional search engines at the same time optimizing for AI platforms, AI overviews, ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Copilot, Claude.
Nick Stamoulis:We optimize for all of them and then build great quality content that resonates with audiences like we've talked about, but also helps in an SEO perspective and helps in the AI search perspective. That is what's needed. And this article literally proves it. This data proves it that the approach that we take is literally the right approach. I mean, it's not about who's right or wrong, but this literally is approach that works.
Nick Stamoulis:Now will this change in the coming years? Most certainly it will. But the point is, you don't wait for it to fully flesh out and change because then your company, your brand, your results are gonna be very much behind. So, again, this is a great article at Marketing Dive. So so, yeah, Catherine John, what do you both think on this?
Katherine Tsoukalas:This is great data. And for me, it helps support our point that you should never put all your eggs in one basket. We've been saying this for years. Yep. It's literally that point showing up in number form because we should be have all we should all have a comprehensive marketing strategy that covers everything.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And there's overlap in activities, for example, strong brand, AI visibility. All of that makes one comprehensive strategy that covers everything. It should cover SEO. It could it should cover grabbing your audience in social media. It should cover AI visibility.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And you need to do all of it, and you need to do all of it equally so that you're not in a situation where you show up one place and not the other, for example. Or if you do show up in one place and not the other, it's not for lack of trying. You have a presence and an attempt out there to be everywhere that you possibly can.
Nick Stamoulis:I agree. I agree. John, what do you think?
John:Yeah. And and adding to that, look at what Brick does. Right? So we we have a YouTube channel where we're constantly uploading videos, and that's great for Gemini because Gemini is Google. YouTube is Google.
John:Right? But then we're using we're we're posting to Reddit daily, which we all know, you know, ChatGBT loves Reddit and, you know, some other LLMs do as well. So it's we're doing it as well, and it kind of you know, it shows that we have good results in all the LLMs. So it kind of proves that, you know, we're doing this, you should be doing this as well.
Nick Stamoulis:Agreed. I agree. Next. So here's a great article. I mean, these are all really good articles, but this one's really good on search engine land entitled why AI deliverables should be judged by outcomes, not effort.
Nick Stamoulis:I thought this was great. So let me let me tell kind of like the high level overview of this article. So article basically talks about, and there's a poll that the author that wrote it essentially put on on his LinkedIn asking if an agency or marketer, in house marketer, used AI to make a to create value and achieve the outcome that you're looking for, would it matter if they used AI or not? And 76% of people said no. So that means they don't care.
Nick Stamoulis:It's it's the about the outcome, So which I think is fantastic. Because let me tell you, at Brick Marketing, as you people but those of you listening, we use AI as a tool to help our clients to scale results, to test things and move things faster, but we do not use it as a replacement for expertise. Right? So myself, Catherine, John, other members in our team, we're the strategists. We use our brain, our experience, our processes that we've spent decades developing.
Nick Stamoulis:And real experience and outcomes that we've achieved with real results before AI, we use all of that knowledge with modern techniques, but AI to help us move it faster. That doesn't mean we use it to write content, but we use it to help us come up with topics. So this is an example. We may use it for video editing. We use it for prep for writing press releases.
Nick Stamoulis:We may use it for coding. The point is, it's not about, you know, those of you that are very like, oh, we don't wanna use AI at all. Here's the thing. We have yet to have a client ask us, do you use AI? And we're transparent.
Nick Stamoulis:We tell people, yeah, we do use AI for certain activities to help create things that are more efficient, to help get the job done a little bit quicker for you. But the but the net result of the guts of what we're doing is still from our brains, our expertise, because that's what you're hiring. You're hiring us to achieve those outcomes and results for you. So the point is, I think this is a great article, but it's so AI deliverables should not be judged by using AI. It should be judged by outcomes.
Nick Stamoulis:And I think it's great. You know? And I actually had someone not too long ago ask me during a he was a potential client. And they said, well, what if we didn't wanna use AI at all? I'd say, no problem at all.
Nick Stamoulis:Price is gonna be triple. Because now writing like a consulting document that you read, you don't need one of our professional copywriters to write. But if we have them write it, it's gonna take forty hours for them to write it. I or I can have AI write it and it'll take maybe two. Your choice.
Nick Stamoulis:You wanna play triple triple the play price? Feel free. It's unnecessary, though. Right? So that's you know?
Nick Stamoulis:And, like and I even see it. You know? Like, for instance, I went to I went to a doctor's appointment not too long ago, and my primary care physician said, do you mind if I use the AI notetaker? I said, absolutely use it. And what did I see?
Nick Stamoulis:He was more engaged with me talking about to me. Right? And in the past, what would he be doing? He'd be sitting, looking at a screen, not making eye contact, typing notes away, going through different things that he had to for the purpose of the doctor's visit. Now he was locked in and focused on what I actually came for, and it was just like he and I talking and it was great.
Nick Stamoulis:So the point is and and to me, I'm like, you're using AI to help you do your job better. We're doing it the same thing. So that's why I thought this was a great article. It was great someone's talking about this because I think it should be talked about, and AI should be used in a responsible way. And I think the way we use it, many others in our industry are using it is great.
Nick Stamoulis:It's the right way to use it, not a replacement. So, Catherine, John, what do you all think on this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yeah. You just need to be responsible. We've been in the industry for a long time. We know what we're doing. We know what good looks like.
Katherine Tsoukalas:You have to know what good looks like. If you know what good looks like, then by all means, use an AI tool to take notes. Use, AI to help you create an outline for a piece of content. Write the content yourself, but use AI to help you in the process to to streamline it, make things easier. I use it for things like making lists of blog posts that would have taken me, generating a list from my brain of 50 to 60 article topics for somebody's blog maybe would have taken me two hours.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Okay. The time is shortened. I go through. I tweak them. I look to see if they make sense.
Katherine Tsoukalas:I know what a good list of blog posts look like. You just have to know what good looks like, and then you can safely and responsibly use AI to make your life easier. Where AI is not good is just using it blindly without knowing Yep. What good looks like, without knowing if it's gonna serve the purpose. But if you know what you're doing, you can definitely use it to save time.
Katherine Tsoukalas:It's the deliverables that matter because it's your audience that you're connecting with.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And if the information is being delivered how they wanna see it, whether you used AI or not to help save you some time, not to replace your brain, but to assist you, like an assistant Right. That we we would have hired.
Nick Stamoulis:Remember remember we and I know you both remember. We were at a trade show not too long ago, and we saw this company. And they were literally an AI marketing company, and it was literally they were, like, replacing. Remember? They said they were, like, bad mouthing traditional agencies.
Nick Stamoulis:And it was like, that is the wrong approach. Because what they're saying is, hey. Get rid of your marketing agency, strategists, people that are experienced, and use these tools. The people that that were selling these tools, and it was it was very spammy. But sure, was a lot less expensive, but I'm pretty sure the outcomes are not gonna be good because they're using cookie they're rebuking cookie cutter techniques, not real strategist.
Nick Stamoulis:There's no real experience or knowledge there. They're just depending on what chat g p c chat g p t or Gemini or Claude says. It's like, yep. Let's give it a go. That's not real marketing.
Nick Stamoulis:That's not real strategy. And so I think this is a there's a major difference between, like you said, Catherine, using as a as an as a Mhmm. Another set of hands to help you move faster, but you're still steering the ship. It's like it's like navigation. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:Do you wanna use a map to get to your destination, or do you wanna use GPS? How do I use GPS? I know how to use an old school map. Do I wanna pull it out and pull over? We're trying to figure it out.
Nick Stamoulis:Not really. Those days are long gone. So
Katherine Tsoukalas:Right. That's so true. If we have the tool, use it. Let's use it. It's a tool.
Nick Stamoulis:Yes. But flip side, again, we we could literally talk about this one topic for an entire podcast. I think we should one day. I think we should maybe do one Brick Marketing Live podcast and just focus on, like, a topic like this. So much things we could talk about with this.
Nick Stamoulis:But, like, I think but on the flip side, you need knowledge too to use these tools. Right? Because if you idly and, you know, and I think that a lot of companies I I mean, I I know they are. They're rolling the dice with using AI to do everything with their marketing, and that's gonna bite them. And just mark my words, and you both will remember this, and everyone that's listening and sees this will remember it.
Nick Stamoulis:In a year or two years, Brick Marketing will still be here to help you pick up the pieces because you'll need it. Right. A nice way to say it. I mean, you will need it. Seriously.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yeah. We don't know the backlash yet. That's why it's better to be responsible and safe and understand how to use it as an assistant, not a replacement because
Nick Stamoulis:Exactly.
Katherine Tsoukalas:For example, that company that we saw advertising, where are these comp the people that use them to replace the agency, quote unquote, where are they gonna be? They might be knocking on our door saying, oh, we hired this company that did a 100% AI, and now now there are penalties and things that we have to navigate.
Nick Stamoulis:Well, it's honestly, Catherine, it's no different than, like, the offshoring of our work over many years. Companies that outsourced all these in other countries at low rates. Right? And then it was very poor quality work, very poor quality results. And then what?
Nick Stamoulis:They became companies like us saying, oh, you and then and then disgruntled and upset about it because they they got taken. Essentially, they wasted money, but what's worse than wasting money is time. In marketing, what's worse than wasting money is time because you can't get that time back. You can make the money back. You can't make the time back.
Nick Stamoulis:So Right. So, John, what do think? Let me get your opinion on this.
John:Yeah. So I I completely agree. I think that a a good example of of this is well, first off, you you need to be an expert at what you're trying to get AI to do to get good results. And a good example of this might be, you mentioned your doctor. Say you Yep.
John:I don't know, have some symptom of something, you're asking ChatGPT, oh, what could I have? Chat GPT is going to give you a whole list of things, including something that is like a point zero one percent chance you have it, and you're going to die in seven days if you do. Right? Right. Your doctor might, for example, might use chat GPT, and they're they're not going to, you know, think of that because why would it be that.
John:Right?
Nick Stamoulis:Right.
John:They're they're going to go through the list, and they're going to choose what, you know, seems to be the most, you know, applicable to you, who you are, where you're from, whatever, what what what you may have. But in some cases, it could also give them something that they may not have thought of, but they have the expertise to decide whether this is something that is something that you could have or or not have, you know. So you need to know and have all the background in whatever you want to use AI to do, whether it's marketing or or being a doctor or doing whatever it may be. Right? So you need to have that that background because if you don't, you're just going to be led astray in some ways and and take advice that might not be actually good.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. Great point. Great point. Alright. Let's move on because I I love this topic.
Nick Stamoulis:I keep talking about it, but we need to move on. I want to take a moment to remind everyone that the Brick Marketing live podcast will be available later today on all streaming platforms. So all major podcast platforms, just search for Brick Marketing. You'll find us. Tell everyone you know about it.
Nick Stamoulis:Follow us and review would be appreciated. So we would appreciate that at any of the podcast platforms. Moving on. Article from Brick Marketing from our website. Aligning social media with b to b buyer journey.
Nick Stamoulis:With the b to b buyer journey. So, essentially, what we're talking about here is b to b social media is different than b to c. Right? So but it still should be understanding who your buyers are. I mean, we it's amazing that we have to say this stuff in 2026 literally about social media.
Nick Stamoulis:Social how long has social media been around? We have about twenty years worth of data at this point in social media. Right? And the fact that we need to actually talk about and remind folks that, you know, you gotta start with your target audiences and you have to build familiarity and trust over time. And it should support all your other channels of marketing.
Nick Stamoulis:These are key points here because what we see many times and especially in the b to b side is, you know, first of all, of consistency. I mean, how long have we talked about that? Of lack of consistent posting, lack of an actual strategy that that supports everything else. And b to b social media should be and is should be a foundational reminding your audience, nurturing your audience of who you what your company is, who you serve, what products and services that you create, period. That's it should not be a place of lead gen.
Nick Stamoulis:Sure. Certain companies might use, a LinkedIn, maybe like a PPC campaign in LinkedIn for lead gen tape campaign, but I have yet to see a b to b social media ad campaign other than on LinkedIn actually drive leads. Prove me if I'm wrong. I see it I see them sometimes in their short term, and we've tested them for many clients over the years. But your organic b to b social media, you need to that consistency.
Nick Stamoulis:And another little note, and then I'll I'll John wanna John and Catherine wanna get your thoughts, but another note is just because you don't like a platform doesn't mean your brand should not be there. And this is something that I think and I still see it. I mean, we've had clients literally. Oh, we don't wanna be on x. Okay.
Nick Stamoulis:You don't like Elon Musk. I get it. But your if your audience physically is that audience, the demographic aligns with it. Right? And you have an established account with followers, why wouldn't you just promote your content that you're promoting on every other channel there too?
Nick Stamoulis:To me, it's very shortsighted and an emotional decision which there should not be an emotional decision when it comes to marketing. It's it should be based on demographics and data and its goal of nurturing underlying. So it's my thoughts on that. So, John, I'll start with you first. John, what do you think on this?
John:Yeah. I think that especially with what you said about being not wanting to go onto a platform because you don't like what for example, like you said, Elon Musk. Right. I think that is very shortsighted, and you need to be everywhere that your audience is because, I mean, it's just another chance for you to get in front of somebody. And I think, for example, with social media, you should be looking at all the different platforms and really assessing which ones you should be on, ones that you might not be on.
John:Right? You might not have a TikTok account yet, but is your audience on TikTok? Would short form content work to reach your audience? Right? Is is your demographic on Instagram?
John:Is your demographic you know, do they tend to use Facebook more often? You need to go through all of these things and decide which ones you want to put the most effort into, but you should be on all of them. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:All of them. All of Absolutely.
John:You should have some sort of content being posted on every platform regardless of whether your audience is, you know, going to be there a lot or not. You should have a presence there because somebody ultimately will be there eventually. But for example, we we post video content the most, I would say. Our our YouTube channel has long form and short form, whereas our TikTok might only have the short form. Right?
John:So you have to Right. Have strategy for each and every platform and decide which ones you want to put a lot more effort into and which ones that you're just going to, you know, do your basic posts on.
Nick Stamoulis:Absolutely. And here, like you said, John, we're on TikTok. Right? And we're b to b. And people are like, oh, TikTok's just for kids.
Nick Stamoulis:No. It isn't. And and and here's the thing. Here's the thing. We're starting to see it, and I'm sure we're gonna see it more and more.
Nick Stamoulis:So Google recently created a Google profile, and it's only for influencers that have a certain number of thousands of followers or certain number of streams seriously. There's a reason for this Because I believe in the next year or two years, we're gonna start to see social media posts, content, and profiles literally show up in AI search. We're gonna start to see it. So the point is even if you're a small company, you're a small brand, you think, oh, that's not you know, I don't have millions of follow you don't need to. Consistently put post your content, connect with your audience, and you're setting yourself up for future too, like I just said for AI search.
Nick Stamoulis:So there's so many reasons to do it. So, Katherine, what do you think really quick? Have a few more articles, and we'll wrap for today.
Katherine Tsoukalas:What is your audience doing on social media? It this goes for leisure and business. I feel like a brand needs to figure this out. A b to b needs to figure this out before they start posting blindly.
Nick Stamoulis:Oh, yeah.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Your business doings need to align with the buyer journey. True. And it's interesting how, this article was published in June 2026, and this is something we always needed to care about. But we're talking about it now, so that's good. But, yes, what is your are people doing there?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Because if people are doing something on social media, you need to always also be doing something on social media. Is your audience on TikTok? Maybe not, but they might be eventually on TikTok. They'll be there. They might be there after hours looking for a concert to
Nick Stamoulis:Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Look at some of the content from a concert. And then if they see incidentally, oh, yeah. I was considering brick marketing earlier today while I was on LinkedIn. What do they have going on on TikTok? Like, you have to be everywhere.
Katherine Tsoukalas:It's just part of the process.
Nick Stamoulis:Absolutely. Absolutely. Moving on. Great article from Inc. Community isn't a marketing strategy anymore.
Nick Stamoulis:It's a business model. So I think this is really a great article. I recommend everyone check it out on inc.com. Essentially, what it's talking about is how building an audience and building a community for your brand is the future. I agree with this a million percent.
Nick Stamoulis:B to b or b to c. So look. At Brick Marketing, right, you you're gonna use us as an example. Okay? We're b to b.
Nick Stamoulis:Right? We're a digital marketing agency in Boston. We offer services, training, consulting. We do a ton of educational webinars and workshops and trainings and all free. We release, you know, strategy guides for free in our website and we write in our blog and we send out a newsletter and, you know, we share a ton like we were just talking about.
Nick Stamoulis:Ton of videos, ton of different places, free information everywhere. What are we doing? We're building a a community, a brick marketing, doing this podcast. Right? Doing this.
Nick Stamoulis:Right? Like, we're not getting paid to do this. I mean, we are. It's part of our job, but we're doing it. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:Like, we're doing it to share our knowledge with other people because we're building a community. So I think that I agree with this a 100%. This is how brands need to think moving forward is you need to build a community, connect with real people in a real way because that's what it's gonna be about moving forward. It's not gonna be about whoever spends the most amount of ad and ad budgets. Yes.
Nick Stamoulis:Your branding is important and it's a necessity, but it's it's not whoever spends the most wins the most anymore. It's whoever has the best solid community is transparent and real, I think is really the model going forward. And that's really kind of what this article gets to. And I thought it was great. And it's literally using us as an example.
Nick Stamoulis:It is it works. And this is the approach we take for our clients and what we recommend. So so, Catherine, John, what do you all think on this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:People are craving human connection, and they have been for a while. And the reason for that, there's probably a lot to unpack. It's probably a combination of things. We're we've been inundated with social media for a while now. We had the pandemic.
Katherine Tsoukalas:AI is making is blurring the lines between reality and electronic generated content. For whatever reason, we want human connection. And as marketers, this is something to keep in mind as we put together our marketing strategies. We need proof that people are behind the brand, and brands need proof that there are people receiving the message. So community is what it's all about, and it always should have been about this.
Katherine Tsoukalas:But for whatever reason, I feel like it's more important than ever.
Nick Stamoulis:I agree. I agree. John, what do you think really quick?
John:Yeah. I mean, how often do say, are we at some sort of event and people come up to us and say, hey, I've seen your videos, I've seen your webinars, I've seen your podcast. It's all a part of that strategy. You have to be doing, you know, all these different things to nurture your community because when it's time for them, you know, when you're somewhere that they are, they're going to come up to you and say something, and that connection's a lot more it's a deeper connection than if you were just not really trying to do that at all. And I'd say now, you know, with AI, like the example I used earlier, going to a website, not knowing who those people are, I'm clicking off right away because it's unclear whether they're real or they're a robot who's posting online or on this website.
John:And being a real person and having a community is going to be very beneficial to you and your business because people are going to have a connection to you rather than the service that you provide. It'll keep them coming back.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. And, you know, and really, that's a great point. And I'll tell you just to add to that. It's a long term play too, building a community. It's not about making the immediate sale.
Nick Stamoulis:It's about connecting with people, like you said, but also then they when they don't have a need right now, but you're nurturing for future, that they'll think of you like, oh, I've seen this company around. I like you said, you know, I I've seen the videos. I've seen their webinars. I've seen their product, whatever. And now I'm ready to hire, and and I'm gonna think of them because they weren't trying to sell me anything.
Nick Stamoulis:And I think that that goes far in today's world, truly. Moving on. Next, great article from Search Engine Land entitled how competitors target your branded traffic with Google Ads. So not gonna get too deep on this. I basically it's a pay per click advertising Google Ads article, so I wanted to just kinda add this one in.
Nick Stamoulis:What's interesting about this is this has been the age old, you know, do you bid on your competitors or do you not? My opinion is you don't do it personally. Many reasons. One is I feel like it's a waste of budget. Some comp some brands choose to say, okay.
Nick Stamoulis:Well, we, you know, we wanna we want our brand to show up every time someone searches for competitive product. The problem is if someone's searching for a competitive product, company name, or brand, they're looking for that product, company, product, brand, or name. They're not looking to a comparison for a different product. To me, in my mind, you might be taking traffic away, but those aren't the right people. They're not gonna convert.
Nick Stamoulis:They're not thinking about using someone else. And if they are, they maybe never would have brought your product or service in the first place. So in my mind, it's it's it's almost like having an I've used this age old analogy for years. Anytime we've had clients that have wanted this, I say, how would you feel if someone put a billboard? Let's just say you have a storefront and someone put a huge billboard right on top of your sign entering your business, how would you feel about that?
Nick Stamoulis:How would you react to that? Now what's your your human nature is gonna be, oh, now we have to defend our position. So now you're gonna take money and give Google more money, spend more money idly. So my opinion this is, again, just my opinion. And you get the article goes in them.
Nick Stamoulis:How to do it? My opinion, I just want to talk about it. I I don't I don't think it's a good ethical business practice. I think it's spammy. I think it's unethical.
Nick Stamoulis:I don't think it's good business. My personal opinion, everyone's entitled to their opinion. So John and John, you go first. What do you think? And Catherine, what do think?
Nick Stamoulis:What do guys think?
John:I don't I don't I don't I feel like I don't have too much to say on this one. I yeah. I I yeah. I'm not too sure.
Nick Stamoulis:K. Catherine, what do you think? What do you think on this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:I feel like it it just doesn't feel good. It doesn't it's not good business karma, so to speak, to really obsess over your competitors. What you should be putting your obsessive energy toward is how to achieve the outcomes that you want, not, oh, I gotta bid this. Oh, this company is doing this. This company is doing that.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Let's put this company in the thing. Maybe if you had a huge budget, but even then, I just don't like the energy that that obsessing over a competitor gives off. You should be a 100% worried about yourself and your outcomes and leave it at that.
Nick Stamoulis:I agree. I agree. Moving on. Two more for today. The next one is actually from Sprout Social, a really great social media tool.
Nick Stamoulis:Again, not a not really a plug, kind of a plug. We use them. So it's a great it's a great platform, Sprout Social. Nine social media marketing tips for small business success. So I'm just gonna read them very quickly here.
Nick Stamoulis:So first one, why social media is nonnegotiable for small business marketing? Define your specific target audience. Focus on quality over platform quantity. Plan ahead with consistent content calendar. Lean into short form video content.
Nick Stamoulis:Engage with your audience in the comments. Leverage user generated content. Partner with local micro influencers. Use data and analytics to pivot quickly. Streamline your workflow with the right tools.
Nick Stamoulis:I think it's and then work smarter, not harder on social media. Great advice from Sprout Social. Great article on their site. And quite frankly, we agree with all of them. We recommend these exact tips to every client, to all of our social media clients that we manage, their social media.
Nick Stamoulis:Having that consistent approach is what wins every time. The consistency wins, being structured and strategic, having that that calendar. Yes. People might think it it's boring, but guess what? The consistent approach is boring, but it's what works.
Nick Stamoulis:The goal is not to go viral. If something's gonna go viral, then let it go viral, but stick to your strategy. So yeah. So enough said on that. I I know we've we've talked a lot about this today, so we'll just move on to the last article.
Nick Stamoulis:Last one for today on the Brick Marketing side, why AI can't replace marketing experience. So again, we've talked about this today already, but this is our take on it on the Brick Marketing website is real marketing experience comes by achieving results, achieving outcomes over time, having actual strategic knowledge, and AI just can't replace that, period. There's nothing else we can say in that. And, I mean, they really can't. I mean, we've talked about it a lot today.
Nick Stamoulis:But yeah. I mean, literally, like, AI, the way we use AI again is we utilize it as a tool to help scale results, get results quicker for our for for our clients and the campaigns we work on, but we do not use it as a replacement nor do we recommend using AI as a replacement for real marketing expertise. So on that note, we've gone over today. So those of you watching us live, we thank you for taking the time this afternoon. We really, really appreciate it.
Nick Stamoulis:Remember, check us out on every major podcast streaming platform tonight. Just search for Brick Marketing. Follow us. Leave a review for the Brick Marketing Live podcast. Our next time we will join you will be next Wednesday.
Nick Stamoulis:Next Wednesday is July 15 at 3PM. So we will see you all then. Until then, we thank you very much, and thanks again.
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