Episode 13
· 01:20:12
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Brick Marketing Live Podcast. We're here with you live on Wednesday, August 18. The Brick Marketing Live Podcast available on the brickmarketing.com/live website in all major podcast platforms. I'd like to welcome our Brick Marketing team, Katherine and John.
Nick Stamoulis:Hello. It's been a it's been a few weeks. It's been a few weeks. I had a lovely vacation, but now it's time to get back back to work over here. So alright.
Nick Stamoulis:So let's dive in. First topic article that we're gonna review today on our podcast is an article that we actually wrote on the Brick Marketing blog entitled create content That Converts. And essentially, what we're trying to convey in this article is high quality content should solve real problems, and businesses and brands should be creating content that attracts the right audiences that makes sense for their businesses and should also be aligned with goals, business goals, marketing goals at a high level. And it's interesting that, you know, it's here it is, 2026, and we're writing, it seems at at the surface level, a very basic article about content creation. But I'll tell you, it's it's these are reminders that are extremely important and important to every business, especially now.
Nick Stamoulis:Right? Especially, you know, kind of, you know, the craziness that's happening in SEO, know, with the AI SEO world, how content is changing, you know, whether it's human edited content, human created content, which we always recommend, or AI generated content that a lot of brands unfortunately are using, the basics still are literally the most important thing. And that's why we wrote this one. So, yeah. So Catherine, John, what do you all think on this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:So it does seem on the surface that this is a basic article to talk about. We have seen it over and over again that people often create content without thinking of it in terms of their strategy.
Nick Stamoulis:Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:When it's not when you don't take a step back like that, your content is just a bunch of words strung together, and you lose your audience. You miss the opportunity to truly connect with them the way that they want to be connected with.
Nick Stamoulis:Right, so true. It really is true. I mean, see it all the time, clients and companies and brands that are kind of, are just the kind of shooting, you know, throwing stuff at a wall and seeing what sticks and that and and content that is not effective. There needs to be a there needs to be a cohesive strategy behind it. And that's consistent for sure.
Nick Stamoulis:Yep. Yeah. So, John, what are you what are your thoughts on this?
John:Yeah. You you need to figure out, you know, who your audience is and what they would want from you so that you can tailor whatever type of content you're making, whether it's videos or advertisements or articles. You you need to tailor them specifically to the people that you're actually trying to reach. Because I I feel like sort of like this article says, sometimes people just create content to create it with no thought, and then they post it. Nobody really sees it.
John:Nobody, you know, finds about, you know, finds out about their brand because of it. They're just sort of throwing things out into the ether, hoping that it will finally reach someone. When if you have a, you know, a very cohesive strategy, you know who you're trying to reach, you know the things that they like that make them tick, that make them want to choose you. So then at least when the algorithms and whatever, however you're trying to reach people, when those finally find the right people, then, you know, it's the correct content for them.
Nick Stamoulis:Exactly. Correct. Exactly. Yep. Could have said it better.
Nick Stamoulis:So just just a reminder to everyone. So, obviously, as I mentioned, we are streaming this live on the brickmarketing.com slash live on our website. But also this will be available later today on all major podcast platforms and also will be made available on the YouTube channel, the Brick Marketing YouTube channel as well. So just wanted to remind everyone of that. Moving on.
Nick Stamoulis:A really great article from Search Engine Journal entitled, why scaled AI content fails? Google's crawl economics explained. This is a fantastic article, one that we found that's a little bit different because what we're seeing a lot of these days is people kind of explaining rightfully so how scaled AI content does fail and all the reasons why, right? That it doesn't have any soul or it's not like we were just talking about targeting the right audiences with purpose and having a cohesive strategy. Sometimes there's lack of all of that when there's scaled content being created.
Nick Stamoulis:This article at Search Engine Journal essentially talks about at a high level how Google is crawling. And some expert the expert who wrote this basically goes into a little bit of a technical aspect as to various signals that Google's algorithm looks at from an SEO perspective and also from an AI SEO for Gemini or AI overviews for scale content. And then basic and things that will lead to abuse, which we're starting to see quite a bit of, unfortunately. Anyway, it's a really great article at Search Engine Journal. A little bit technical, but definitely a great read and definitely recommend it.
Nick Stamoulis:Everyone kind of checking it out. So Catherine, John, what do you both think on this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:So when you go online and somebody posts an article or something that might perhaps be generated by AI, it's interesting to read the comments saying, okay. This is just another AI swap. Right. Something that they're forcing us to read. Nobody wants to read it.
Katherine Tsoukalas:So this article is very timely because it's showing the technical aspects of why you really need to pay attention to your content. Okay. Just because AI exists and it can make our lives easier, and it can if you use it correctly, you still have to make sure that you're putting out quality content that connects with your audience. That's always gonna be the number one. It has been the number one forever.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Twenty years, whatever. Whenever SEO first came onto the scene and all the evolutions of the algorithms and all that, the one thing that has stayed true is that we need quality content. But it's it was nice to read an article where they broke it down technically. Why is this particular situation unique, and what do we do about it? So good read.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. Definitely is. John, your thoughts?
John:Yeah. No matter how hard you try to, like, prompt your AI to write good content for you, it's always going to come out generic. Pretty much no matter like I said, no matter how hard you try, it's going be generic. And nobody wants to read that because it's all advice they've heard millions of times already. Why do they want to read it again?
John:So it sort of makes sense that, like, on Google's side, why that sort of stuff might be dinged in some way. But at the same time, nobody wants to read it. So that's another layer of it not being content that's worth being pushed out there. Because on multiple fronts, you're not really servicing anybody.
Nick Stamoulis:Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, it's it's just because you can create massive volumes of content using AI doesn't mean you should.
John:Mhmm.
Nick Stamoulis:Really. Right? So alright. Moving on. Next.
Nick Stamoulis:Great article from Search Engine Land. I thought this was great. It it says the 113,000 paid search test. How much traffic did organic replace? And basically, what what this article is about is there was a an individual the folks who wrote this did a test where for thirteen weeks, they turned off their pay per click advertising, their Google Ads campaign essentially, and they spent a 113,000 a month.
Nick Stamoulis:And then they observed what happened. And what happened is it's crazy. Right? Like, you know and it says the question that makes paid search hard to turn off. There's always the but what if.
Nick Stamoulis:Right? Like, what if the ad at the top of the page makes someone trust the brand a little bit more? What if seeing paid and organic together gives us more real estate on the SERP? What if competitors start bidding on our name? What if paid search pay what if turning paid off doesn't move the click downstairs to organic, but makes the click disappear entirely?
Nick Stamoulis:Really valid what ifs. Right? It's it's what ifs we've seen and addressed over the years. But this is really a fantastic example, fantastic read, great scenario. And it says here the impact, the 89 defense 89% defense and 11% off sense.
Nick Stamoulis:It says here on queries where paid in organic overlapped, organic was already winning 7071% of the clicks even with the ads running. Of, it says here, of the 36,000 spent on brand, in the branded campaign, only 3,000 whatever, 10% appeared to buy clicks organic tried to buy clips that organic couldn't have captured. It says the other 32,000 is brand defense. And it says here that nearly 9 out of $10 were going towards traffic the company was already positioned to receive, which I think is fascinating. I just think this is It's just, again, it's really detailed.
Nick Stamoulis:It's actually a very long read, but it's one that's absolutely fantastic. So I recommend everyone go and really check it out at search engine land. But I'll tell you, we've done these types of things over the years. We've had clients that depend so much on PPC, so much on Google ads, and they're afraid to turn it off. And we've done these types of tests, not at this scale, not with that dollar spend.
Nick Stamoulis:But I, again, I just think it's fascinating. My opinion, and I definitely want to get both of your thoughts on this, but my opinion is there's a balance. You know, and I've said it over the years many, many times, not every brand should be using Google Ads and Bing, Microsoft and pay per click advertising to drive business. Some businesses, it just doesn't make sense financially. Most businesses, there's a balance, right?
Nick Stamoulis:PPC should have some sort of place. Is it lead gen? Is it brand defense like this article suggests? Is it, you know, is it testing? Is it a place of testing new products, new markets?
Nick Stamoulis:Right? So anyway, that's my opinion. And again, I think that we've actually seen with AI SEO this year, a lot more brands are spending a lot more in Google Ads because it's something that they is proven, that they know it works, that they can grasp their minds around. It's a little bit more kind of black and white and established as opposed to AI STOs and flux and new and evolving. My opinion is you need all of it.
Nick Stamoulis:But anyway, so Katherine, John, what do you both think on this?
Katherine Tsoukalas:So I find it interesting that this experiment happened and the different results of the experiment, because I've observed and noticed a couple of things over the years. We've sometimes had clients who have wanted us to use PPC slash Google Ads to replace their own deficiencies in their marketing. Yes. And that's the first thing I thought of when I looked through this, you know what I'm saying, right? I know.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Then they'll look at the results and they'll think, gee, they could be better or why are we not, why are people going to the page and nobody's clicking? All kinds of different feedback that we've gotten over the years. And the way I see it is, is the balance directive holds true.
Nick Stamoulis:Right.
John:You
Katherine Tsoukalas:can't throw money at this without putting money into something else because at the end of the day, somebody clicks, they're going to your website. So if you've neglected the landing page in any way, or if you've neglected the rest of your marketing, you don't have anything else really happening, minimal social media, not really a good content marketing game. It kind of like all enhances each other.
John:So It does. Yep.
Katherine Tsoukalas:So even though the the test said, okay, you're paying for clicks that have already been occurring in areas where the marketing has already been positioned, where the brand's already been positioned, I kind of feel like it all works together. So it has to be case by case, guess, company by company. Because for certain industries, certain businesses, it may work better than others to begin with. There's a whole lot that goes into what it takes to run a good PPC campaign. And that has to do with your holistic marketing and what you're doing or not doing.
Katherine Tsoukalas:What kind of I success you can
Nick Stamoulis:think you're right. It's very, what you're saying aligns directly with our strategy book that we wrote as a company. The Wear them Down Marketing Strategy, which is basically, once you understand your goals and your target audiences, you attack that audience at all angles, multiple multi channels over a period of time, not just one dumping in one particular channel. Right? Right.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. What you're saying is completely correct. Yeah. So so John, your your thoughts on this?
John:Yeah. I think this is just a really interesting experiment to write an article about and do, like, some level of, like, actual journalism where you're trying something then reporting what it's like. Because Yep. Who's willing to completely pause $150,000 There go.
Nick Stamoulis:This is like a completely unique sort of It is.
John:Article. And it and it really it goes in detail about, like you said, where all of the, you know, the campaigns were, what sort of
Nick Stamoulis:Yep.
John:Keywords they were, you know, fighting for, whether it was defensive or offensive. It it's really interesting to see those sort of results and how much, you know, how worth that PPC campaign actually is, I think it's just really interesting.
Nick Stamoulis:I think it's great. You know, honestly, my thing, this article is great. One little caveat is I would love to see which brand it is. Right?
John:Yeah.
Nick Stamoulis:Because that's one piece in this that was missing because, right? Is it a brand that's established? Because it says that, you know, much of the traffic was already being captured. Well, to me that means it's a big enough brand that where they are marketing a lot of other channels. So
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yeah. I'm going to guess it was a big brand because look at the budget.
Nick Stamoulis:I think so. Well, than that, forget about that. You know, you could have a brand that spends a 100 like, a 113 thousand's a lot of money in anyone's book, but there are, you know, there are brands that are spending there are brands that are spending 20 times at a month on PPC. Mhmm. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:And and full multimedia campaigns. So Mhmm. You know, but I think that's the only thing is that one nugget of information would have been Because yeah, it's being captured, but if I'm a, I don't even know, a small business spending $31,000 month on Google ads and I click pause on that, I am pretty sure those people are not gonna come anyway. Even if their organic is positioned really well, just because of the level of competitiveness in organic for SEO and for AI search too. So anyway.
Katherine Tsoukalas:I agree.
Nick Stamoulis:There's that.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And also how many for your audience, what exposure do they need anyway to be kept?
Nick Stamoulis:Exactly. How many touch points Yeah. Do they need to see the Yeah. I know. Anyway, still a great article.
Nick Stamoulis:Not saying anything negative about it. An It awesome really is. And I recommend everyone check it out at Search on the Land. So anyway, moving on. Next is an article from NPR that essentially is a it's a three minute listen.
Nick Stamoulis:So that says Anthropix new invisible watermark marks content generated by AI, by Claude, essentially. So this is fascinating. I'm actually not surprised, quite frankly. And, you know, kudos to Anthropic and Claude for being the first at the table on doing this. I actually think this is a really good thing.
Nick Stamoulis:I know that, you know, I can absolutely see ChatGPT and Gemini following on this and doing the same thing. Here's the thing. It's just kind of like Google's stance on it. Great content, whether it's created by AI or a human writer, is great content. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:And generic content is generic content, whether created by human or created by AI. The reality is if you're a brand and you're using Anthropic or you're using Clawd, you're using Chat, using Gemini to create your content, first and foremost, it needs to be highly, highly, highly edited, human edited, almost to the point where it's indistinguishable as being created by AI. Because these watermarks are only going to get worse. They're only going to get worse. There's only going to but I think it's actually a good thing.
Nick Stamoulis:I think it's a good thing. I think AI is a tool that we should all be using, but using it properly. It's not a substitute for having a real copywriter. It's not a substitute for having a real graphic person, a graphic designer or a video person or creating content like we're doing. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:We're real human beings. There's no AI here, right? This is live. This is a podcast. We share all of these clips on our social media, on the Brick Marketing socials.
Nick Stamoulis:But, so it's like that's real content being created. Yes, we use AI as a tool, but anyway, I think this is great. And I just say kudos to Claude for being first of the game on this. Yeah, so Catherine, John, what do you all think on this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yeah, if you go through and skim this article is basically a transcript of an interview, you'll notice that Anthropic is doing this in response to the EU AI act, which is interesting. It is. Because Europe has always been, I won't say the most paranoid about internet use.
Nick Stamoulis:Oh, they're paranoid. They're paranoid.
Katherine Tsoukalas:But they're definitely I lived in Germany and they're definitely paranoid. They don't want internet use or AI or anybody to they don't wanna feel like they're being watched in any way. And they don't wanna feel like people aren't being genuine. It's Right. It's it this has bothered them for twenty plus years.
Katherine Tsoukalas:They've Mhmm. They've put they've raked out just about everyone under the coals. And for the time that I lived in Germany, I think they had taken Google accord. Don't quote me on that, but something about the internet and this was the 2010s, like 02/2012, I lived there. So this doesn't surprise me that they have something called the EU AI Act because they really value genuine connection and authenticity when it comes to the internet.
Katherine Tsoukalas:But at the same time, I feel like it's a smart move for everyone anyway. Right. We can all use AI as a tool to make our lives easier. We just got to take that extra step to take whatever outline or whatever it gives us to make our lives easier. And just make sure that we're doing the work and we're putting human thought into it.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And then we should be good and this kind of thing won't even impact us.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. John, your thoughts on this. What do think?
John:Yeah. I mean, this isn't very different from how a camera has metadata. Right? There's metadata there so that it can be scraped, you can tell whether an image is real, when it was taken, where it was taken, you know, all those sorts of things. It's no different from that.
John:You need those sort of guides to let people know more information about where the content's being generated from. Because otherwise, it can be used to trick people. It can be used for really any nefarious purpose. And then having that extra layer of this watermark will let people know that the content you're reading wasn't created by a human, or it could have been completely done automatically, right? And you're even, for example, people will use bots like Chad, GBT, or Claude to post things on social media, right?
John:And you could be just talking to a bot back and forth. If you have things in place that tip people off to that, then you're, you know, not wasting your time fighting with something that's not even real. The other thing is I mean, every other, you know, company's gonna have to do this as well. OpenAI is gonna have to do it. You know, this is going to have to happen with Grok because, like mentioned, if they want to run-in the EU, which is a huge part of, you know, the market share, they're going to have to abide by those rules.
Nick Stamoulis:Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. It'll just be interesting to see. And we'll definitely report on it when chat and Gemini start doing the same.
Nick Stamoulis:But I foresee a future where we start to get inquiries and clients that come to us panicked, you know, because their organic has tanked, because they've abused these, you know, all the AI platforms creating content, you know, they're organic, their SEO is tanked, their AI search isn't what they thought, their a their answer engine optimization isn't what they thought, and leads are down. And then lo and behold, we'll dive deep and find that, yep, these watermarks are what the algorithms and what the LLMs are latching onto and can see right through it. So I I I just foresee that unfortunately coming. So those of you that are massive creating content, again, just another reason to not do it using AI. So moving on.
Nick Stamoulis:Here is a interesting article from Marketing Week. So Marketing Week, great publication. This is interesting because this article, it's like five articles in one. The one that really caught my attention in this, because there's a lot here. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:Can definitely check it out on Marketing Week. And it was actually, it just came out a few days ago. So you can all check it out. Was really the first kind of piece of this article, which talks about generation alpha and marketing of gen alpha. So I think this is interesting because we at Brick Marketing, as marketers, as a digital marketing agency, we study the different generations, right?
Nick Stamoulis:How you target a marketing program to baby boomers or Gen X or Millennials or Gen Z or Gen Alpha is different. Every generation responds differently to content, to promotions, to offers. What platforms resonate, right? Which ones do, which ones don't. And so we study this.
Nick Stamoulis:I know I do quite a bit. So for me, I found the generation alpha and let's define what that means. I have, my son is in generation alpha. I have a 14 year old son and that is individuals that are aged 11 to 15. And what's interesting is the stat here is it says generation alpha are a key driver in family purchase decisions, which I found this interesting because traditionally it's been the parents, right?
Nick Stamoulis:If they're millennial parents or Gen X parents, right? Who are the ones that are driving it. They're the ones paying for it. And they're the ones usually that are guiding it, but things are shifting, which I find fascinating. So according to this article, it says over three quarters, 79% of generation alpha age 11 15 have a high level of influence within the home in terms of purchasing power.
Nick Stamoulis:Over two thirds, 65% of parents say they actively take their child's opinion into account when making purchasing decisions. That's different, man. Let me tell you, my parents are baby boomers. And when I was 15 years old, they used to say, you can make that decision when you go out and get a job and earn your own money. Again, generations are different.
Nick Stamoulis:That's why Catherine's laughing. We're the same generation. But like Yeah. That's why I find this fascinating is because, right? So I don't know.
Nick Stamoulis:I mean, I would love to get your you know, I'd like to get your thoughts on this. So Katherine, what do you think on this?
Katherine Tsoukalas:As you said, I was laughing because Nick's in my generation, we're younger Gen Xers. Right? So we were told, if you wanna have an opinion about this, you go get a job and you buy it yourself. And so that's actually what most of us did. Mean, I have friends, my own sister, she got a job when she was 14 because she wanted a beeper.
Katherine Tsoukalas:So that's what our generation did. But to hear that such young people are influencing purchasing decisions, it just goes to show you how far we've come and how far technology has come too. Because I have stories in my friend's circle, They're younger children doing things like getting ahold of the iPad and deciding that they want a new toy and they figure out at two years old how to order it for themselves. And all of a sudden, Amazon boxes are showing up at the house because this two year old has figured out how to make a purchasing decision for themselves with with, you know, the parents didn't think, okay. He's two.
Katherine Tsoukalas:I have to put parental controls on my Amazon account because, know, we all have our credit cards in our accounts.
Nick Stamoulis:So this
Katherine Tsoukalas:is the this is the jet alpha. Right? This is who who we're talking about here. And I can see it. I don't have kids of my own, but I can see how they would absolutely be relevant because if this is their play, I was playing with blocks, okay, to compare our generations because there weren't really computers when I was a kid.
Katherine Tsoukalas:So that wasn't even an issue. What what kind of damage could I have done if I had gotten ahold of an iPad that nobody thought that I could get ahold of? I used to call random phone numbers. That was my thing. And I guess, you know, it was their play back then and now they're influencing decisions.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And I don't know, in a weird way it makes Yeah.
Nick Stamoulis:But wait, here's the thing from a, as a marketer, it's like, what do you do with that?
Katherine Tsoukalas:I know.
Nick Stamoulis:Right? They're underage using their parents. It's kind of like you have to, target these products differently, right? Through like, I know, like my 14 year old plays Roblox, right? Like I actually like playing Roblox.
Nick Stamoulis:I do. I actually enjoy playing it. Right? So, but sometimes you'll see in the shops where you use Roblox, Robux, you see brands in there, Literally brands being marketed. You know, name brands.
Nick Stamoulis:I'm like, okay, that's I mean, that's branding one zero one, early brand I mean, that's what that is. But yeah. So it's very interesting. So, John, what do you think on this?
John:I mean, the last thing you said there about Roblox reminds it's no different from, for example, like, Looney Tunes making a Looney Tunes baby show. Right? For kids. Right? Because that is just getting in there early, and then that becomes a brand for them.
John:So it kinda makes sense that, you know, brands would be in Roblox. It's the same exact thing, except you're being advertised to in a far more obvious way. Right? And all these Mhmm. Kids are probably probably have this influence over what families are buying because they're being advertised to so much.
John:They have all these options. They are aware of what they're aware of, I don't know, the new technology coming out is, instead of just relying on maybe a few ads on TV on whatever, a cartoon channel or they're not watching that.
Nick Stamoulis:They're on YouTube.
John:They're on YouTube. No. I'm saying in the past, it would have been that where you only have so many limited options. Those are just the people who are advertising on that specific network.
Nick Stamoulis:Exactly.
John:And now you're online on so many different websites. You see so many different things. So it kinda makes sense that kids want to buy more and the parents might be giving in a little bit more because there's so much stuff they're being asked for. I don't know. That's sort of my thought process.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah, it's true. It's true. It's fascinating That's why I picked it. I'm like, hey, this is
Katherine Tsoukalas:a good Anyway,
Nick Stamoulis:good read. Good read at Marketing Week. So, all right, moving on. Next, a great article, another really great one, Search Engine Land, that entitled LLM Traffic or AI Traffic Converts Differently. Here's what to do about it.
Nick Stamoulis:And it says here, paid search captures demand at the query. AI shapes the decision before the visitor reaches your site. Here's how to convert that traffic. And it goes into, and it's a great article that kind of goes into it. And it talks about how AI generated traffic through AI SEO, generative engine optimization, if you want to call it that, or answer engine optimization.
Nick Stamoulis:We call it AI SEO, LLM referrals. Essentially, it says here that what's interesting is they did a graph in this, in this study. And it says here, it says that their data shows LLM traffic converts at 20%, making it the highest converting tactic in our data set and 61% higher than paid search. So, and it's really fascinating. It goes through, it has a chart here.
Nick Stamoulis:And it says that in this study that was done, that AI search 20% conversion rate, referral traffic 15%. So that could be direct traffic referral, organic search 15%, paid shopping 14, organic shopping 14, video paid video 14, display 13, SMS or text messaging, 13. Direct 11. Email, 9. And again, every business is totally different, right?
Nick Stamoulis:We know that, right? Whether it's B2B, B2C, whether it's a smaller business, midsize or enterprise brand, whatever it happens to be. But I found this interesting because this aligns exactly to the type of data that we see with our clients. Now we don't work with enterprise brands as an agency. Brick Marketing serves smaller and mid sized companies and brands, established companies, but that are B2B and B2C.
Nick Stamoulis:So, but we see the same thing that AI generated traffic converts extremely well, but it's traffic that is different because it is people that are, have reached to a conclusion before they come to your site. So this is what's different about AI SEO. We try to explain this in our webinars and trainings, when we speak at events, when we meet individuals and we talk about it and to our clients, we try to explain this to them, that it's different now, right? People are making a decision that they want to work with a brand or buy a product. And then they're coming to their site when they're in the middle or towards the end of their sales cycle, they're like ready to go.
Nick Stamoulis:Then they talk to you or purchase whatever your conversion metric happens to be. And they're like ready to go. So it's very, very interesting. And this just makes the case again, yet another study by another great marketer on a great publication in search engine land. Keep saying this stuff over and over and over and over, and we're not making it up.
Nick Stamoulis:Right? Companies need to be investing in this now. This is not something that you, this is not a wait and see. We keep saying it. It feels like every podcast we say the same thing.
Nick Stamoulis:Not wait and see. Start it now. Start it now. We're going to say it at every webinar, every training, because brands are still dragging their feet on this. Small and mid sized brands are still dragging their feet.
Nick Stamoulis:So our enterprise brands. In fact, enterprise brands are moving even slower. So the point is, this is a great article. I highly recommend everyone checking it out at Search Engine Land. So yeah, so Catherine and John, what do both think on this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:So prior to AI intervening on search, when somebody needed information for whatever reason online, all roads optimally would lead to your website.
Nick Stamoulis:Yes.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And that means that people were hitting the website sooner in the sales process. Then the website is had built in conversion elements, built in ways to encourage somebody to keep in touch by joining the list, things like like that. Our websites are still built this way, but the smart ones are tweaking their websites.
Nick Stamoulis:Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:To better accommodate the way that AI and LLM traffic has intervened on the process. And how it's intervened is that we're finding that a lot of brands, a lot of people are researching, doing a fair amount of research before they make their first point of contact with the website Okay? And the So they might be in a platform, an AI platform, having a chat about what is it that I need? Here's my problem. Then the chat, whatever it is, the AI helps you think about what you need.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And then it might take the step further and recommend some websites and some businesses that have this need. So, now, all of a sudden, they're researching your specific brand if you've paid attention or AI visibility, if you've worked on that. If you haven't, you're probably not there yet. So, you're missing out on this. As Nick said, you have to work on this Now, now is the time.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Anyway, ideally they'll get exposure to your brand in that process, but it's off your site. Now they're making the first touch point to you on your site either in the mid or late stages of the sales cycle. So by the time they get in touch, they're more ready to go. They're pretty much ready to go. They might be like, I have realized I need a digital marketing agency to help me with my AI visibility.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And we have decided that you're a very strong candidate to help us. So that's a much different conversation than it used to be for the first
John:point Right. Of
Nick Stamoulis:Then, hey, I've heard of your company, tell me what you do.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yeah, that's what we're getting before.
Nick Stamoulis:Right, Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And yeah. Then
Nick Stamoulis:So it's and and it's like that for our clients. I mean, literally is.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yeah. Incredible. It's an example, but it's it's we've seen this not only with us, but with our clients too, that the conversation has changed.
Nick Stamoulis:Yep. Yep. John, your thoughts on this?
John:Yeah. When people are prompting their LLMs and getting outputs, like, they're gonna get so much information that they can't necessarily get only from like a static web page or whatever. It might be your about page because the LLM has more information than just one page can even have. Right? You can ask it a follow-up question, and it's gonna take from your social medias.
John:It's gonna take from your website. It's gonna take from your listing pages, all that sort of stuff, reviews of you. And they're gonna get answers from all of those things rather than just what they see on the page right there. So you ask one question, you get way more information that may be incredibly accurate. So when it's time to go and talk to that business you're thinking of hiring for something, you already know because you were able to already ask those questions you would have asked in that first meeting.
Nick Stamoulis:Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. It's just another article that just confirms what we've been saying. And we're going to, I'm just going to keep saying this, keep finding these great articles.
Nick Stamoulis:And this is just a great one to read it because there's so much great data with it at Search Engine Land. So, all right, moving on. Next, an interesting article from Martech entitled Why LinkedIn Doesn't Really Care About AI Slop. It says, The problem is AI is perfect for producing the polished, predictable business speak, the platform rewards. Great article, kind of goes into it.
Nick Stamoulis:And it says here that it says originality or AI. You can't have them both. It says a company with the it says here that that was that one of one of the members, again, I don't want to mention it, but it's in the article. It said that 81.2% of 5,000 July posts were likely AI. So it says here, the response is 90% of everything is crap.
Nick Stamoulis:I thought it was really funny actually. So it says, you know, and it goes into it and it says that AI is sometimes lifeless and it's flat and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like we talked about. Right? It's just another piece of content.
Nick Stamoulis:So here's the thing. Here's my personal opinion on LinkedIn and AI. I think that there's a balance. Like, for instance, on my LinkedIn, I use AI to summarize our videos and to summarize our content. It's our content.
Nick Stamoulis:We created the content. I'm using AI to summarize it in the language and tone that we use. Right. So that's how we use it. And I personally feel that there's nothing wrong with that whatsoever.
Nick Stamoulis:It saves me time. I don't have time to sit and write a summary. You know what I mean? And you know, please, you know, we have a huge following in all of our social media and we do all of this for free. We pump out so much information and so much content.
Nick Stamoulis:I mean, you're not paying us to create content. We're educating all of you, including this podcast, for free because we love what we do. We love sharing our knowledge and our expertise with as many people as we're able to. AI helps me do it in a manner to summarize it, which saves me time. I feel that's okay.
Nick Stamoulis:My opinion. I think it's okay. Where I don't think it's okay is when someone isn't referencing their content that they created when they're using it and they're using AI to write a piece of actual AI slop and then posting that as their own. And it's not in their voice. It's not in their mindset and their methodology of how they actually, what they think strategically.
Nick Stamoulis:So I think that there's a difference there. But again, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I see it all the time on LinkedIn, man. I see these posts, Some of them are even worse. Like, you know, the long and I I, you know, I know AI wrote it and they're really long and they'll say, comment whatever it is in the comment and we'll send you the blueprint for x y z.
Nick Stamoulis:It's like, come on people. Enough of that content. That content needs to go away. Right? The way we say it is, here's some information.
Nick Stamoulis:Here's what it's about. If you're interested, read it, engage with it. If you're not, continue scrolling. It's very simple. So anyway, so Catherine and John, what do what do you both think?
Nick Stamoulis:I know, John, you're not a fan of LinkedIn. That's okay. I am. We have to be. As a b to b marketer, we have to be, but that's why he's laughing.
Nick Stamoulis:But so Catherine, what do you think? What do you think? I want to get your pen and tooth on.
Katherine Tsoukalas:I don't know. I think we need to be careful about how we define AI slop. Yes. Not necessarily careful, but there's a couple of things going on here. Using AI does not make it slob.
Katherine Tsoukalas:AI can help you and it can also hurt you you're using And how I define wrong is voice, if it's not your brand voice, if your own material was not the source material, that's one way to look at AI. But I mean, I've seen plenty of legitimate content online that has not been AI that people have been accusing it of being AI. I could tell it's not AI. Like, this this I see a lot in video. Like, okay.
Katherine Tsoukalas:There's this little drummer kid. He's like 18 old, and he can play the drums. And everyone's like, that's AI. It's not AI. The kid is just a prodigy.
Katherine Tsoukalas:You could tell because you could just tell it's a real kid. So on LinkedIn, I find the AI content to be annoying when somebody is using AI to create an opinion that may be their opinion, but they're not composing it in their own words. That bothers me. That really annoys me. Using it the way we use it doesn't bother me because if you're asking AI to summarize an article that we wrote, So you could then put the summary on LinkedIn, that's fine.
Katherine Tsoukalas:But if somebody were to call that slop, I would be like, that doesn't make any sense. This is our original ideas. So it's complicated and how do you regulate that? And AI slops not even like a real term that you can quantify.
Nick Stamoulis:No. No. Actually, LinkedIn, I believe was one of the first social platforms. If you remember, Katherine, it was one of the first social platforms where they had a feature. I don't think it's listed this way anymore when you post, but it used to have it when it was a says, use AI.
Nick Stamoulis:And literally you would post Oh, remember that. Remember that? And it would say, rewrite using AI. They did it before Meta did. They did it before TikTok and YouTube had their AI tools.
Nick Stamoulis:Seriously, I actually distinctly remember that. And I remember saying, well, that's not really good because it's going to produce a lot of crap.
Katherine Tsoukalas:No. They were.
Nick Stamoulis:They here we are. They don't they don't they don't position it that way anymore. So
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yeah. Yeah. That's right. They did it. I they took it away.
Katherine Tsoukalas:I almost didn't even remember seeing it.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. Yeah. John, what do you think on this on this one?
John:Yeah. You you you mentioned that I I don't like LinkedIn, and I think it's it's because I've only known LinkedIn as this AI wasteland.
Nick Stamoulis:I know.
John:Every time I go on, all I see is AI engagement bait, and it's completely
Nick Stamoulis:useless. It's awful.
John:There's nothing of substance there. There's maybe one post that you might be able to say, oh, maybe that wasn't written by AI. But it's just it's a waste of time to read and reply when no one there is putting their real thoughts down. They're just outsourcing it to chat GPT or something to say, give me a response to this post to maximize engagement on my thing. It's just there's there's nothing there.
John:And it sort of makes sense that LinkedIn doesn't care because people are still using their platform and they're still engaging their way by, you know, even if it is just AI generated content. It's honestly, it's a little bit upsetting because you go here and it's bots talking to each other essentially through people's whatever, copy and pasting. And then you think like, I had my computer die on me last week. My RAM went bad. And I had to go and buy new RAM.
John:The prices for these things have just skyrocketed because people are using AI for things that really they shouldn't have to. You can form your own thoughts and reply to someone. Because of that, there are downsides in the real world to this sort of AI usage that is just Like, why can't we actually talk to each other? You know?
Nick Stamoulis:I know. I've never used AI to reply to someone in social media ever, nor will I. Cause I think, like you said, that is ridiculous. That's lazy. And that is the definition of slop.
Nick Stamoulis:Like if you're Yeah. You don't have the Honestly, if you don't have the intellect enough, it's gonna be cruel. But if you don't have the intellect enough to respond with your own thoughts and brain on LinkedIn, which is a B2B network, don't even bother replying. Just go leave it unreplied. Seriously.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Just let it go.
Nick Stamoulis:Let it go.
Katherine Tsoukalas:I agree with you.
Nick Stamoulis:All right, moving on. And as a reminder to everyone, we are broadcasting this live on the Brick Marketing website at brickmarketing.com/live. And later this evening, this edition of our podcast will be available on all major podcast platforms and on our YouTube channel. And yes, so moving on. Next article from the Brick Marketing website, from our website.
Nick Stamoulis:How does AI visibility improve buying decisions? And so essentially what we talk about here is what we've been talking about. That AI generated people from AI SEO, from AI search, from generative engine optimization, or answer engine optimization, it influences how buyers research, like we've been talking about. Essentially, you're capturing demand before people come to your website. And it helps reinforce buying decisions and visibility in AI supports better business outcomes.
Nick Stamoulis:It's very, very true. Here's the thing. It's important,
John:but
Nick Stamoulis:this is also a newer marketing medium. Newer doesn't mean be afraid, don't invest. Newer means get in on it, invest and build your brand. Do either right things of optimization and creating a solid content marketing strategy that aligns with that, ties into your goals. But yeah, I think that this is just a really important topic.
Nick Stamoulis:This is why we talk about this so much. So Catherine and John, what do you both think on this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yes. This is basically a re spinning of some of the points we touched on earlier. Yep. When when we think about AI visibility, it's intervened on the sales cycle because by the time somebody reaches you, they're further along in the sales cycle than they used to be. So if you're visible in AI and you're there for when somebody is researching, that's exactly how it improves buying decisions.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Have to be there. Exactly. And you have to work on your AI visibility in order to be there for them. And just understand that AI has shaken up our understanding of the buying cycle and how people Yeah.
Nick Stamoulis:Position. One thing I want to mention too is because I I'm starting to get, like because we're we're starting to see people ask us all the time. Right? Oh, we want to do well in AI SEO. We want do well in AI search.
Nick Stamoulis:It it's a it's a long term building process. Right? It's not a quick thing. Just like SEO is not quick. Just like creating a solid content marketing strategy, social media's presence, right?
Nick Stamoulis:It's an earned marketing medium that takes time to build that you need to work at. It is not something that you check off a box, say, yep, we're good. We're moving on. Because it's, you know, we see so often that these, results and what brands are getting recommended in AI search at all the LLMs, they fluctuate and they change based on whether someone, where they're geographically located, whether someone's logged in or logged out, whether it's an incognito mode or not, whether it's a paid AI search account, right? So those are all very And even if you have the same things, right?
Nick Stamoulis:And you search the exact same way, you're going to see brands slightly differently. So because of that, it's ongoing work that needs to happen with this. This is not a quick thing in and out. It's not, it's just really not. It's something that you need to build and earn and maintain and continue to build and change because it's the changing medium for sure.
Nick Stamoulis:So, John, your thoughts quickly on this one.
John:Yep. The answer is yeah, AI visibility, like improving, is going to improve how people, you know, see your brand and what they know about your brand. Right? It's basically what I said earlier. People are able to make their buying decisions and ask more questions than they were able to before and really finalize what they want to do, what they want to buy.
John:It's all because you can go to your, whatever, your preferred LLM and then ask it tons and tons of questions about a product. Like, I recently had to buy a new router, and I had a couple of routers, and I had very specific things that I wanted from the router. And I was able to say, Okay, does this router allow for this feature? And one was yes, one was no, one was yes, but you have to do this. And through that, I'm able to be like, Oh, this is the one that I think that I'm going to use for my purposes.
John:So you're able to learn so much more and improve. You know what you want before you even go to a website or say Amazon, right, To see what product you want, you know?
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. Exactly. So true. So true. Moving on.
Nick Stamoulis:So we talked about how, you know, buying patterns for, you know, the different generations. A little while ago, we talked about Gen Alpha. This is a great article from entrepreneur that says how to create marketing that every generation responds to. I thought this was great. So I'm just going to read through it quickly.
Nick Stamoulis:It says here that baby boomers value trust, consistency, and direct mail marketing. You should focus on traditional outreach and email follow-up. Gen X value straightforward messaging, value and proof, reviews, testimonials, case studies, and before and after examples. Millennials value convenience, personalized mail, and entertaining marketing. Use search, social media, and location based ads and stay connected with personal email retargeting ads and direct mail retargeting.
Nick Stamoulis:Generation Z values authenticity, creativity, speed, social proof, and unique mail. They respond well when you feel real, unique, and worth their attention. I thought this was awesome because it literally summarizes exactly what we're saying, how we study the different generations and what works from a marketing perspective. I actually agree with all of this. I've seen this with all of this.
Nick Stamoulis:So what's interesting is, why not I see a commonality in this as a marketer. I see that authenticity and consistency, right? Personalization, I think, value and proof, right? And it all kind of, it's really saying the same thing. And that is if you're authentic in your marketing and you're real.
Nick Stamoulis:Right? Remember, every whether if you're B2B, you're not selling to a business with an individual, the age old, you know, man wearing a suit with a briefcase. That's not who you're selling to in 2026. Right? You're not selling to a picture of a skyscraper, a building.
Nick Stamoulis:I'm thinking old dated imagery, right? You're selling to people like us. Right? You're selling to people. Remember that.
Nick Stamoulis:You're B2B, you're selling to people. Right? You're B2C, you're selling to people. So what people want today is authenticity, regardless of the generation. They want proof.
Nick Stamoulis:Is your product or service going to help them? Is it going to make their life easier? Is it going to solve the outcome or problem, whatever it is, B2B, B2C? As long as you stick to that, you notice how I didn't mention the funny and the creative and all this and that. Those are things you can layer on top of it, right?
Nick Stamoulis:Making something go viral, good luck, right? Not every funny marketing campaign works. It just doesn't. It may have its five minutes of fame and then it goes, right? But the consistency of the things that work, the core things will work with all the generations.
Nick Stamoulis:So that's my takeaway on this. I thought it was great. I agree with this. But I also, in my mind, I think, okay, what's the common theme across all of it? So what do you guys think on this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yeah, I think it goes to show you I love reading, by the way, the summary myself. I highly recommend this article just for that. But I think it goes to show you that when you have a product or a service that you need to market, you you really do have to think about the demographic so that you can figure out what that demographic needs. And you could do that generationally based on this list too. I mean, looking at the list, a couple of brands pop out in my head.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Right? Like millennial, they're known for wanting the convenience of having their food delivered, even if it's, like, three miles down the road, you know, that kind of thing. So then a business that does that type of thing probably isn't gonna target a lot of people outside of that particular generation.
Nick Stamoulis:But But so does my gen so does my generation. I like invention too. I use those.
Katherine Tsoukalas:I use those terms too.
John:But we're also in, like,
Katherine Tsoukalas:the we're also, like, earlier, like Right. Younger for our generation too. So we're also in we've got some crossover behavior. That's another thing too. There's crossover behavior that's not built into this.
Nick Stamoulis:Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And so we can make ourselves crazy looking at a list like this, thinking how to please the generation. We'll start with your product or service, start with your offer, and figure out what ages you need to account for, and then reverse engineer
Nick Stamoulis:Exactly.
Katherine Tsoukalas:The data that you have to create the right strategy for you.
Nick Stamoulis:Exactly. Exactly. John, your your your thoughts on this one?
John:Yeah. Catherine's right that there are just those fundamentals that work for every single generation. Yep. I I think at the end of the day, people are people, and Yeah. They all like similar things.
John:Like, they don't wanna feel lied to. They wanna feel like a brand is authentic. They don't wanna feel like in some way they're being tricked. Right? So I I think that should be your basis for everything.
John:And then like you said, Nick, you can add on whatever specific generational thing works for whatever your your main target demographic is gonna be. If it's, you know, a millennial, like you said, okay. Well, we can be a little bit more silly with the way that we're advertising. Or if it's
Nick Stamoulis:Right.
John:Gen X, maybe really nail down those statistics and how how this product will work for them. And I I think that it really is there is a lot of generic stuff that you should be looking at first before you get too into the weeds about generational differences.
Nick Stamoulis:I agree. I agree a 100%. Moving on. A few more for today. Another great article from Search Engine Land, the AI Visibility Index.
Nick Stamoulis:Which brands are vanishing from AI search? So I'm not going to get too deep into it. It's a great, great article. I really recommend everyone check it out. I mean, these are all great publications, but Search Engine Land is like every article hits a home run, literally, with like, this data's unbelievable.
Nick Stamoulis:It says that basically what it does is it evaluates ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, and then looks at enterprise brands, some B2B and B2C, and then looks at basically share of voice and which ones are getting, you know, basically recommended more or less in some versus other of the AI platforms. It's fascinating. But what it shows me, I'll just tell you what it shows me. And again, there's a lot here. I'm not going to really get too deep into it.
Nick Stamoulis:Is one key point I think is important is it says traditional authority doesn't guarantee AI recall. What that means is if you're a brand that's been around a hundred years, and some of these brands on this list have been around a hundred years, that doesn't necessarily guarantee AI recall, number one. Number two, thing that stuck out with me the most on this one, it says AI and traditional search visibility agree on most brands, but not all. So I think it's a great article. Again, there's so much to unpack on it.
Nick Stamoulis:We could literally spend an entire podcast literally talking one hour about this one article. That's how great this thing is. But I just recommend everyone check it out. But yeah, so John and Catherine, what do you guys think on this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:I think that everyone should read it and think to themselves, I don't want to be one of the brands that vanishes.
Nick Stamoulis:And that goes right. If an enterprise brand that's been around a hundred years is vanishing from AI
John:search. Right.
Nick Stamoulis:That means all the rest of us.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Do we stand a chance? We do stand a chance, but we have to put some thought behind it.
Nick Stamoulis:We got to work into it. We got to work at it. Yep, we got to work at it. Yep. John, what do you think?
John:Yeah, this is something I reply to people a lot on Reddit and people ask all the time about AI visibility. And I always say that it's SEO is a big factor in how well you do in AI visibility. But it's not the only thing, and good SEO alone isn't gonna ensure that you're there all the time. What's the most important is that you have authoritative content, that you're posting articles, that you're showing up on social media, and that there are just tons of different touch points. And also that you have, you've been cited or quoted in, you know, bigger publications because it adds that level of authority.
John:That's what's gonna make AI want to put you into the mix the most. But good SEO is a good jumping off point because a lot of good SEO is sort of similar. All you need to do is sort of retool maybe your articles to fit the way that AI, you know, likes the the type of language that AI likes to see or Right. Just try a couple of different things that might help, but it's a good basis to start off with.
Nick Stamoulis:Absolutely. Yeah. And, know, as a side note, when we work with a client, we don't do manage AI SEO, AI search, or SEO as a separate thing. It's one cohesive strategic entity. So, and that's what we're seeing here.
Nick Stamoulis:And that's exactly what you're saying, John. And another little side note for all of you, John mentioned, when he talks to Reddit, we do have a Reddit account on the Brick Marketing subreddit for Brick Marketing and John manages it. So you can go say hello to John. So Peter, I would just mention that. So alright.
Nick Stamoulis:Moving on. Great article from the Content Marketing Institute entitled Your Outdated Content Lives Forever in AI Search. Here's how to manage it. It's a great article. It goes into and what it does is this article actually interviews several CMOs and asks their opinions, some really great CMOs, and ask their opinions on how they manage outdated content.
Nick Stamoulis:And I'll tell you, I recommend everyone read it. I'm not going to get into too much of the details because everyone, they all have different opinions, great opinions, great advice. I'll tell you how we manage it. What we do is, first and foremost, is the content still relevant to your audience? First, if it is, then update it so it's more updated, more current to if it needs it.
Nick Stamoulis:If it's not, it's good. Right? Optimize it. But, yeah, that's you know, we usually start with, you know, an audit. But yeah, no, this is a great article.
Nick Stamoulis:Catherine, if you wanna share your thoughts
Katherine Tsoukalas:Here's on this the thing. Outdated content is part of what can cause the drift. You ask, you can test your brand. You can say, go to any of the AI platforms, go to all of them and say, is brand name or what is brand name or person or whatever, and see what it says. And if it says something random in the middle there, like this is a company that does such and such, know, like what?
Katherine Tsoukalas:No, we don't.
Nick Stamoulis:Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Where did they get that from? They probably got whatever that little blip was from something outdated. It's worth cleaning up.
John:We've seen
Katherine Tsoukalas:the drift happen. Happens.
Nick Stamoulis:This is why when we say content marketing management, you need to manage your content. You can't just leave content that was written fifteen years ago and let it just age and sit there. That may that may have done well in the in the traditional SEO days. Not now. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:If it's not relevant to your audience, make sure there's a date on it. So people know when the date when it was published. And if it's still, if it's just completely outdated, either repurpose it or delete it.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Have to get it out of there. Absolutely mean, if series of articles talked about a product you no longer have?
Nick Stamoulis:Or recommending something that's wrong and just not going to work in today's world. Yeah, for sure. So, John, what are your thoughts on this?
John:Yeah, I think I said something like this in maybe it was the last Brick Live or or the one before, but you really need to keep track of all the places you're posting and all of your accounts because at some point, your stuff's gonna get old and outdated. You can always try to make sure that all of your content is evergreen. But even, you know, even some things I'm sure we have an article on our website somewhere that's flown under the radar that
Nick Stamoulis:is I generally know we do.
John:Yeah. It's like generally correct, but maybe there's some things that have changed over the years. You need to be able to access that. And whenever that whatever, maybe somebody says to you something that's outdated that they found through talking to ChatGPT, you need to be able to be like, Oh, I know where we would have posted that sort of thing. I know how to get to it.
John:I know how to update it. Just so that that doesn't happen again.
Nick Stamoulis:Right. Absolutely. All right. We've got a few more for today. Next one, a great article from the Wall Street Journal that entitled, As AI Rewrites Search for Marketers, Reddit Fights to Stay the Same.
Nick Stamoulis:It's very, very interesting. It's a great article that goes into, and it says that, it just basically says here that traditional social media managers are used to broadcast style, sometimes prolific posting on Instagram or TikTok. And then it goes into it. What skills should people look for when they're recruiting someone that wants to, you know, build a presence on Reddit. It's really great.
Nick Stamoulis:It's an interview, kind of goes into it. Here's my takeaway on this, is right now, Reddit is the place, right? In the B2B world, it's the place for citations. You know, we're active on it, but it also, it's a place where there's a lot of people, right? There's people there that are asking questions that are engaging on content.
Nick Stamoulis:So in my mind, I believe Reddit is right now the place. Flash forward, advance two, three years, I think social media is going to take a huge, huge place in lieu of just Reddit. I think it's that it's going to be Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and TikTok and right, and X and LinkedIn and Reddit. I think all of these platforms are going to influence AI search moving forward. Right now, AI search, I believe the LLMs can latch onto Reddit because it's, what is really, what is Reddit people?
Nick Stamoulis:Right? It's a message board. It's a forum. It's what it is. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:It's ungated content that's public. That's why the LLMs latch onto it. It's there, right? It's not like Facebook where unless someone's posting to a Facebook page or comments, some of it is, but a lot of it doesn't get crawled. A lot, right?
Nick Stamoulis:Why do you think? Okay? Another little thing for people to think of. In case you didn't, we didn't report this. We took two weeks off, but now we're getting back into it here every week.
Nick Stamoulis:So you'll see us and hear us every week now. But Google recently enabled in Google Search Console the ability to verify your branded social media accounts, which I showed the team this. It's fascinating. We're rolling it out to our clients. It is awesome.
Nick Stamoulis:But there's another little thing. Why all of a sudden right now is Google deciding to do this, right? We've all had, you know, company Facebook pages and Instagram accounts and X accounts and LinkedIn accounts and TikTok and YouTube channels for a decade, right? And longer. Why now all of a sudden?
Nick Stamoulis:My mind, it's because Gemini AI overviews is going to start to really depend on real social media for a brand, not just Reddit. I don't view Reddit as social media. I don't. I view it, like I said, I believe it's a forum. It just, it is.
Nick Stamoulis:It's a message board. It's old. Like I do. I love Reddit. Don't get me wrong.
Nick Stamoulis:We're on Reddit. I love Reddit. But I also view it as almost like a dated platform. I do. That's all of a sudden had this resurgence because of AI.
Nick Stamoulis:I mean, think about it. Five years ago, ten years ago, like, right, we used to go to Reddit maybe to look at reviews for technology products. That was about it. Nothing else. Now all of a sudden everyone's using it.
Nick Stamoulis:So to my point, so I think this is a great article in the Wall Street Journal. Recommend everyone really read it. I don't think you need a subscription to the Wall Street Journal to read it. It's on their website, but I recommend it. But again, that's just my thoughts.
Nick Stamoulis:I don't know. Catherine, John, what you both think on this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:So Nick, while you were talking, I looked up when was Reddit founded? And it was 2005.
John:Yep. So My
Katherine Tsoukalas:for a long time, yeah. So for a long time, Reddit's just been there in the background.
Nick Stamoulis:Reddit's been around since the MySpace days, people. I mean, seriously, before Before Facebook Instagram existed. Right? It literally been around. That may even be right around the time when YouTube launched.
Nick Stamoulis:Seriously, that's how long it's been around.
Katherine Tsoukalas:It's one of the like Legacy
Nick Stamoulis:platforms.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Right. Yep. It's one
John:of those
Nick Stamoulis:It is.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Legacy platforms. And I've used it off and on, like you said, for finding random information. And then all of a sudden it got this resurgence. And I'm like, why? Yep.
Katherine Tsoukalas:I get it because there's a lot of source material, but I don't get it because the drift problem from
Nick Stamoulis:Oh, yeah. Seeing
Katherine Tsoukalas:that this material is insane.
Nick Stamoulis:Like And
Katherine Tsoukalas:you All somebody has to do is have the like, get your company confused with somebody else they're mentioning you in a comment and then all of a sudden everything in the response gets messed up.
Nick Stamoulis:Well, here's what's interesting. And I'll say this then, John, I wanna get your thoughts because you're on Reddit like every day for us. I see a lot on LinkedIn. I've seen other marketers, really great ones, other SEO people, really great ones, literally doing examples, basically where they take and create a brand new Reddit and publish content on it. Some written by AI, some not written by AI.
Nick Stamoulis:And all of a sudden it shows up in the LLMs fast. I've actually seen it, right? In my mind, that is the definition of spam, period. That is a definition of manipulation in spam. Okay?
Nick Stamoulis:So I just find it interesting how all of a sudden people are using this. But in my mind, it's just because it's been around for so long. There's so much content there and it's all public, you know. And much of what I at least see on Reddit, I know is written by AI. I know is junk.
Nick Stamoulis:There's a lot of junk on Reddit. There's a lot of great subreddits, but there's a lot of junk there too. So I don't know. John, what do you think?
John:Mean, AI has or sorry. Reddit has been ruined by AI a lot like a lot a lot like LinkedIn where
Nick Stamoulis:Yes.
John:Especially if I'm on, the marketing side or the business side of Reddit, it's all AI again. But there still is that part that's very human, you're going to actual subreddits for people to interact and you know, share things or ask questions. Like, that's still the way it used to be, but now there's this whole other part of Reddit that's sort of new. And I think, one, Reddit wasn't always the best place to start, you know, getting LLMs to scrape and get their outputs from because it is human and it's not, you know, from people I I I don't know why people feel like Reddit is, like, a super authoritative place where, like, somebody says something on Reddit and it must be true. It's not.
John:It's It's not. That's sort of a liability in my opinion, right? If we're using Reddit to be like the number one resource for AIs, it's a liability because anyone can say So anything on
Nick Stamoulis:agree, John. Yeah, I agree. There was a company, I'm not going to name who they are, but there's a company that pitched us to offer to our clients and even for our own company. And they wanted $4,000 a month to create a Reddit and populate it with junk content. Literally.
Nick Stamoulis:A company that's been around for a long time in our industry. And, you know, again, I'm not going say who they are, but I horrified by it. And, you know, and then they're like, oh, are you going to offer this for your clients? I said, absolutely not. I'm no, we're not going to offer it for our clients.
Nick Stamoulis:Because every, the demographic is different. Every client's goals are different. And you know, we have some B2B clients where it makes sense and we are active on Reddit. We have other clients that are B2C clients. No way.
Nick Stamoulis:Would it, right? Like Catherine, right? Like some of our B2C clients, would we ever recommend Reddit to them? Never, never. So my point is, John, I agree with you.
Nick Stamoulis:I think it's, again, I like it as a platform. I just feel like it's being abused right now. And like you said, John, I agree. AI has been the downfall of Reddit. It will be the downfall.
Nick Stamoulis:I think Reddit's not going to last five more years. I think it won't be around five years. That's my opinion. Again, I don't know. I'm like, I'm not saying it to be mean because there's a lot of people that love it and use it.
Nick Stamoulis:We use it, we're on there, but we're doing it differently, right? We're engaging, we're answering people's questions and we're building our brand on Reddit. That's a lot different than creating sub Reddits that are just arbitrarily related to various things that we do. Lot different, right? So anyway, we'll let that one sit.
Nick Stamoulis:I'm sure we'll talk about that one again. That good. That was good. Okay, last one for today. And thanks everyone for sticking around if you're watching this live.
Nick Stamoulis:We've gone over an hour today, but you know, it happens. What are you going to do? It was good conversations. I'm not going to throw it down. You guys are just getting more really good insights, good info.
Nick Stamoulis:So just a reminder to everyone, we will be with you next week, next Thursday, August 27 at 4PM Eastern. And this Brick Marketing Live Podcast will be available later today on all platforms. So last article for today we're going to talk about is from the Brick Marketing site entitled Why Long Term Marketing Matters. Here's the thing. Okay?
Nick Stamoulis:And and and, know, I recommend everyone go to the Brick Marketing website and read this article. But here's the thing. I'm gonna just say why it matters. In our mind, long term marketing is the play. That's how you market, right?
Nick Stamoulis:If you're in business, right? I know as business people and C suite folks and salespeople and biz dev folks and marketers sometimes tend to think like, okay, they think kind of like quarter to quarter, month to month, we got to hit our numbers. But of course you do. Right? Those are outcomes that you need to achieve to continue to grow and stay in business.
Nick Stamoulis:But here's the thing, what I just said, you grow and stay in business. That means long term thinking. That means is literally why it makes sense to, regardless of the channel of digital marketing or offline marketing, it's not always going to work the same. It's not every channel isn't always going to work well. That doesn't mean you kill it completely.
Nick Stamoulis:That means you readjust it, put it in its place differently, and you continue to build the strategy. And that, you know, so the point is long term is the play. You know, we say this all the time to folks. We believe in real strategies, a strategic not tactic based marketing, which means just try, oh, this didn't work. Okay.
Nick Stamoulis:Well, guess, well, that's never going to work again. Not necessarily. Why didn't it work? Right? There's so many variables that go into every channel of marketing.
Nick Stamoulis:So again, it's just our approach is, yes, there's tests. Yes, there's short term things. Yes, a channel isn't always going to work. Yes, sometimes it makes sense to cancel a campaign, but that doesn't mean you cancel all your marketing, you throttle it all back. It means you have to have a long term, one eye on the now and one eye on the long term on your goals long term.
Nick Stamoulis:So that's it on that one. So Katherine, John, what do you guys think on that one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Every business needs to do everything in some capacity somehow.
John:Yep.
Katherine Tsoukalas:So that means, for example, content marketing since I have a writer's background. I you you can't say I'm gonna stop posting articles altogether on my website because it stopped working because of AI, blah, blah, blah, No. What you do is you think what works now. Continue posting consistently and you adjust a little bit to accommodate where things are at. That's the way it works.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Social media for all of it and to say, oh, this didn't work. I'm going to forget it. Really does not do your brain any favors. Oh, our markets how many times have we heard with social media? Oh, yeah.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Our market's not on Facebook. So we're just gonna post on LinkedIn. Well, they might be on Facebook. They might be on Facebook sharing family pictures.
Nick Stamoulis:Right.
John:They're in
Katherine Tsoukalas:prep they might not be there looking for you necessarily. So you just appreciate it for what it is and you have to be there anyway.
Nick Stamoulis:Exactly. That's all. Yeah. Exactly. John, your thoughts, and then we'll wrap it for today.
John:Yeah. I agree. You need to be everywhere. At least at least be present. You don't always need to, you know, put a 100% effort into your TikTok if you're a, you know, if your audience isn't on TikTok, but you should definitely have an account and you should post there if you have time to post there because you never know because some years down the line, your audience may end up there and you already have an established presence.
Nick Stamoulis:Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. On that note, I'd like to thank everyone for listening.
Nick Stamoulis:Thank you everyone who joined us live. This is the Brick Marketing Live Podcast. We will be with you live again next week. Like I said, August 27, next Thursday at 4PM Eastern Live. And feel free to like, share, comment, let everyone you know know about this Brick Live podcast that's interested in anything marketing related.
Nick Stamoulis:And we will see you all next week. Thanks again, everyone.
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