Episode 6
· 01:00:36
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the latest edition of the Brick Marketing Live Podcast. Today is Wednesday, May 20. I am Nick Stamoulis, and welcome John and Catherine, the Brick Marketing team. We are gonna dive in.
NIck Stamoulis:Thank you all for joining us. We have a very exciting podcast today. Lots of amazing things happening in the digital marketing world that we wanna dive right into. So first topic. This was a huge breaking news topic, actually.
NIck Stamoulis:It broke last Friday, and I saw it really, like, LinkedIn just blew blew up on this one. So everyone I was pretty much connected to on LinkedIn went crazy over this. I chimed into and shared it, and it's just unbelievable. So since AI really launched, since ChatGPT launched, Gemini launched, you know, about three years ago at this point, and the world has been shifting from traditional SEO to AI search. There's been a lot of acronyms floating around the industry.
NIck Stamoulis:Generative engine optimization or GEO, answer engine optimization or AEO. We have always said that, you know, we call it AI search or AI SEO. And the great news is Google now has confirmed that generative engine optimization, answer engine optimization is nothing more than SEO. Search engine optimization, now according to Google, now encompasses AI. And we and and we were excited about it.
NIck Stamoulis:I was really happy because, know, this is what we've been saying since we have been helping our clients with AI search and and visibility. So Katherine, John, tell me what you guys think.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yeah. So this is great because we've been teaching that search is search. And how you get found in search these days is a two component thing, SEO practices and the AI answers. And so there are similarities but differences between them and the fact that Google is admitting that search is search is very telling to where things are at in the industry right now and how we should be thinking about it.
NIck Stamoulis:John, what do you think?
John:Yeah. And it's like you said, we've been saying it. We've been we've been saying, as long as you have good SEO and you're you're posting good content to your website on social media, that is exactly what AI is taking from. And now, we have the confirmation from Google themselves.
NIck Stamoulis:It's just wonderful news. Wonderful news. So moving on. Next. Huge topic.
NIck Stamoulis:Another really big topic from Google. This is actually from CNBC. This has been reported everywhere in in the traditional mass media. Google debuts new first of all, they debut a new search function. So it the when you go to google.com, Google search, that kind of that box, is now changed for the first time in twenty five years.
NIck Stamoulis:And essentially, Google has now incorporated agents, AI agents specifically directly into AI search, into just into traditional search. So what that means is, if you're logged into your Google account, and let's just say you have your favorite band or, you know, favorite, you know, show you're streaming or or movie or actor, whatever whatever you're looking for, you now can literally ask Google to set up an agent custom for you and alert you of when that band is coming or when that show is streaming or whatever it might be. So that this is huge. This is further integration of AI into traditional Google search. I mean, is really huge.
NIck Stamoulis:Like, ChatGPT offers that, but it's it's another thing when Google changes their search functionality to this magnitude. So this this is really big news. So, Catherine, John, what do you guys think?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Building on the last one, this builds on it nicely. It shows that we are in flux as a population that's integrating with AI and the businesses themselves are in flux too for the better. I feel like the more products that we have to pick and choose from, the better off for us. It's it's an interesting integration with what was always available because I always sort of looked at Gemini as the one that I would use to deep dive for research. And I have observed that Gemini is better with current events than some of the other ones because it's directly integrated with Google.
Katherine Tsoukalas:So this is this is an interesting thing to add to the mix as we decide which AI tool AI platforms to pick and choose to use for ourselves.
NIck Stamoulis:Yeah. It really is. John, what do you think?
John:Yeah. I think it's very like obvious that eventually all we're gonna have instead of Google search is some sort of Gemini prompt engine. And for better or for worse, I I think that that's where we're going. Yeah. And it's the next step towards that.
John:I I feel like it also has some really interesting functionality. Like you said, you can have your agent do something for you, check stuff, you know, daily. Maybe even at some point, you can easily integrate an agent to check your email and give you the top three most important ones for you to look at in the morning. Right? So I think we're, you know, going towards a time where we think is a lot more cohesive together in like the whole Google world.
John:And Right. I think it's just interesting.
NIck Stamoulis:It really is interesting. And the business ramifications of this are gonna be immense, and the marketing ramifications of this are gonna be even larger. Stay tuned, folks. We'll see what happens with that. Wanna just take a quick moment and let everyone know that we are streaming the Brick Marketing live podcast on the brickmarketing..com website at brickmarketing.com/live.
NIck Stamoulis:Also, on our LinkedIn page, Facebook page, and YouTube page. And also, this will be made available at all of the major streaming platforms this little bit later this afternoon, early evening. So you don't have time to listen to the whole thing today, definitely follow us and check the full podcast out. Moving on. Article great article from Search Engine Land.
NIck Stamoulis:Why TurboQuant, I hope I'm pronouncing that correct, could accelerate the shift to entity driven SEO. So I think that the really the the few takeaways that I took away from this piece was that SEO is moving toward true meaning and instant intent matching, and the other piece is useless content will end. And I think, I honestly think this is great. I really do. And, you know, with us at Brick Marketing, we've always helped our clients really map the intent of content.
NIck Stamoulis:And like we always say, Catherine, you know this, early, mid, and late sales cycle type content, which is great. Right? You have to understand the intent of your content as you're creating it. And so I think this is really just the next step in the next direction. And the fact that Google and Google Gemini will eventually just completely discount useless content, I think, is wonderful.
NIck Stamoulis:For years, people have tried to game the system and and taking, you know, a black hat approach to creating content. And I'm very happy that that will all end. So, Catherine, what do you think?
Katherine Tsoukalas:This looks to be the beginning of the integration of traditional search and AI. I mean, we've been seeing the evidence of this, but the fact that Yep. This is the algorithm because AI isn't inherently algorithmic, it's something else. Right. Incorporating elements of algorithm approach, it's kinda telling to me where things might be headed.
NIck Stamoulis:Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. John, your thoughts?
John:Yeah. I think this will also push people towards doing more quality over quantity. Yes. I feel like a lot you'll go on LinkedIn, you'll go on Reddit, you'll go on all these platforms, and all you're seeing is just spam, spam because Mhmm. There was, you know, a time where SEO was, like, completely quantity driven.
John:Like, you post as much as you can all the time. With AI, we're seeing that the more quality is more authoritative and now people are gonna be a lot more intentional about the things that they post online, you know, their blogs, all that sort of stuff. Yeah.
NIck Stamoulis:Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. Next, it is an article from our website entitled Instincts Matter When Choosing a Digital Marketing Agency. So essentially, the the thought behind this particular article again, this is on our website, on the Brick Marketing website.
NIck Stamoulis:Really, intent here is for folks to kinda understand that, you know, if you're a smaller business or a mid sized company or even an enterprise brand and you're looking to hire some sort of an agency, so to manage your search, to manage your AI SEO, your paid search, your social media, content marketing, whatever it happens to be, you know, yes, you want to make sure that they're legitimate, they've been in business a long time, they're experts at what they do, they do a good job for themselves as well as a brand and a company. You know, you gotta practice what you preach. They have good case studies, good testimonials. But at the end of the day, your instincts also matter in selecting a digital marketing agency as a partner, I e an extension of your marketing organization. So I I that's the reason kinda why we put this article together was that, you know, often many times people are just so focused on, hey, can I get references and this and they just complicate the process?
NIck Stamoulis:Right? If you have a real need and you want a real partner to help you accomplish the goals and achieve outcomes that you're looking for your business, make sure all these other factors are in place, but don't drag your feet too long. When you find the right agency, the right partner, move on it. Because the the the the sooner you move on it, that means the sooner that results start coming in. Catherine, what do you think?
NIck Stamoulis:Your thoughts.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yes. So I was reflecting on this today, thinking about the people that we've worked with over the years. Mhmm. And it's the people that we're working with. Right?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Exactly. They're part of their But this on paper, you could look great to work together. But at the end of the day, you have to feel comfortable with the people that you're gonna be working with. And it works on both sides of the coin, and that's where instincts come in. The instincts will help you determine which people you're going to be good with because if you have a any sort of a personality clash or if it's delightful and you really genuinely like them as people, you're gonna get so much more out of the relationship between agency and business.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Agreed.
NIck Stamoulis:Couldn't have said it better. John, your thoughts.
John:Yeah. I think the instincts are important because I think that like deep down, you know when someone's not the right fit for you. I think that you get that feeling really quickly. And I think you should just listen to that instead of, like you said, dragging your feet. You know, one, maybe the agency's stringing one person along, maybe, you know, it's the client stringing them along.
John:And then you just end up spending all this time when you could have just listened to that instinct and then moved on and then found the the agency that's right for you.
NIck Stamoulis:Totally. Totally. And another piece of advice, if you don't have the budget, don't waste our time. Not to be brutally honest, but to be brutally honest. Right?
NIck Stamoulis:Like, right, like, so, you know, you can't have buyer's remorse on this stuff. It's either you're all in and you go, you hire the right partner and move, get started, get get to getting the outcomes that you're looking for. So moving on. Next. Great piece, great article from Search Engine Journal.
NIck Stamoulis:This was actually really big. I this is another one of those topics that blew up in my LinkedIn last week. And it was crazy, and I saw it a whole bunch of places. The Conde Nast CEO quoted saying, plan as if search traffic will be zero. I thought this was fantastic.
NIck Stamoulis:And that's someone who's been doing this. I've been doing professional SEO for decades, a long time. And when I saw this, I thought it was wonderful because so many times we've had clients and we've worked with companies and we've spoken to to folks over the many, many years that put all of their eggs in the SEO basket. That say, you know, SEO is the primary driver of business for your website. And I, as a marketer, and we as a marketing agency, a digital marketing agency, have always said, great.
NIck Stamoulis:Search has always been the foundation, but you have to market your business many different ways. Look at, you know, look at advertising. Look at branding. Right? What type what does your email marketing look like?
NIck Stamoulis:Partnerships, sponsorships, business development activities. Just don't hinge the whole success of your business on one channel. And for years, people have done that. And so I thought this was great. The timing of this was great.
NIck Stamoulis:And I I I have a feeling that a lot of enterprise organizations and CEOs and c suite and a lot of companies think that way and say, you know what? I can't swear. I'm not gonna swear. F SEO, let's market our business a lot of other ways to try to get the outcomes that we're looking for. Seriously.
NIck Stamoulis:And it's great because if you do that, then your SEO will do well. Naturally, organically, your AI SEO will do great. The citations you'll get will be fantastic. So I thought this was a great refreshing piece. It was great to hear this from a c suite and a major organization.
NIck Stamoulis:So what do you guys think? Catherine?
Katherine Tsoukalas:I won't say search traffic is zero already, but also it kind of is.
NIck Stamoulis:Yeah.
Katherine Tsoukalas:We were experiencing that now because the whole notion of the long tail keywords, none of that is really resulting in traffic. Really, not much in any case because it seems as if people are already using AI to gather a lot of their information off-site, off of our websites. But we are still getting search traffic with, like, some branded content, but that tells me that everything is sort of changing. So what I really like about what the CEO said is that it's almost like giving us this reassurance. Don't worry about it.
NIck Stamoulis:Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Plan for something else. We can't get stuck in the past anymore because it's clear that things are changing and have changed and will continue to change. So now what? Just think about the now what? What do we do now?
John:How do
Katherine Tsoukalas:we market our business and just let it go? Let the past go. The past is gonna stay there. Everything is changing too much. And also, it could be spun as changing for the better if we know how to handle this new phase properly.
NIck Stamoulis:Totally. Totally. John, your thoughts?
John:Yeah. If anything, I'm a believer that if AI is going to make a difference in anything, it's going to be the way that we search. It's a very, very powerful search engine. And we won't be like, we're already seeing it with Google, like we said earlier. It's changing and I don't think we're gonna be looking at search traffic in the next, maybe, I don't know how long, maybe five, ten years from now.
John:It's gonna be something else that we're tracking. There won't be, we it won't be keywords anymore. It'll be, you're gonna go in, you're gonna ask Google, Gemini, whatever, the same type of questions that you might ask a search engine. We're gonna get back with far more detailed answers and then people are gonna go straight to your website or even find the information they need from, you know, Gemini or ChatGPT, what it may be. And then, essentially, all of the way that we're tracking data is going to be completely changed.
NIck Stamoulis:Totally. Totally. Yeah. It's going to be outcome based, truly. You know, like, old world of thinking, conversion based, but I think it's gonna be outcome bay based, and I think you're right.
NIck Stamoulis:Yep. Alright. Moving on. Now here's a piece, aired an article from the Coast News Group. So kind of a California based publication.
NIck Stamoulis:I thought it was great. So the question it poses is why your digital marketing isn't bringing in customers. And so the person actually goes through and talks about, know, how do I get more people into the door? How can I get more calls? So they they've been told what works.
NIck Stamoulis:They post more, run discounts, spend time designing graphics. They try to stay consistent. And then the article kinda goes through and says, you know, the hard truth. People don't buy because you post more. They don't buy because you don't discount everything.
NIck Stamoulis:They don't buy because you spent hours making a cute graphic. You know, why do they buy? And I thought this was great. It really talked about the psychology of digital marketing. One is social proof.
NIck Stamoulis:Can I trust you? Scarcity and urgency. Why should I act now? And you helped me, now I trust you. Authority.
NIck Stamoulis:Are you the expert? So and then it goes further into it and gives a, you know, hypothetical, you know, digital marketing plan fix. I thought this was I thought this was a great article because what it did is it talked more about things that we all know. Right? That we know here at Brick Marketing, that we help our company, our clients with, that we practice.
NIck Stamoulis:As an agency, you have to be trusted. You have to know what you're know what you're you know, if you have a product, you have to be the expert of that product. What's in it for the customer? Right? I mean, it's basic marketing fundamentals, but so many business owners and small business owners aren't marketers.
NIck Stamoulis:That's the reality. Marketing is a second afterthought. And unfortunately, sales and marketing should be the first thought. Right? Because it because if you have a product or service that isn't marketable, that there's no demand, that you're not trusted for, the people don't right?
NIck Stamoulis:It's not it's not gonna perform. So that is a great piece. So yeah. What do you guys think on this?
Katherine Tsoukalas:I was chatting with somebody about this today. Too often yes. It came up. My sister is in marketing as well. So too often we think of it was a philosophical discussion.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Anyway, too often we think of digital marketing and any sort of marketing practice as a string of activities that we do. And this is true, but we often miss how it strategically fits into the business goals. And so that piece is always considered when deciding what articles to post, for example, on a blog. Like, there's it that there's more to that than just deciding on the topics and writing them and putting them up. That is Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:The way that it's executed and implemented, but that is not that is just not the way that it's done. You have to align everything that you're doing to your goals and think about how that fits into the sales cycle and everything in between. And if those pieces aren't connected to each other into the marketing activities, you're gonna have a hard time bringing in customers because it's not Right. Marketing's not the activities that you do. It's how your activities strategically are influenced by your business goals to get the outcomes that you want.
NIck Stamoulis:Totally. Totally. Yeah. Mean, Catherine, you and I were at an event yesterday and there's some great folks there. But the underlying theme that I heard was people tend to get very overwhelmed looking at tasks and often forget about the strategy behind the tasks and they get bogged down.
NIck Stamoulis:And so, you know, the reality is folks, this stuff is not brain surgery. It's not that hard to really understand and it's very easy, I would say, if you're a small business owner, to look at the next shiny new object, to look at the next new tool that all of a sudden every oh, this is the new tool. Oh, gotta try this. Oh, I gotta try that. Look at it and look at No.
NIck Stamoulis:Look at what you're doing. Look at your strategy. Understand your audience. And like you said, Catherine, has to be tied to your goals. So John, what do you think on this?
NIck Stamoulis:Get your thoughts on this.
John:Yeah. I mean, the way that your product or business is like packaged and seen by others is definitely important, but the product has to be there and the messaging has to be there. Right? It's not Right. It's it's only a small slice of the pie the way that people perceive you because you could create, say for example, an amazing ad that looks great.
John:People are, you know, it might have a million impressions online. But if you get no sales from it because the product within it isn't good or interesting, then it's useless. Right? So you have to make sure that your product's good, that you're that everything is aligned with each other so that you can bring in customers.
NIck Stamoulis:Totally. 100%. Next, great article from inc.inc.com, Inc Magazine. And this particular piece, the name of the article is Social Media is Not Enough. How Smart Founders Market Themselves in the Age of AI.
NIck Stamoulis:I thought this was great because the lens of this was for folks or businesses that are maybe, you know, maybe top heavy in social media and often many times don't invest the time, effort, and resources behind some of these other channels. So some of the key takeaways here is, you know, the one one thing that that the article says is use social media for lead gen, then send customers to the platforms you control. Focus on building your email list. That's a really big thing that often a lot of folks don't kind of think about. Create a personal brand that shows up in traditional and AI search.
NIck Stamoulis:Leverage offline marketing channels. I think in the in the age of AI that we're in, that people want to feel connected and trusted and wanna know that there's realness behind a brand, behind a product. So I thought this was great, you know. Often many times, you know, I'll I'll go on TikTok and I'll see, you know, TikTokers that, you you know, I could tell have a good following or, you know, are making sales or selling products, almost like shopping network type style where they promote products and stuff like that, which is awesome. I love it.
NIck Stamoulis:But on the flip side, I'll sometimes say, oh, you know, I don't really wanna follow them on TikTok. Let me look at their Instagram presence, and they have no presence on Instagram. And then I might search for their handle and they don't have a presence. They don't have a website, don't have a presence anywhere, don't have a list. So the point is, if you're starting with one channel, don't be tough heavy in one area of your marketing.
NIck Stamoulis:That was the takeaway that I got from it. How to make sure it's diversified as much as you're able to. So anyway, I thought it was a great piece from Inc. Catherine, John, what do you guys think?
Katherine Tsoukalas:This goes along with what I said last article or a few articles ago. Your marketing is not a string of activities. It's how everything fits together. And the same is true for social media. Where people might get tripped up as if they're on their personal brand is typically used for social media like LinkedIn, but that still fits into the strategy of your overall digital marketing.
Katherine Tsoukalas:It has to be aligned with your outcomes. So just like with any asset online, social media is not one that you technically own. You're you're writing your content on the site and the social media site owns your content.
NIck Stamoulis:So Yeah. I mean, you're totally right on that, Catherine. Like Yeah. Think of this think of this. If you're top heavy in social, what if one day you get a term a term terms and services violation arbitrarily and you're shut down?
NIck Stamoulis:I've actually seen that firsthand. And it's brutal because there's no service. There's no customer service at at YouTube, at TikTok, at Facebook, at Instagram, at x. They could care, honestly. All due respect to social media and I know some people I love it.
NIck Stamoulis:We're active everywhere. But our our brand is Brick Marketing. To me, that's the that's the brand. You know? Like in the days of you if you go back, turn the clock back, Myspace.
NIck Stamoulis:Right? They went under. I mean, I could literally list maybe half a dozen other social platforms that went defunct over the years, you know. And, you know, the key is if you're creating the good content, you wanna have that brand kind of built. And different not just social media, but other channels as well.
NIck Stamoulis:I guess that was the point of this. I thought this was great. So John, what do you think on this?
John:Yeah. You need to be everywhere on social media, but also you need to have your own personal brand. You need to have
NIck Stamoulis:Right.
John:You know, if you're a company, need to have your website where people Totally. Know to find you. Because like you said, Myspace went away. You know, people a lot of people don't use x or Twitter anymore because they don't like the new, you know, whatever. So there's that, you know, that that audience that's now gone.
John:Right? Right. So if they know they can still find you at your website or, you know, wherever you might be Yep. It's important. You need to be well rounded.
NIck Stamoulis:Yeah. 100%. Next, article from our site, from the Brick Marketing website. Improve AI search visibility without hurting SEO. So this is the approach that we take.
NIck Stamoulis:And, you know, we were actually speaking with a client not too long ago and, you know, we were rolling out on-site optimization changes, content changes, and AI changes, AI search changes all at the same time. That's the approach that we take is balancing. Right? And we've talked about it at webinars and workshops and various events over the last year and a half or so. And it's the same.
NIck Stamoulis:It's an important factor that it just because your SEO isn't driving the traffic that it used to, Your visibility is still there. Right? And so you don't wanna ignore it, but also when you're maybe optimizing your content, your website for generative engine optimization or answer engine optimization or AI SEO, you wanna make sure that you're not forgetting about the fundamentals of modern SEO in this process. And you don't wanna do something that's gonna hurt your modern SEO just for something that's an emerging channel, a very important, but emerging channel of digital marketing in AI SEO. So, Catherine and John, what do you guys think on this?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Now that Google announced what they did, where search is search and AI Yep. And SEO are all part of that, this is even more meaningful.
NIck Stamoulis:It really is.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Because it shows that they're tied together. And we wrote this back in April before Google made that announcement. So this is what we believe. This is Mhmm. Aligned with where the industry is headed.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And you need to do both. And a lot of times we've seen people using AI, what they think is best practice for AI, and then they scrub everything that had to do with their SEO.
NIck Stamoulis:Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Like, proposed to us, oh, what if we just delete our title tags and meta descriptions? No. You're not gonna delete those.
NIck Stamoulis:Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:You leave those in tag. That's that would hurt your SEO. Oh, but SEO isn't it's headed to not be viable anymore. It's not true. Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:It's still viable. AI is viable. We need to take all that into account.
NIck Stamoulis:It's evolving is the key thing.
John:Mhmm.
NIck Stamoulis:So, John, what do you think?
John:Yeah. Like, you know, in in that first Google article, SEO is a huge part of AI. So you need to make sure that your SEO is still good and strong. And then what's nice about the way that you can also have good results in AI is that it's all really good SEO. Like writing good articles that are quality works with both SEO and AI SEO.
John:So it's like, you're not hurting your SEO by writing good content. Your, you know, your SEO will get better and so will your AI results.
NIck Stamoulis:Yes. Agreed. Moving on. Next, an article actually, this was interesting. Found this one from Rolling Stone.
NIck Stamoulis:The end of digital marketing in the age of AI agents. And really kind of the the thought on this, and this is actually very interesting because this to me, you know, Rolling Stone is a music publication, has been for decades. Right? Music website. And so I thought this was very interesting because this aligns with something that we've actually been talking about for a little while that eventually you're gonna need to have two marketing two digital marketing campaigns.
NIck Stamoulis:One is gonna be for human beings. Right? Your audience, of course. Right? And your brand you know, improving your brands, building trust, having great quality content, good usability, good products and services, that is a must.
NIck Stamoulis:But then you're gonna have to have a whole another marketing program that is built around getting the attention of AI agents. And so I think that we are this process is beginning with the Google news that just broke out about agents getting integrated into search like that. This is the start of that, literally. And it's amazing how a publication, a music publication like Rolling Stone would report that. I just thought it was a great piece.
NIck Stamoulis:I think it's not necessarily relevant only to music. That's why I pulled it in. I just think it's great. And it'll be interesting to see, you know, how things flush out. And even now, it's more important than ever to have real experts at digital marketing that can see big picture, they can see the details, that can help you from a high level strategic perspective and understand in how to implement and evolve changes rapidly.
NIck Stamoulis:That's what you and I need people like us, quite frankly. We that's how we operate because you need that strategic know how, resilience, and a steady hand right now as this change is happening. Because this is huge. This is really huge if you think about it. Catherine, John, what do you guys think?
Katherine Tsoukalas:What a fascinating thing that an article like this is in Rolling Stone magazine.
John:Goes Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:How culturally pervasive these topics are. And if you think about it, the music industry is big and they're trying to navigate the AI era just as much as the rest of us are. So very fascinating. I feel like digital marketing as we know it is still viable. It's evolving and changing.
Katherine Tsoukalas:AI agents are are up and coming as well. So for me, it'll just be interesting. People can make claims all they want, but for me Right. It'll just be interesting how everything turns out.
NIck Stamoulis:Absolutely. John, your thoughts?
John:Yeah. I mean, it just it just sort of makes sense. Right? Because a lot of people are gonna, you know, even more people are gonna be going to AI to Right. You know, get their information.
John:So you need to both meet the, you know, the audience where they're at and you also need to figure out how to get in the conversations that they're having with their their chatbots. Yeah. I mean, I I think that they're completely right on this.
NIck Stamoulis:I agree. I agree. Moving on. Next, great article from Web Pro News. OpenAI swaps ChatGPT's core engine.
NIck Stamoulis:GPT 5.5 instant cuts hallucinations by 52% sharpens everyday AI. I've actually noticed this change, quite frankly. In chat, I have paid accounts, Not just the low end pay accounts, but the top paid accounts for all of the AI platforms. And I use chat quite a bit and I've noticed it really not hallucinating as much. Again, on the higher paid versions, I haven't tested the, you know, lobbying logged out, The free versions, I haven't tested that.
NIck Stamoulis:But I think this is great. I think this is the step in the right direction. And because we know I think we've all been there with the hallucinations come in, and then you push back on chat or any of the AI platforms, and then they they fold quickly and say, oh, yeah. You're right. You know, kinda like, okay.
NIck Stamoulis:You know? So I thought I thought this was great to see. So, guys, what do you think?
Katherine Tsoukalas:I have noticed fewer hallucinations as well. And the output being a little bit higher quality. There of course, there's some kinks. I feel like there's some kinks. It sometimes will forget my instructions in a thread or bias my instructions with its own understanding of the instructions without asking follow-up questions if it doesn't know what to do.
Katherine Tsoukalas:However, 5.5 is a lot better than other GPT five releases. It's trending in the right direction.
NIck Stamoulis:Yeah. Really is. John, what do you what do you think? And have you noticed any change in using chat?
John:I personally haven't, but I don't think may maybe because I haven't started any, like, new chat threads in the past few days. May maybe that's why. Maybe it's still, like, using the old information from that thread or whatever. I I guess we'll just have to like wait and see over time if I if, you know, we all still feel that way that the hallucinations are down. Who knows?
NIck Stamoulis:Yeah. The reality is all these platforms are just getting better. And they're all they're gonna get faster, smarter, hallucinate less, have less drift, and just be great great tools for all of us. Next, article from Search Engine Land. Google may be about to widen the SEO playing field.
NIck Stamoulis:So this is an interesting topic, basically talking about how Google's algorithm because remember, Google's algorithmic in nature isn't an, right now anyway, isn't a true LLM where Gemini is. Gemini is an AI platform and learning mechanism. And so what's interesting on this is there are theories that essentially in that the search results are gonna get larger. So basically, instead of top 20 blue links, they're talking about perhaps widening it to 30 links per page of search results. I think I know why they're doing that.
NIck Stamoulis:I mean, my own personal opinion is they're doing it to give more visibility to folks, to show serve up more impressions, to help brands as this change is happening. I mean, can't be, I mean, I think Google is definitely benefiting quite a bit on this change. I mean, we at Brick Marketing have seen a tremendous influx in pay per click advertising clients and Google Ads clients. We have this year. And the underlying theme is, of course, you know, they're all outcome based based, you know, to increase sales, increase different various goals.
NIck Stamoulis:But the reality is the underlying on that is I feel like a lot of companies are freaked out over AI to a certain degree and there's paralysis and they're they're running to the fields of things that have traditionally worked. Like, oh, traditional SEO is down with zero click search. You know, some of these other channels we know, social media, unless you're doing paid, has a very low visibility rate. So what's left in traditional old older school thinking and that's paid advertising with Google Ads, pay per click. So I think Google might be just kinda like throwing a bone or actually legitimately trying to help businesses, small businesses, and mid sized brands and companies overall and just having more search results, but we'll see.
NIck Stamoulis:We'll see how this plays out. What do you guys think?
Katherine Tsoukalas:I think this is interesting as well because I don't know. I find it interesting that they're using the term rankings, actually.
NIck Stamoulis:I know.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Because it goes to show a lot of people are ready to embrace the future of things to come. And articles like this show that there's still a bit of a hanging on to the past. Right. It needs to be reconciled. It's proof that we're definitely in transition.
Katherine Tsoukalas:We could talk talk about AI all we want, but
NIck Stamoulis:Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:If we're still thinking about SEO in this way and ranking as a work not been viable for in my opinion for several years now.
NIck Stamoulis:I I'd say at least at least, in my opinion I mean, at least ten years, maybe longer.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Me too.
NIck Stamoulis:Yeah. Me too. I mean, we even I even said the word ranking to a client probably since, 2010. I mean, really
Katherine Tsoukalas:haven't. Me neither. Yeah. It's irrelevant. SEO has been in a fight for the first piece of Google.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Okay. Right. Sure. But okay. I I'm curious where the future plays into this Yeah.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Mindset.
NIck Stamoulis:True. John, what do you think?
John:I think it's interesting. I it gives, you know, smaller smaller businesses, people who might not have, you know, the the history or the money to get higher higher up on search results to both be maybe indexed more or be found by people. I think it's good. I don't I don't know if it'll make that big of a difference.
NIck Stamoulis:Yeah. Agree.
John:Because you like we said, things are shifting. Right. It might help some people, but I I don't think things will change all too much because of it. Yep.
NIck Stamoulis:Yep. Agreed. I'd just take a moment here just to remind everyone, we're streaming on the Brick Marketing website, brickmarketinglive.in.com/live. We're on also streaming on our LinkedIn company page, Facebook company page, YouTube channel, and also this will be available at all major podcast platforms later today. So check it out.
NIck Stamoulis:Search for Brick Marketing Live. Moving on. Next is an a really cool article that is from Adweek talking about the title is Coca Cola is so good at marketing, everyone forgot to notice. And I and and then the byline is the numbers prove that consistency beats disruption every quarter. I thought this was brilliant because for it's so many so many levels.
NIck Stamoulis:What human being on planet Earth doesn't know the brand Coca Cola, first of all? Okay? Coke is a generational brand that markets and continues to market generation after generation in every language, in every every country in the globe. Right? Who doesn't know what Coke is?
NIck Stamoulis:And so but here's the thing. They continue to spend money on branding. They continue to market even though everyone knows them. That's the point. And I thought this was great because I feel in today's world, branding, traditional branding is often forgot about quite a bit.
NIck Stamoulis:Right? You need every channel that we talk about every day, day in, day out. AI SEO, traditional SEO, content marketing, social media, you know, your advertising, whether it be PPC or social advertising, partnerships, and marketing offline different ways. But branding, a lot of businesses just truly forget the importance of branding. And and this this is a huge brand, obviously, one of the top, but it also is really applicable to smaller and mid sized brands.
NIck Stamoulis:Smaller and mid sized companies as well. Right? If you're in a niche and you're b to b, right, and you know that there's three industry sites and there's maybe two print publications and there's four core conferences, why not and two associations, why not be sponsors at all of them? Why not market at all of them heavily? Right?
NIck Stamoulis:Be the household name in your niche. And so that's what I my takeaway for this. I thought it was brilliant. The fact that Coca Cola is still consistent, and we talk about consistency every day in every channel marketing. I just thought this was a great article.
NIck Stamoulis:It's a great take. And I I saw I see so many parallels that can help small and mid sized companies on this as well. Guys, what do you think?
Katherine Tsoukalas:A few things. One is that branding is one of those things that happens both naturally and intentionally. Right. And it strikes me that Coca Cola has been good at both of them. The name is recognizable and has been for a very long time.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And they are constantly I mean, even look at that image. We know the Coca Cola logo and it gets plunked on just about everything you can think of, the bottles, merch. Okay. But branding is important for the AI era too because the stronger your brand, the more likely you are to be returned in the AI answers and and when people are chatting about something that's related to your industry. So that's a good takeaway from this for any business of any size and in any industry.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And then the second is this also goes to show you that it aligns with what we always say consistency matters. And it's always made us feel uncomfortable to see a business. I'm talking ten, twenty years. How long have we been in business? Right?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
NIck Stamoulis:Right. Agreed.
Katherine Tsoukalas:You're be everywhere, and this is another little bit of a proof. Sure. On a larger scale than most of us.
NIck Stamoulis:Shit. Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:This is proof that it works. Right. And we should feel inspired by it, I think.
NIck Stamoulis:Absolutely. I agree. John, what do you think?
John:Yeah. Coke is such an interesting case of branding because they're so huge. They they honestly might have the best branding on the planet. Right? Like you said agree.
John:Can't think of one per like, one person on the planet who doesn't know about Coke. But you're right that they you know, all brands need to be everywhere. Something that I think about all the time is how you might go into I I I'm sure you've seen restaurants where their signs have Coke branding on them. Right? So it's like so it's like they understand how important it is just to be everywhere.
John:Like, you are going to see Coke. You're go outside your house and go for a drive. You're going to see a Coke logo somewhere. Right? Exactly.
John:It's a really interesting case of like that late stage super huge super huge branding done right.
NIck Stamoulis:Agreed. Agreed. Next, really great piece from search engine land. Why your brand isn't making the AI recommendation set. So Search Engine Land nailed it on this one again.
NIck Stamoulis:And essentially, you know, they talk about that the invisible layer most GEO advice skips, and that is branding. Right? And so and that's something that I think companies are really gonna have to kind of get their get their heads around in the next year, especially where they, you know, they say, okay, You know, we we all our other channels of digital marketing are maxed. AI search is our priority. Showing up in the AI answers, whether it's answer engine optimization, GEO, whatever you wanna call it, being visible in AI search is the priority.
NIck Stamoulis:You need to market your company lots of ways, be visible, lots of places. We just talked about branding. Right? So it's in a smaller scale, you need to do that as your budget allows and be very strategic about it. Pick your spots.
NIck Stamoulis:Right? They're gonna drive the right visibility for you, the right type of visibility, the right targeted audiences, potentially help you with outcomes you're looking for, goals and conversions that you're looking for, but you need to brand. And that is a major thing that we're seeing that a lot of companies are gonna miss the boat where, you know, you can optimize your site great, have great content, great FAQs, micro cluster content, and you know, good press releases, all this stuff. But if you're not branding your company and marketing the business heavily, you're not gonna see the results versus your competition. It's just how it is.
NIck Stamoulis:Catherine, John, what do you guys think on that?
Katherine Tsoukalas:So one thing that's happening right now is because AI is in we're in transition with it and we're learning how it works for us, there isn't a lot of there's some terminology confusion that I wanted to clear up with this. This publication uses the term AI citation slightly different than us. We refer to it as your outside marketing, an opportune like a press release or article mentioned or something off your website, but they are actually talking about AI citations in this piece as the information that's returned when somebody asks a chat AI chat or whatever a question. So I find that interesting that the terminology isn't cohesive yet in our because we refer to that as AI answers, AI recommendations. We refer to that a little bit differently.
Katherine Tsoukalas:So I find it interesting that it appears as if through this article, appears as if they're starting to warm up to this idea that we can't control how anybody perceives us and this goes for back in the days where SEO was purely this the thing. And we can't control how AI perceives us, but how we are perceived can be sort of influenced by how we collect our marketing together both off-site and off-site. So optimizing for AI citations is possible if we really think about how to make our brand cohesive across the Internet as a whole and honor in all of our marketing. And so I find this article interesting on many levels because although we cannot control things, we can change the way we're perceived online so that AI could potentially pick up the correct information about us. So this article is meaningful in that regard.
NIck Stamoulis:Absolutely. John, what do you think?
John:Yeah. I don't have too much to add, but we've been saying this for as long as, you know, this podcast has been a thing and even before to clients that the clarity and relevance of your brand is one of the most important things for AI. Because if your branding is inconsistent, then AI doesn't know what to pull from. It might get confused and then you might either get somebody it might pop up in somebody's AI answers with incorrect information, or it just might not be pulled at all.
NIck Stamoulis:Agreed. Agreed. Next, moving on. From Web Pro News, a great article, Google's AI ad boom. How brands are scoring 80% sales surge in a shifting search world.
NIck Stamoulis:So this is great. And basically, this this article talks on the pay per click side of things, how there have been a number of studies and trends at various brands and various industries that show excellent results from launching AI Max or, you know, Google Ad Max type programs. I think it's I think it's interesting. I have tested it for certain types of campaigns. They the AI max works great.
NIck Stamoulis:And for those of you that don't understand what I'm talking about, basically, when you set up a Google Ads campaign, you can choose to have Google's Google Ads platform run your PPC campaign autonomously versus, you know, manually managing it. And so we generally will do a hybrid of both depending on the goals, the outcomes, and and what we need to achieve with the PPC campaign. But I thought this was interesting, you know. Now, would I recommend every business just roll the dice and run an AI max campaign? Absolutely not.
NIck Stamoulis:Because quite frankly, you guys aren't experts at it. Really. I mean, not not to be crass about it, but you know, we've been managing PPC campaigns professionally since I've been personally doing it since 2001, professionally. And so and Brick Marketing, we've been doing it as long as we've been in business for almost going on twenty two years. Right?
NIck Stamoulis:So someone like us will be able to pick up on variables when we're setting up the campaign will that will help control the budget and help keep it as targeted as humanly possible versus a small business owner or a mid sized company that says, oh, this is great. They slap their credit card, put their ad, and then there's a very good chance that it's gonna run haywire and not get you the outcomes you're looking for and achieve the goal. The the I guess the the notion is test it. If you know how to run PPC campaigns on your own, test it for sure. But make sure you test it, I would say, because every situation is completely different.
NIck Stamoulis:Catherine, John, what do you guys think?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yeah. I mean, it's not gonna work for every brand, and I'd be interested to see how this plays out because I feel like the AI ad stuff is going to start working even better. Mhmm. I think so. Yeah.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Right now, it kinda depends on the intent, I think, of the campaign, what you're trying to achieve. Can the AI Max and Direct let you discover what your full intent is? I I don't know. I think there's it has a ways to go, but the data about how people are reporting sales surges is interesting to me. It's intriguing.
Katherine Tsoukalas:I'd like to see how this plays out.
NIck Stamoulis:Yeah. Agreed. John, your thoughts?
John:Yeah. I think it makes a good jumping on point for people who might not know anything about about running campaigns or, you know, businesses who who traditionally have not done it before. And it might, you know, you might see some better results than if they were to do it themselves. But I think you still need, like, the expert to come in and actually do your campaigns manually because I think you'll see better results from that. But if you're just looking to try out, right Mhmm.
John:You know, this sort of thing, it could be a good time for you to just play around with it, test. But I I will always recommend, you know, having an expert do it.
NIck Stamoulis:Totally. For sure. Next, a really great article from Search Engine Journal. The IT Line of Death, the real reason enterprise SEO stalls. I thought this was absolutely a great article.
NIck Stamoulis:Really great because we've encountered this before, literally, over and over again where you know? And and I'll tell you just for folks that don't understand what we're talking about. So small and mid sized companies generally don't have an IT department, generally don't have a web in house web developer, and generally need to outsource to companies like us who has developers on our team that can handle any technical implementation or anything technically that needs to get implemented that contributes towards technical SEO. Enterprise organizations operate a lot differently. They have in house, typically, an in house developer or an in house development team, an in house IT team, which typically straddles the line between web development and then non web development, depending on the complexity of the back end environment, you know, because IT is a huge umbrella.
NIck Stamoulis:Right? You're right. If you're in a an enterprise, that means a large organization, you know, you could have all sorts of databases and servers and admins and it's it's a pretty large, you know, it's a large thing. So SEO typically sometimes will fall in the technical realm in enterprise companies, which I believe is very is false. It's I believe it's always been shortsighted.
NIck Stamoulis:Always. I believe SEO always will be a channel of digital marketing. Period. But you need good technical implementation to get the results and outcomes that you're looking for. But there's a balance sometimes, right, where you need to prioritize implementation of something technical that might affect something else that could be potentially more mission critical, more important than SEO.
NIck Stamoulis:The reason why I'm saying all this is many times, large companies and enterprise companies get in their own way and move so slow in implementation of technical items related to SEO that nothing ever kinda gets done and the results stall. And so the point is I thought this was a really great piece from search engine journal. I think it's a problem that has been in place for decades as long as I've been doing this. And I I hope with now these AI platforms out there and these AI tools can really help development move things forward quicker. K.
NIck Stamoulis:And, you know, to help so these enterprise organizations can actually implement, you know, whether it's modern SEO traditional modern SEO or AI SEO technical implementation a lot better to get better outcomes. So, Catherine, John, what do guys think on this?
Katherine Tsoukalas:We've seen it over and over again where implementation is slow. Things never get implemented because they got bogged down in approvals. It just hurts the results. It ruins your consistency. It hurts your results.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And sometimes things take so long to be implemented by the time they do. The information's outdated. So digital marketing, there's an element of taking action as quickly as humanly possible. And if it takes forever to take that action, then that strikes me as an operational issue, to be honest. What is the problem here?
Katherine Tsoukalas:What else takes a long time? Why does your marketing get bogged down Right. Including your SEO? Those are questions that need to be answered if a company is gonna be able to move forward in anything that they try to do.
NIck Stamoulis:Exactly. John, your thoughts?
John:Yeah. When you add that extra layer, there's a lot more friction that's gonna come from it. And when you're putting SEO on the IT people, like, sure, they have the technical knowledge to implement SEO, but they might not have the marketer's perspective where they know the right keywords, where they know
NIck Stamoulis:Mhmm.
John:All the right techniques in order to maximize the the relevance of of whatever they're doing, you know. So, yeah. Adding that extra layer of friction makes things slower and you might not get as good as, of a result. So I think that this should definitely be, you know, the marketers job.
NIck Stamoulis:Absolutely. Moving on, last one for today is a an article from the Brick Marketing website. Why clear messaging beats more content? I thought this was great because and really our intent here with this piece was for folks to kinda understand because we're we're starting to see this with a lot of our clients, kind of that pushback on creating content. Right?
NIck Stamoulis:And that's oh, we've always seen this over the years, you know, of, oh, well, we have nothing interesting to write and, oh, I, you know, I don't wanna have a blog on my side. I don't like the word blog. But, you know, all these things, you know, when we say content, we mean it could be video content, white paper content, case study content. Right? Article content, blog content.
NIck Stamoulis:This is so many different different definitions of content. But the reality is more content doesn't necessarily mean your messaging is gonna get better. And having clear messaging that ties to your mission, your unique selling proposition, your brand that's consistent everywhere is what will win, not only in AI SEO, but will win what will win with your customers, with getting the outcomes and getting more business. Right? And so that was the intent behind this article is, you know, yes, content's important, but your messaging needs to be tight and clear and unified everywhere continually.
NIck Stamoulis:And so yeah. So, Catherine, John, what do you guys think?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yeah. For a long time, people have erroneously believed that, oh, our content strategy is working great. Let's post more content. And this that's not the case. There's diminished returns.
Katherine Tsoukalas:What's more important now more than ever is to make sure that your topic is covered well and cohesively and that your message is clear. Having a topic covered well and does not necessarily mean you need more more and more articles. It could mean that, but it doesn't necessarily mean that. Your messaging always has to be first before you embark on a journey of adding content to your site. Otherwise, you could be repeating yourself.
Katherine Tsoukalas:You could be creating content that you may have forgotten that you created three months ago. You could be making it so that people are starting to feel confused about what you're messaging after it actually is. There's information overload. You don't want that to happen. So focus on your messaging first and decide what that means for the content after.
Katherine Tsoukalas:That's the most
NIck Stamoulis:Absolutely. Important John, your thoughts?
John:Yeah. I I I said it earlier that your messaging, especially in the age of AI, needs to be cohesive across all of your channels no matter where it is, whether it's social media, whether it's your website, whether it's your Google My Business page, Yelp, everything needs to be clear and the messaging needs to be authoritative because otherwise, you're not gonna get those AI citations.
NIck Stamoulis:Absolutely. Absolutely. So that's it for today. That is what we have. Thank you all for listening to the Brick Marketing Live Podcast.
NIck Stamoulis:Wanna let everyone know that again, this streams live on our website. We'll have this archived on our website. It'll also be on all the major podcast platforms later this evening. Our next date that we are live is next week, and we will be with you on Tuesday, May 26 at approximately 04:30PM eastern. We'll be live.
NIck Stamoulis:But again, you can always check us out on any major platform. So just follow us, subscribe at all the podcast platforms, and you'll be notified when there's a new episode, you don't have to worry about watching this live. A few other things, we have an upcoming webinar on June 10. Just go to the Brick Marketing website and you can join our free webinar on June 10. And again, we would like to thank everyone for taking the time, and we will be with you next week.
NIck Stamoulis:Thanks, everyone.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Bye.
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