Episode 8
· 01:02:06
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the latest installment of Brick Marketing Live. Today is Tuesday, 06/02/2026. We have many exciting topics to dive into about AI, AI SEO, search engine optimization, digital marketing, social media, content marketing, and every area within the marketing industry. So I'd like to welcome everyone.
Nick Stamoulis:Thank you for taking time out of your day. Today we have Catherine and John with us, so welcome. And I'd like to welcome everyone. So we're streaming on the Brick Marketing website at brickmarketinglive.com/live. Also on the Brick Marketing Facebook page, LinkedIn company page, and YouTube channel.
Nick Stamoulis:So let's get right to it. So today's first article, interesting one. Just an update from Google, from search engine land that the title is Google AI overviews and AI mode gain preferred sources plus new perspectives carousel and highly cited labels. So really the takeaway here is Google is continuing to evolve Google search, Google AI overviews, of course, leading into Google Gemini. And essentially, now sources of articles that are heavily, I guess, sourced as citations are now going to be listed as preferred preferred sources.
Nick Stamoulis:So Catherine John, what do guys think on this?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yeah. I think that it's an example of how things are evolving weekly, daily regarding AI. And I think it's a step in the right direction because AI mode I've noticed actually when I I noticed when I searched on Google now, the AI mode has gotten a lot more prominent. So Yep. I I think it's a step in the direction.
Nick Stamoulis:It really is. It really is. John, your thoughts?
John:Yeah. And it's good that they have preferred sources now instead of just pulling random things from wherever. Right? Because before, you know, it it might still be this way, but, know, Reddit's at the top of it all the time. You know, so it's good that it's trying to become a little bit more reliable.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. No. It really is. It really is. It's you know, it's just it's very interesting to see how Google is evolving and where we're going.
Nick Stamoulis:So next, article from Ad Age. This is interesting. A maturing open AI splits marketing duties between two CMO roles. So this is just so fascinating to me. Great article at Ad Age.
Nick Stamoulis:And and and what I find interesting is so OpenAI is hiring, you know, a full marketing team. They're assembling, you know, at the top down. I was actually reading that Anthropic is hiring an SEO manager or director of SEO. So what's interesting is you see all of these other companies that say, oh, use us use AI to automate your SEO. Use, you know, use AI instead of hiring a professional to manage your search.
Nick Stamoulis:I find it fascinating how the places that are quote unquote doing it, right, automating it, are hiring SEO people and marketing teams. So I just I just thought it was really fascinating. So what do you guys think on this?
Katherine Tsoukalas:I need I need John to go first.
Nick Stamoulis:John, what do you think?
Katherine Tsoukalas:I lost the way. So
John:I think that I I think it proves that in a way, AI isn't as strong as they're claiming that it is right now. Right? So, like, yeah, like you said, like, they're always like, oh, you know, you you won't need a person to do this. You just need a person to write the prompt and then that's it. But as we're seeing, like, for marketing, for whatever it may be, it's not as strong as they were saying, and you still do need an expert to do those things.
John:It might help them be a little bit, you know, more efficient at that task, but it's still and it should only just be a tool. It still is
Nick Stamoulis:a tool. Yeah. I agree. I agree. And, you know, it's interesting.
Nick Stamoulis:We we were at an event not too long ago, you know, all of us, the whole Brick Marketing team. And there was a there was an agency that had completely automate basically, automating their SEO. Like, all aspects of search, all aspects of the PPC management, all aspects of social media management. And, you know, their whole tagline was fire your marketing agency. And, yeah, at first, my initial I was like, oh my goodness.
Nick Stamoulis:How dare they? Because we're a digital marketing agency. But on the flip side, I'm like, you know, it's you know, I've seen these cycles before. I've seen these cycles where you had the, you know, in the SEO world and outsourcing to India. And you had Katherine, you know, as a writer.
Nick Stamoulis:Right? Kinda like the content mills of article spinning. And all these things years ago that we've seen these things go in cycles. You know, the point is there's no substitution to hiring real marketers to run areas of your marketing. And and the fact that OpenAI is hiring two CMOs just further, you know, strengthens that argument, quite frankly.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yeah.
Nick Stamoulis:So moving on. Next article from our site, from the Brick Marketing website. How AI search visibility drives b to b leads. So it's very interesting. We have many clients primarily in the b to b side, many on the b to c side as well.
Nick Stamoulis:And sometimes b to b's think that, you know, oh, well, you know, AI search, you know, where does it fit? Right? You know, traditional SEO has diminished over the years. Content marketing isn't necessarily what it used to be. It's you know, as a b to b, it's tough.
Nick Stamoulis:Social media is typically used, you know, nurturing, isn't generally a direct lead gen. And, you know, those of you that love LinkedIn, don't get angry. It's true. It's true what I just said. So but for AI search, what we're finding is for b to b specifically.
Nick Stamoulis:B to b traditionally has higher ticket value products and services. And what we're finding is it's generating far superior people. People that are a lot later in the sales cycle and leads that are much different than every other channel of marketing. I I think the I think the closest that I think personally, and I guess what we've seen from our clients that AI SEO or AI search leads for b to b comes close to is maybe referral. I think that's maybe as close as you can get of how qualified the people generally are.
Nick Stamoulis:So, Catherine, John, what do you all think on that?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yes. We have found that these b to b leads that we have been able to trace is coming from AI to be a lot higher quality.
Nick Stamoulis:Oh, yeah.
Katherine Tsoukalas:We you can imagine it happening because we're all doing it. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:We will go on to the chatbot or something to sort of talk through what do we really need, here's the situation. And by the time you come off the chatbot and look up the company or the brand or the product, service, whatever it is, you pretty much have it set in your mind that you're probably gonna buy it if Right. If all goes well. So we're we're not seeing that in the numbers. The way it used to be with SEO is that all roads led back to the website and that that's just not the case anymore.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Users and are doing a lot of information gathering outside of the website and that's one of the reasons why the leads are a lot warmer. Right. Back when all roads led the website, your content, everything on your site was moving people through the sales cycle.
Nick Stamoulis:Absolutely.
Katherine Tsoukalas:But that's not the case anymore.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. Agreed. John, your thoughts?
John:Yeah. I think that AI allows people to sort of ask the questions that they would ask in, like, a first meeting with a company. Right. Right? Like, they they just ask that to the AI, so they're naturally further along.
John:Like, they know those basic questions and they're pretty much ready. They're they're ready to go as long as Katherine said, as long as things go well.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. It'll be interesting to see. It'll be interesting to see. You know, again, advice we tell all of our clients and even folks that aren't clients yet, you know, this is the time to invest in AI search. Integrate it into all channels of your digital marketing.
Nick Stamoulis:It is not something to be scared of, quite frankly. It's something to embrace that digital marketing and search are changing, but this is a time to embrace the change and move with it. So I wanted to just quickly remind everyone. So we're streaming live on the Brick Marketing website, brickmarketing.com live. If you can't catch us live, this entire podcast Brick live session will be available later this evening on every major podcast platform.
Nick Stamoulis:So feel free to check it out. Search for Brick Marketing, search for Brick Marketing Live, and you'll find it. Moving on. Next, a really great article from eMarketer, another b to b architer b to b article. B to b marketers face an AI visibility readiness gap.
Nick Stamoulis:So this is fascinating and some really good information here. It says among US marketers at the vice president level and CMOs, 88% say leadership is asking about AI visibility, yet only 34 of b to b tech marketers overall say they have a defined AI visibility strategy they feel prepared to execute. Another important stat, 51% of marketers say their top AI visibility challenge is limited internal generative engine optimization knowledge and expertise, a lack of coordination across teams, difficulty measuring success, and lack of tools and budgets followed. Only 29% of marketers are actively tracking and measuring AI visibility. This is fascinating.
Nick Stamoulis:Great article from eMarketer. I definitely recommend that you all check it out. But here's the thing. Right? This is just what we were saying just a few moments ago.
Nick Stamoulis:You know, this is not the time to be shy. This is a time to be bold, to understand that, look, if you don't have the internal knowledge, hire companies like us. Companies like Brick Marketing. You know, experts that have years and decades of SEO experience, digital marketing experience, content marketing experience, social media experience. In my opinion, I find this to be even though the I mean, it honestly confirmed a lot of what I already suspected, but I find it to be weak excuses quite frankly.
Nick Stamoulis:As b to b marketers, and especially if you're at a c suite level, shame on you. Right? There are great places like eMarketer, like search engine land, like search engine journal. There's, you know, courses and classes and places to get certified. So this we're not talking you know, we're not in twenty twenty three right now.
Nick Stamoulis:Right? We're in mid twenty twenty six moving into 2027. I I I think, you know, even though this article at eMarketer was fascinating, these stats weren't surprising to me, but I also was alarmed by it. That, you know, what are you waiting for? Right?
Nick Stamoulis:So so Catherine, John, what do you all think on this?
Katherine Tsoukalas:I just had a conversation about this with somebody. I tell our clients who are concerned about AI visibility all the time that they are way ahead of the curve and that they should be very pleased with themselves because the stats the stats speak for themselves. The ones that we're working with them to help them with their AI visibility are the ones that are gonna be ahead of their competitors.
Nick Stamoulis:Agreed.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Work on it now. Start now.
Nick Stamoulis:Absolutely. John, your thoughts?
John:Yeah. I think we're still sort of, like, early in that, like, bell curve of, like, early adopters to, you know all the way to, like, you know, late newcomers. Right? So I think that right now, we're we still haven't, like, gone over that hump yet. So if you are Right.
John:Looking at your, you know, AI visibility and you're seeing that it's not that great, it's not too late for you yet. And it never will be too late. You should always you should always start. But if you're starting now, you're still starting earlier than a lot of others.
Nick Stamoulis:Absolutely. You know when it's gonna be too late, John? When your competitors are completely visible, when your market share starts to wane, when your leads seriously, your leads start to decline in a noticeable, real noticeable fashion, and just you'd notice that your competition is just doing that much better. So honestly, like I, you know, I know it's kind of snide in saying it, but it's it's truthful. I mean, we've seen this.
Nick Stamoulis:I've seen these cycles over and over and over. And look, just because it's changing doesn't mean that that's not an excuse to not invest in AI search. Seriously. If you if you hire either an external team to help you or train your in house team properly, they should be geared up to handle that change and move with it. Enough on that.
Nick Stamoulis:Next, excellent article from Search Engine Journal. Why enterprise SEO recommendations fail? It's psychological, not technical. I thought this was a great article at Search Engine Journal. Definitely recommend that that you all visit Search Engine Journal and and read this one.
Nick Stamoulis:So essentially, it says why most organizations don't actually want problem solvers. It actually kinda goes through it. And when failure becomes a lesson instead of a threat, it's just fascinating. And then evolutionary framing in the GEO and AI search error era. And basically, you know, the the ugly baby problem inside enterprise organizations.
Nick Stamoulis:It's a great article to it's kinda lengthy, but the gist of it and my takeaway on this one is and we've seen this. So larger organizations, and this isn't just this just doesn't apply to SEO. It applies to content marketing, social media, paid advertising. Doesn't really matter the channel of digital marketing. It's applicable across the board.
Nick Stamoulis:They tend to move kinda slow. Yes. They have big budgets, big teams, big resources, amazing tools, better than we, someone, you know, like a small agency like digital like Brick Marketing does. Right? Better in a lot of ways, but they they move too slow.
Nick Stamoulis:And like the article said, they don't really want problem solvers. It tends to be they need tend to move around kinda clunky, you know. And because there's so much process and politics and, you know, sometimes they can't get out of their own way. And so, you know, we've seen this over the years when working with larger enterprise companies. And, yeah, it's it's just an eye opening article for sure.
Nick Stamoulis:So so what do guys think on this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:So I've noticed for years of doing this work that there's nothing like a good audit process to expose any weaknesses. It's been that way.
Nick Stamoulis:Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:As long as long as, like, they we do audits for SEO. We do it for AI now. We've done it for content marketing, social media. And naturally, the process of gathering data and piecing through it, that's when you expose all of your weaknesses. And for years, we have let our marketing get stagnant just thinking, oh, it's always work this way.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And we've gotten a little bit, I'll say lazy about it, not not really thinking things through and just doing what has been working for the past five years. There's nothing wrong with doubling down on what's working or continuing the momentum. But now that AI search is on the scene and strategies, you know, are a little bit different. They're similar but different. We need to step it up and and start paying attention again.
Nick Stamoulis:I agree. I really agree. Good point. John, what do you think?
John:Yeah. I don't have too much to add, but I definitely agree that AI search really rewards some of, like, the best SEO practices that a lot of people may have ignored for a bit because there were just easier solutions that may have required less. For example, we talk about all the time content writing. Maybe they push their content writing to the wayside because there were easier things to do within SEO to get better results. But now AI search is rewarding the people who did do those best practices and were more well rounded.
Nick Stamoulis:Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So and that's something that's a very good point. Lot of thing that, you know, even larger enterprise companies that that I think that they're kind of missing is a lot of the fundamentals are the same.
Nick Stamoulis:Even though AI search and traditional modern SEO are different completely, you you need to have a good SEO presence in order to have that visibility for AI SEO. And as Google recently said, it's whether it's generative engine optimization or answer engine optimization or AI SEO, it's all search engine optimization. So definitely important reminder on that. Next, excellent article from Business Insider. I thought this was fascinating.
Nick Stamoulis:How to fix AI's branding problem according to top marketers. So essentially, the the article itself poses that that right now AI is at a at a higher level has a branding problem. I agree with this. I feel like, you know, I think people are are so kind of and we've talked about this. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:That, you know, a lot of organizations are blaming AI for layoffs. Like, oh, it's, you know, we had a a workforce reduction and we're shifting, you know, jobs to for AI. Okay? And then we've also the article talks about how and I actually have heard it recently, a lot of college commencement speeches actually have boos. You know, the the keynote speakers will will literally the commencement, you know, speakers literally will talk about AI and its possibilities and the future and all these positive things and all the students graduating are booing.
Nick Stamoulis:And and then we're not talking one or two universities. We're talking in a mass scale seeing that. And then you then you hear even things like the pope coming out saying it's the greatest threat to humanity. Look. The reality is, and I I think people on one sense, I kind of agree with them, but on the greater sense, I don't.
Nick Stamoulis:Right now, AI is not any of those things, my opinion. It's a tool used to scale that allows people to do their jobs better. Faster, better, more efficient. It's not a substitute for knowledge. It's a, I would say, an accelerator for it.
Nick Stamoulis:And so but I can agree with it. And it's kind of like the lessons that we have observed from social media over the years in the abuse of source. Like social media started, you know, an analogy as a really positive connecting people. Right? And now it's at a point where it's doesn't necessarily connect people.
Nick Stamoulis:It divides people. And it's also used for entertainment at the same time. Right? So it's like it's almost like an enter it's almost like seeing for those of you, this I'm gonna date myself right now, like Jerry Springer on crack Many times. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:It's a bad analogy, but you're laughing, Catherine. I know. John, you're not. It's
Katherine Tsoukalas:okay. No.
John:No. It's know what I know you're saying, John. I know who Jerry Springer is.
Nick Stamoulis:Okay. I'm joking. I'm joking. You know, so no. But, you know, the point is here, you know, I I think it does have a branding problem.
Nick Stamoulis:And I think people by and large should say, okay, look, we do need some regulation. So, you know, minds that are learning, for instance, you know, children need the fundamentals as they're learning, as brains are developing, because that's a mistake that happened with too much screen time for children. Right? And and so, you know, too much social media usage for young for brains that are developing at a young age. So I thought this was a fascinating article, Business Insider.
Nick Stamoulis:One that I haven't seen necessarily yet. So it's a it's a great read. So I definitely recommend everyone check it out. So so what do you all think on that? Catherine, John?
Katherine Tsoukalas:One has to wonder who thinks poorly of AI. Is it people that are using it or people who are too scared of it? Good point. Because in my mind, it's a tool just like anything else. Like, I'm thinking of cooking.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Right? Takes forever to chop a bunch of things, bunch of onions with just a knife. Mhmm. Or you could use a tool like a food processor on a rough chop setting and it'll take seconds. How is AI any different?
Katherine Tsoukalas:You can use it as a tool to enhance your workflow. I feel like the biggest dissenters against AI are the ones that aren't even using it.
Nick Stamoulis:Right. Yeah. I agree. I agree. Yeah.
Nick Stamoulis:It's like it's like fear. Fear is there.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Mhmm.
Nick Stamoulis:Like, you know, sometimes I'll speak just, you know, people I meet through just normal conversations in my personal life. And you mentioned AI and they're like, oh, they sigh. It's like that they're like scared of it. That it's, you know, it's kinda like, don't knock them until you actually use it and find its usefulness. Seriously.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Use it for your personal life too. The very first thing I ever did on AI was upload a bunch of recipes into chat GPT and tell it to make a shopping list, and it took ten seconds instead of an hour it would have taken me to do it myself. Like, okay. You win AI. I'm I like it.
Nick Stamoulis:I know. I know. John, what do you think? Your thoughts?
John:I I think there definitely is a marketing issue, but I think it does go beyond that for a lot of people. There's definitely a moral issue to using AI in some cases because you see data centers popping up in people's backyards, polluting their water, and that's why a lot of people that's a lot of people's main reason for not wanting to use it because they don't wanna support that happening Right. And all that. So I think that at the moment, the main issue with AI is how inefficient it is. Right?
John:Oh, yeah. So maybe those people who don't like it right now or, don't like the product it produces might have an easier time using it in the future if it becomes far more efficient and it's not, you know, intruding on people's lives in in ways that negatively affect them. But that that I feel like that is the main issue in the marketing issue for AI and why a lot of people are hesitant to use it.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. I agree. And actually, on a side note, because we could talk about this the entire podcast today, literally. We could talk about it all all afternoon. But the I think I actually saw I did see something positive recently that there was a I don't remember the exact exactly what it was, but there was a a math equation that mathematicians have spent, like, two hundred years trying to solve.
Nick Stamoulis:I mean, we're talking, like, top math you know, mathematicians in the world, and AI was able to solve it in, like, a half an hour. And so in my mind, like, okay. Let's focus on the positive. Right? Like, you know, what if in five years or ten years, AI is able to literally help humans live longer, solve, you know you know, health crises and and viruses and diseases that have seriously.
Nick Stamoulis:So I I I I that's why for me, I see the possibilities are endless outside of applications of of what we use it for work and business and what have you. I just think, you know, I think eventually, as long as there are some guardrails and like you said, the efficiency gets better, which I think it will over time. Yeah. I mean, I think they could help a lot.
John:Yeah.
Nick Stamoulis:So time will tell. Time will tell. Next, interesting article from Harvard Business Review. A research that basically goes into it says research, traditional marketing doesn't work on AI shopping agents. In In the article, you know, I'm not gonna bore everyone kinda going into the details, but essentially, it's it's talking about how for this particular research study, they you know, that that the individuals who conducted the study tried to use a lot of different models from chat and from Gemini to try to get agents to, you know, basically purchase on ecommerce sites.
Nick Stamoulis:Because, you know, whether we like it or not, AI shopping and having agents do your shopping for you is something that's coming. And I think, you know, every time I say that to anyone that's not in the marketing world, they just cringe. Literally, they cringe. Oh, no. No.
Nick Stamoulis:No. I mean, so my you know, so my so I guess the takeaway that I see here is, you know, as a marketer and for those of you that, you know, whether you're at the c suite or you're you're working in marketing, there's nothing really you can do just now. My opinion is you want to just keep an eye on this. And as websites change, as the technology changes, I, you know, I think we're gonna get to a point where you, you know, we're gonna have to have two separate strategies. One for AI and AI agents, and then one for human beings and branding and building up the brand of products and services, quite frankly.
Nick Stamoulis:I think eventually, my opinion, that's eventually what it's gonna get. Because what an AI agent looks for, whether it's a shopping agent or any agent, is totally different than a human being. And so I I I I think eventually we might get there. How it flushes out, no one really knows yet. But so, Catherine, John, what do what do both think on this?
Katherine Tsoukalas:We're still in the early stages of AI in general.
Nick Stamoulis:Yep.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And for me, I'm not sure I would even trust it for shopping just yet because I feel like I feel like I I need proof that what it tells me is gonna be accurate, that's not gonna drift.
Nick Stamoulis:And You mean you mean, Katherine, you don't want two cases of toilet paper showing up at your door tomorrow?
Katherine Tsoukalas:I don't. That I that when I ordered two packages of pens, no. I don't. I'm joking. Who knows?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Back in COVID lockdown era, I probably would have bought random paper delivery.
Nick Stamoulis:I know. I know.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Honestly, I I I have a couple of agents set up for some random things like news article correlation, whatever. I keep having to tweak it.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And that's just a simple thing in my opinion. Here's 10 news sites. Give me a summary. I have to keep tweaking that. I'm not gonna trust it for shopping just yet.
Katherine Tsoukalas:So I think it makes sense that traditional marketing won't work. But part of it, feel, is that the technology is so new. People aren't entirely ready to trust it.
Nick Stamoulis:I agree. I agree. And and that's literally why. And John, you know, because you're helping Brick Marketing on the effort of agents. And so, you know, we we've been testing agents.
Nick Stamoulis:And so we've rolled out a few, you know, it's not real they're not really primetime yet. And we've had people ask us in some of our workshops and some right? When we've asked, we've had people ask us, like, oh, you know, can you just set up agents for that? Or I go to LinkedIn, I see all these marketers. Just spare me.
Nick Stamoulis:Right? Like, I I know for a fact you're not automating every aspect of your SEO. I know you're not. Right? And I know you're not automating every every aspect of your email marketing and your social media, maybe parts of it.
Nick Stamoulis:And so and but you're right, Catherine. It's still not ready yet. It's buggy. You still need to have eyes on it. You still need you need to know what you're looking at to check it to make sure it doesn't go awry.
Nick Stamoulis:Literally, just straight right off. So yeah. I mean, it's it's but I actually think we're gonna get there pretty quick, though. I do think we're gonna get there quick. Yeah.
Nick Stamoulis:At this moment, mid twenty twenty six, I think that's where we're at right now. But, John, your thoughts on that?
John:This is something sort of similar, but a a little bit different. It's it's along with, you know, trusting AI with your money. But somewhere they tested 30 different they ran this test three or 30 different times with giving AI $10,000 and telling it to invest and make a profit.
Nick Stamoulis:I've seen that.
John:And I think out of 30, only like three or six or something turned to profit. Right? So if AI can't, you know no no one's gonna realistically trust AI with their money, at least not anytime soon in my opinion. But, I mean, it is interesting to think about, like, oh, if AI shopping AI shopping agents were to exist, how they would interact with your marketing and all that sort of stuff.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. Good point.
Nick Stamoulis:Moving on. Next, article from the Brick Marketing website. From our blog, content marketing is a long term demand driver. And so this is something that a lot of I guess we wrote this because there are many folks out there that kind of forget the importance of content, quite frankly. That everything we've we've we've literally said what I'm about to say for just about 20 over twenty years, we've said this, literally, is content marketing is the foundation of every part of your digital marketing.
Nick Stamoulis:Period. It's a found say, you really think about it. Right? It's and and I know Catherine's probably rolling her eyes because you're not, but but but you know what I mean? But it's it's kinda like, you know, it's the foundation of your web, of your website.
Nick Stamoulis:It's the foundation of your SEO, your AI SEO, your email marketing, all your advertising. Right? You need content, you need landing pages, you need ads. That's content. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:Long form content, white paper content, and shorter content. Right? Video content is content. You need it for your social media. So I think that often many times, organizations and teams don't invest enough time, effort, resource, and budget into content development.
Nick Stamoulis:And I don't mean let ChatGPT or Gemini or Claude spin a ton of articles that have no soul and are are disjointed and aren't truly connected, right, to to your to your underlying outcomes that you need to accomplish. I mean, a true content marketing strategy, which then using AI maybe to help you, you know, shorten things, come up with descriptions different places. Right? But the underlying strategy and the real content are crafted properly. So, I mean, I I you know, it really is.
Nick Stamoulis:I mean, I think it it we've seen it over and over and over and over. Companies that invest in content marketing and integrate content marketing to all channels of their digital marketing do have better long term results. Period. So so, Catherine, John, what do you guys think on that? Your thoughts?
Katherine Tsoukalas:So the biggest thing that CEOs, presidents, business owners that they care about is how do we grow our business? How do we get more leads? How do we do this? How do we do that? So in their minds, in people's minds, often it's the quick hit strategies like ad spend that are top of mind for getting that done.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Okay. This may work really great in the beginning of launching a campaign, an ad campaign. But then what happens after? All the people who have seen your ad, who have taken action are gonna keep seeing your ad, but they've already taken action. Mhmm.
Katherine Tsoukalas:So eventually, the initial results you get from a camp from a quick hit campaign like that, it's gonna end up tapering off. Then what? If you have not pumped your resources into building up your long term marketing in addition to working the quicker strategies, you're gonna have nothing left once the quick hit strategies stop working. And that's part of where content marketing comes in. You have to give your audience a reason to keep coming back to you for different reasons, different purposes, and to attract different portions of your audience because the people that are attracted to the quick hit strategies tend to be further along in the sales cycle.
Katherine Tsoukalas:What about the early and mid parts of the sales cycle? What about that?
Nick Stamoulis:Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Well, if you have the content to service them, you're leaving money on the table.
Nick Stamoulis:100%. 100%.
John:Yeah. I mean, I said it, you know, like ten, fifteen minutes ago. Right? When talking about AI and content marketing. You have to do it all and content marketing is a huge, huge portion of how you get eyes on you.
John:You can't you can't skip over it.
Nick Stamoulis:Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. So just take a moment here. So we are streaming live on the Brick Marketing website, brickmarketing.com/ live on the Brick Marketing LinkedIn page, Facebook page, YouTube channel, and this will be available on all major podcast platforms later this evening.
Nick Stamoulis:Search for Brick Marketing on every platform, and you'll find it Brick Marketing Live. Moving on. Excellent article from Channel I. I thought this was a great topic because you don't see this often. I I kinda remember this years ago, this kind of methodology, but it's great to see this kind of resurface, is marketing master class.
Nick Stamoulis:Can your business survive on social media alone or is a website a must? It's a fascinating article that talks about trends that that they're noticing that it's, you know, that there are some businesses are tempted to go social media only. Right? You know, some of these platforms, I mean, it's tempting. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:You know, Meta between Facebook and Instagram have great tools for certain types of businesses. LinkedIn has other tools. I think about it. You can capture to your lead gen, your phone routing. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:Have your menu, have your ecommerce products right there. People don't need to leave. You know, you can you can you can sync it up to your shopping cart system, you know, your, you know, your Shopify account. Right? Your Apple Pay.
Nick Stamoulis:Like, you can hook it up properly. And so, you know, but the reality is, and the article talks about it, that websites are more discoverable than social media by 70%. So, you know, so I so I think my opinion is it's a great article. So again, this is on channel I publication. And so my personal opinion is every website, every brand, every company needs a website.
Nick Stamoulis:Period. I mean, I think it's I mean, it's it's crazy that it's 2026 and I have to say that. But that's this is the article. It's a great question. Really is.
Nick Stamoulis:And so I think there's some applications where it may not make sense. Right? Maybe. Maybe. You know, maybe some countries it doesn't make sense.
Nick Stamoulis:Like I've heard scenarios of business, you know, smaller businesses and maybe in India or in China and, you know, in other areas of the world that utilize social media for every part of their business and don't take the time, effort, and resources to build up brands, bring or build websites. But I I believe that it's you know, there's so many reasons why it's important. So my answer is yes. You do need a website, but you also equally need to invest in social media. You need an excellent social media presence connecting your content, your products, your services to your potential buyers, to your followers, to your audiences that you target.
Nick Stamoulis:So, yeah, it's a great I I don't think it's a matter of one or the other. I think you need both. And you need to have an excellent website that's representative of your company, but you need a social media presence too. So so what do you guys think on this?
Katherine Tsoukalas:I agree. You need all the things. Social media, your website Yep. SEO, AI visibility related marketing, branding, content marketing. You need all of it.
Katherine Tsoukalas:What happens if one of those channels goes down? Your website goes down? Are people gonna find you? Okay. Social media.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Right? What happens if we've seen it happen.
Nick Stamoulis:We have.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Social media, a site goes out of business. Remember Google plus? I mean I mean, I
Nick Stamoulis:can keep going. What about what about Flickr? What about Vine? Oh, yeah. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:What about Dig, dig, stumble upon. Mean, we can just keep going. Right? So like the point is, you don't wanna put all your eggs in one basket. Even in social media, you don't.
Nick Stamoulis:Right? If if you you know, I see it so many times, you know, influencers on TikTok, huge followings on TikTok, and then you go check them out on Instagram or YouTube and there's no presence for their companies. It's kinda like, you know, there should be a balanced approach, my opinion. But for this article, I mean, yeah. I I mean, I agree, Catherine.
Nick Stamoulis:We need all of it to be successful in today's world. But I think if it's a matter of choosing one or the other, you need
Katherine Tsoukalas:both. Can't.
Nick Stamoulis:Not a choice. So We
Katherine Tsoukalas:have to do both.
Nick Stamoulis:What do you think?
John:Yeah. I mean, I haven't really ever heard of a successful large company that only has social media and not a website. Right? Think that should that should really tell you all you need to know that even if you're huge and have a huge reach, there's still a use for a website. Right?
John:Because you can have that shopping cart for people to actually, you know, purchase something from you or order from you or do whatever, learn more about you that social media just can't do. Right? Because you can have about pages, blogs, you can have service pages. You you can really customize that website to answer any questions people might have. Like, social media might be a discoverability tool for you or some people and then you'll funnel people over to the website if they're interested.
John:Right? So you can't just have social media and that's it.
Nick Stamoulis:I agree. I agree. And, you know, here's here's really what it comes down to. Your website is your controllable asset as a business. Period.
Nick Stamoulis:When you when you any content that you put on a social media platform, you don't own it. Right? Tomorrow, Meta could change their change their terms of service and your SOL, quite frankly. And if if if what you're doing violated that TOS and they decide they wanna just remove your page completely, I've seen that too. I mean, it's it is what it is.
Nick Stamoulis:So great article. It's a good topic. So moving on. Next, YouTube. So this is an article from Search Engine Journal.
Nick Stamoulis:Another great one from them. Sticking in the social media path, YouTube adds auto detection for AI generated content. It's great. It's great. It's about time, quite frankly.
Nick Stamoulis:I I honestly, like many I'm sure many of us listening and I think two of you as well, I I tend to cringe when I see AI generated videos. I really do. I really do. And then you see the I mean, there's no value. There's no real value.
Nick Stamoulis:I mean, I it's different, I think, than an article that's created by AI or an ad that's written by AI or copy. Right? I think it's different because you're seeing it and you see these outlandish crazy things. And then you just look and I don't even I watch them like, okay. And then I go to the comments and just says AI crap, AI.
Nick Stamoulis:Like, you know, so I think it's great how YouTube is officially adding that auto detection for AI created content. I think it's great. I really do. So I'll start with you, John, because you're the YouTube expert. So So
John:this is this is great because recently, YouTube has been cracking down on AI generated content. Like, I'll get notifications on on Reddit of people being like, oh my god. My YouTube channel is just terminated. And then everyone's everyone in the comments is going, were you using AI content? Like, the answer is always yes.
John:So YouTube is cracking down on AI and having auto detection for AI generated content is a great idea. I actually have a friend of mine who, on the other hand though, was not using any AI in their content and got flagged. Right? So there there is that issue with it as well. So I think it's great.
John:It's a step in the right direction of, like, figuring out what content's AI so maybe they don't, you know, get shown as much or or people aren't misled by them. But at the same time, using AI to detect AI content isn't always going to have a 100% accuracy.
Nick Stamoulis:I agree. I agree. Catherine, your thoughts?
Katherine Tsoukalas:I think it's a step in the right direction because the really obvious AI videos are annoying. They're just annoying. I don't like them.
Nick Stamoulis:That's a nice way to put it. It's a nice way to put it.
Katherine Tsoukalas:But, I mean, tastefully using AI, honestly, is fine. I'm I'm not sure if the auto detection is gonna over well, like John said, some of his friends' content got dinged for not even being AI. So Right. Just like the rest of the AI world, we're heading in the right direction, but tools and things need to be refined and made better. And I'm sure that day will come.
Nick Stamoulis:Yes. Yes. Moving on. Next, article from a site called PortAda. And so title is why LinkedIn's mass layoff matters to CMOs more to CMOs than HR.
Nick Stamoulis:So recently, LinkedIn has announced that it plans to cut 5% of its work workforce despite posting revenue growth. And so what's interesting is that, you know, the article goes in and says that Microsoft reported that LinkedIn grew 12% year over year, that layoffs do do not contradict growth. It says that the tech industry is no longer cutting jobs when revenue declines. Companies are are cutting in order to change their their composition. So and it says LinkedIn automation and shift towards AI driven b to b operations.
Nick Stamoulis:So again, here's another layoff. Right? A layoff thing that we've talked about of it kind of blaming or alluding to AI is the reason. It's just it'll be interesting to see. I mean, I I you know, us in the you know, those of us in the b to b world kinda tend to live on LinkedIn a little bit.
Nick Stamoulis:I mean, I I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. It's a great platform. You know, do we spend a ton of ad dollars? You know, some of our clients do invest in LinkedIn ads, you know. So it really depends it really depends on the business, but it'll be interesting to see.
Nick Stamoulis:It'll be interesting to see what Microsoft because Microsoft owns LinkedIn, you know, what they end up doing with the platform long term. It has changed, I've noticed, though. I'll tell you just my own personal opinion. The last, I would say, five years used to be a great place for people to share ideas and content. And now it's just sent seems to be people just looking for engagement, just searching for engagement instead of actually sharing useful information.
Nick Stamoulis:So that that's just my my observation of someone that has been using LinkedIn professionally since 2005. Just saying. So anyway, it'll be interesting to see how this plays out and just to see if if this restructure if this reduction in workforce actually, know, helps the platform become better in any way. So it'll be interesting to see. So what do you all think on that one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:I don't know. Can we really blame AI for the layoff or is it just something else? I mean
Nick Stamoulis:I think it's something
Katherine Tsoukalas:else. Really try I personally don't trust it. Yeah. Blaming it on AI or or least looting it alluding to AI. I mean Yeah.
Katherine Tsoukalas:A platform is allowed to change and evolve.
Nick Stamoulis:Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Right. And they're allowed to do that. And we've also also seen time and again when a new technology comes out, there might be an initial period where the workforce is restructuring. But as far as I can tell, a job gets taken away, another one gets added in its place.
Nick Stamoulis:Mhmm. I agree.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Eventually. So I'm I'm not too concerned about it. And I'm I don't like totally alluding to the the article totally alluding to a AI being responsible for it. But, yeah, we just have to wait and see.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. Yeah. For sure. John, your thoughts?
John:Like you said, Nick, I hope that something good comes of it for the platform itself because I I do not like LinkedIn. There's only really only one use case for it for me. And it's when somebody emails me saying I'm from x company. We wanna do, you know, a deal with you. The only time I ever use LinkedIn is to confirm whether that person is actually at that company or not.
John:That is its only use case for me. And otherwise, I just go on there and I see AI generated post and I'm I'm right off because it it's just I I hope something changes and it becomes a worthwhile platform again.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. Yeah. Well, I like it. I do like it. But like I said, I've also seen it change over the years considerably.
Nick Stamoulis:Not not not for the better. So it'll be interesting to see. Interesting to see what happens with LinkedIn. Next, article from Forbes. Small businesses trust AI with their marketing, their customers do not.
Nick Stamoulis:So what's interesting here, so there's a great article at Forbes. Forbes.com. The gap between AI speed and customer knowledge. And it goes in and it says, why generic AI marketing fails for small businesses. This is literally what we've been talking about.
Nick Stamoulis:Right? And so this is interesting because I feel that a lot of a lot of small businesses are blindly trusting AI. And what's interesting, not only do I think that they're blindly trusting AI, they're not even training it properly. They're literally using free accounts to chat Gemini, Claude, not logging in, not paid accounts, not trade training the models to help their businesses only. And so and they're just getting generic stuff.
Nick Stamoulis:Like, you know, I've I've actually seen it, you know, in in speaking with some businesses. And, you know, and I can tell right away. Catherine, we've seen it. Right? We've even had clients that our clients were generating great results for them, send us emails back asking these list of questions like, okay.
Nick Stamoulis:I know you use chat for that. Right? Like, you know, so I guess it'll be interesting to see. I personally believe companies right now are testing it. They're looking to see, hey, do we need a marketing agency?
Nick Stamoulis:Do we need in house marketers? It's I'm talking small businesses. And let's just roll the dice and this is great. I can get my posts written. I can get my content on my site written.
Nick Stamoulis:Get my emails written. Heck, I can even have, you know, agents respond to my customers. Right? But the reality is, you know, I in my in my opinion, and I know we at Brick Marketing view it as a great tool to help scale the results, help from a strategic perspective and implementation, but you still need the knowledge. And if that knowledge isn't there, you're not gonna know what you're looking at.
Nick Stamoulis:You know? It's like asking it's like asking, honestly, AI for medical advice. Like, if you're gonna do that, what you get back is gonna be based on generic advice. Right? Like, oh, you have a cut.
Nick Stamoulis:Wrap it up a certain way. Elevate it here. Use ice here. But it doesn't take into considerations the total scope of all of the variables. Like, if you met with a medical professional or in this scenario, you you met you actually had a marketing expert, real someone with a lot of experience and has achieved outcomes really help you, right, it's a different ballgame.
Nick Stamoulis:They can see right through it. I mean, Catherine, I know all of us, you too, John, we've all pushed back on AI recommendations that we've seen because we're experts at what we do. We can see it from a mile away. Like, that's not the best approach and here's why. And so unfortunately, small businesses don't know that.
Nick Stamoulis:So I think it'll be interesting to see what happens. I don't none of us really know how it's going to play out. And I think some of these businesses are having success. I don't think it's all negative. But I also think that there's a lot of gaps that they're gonna find in their marketing that are gonna cause other problems for them and they're not gonna know how to fix it.
Nick Stamoulis:So what do you guys think on this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:I feel like there's a trust factor with a customer and their business. And if a customer feels uncomfortable with AI usage, it probably just means that the business maybe overdid it because you should be using AI as a tool, but not
Nick Stamoulis:So as the
Katherine Tsoukalas:if something is so obviously generated with AI, it does read as laziness to the customer and then they won't feel valued. It's not good for your branding. But at the same time, sure, use AI, but just be careful about it. I mean, even if it even if you need to take five minutes to edit it and make it sound more like your own brand voice or look like your own brand created it, so be it. It's worth that extra step.
Katherine Tsoukalas:But we have seen it that small businesses that are tapped for resources just blindly trust what AI is saying, blindly trust the resources that AI creates. You can't trust it blindly. You have to police it sort of. So that your customers literally can't tell the difference between if the marketing thing was created by AI or not. Because it's a tool and it should always come look like it's coming from your brand, not from AI generation.
Nick Stamoulis:Exactly. Exactly. John, what do you think on this one?
John:Yeah. Like, if you I think the big thing is if you are not a marketer, you're gonna take basically, it's gonna give you, like, marketing one zero one advice. And then you're gonna have it if you have it generate images for you to, you know, use as banner ads or something, people are gonna tell right away and it might not have the best results because you're taking the most basic of advice than giving an AI prompt for an AI, you know, AI graphic and then people are gonna be turned off by that and then it's not gonna work out for you. So I think that, yeah, it's a tool to be used, but like Catherine said, it can't be the answer.
Nick Stamoulis:Agreed. 100% agree. Moving on. Great article from search engine land entitled the SEO, GEO gap. How AI search differs from organic traffic.
Nick Stamoulis:So their article states there's three key findings from the dataset that it looked at. Traditional SEO content strategies aren't best for GEO or AI search. Organic success doesn't guarantee LLM traffic. And service product pages punch above their weight class for LLM traffic. So I thought it was great.
Nick Stamoulis:And so it goes into, you know, it gets into some technical aspects where it kinda looks at load time of websites, time spent on sites, depending on the type of of of page. Great article at search engine land. Now, I I think the thing that, you know, and we often talk about this when we have our events, when we speak to folks in small businesses and mid sized companies and c suite business folks and marketers as well, that they sometimes, even though we know, now Google has classified generative engine optimization or AI search or AI SEO is just SEO, they're two different schools of thought. Like, you do need a good SEO presence, but it doesn't guarantee. So this article is a 100% true that if you have an SEO presence, it doesn't automatically guarantee.
Nick Stamoulis:And, you know, when we talk about content, there are, you know, like long form content works has always traditionally worked for SEO well. But with with, you know, AI search content, tends to be a little bit more structured, a little bit more shorter, maybe, you know, getting into some answer, answering questions. Right? So, you know, kinda micro content tends to work a little bit better from time to time. So, yeah, it's it's it really is a great article.
Nick Stamoulis:But I think there's one key point that I wanna get both of your thoughts on this is and and I keep saying this over and over and over in so many different places because it's true. Search engines are algorithmic in nature. Right? They're algorithms. Google has an algorithm that has hundreds of on page and off-site factors.
Nick Stamoulis:None of us, which we know what some of the best practices are traditionally through webmaster guidelines over the year and currently, but we don't know all the variables. And the same thing with the LLMs and AI search, it's you know, they are learning mechanisms. They're not algorithmic. They're not an algorithm. They're learning.
Nick Stamoulis:Right? And so it learns and changes and evolves at a user level based on the location, based on whether you're logged in or out, based on whether it's a paid account, based on the history of that. And it may and it changes. So it's it's a different completely different ballgame. So I think that marketers and brands and companies need to understand that first, that they're different, that how they work are different.
Nick Stamoulis:That's why the technical aspects are different. That's why the fundamentals of, like, you know, you don't do keyword research for GEO. Even prompt research, I think is okay. I don't put a lot of stock in it. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:And so, you know, the point is it's they're different. Like you talk about links for Google, right, traditionally, and we talk about citations for AI SEO. They're both marketing. That's the approach we've always endorsed is you wanna grow both organically, naturally through your marketing your business. So anyway, this is a great article at Search Engine Land.
Nick Stamoulis:Highly recommend everyone read it, check it out. So Catherine and John, what do you what do you both think on this this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:I think that the gap is a lot smaller than we might realize between the type of content, for example, that does well for SEO versus GEO. It says data from 10 websites shows why original research tools answer first content outperforms generic educational articles. Look at that sentence. It's kind of always been this way. A piece of content that had a very focused point in article always was gonna perform a bit better in SEO.
Katherine Tsoukalas:That that's not changed because the educational articles have a place in a content marketing strategy, but the place is it it just serves a different purpose. So before you can say outperforms, you have to figure out what is the outcome that you need the content to perform for.
Nick Stamoulis:Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Because if the outcome is to introduce a topic and bring awareness, I would honestly vote for the educational article. If the outcome if if the performance is to get it to achieve a purpose like a call to action or generate a lead or something, answer first content is gonna work. But just because it's answer first doesn't mean it has to be a question in the title.
Nick Stamoulis:Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Could it just needs to be about a focus topic. That type of content has always done well for SEO and for reading a magazine live. It's tale is old as time. That's the type of content that people find a lot of value in. You just have to define your purpose and then reverse engineer the best way to achieve that purpose.
Katherine Tsoukalas:So without really seeing it, I'm I'm honestly not surprised. And I feel like the SEO and GEO types of content a lot a lot's similar. It's not it's it's it's all the same because you have to just think about your audience and and what they
Nick Stamoulis:want from it. Exactly. And and the reality is, like, we help our clients, and we we do it all in tandem. Modern SEO, AI SEO, general venture optimization, answer engine optimization together with content marketing. With the content and it all interacts and feeds each other, the reality.
Nick Stamoulis:And citations, it's gonna help both. You're driving citations. It will help both if you market your business properly. So so John, what are your thoughts on this one? We have one more for today.
John:Yeah. One of the key findings it says is that traditional SEO content strategies aren't the best for GEO. And I feel like we find that maybe the way it's structured isn't the best for GEO. But a lot of the content that you have can be restructured to be better for GEO. Like, for example, having, you know, key points at the top of your articles, for example, is is a great one for GEO.
John:So it's not that everything that you've been doing is useless. It's just that it can be reworked to be better.
Nick Stamoulis:Totally. Absolutely. Well said. Alright. Moving on.
Nick Stamoulis:Last one for today. On the Brick Marketing website. Why cross team alignment is critical for marketing success? And in this article, we talk about how marketing should support business goals and better marketing and sales alignment creates better customer experiences and marketing becomes more sustainable. So this is an article that is and this is something that it's a trend we're seeing.
Nick Stamoulis:We're seeing with our own company. We're seeing it with a lot of clients where and traditionally, you know, you have the marketing team on one end. Right, generating, know, driving strategy, driving leads, you know, driving orders, driving business, and then you have the sales team doing their own thing. Right? Kinda poo pooing, if you will, at the work that the marketing or team is doing saying, oh, I didn't generate those leads so I I don't want them.
Nick Stamoulis:Right? And so, you know, I gotta generate my own leads, that type of thing. And so what we're seeing is and and and we believe that if both a marketing organization and sales organization are intertwined really together properly, really aligned together, it helps the outcomes for the business and drive more growth for companies. Period. And so and we're seeing that with a lot of companies and and I actually believe that, you know, companies don't really want, you know, sales just straight salespeople anymore.
Nick Stamoulis:They want someone that's gonna understand because think about it, like as marketers, there there's psychology in sales, but there's different psychology in marketing. And so you need both really, if you think about it, to do your job or to do either job really well. You have to understand the customers well and understand the big picture as well. So so it's a great article. I definitely recommend everyone check it out on the Brick Marketing website on our blog.
Nick Stamoulis:But, Katherine, John, if you guys could chime in on this one.
Katherine Tsoukalas:If you treat each department in a company as its own thing, then they end up competing with each other unnecessarily.
Nick Stamoulis:Yep.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And and we see that a lot with sales and marketing.
Nick Stamoulis:What We do.
Katherine Tsoukalas:The ideal scenario is to train each department to understand the place that they play and the role that they play in helping the business as a whole achieve its outcome.
Nick Stamoulis:Mhmm.
Katherine Tsoukalas:With some departments versus others, it's obvious. The packing and warehousing team has a specific function. With sales and marketing, the the lines can be blurred a bit, but there is still a specific place sales has, a specific place marketing has. And the goal is to focus on the outcomes, set your sights on that, and that way the departments won't compete. They can work better together, and the outcomes could be achieved a lot more effectively.
Nick Stamoulis:Absolutely. Well said. John, your thoughts.
John:Yeah. Exactly. Internal competition in that way is is not gonna be good. Your your, you know, your business needs to run like a well oiled machine. Right?
John:Every part needs to work together because in the end, the product or or your sales are going to be better than if everyone's competing with each other and you know, trying to sabotage each other in some way or you know, take people's leads. Right? So yeah. You you're internally, you know, your business needs to be working together.
Nick Stamoulis:Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. So that will wrap for today. So just to let everyone know, we're gonna take a two week hiatus.
Nick Stamoulis:Well, we're not on break. We're working. We have a lot of events. We have some training, some workshops, in person events. So lots of great things happening here at Brick Marketing.
Nick Stamoulis:So we will join everyone live again on Monday, Monday, June 22 at 3PM eastern live for the next Brick Marketing live installment. Remember, you can catch this anytime on the Brick Marketing website, brickmarketing.com/live, or on every major podcast streaming platform. Just search for Brick Marketing, and you'll find the Brick Marketing Live Podcast. I'd like to thank John and Catherine today. Great job as always, and we will see everyone on June 22.
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