November 5, 2024 • 35 mins
Everything we think we know about digital media is changing—fast.
We’re discussing the biggest digital media observations from Morning Brew’s Co-Founder, Alex Lieberman, and sharing our thoughts on:
Link to Post discussed in this episode: Alex Liberman’s X Post (Click Here)
Connect with us:
Benji on LinkedIn
James on LinkedIn
We’re discussing the biggest digital media observations from Morning Brew’s Co-Founder, Alex Lieberman, and sharing our thoughts on:
- The evolution of the creator economy
- Shifts in content distribution and discovery
- The future of media in business and how to stay ahead
Link to Post discussed in this episode: Alex Liberman’s X Post (Click Here)
Connect with us:
Benji on LinkedIn
James on LinkedIn
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What if everything we thought we knew about digital media
was about to be turned upside down. That's exactly what
Alex Lieberman from Morning Brew just hinted at in his
recent threat on X. The creator economy is evolving, content
discovery is shifting, and platforms are rewriting the rules. Today,
we're breaking down what Alex observed and adding our own
(00:21):
two cents on where things are headed.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
If you're curious about the future of media and how
to stay ahead, stick around, this episode is going to
be an eye opener. So as soon as I saw
this post from Alex Lieberman at Morning Brew, Benji, I knew,
I knew we had to talk about it.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
This tweet it's a mile long, seriously long, twenty eight
observations on digital media right now, and so it covers
social YouTube creator economy touches on so much.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
But the position that he's in, I mean, they've arguably built.
You know, one of the most influential business media empires
of today got acquired by Business Insider for I think
seventy or eighty million dollars a few years ago. Guy
obviously knows his stuff, and now he started a content
agency on the back of all of that insight, and
(01:18):
so we're going to go through this episode. I'm going
to share what you know of the twenty eight. I'm
going to share the four that really hit me and
my thoughts on those. You're going to share your four,
and I'll start start our start with this one. He says,
founders continue to try and figure out ways to attach
creators to their business for some equity. And when I
(01:39):
saw that, I thought Marquez Brownley and what he's doing
with Ridge. I thought about Logan, Paul and KSI with Prime.
Do you see Peter Attia and Huberman's new protein bar?
Speaker 4 (01:51):
No, but I'm sure I will get advertised that yees
on Instagram or something. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
So you see these brands partnering with creators because they
understand that distribution is a huge unlock, and these creators
have have the distribution. So you know, I just think too,
in conjunction with this era that we're stepping into with AI,
where it's like if AI with like low code or
(02:20):
no code tools can actually build a digital product for you,
does that take the technical co founder out of the picture,
and then you replace that technical co founder co founder
with an audience co founder, somebody who has so.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
I can put your product in front of eyeball.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yes, because we no longer need to give that equity
to somebody who can actually build the product. I don't
think we're there today by any means, but it is
interesting to think if that's where we're at a few
years from now.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
And there's there are examples of people at least trying.
I mean, granted it, we're when you're giving those examples,
it's like a drink or a wall at ors. It
makes some sense around a product that anyone could go
buy today to have someone with a large audience that
then you can immediately market to that Like, your examples
(03:12):
are really good ones for where it could work today tomorrow.
That idea of technical expertise maybe being needed less than
just someone who can sit buying a camera behind a mic,
gain a bunch of attention and be like, hey, this
is what you guys should buy or because of my
expertise to this. That one is really interesting. One thing
I wanted to note just about his entire list of
(03:32):
twenty plus observations, what a great way to one do
just an X thread but having a note on your phone.
This is just a content thing From that I was
nerding out about when you sent this to me. These
are such simple, fast thoughts that I have all the
time because we're always nerding out about this stuff. I
(03:54):
don't have a doc that I document this stuff in.
But this is the perfect type of content where it's like,
what distinguishes it is? These are Alex's unique thoughts. You
could go to chat GPT and get a LinkedIn post.
You could get three hundred and sixty five for every
day of the year, but you're not gonna get this
because this is him observing what's happening and just going
bullet point, bullet point, bullet point. So I love that
(04:16):
because then you can also go, do I agree with this?
Disagree with this? How do how does what he's seeing
and form my thinking? And kind of gets you either
nodding in agreement or being like, I'm curious. I want
to push on that one a little bit. And so
for both of us, I'm sure that was happening quite
a bit. Where all he said was like, you're going
to continue to see how did the word at founders
continue to try and figure out ways to attach creators
(04:38):
to their business for some equity. But your takeaway is,
what if it goes way beyond that to replacing, and
so I think we're gonna do that a lot in
this episode, where it's like, oh, I've thought about this before,
let me just jam on that first step. Yeah, so
that's a really good first one.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
All right, what's yours?
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Yeah? My first one here is every social platform and
then he says, other than LinkedIn has officially shifted from
social graft interest graph. I actually think LinkedIn is on
its way. It's just the laggard behind the group trying
to catch up. That's fine either way. A few bullet
points under this one. LinkedIn is doing this move, and
the video strategy of now having that in the bottom
(05:16):
bar of your phone is clearly them trying to execute
to some degree on this. Now more than ever, I
think people have to focus on problem aware content, not
solution to wear content on platforms like LinkedIn, where all
you're doing is you feel like, as a top of
funnel play, I am constantly saying what the problem is
(05:38):
that my audience has and doing that in video and
figuring out one hundred creative ways to do that over
and over and over again. How do I perfect this message?
How do I perfect what they're experiencing, And I think
what he's saying here that the shift is from social
to interest means you're gonna have to find people who
are one very interested in your general niche and then
(05:59):
two that you can speak directly to where they are
like today, Because if you just think you're going to
gain a bunch of followers and that's going to guarantee distribution,
you're going to run into problems. So I think one
of the easy ways of doing this is thinking of
what's repeatable content that people will come back to because
they're interested in it. So they see one, two, three
of your videos where you're doing the same thing over
(06:20):
and over and over again, they hit follow because they
know that, and they like that video series you're doing.
They watch the next one because of the last one.
It's the same repeatable format. You're playing into their interest,
And so I agree. I am curious. Are we in
a season of time where it feels like we're talking
about the algorithm more than ever? Is that ever going
(06:43):
to shift again or is everyone just going to focus
their creativity on the algorithm and how long they can
keep someone's eyeballs on the platform. Because I do think
there's a group of people who are going to live
after this current moment that are going to be really
mad at how much creativity just got optimized for maximum
retention of eyeballs. But we're in the age of the
interest graph, so.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Oh, I mean I I like that the algorithms anchor
so heavily on wanting to keep people on the platform
because it is they're giving the user what they want,
which is content that engages them and keeps them interested.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
Yes, for the user, it could be good for the creator,
you could double down on, well, what does the platform
want more of, to the point where you're not doing
the creative thing you wanted to do in the first
place because you're so set on views. And I think
I have two very distinct sides of my brain. One
is very artistic and one is very nuts and bolts.
(07:42):
And the artistic side of me is just like, ah,
there are some times where you just know something you
should make even though you're not sure how the algorithm
is going to like it, and you should still make
that damn piece of content, like please just make it.
So it's that those sides of me warring with each other. Yes,
for the viewer, oftentimes you're getting served up more content
(08:03):
that you would like to watch. I understand why people have,
you know, shifted towards this or platforms that want to
keep people on them would shift towards this, and we
are living in it like we are in the Age
of interest.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
I also wonder if the reason LinkedIn has not been
quicker to make this shift to an interest graph is
it was a platform built on networking and relationships. It
wasn't a platform built on well so as Facebook being
a yeah yeah, and I don't do a lot of
(08:34):
content conception on Facebook, but it because because content content
was not the driving force behind.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
I think TikTok might be the first platform that started
with the intention of I'm going to show you the
video interesting the videos over and over again, and it
doesn't You don't need to know the person in the video.
If the video is interesting and you stay on it
long enough, you don't have to like it, share it,
save it. If you watch it for long enough, the
next video is going to be similar and they're just
(09:05):
going to get you in a loop. And all the
other platforms said, oh, that's a way to keep them
on platform. Because Instagram in its early days definitely had
a feed that was your friends, and it was just
showing you that even though I followed the same people. Today,
much of what I see on Instagram is now very
videos that are feeded to me to keep me on, and.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
So is LinkedIn slower to this because there just are
not as many creators creating on LinkedIn to feed what
would be an interest based algorithm.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
I think that definitely is part of it. Video content
is just, yeah, we're not at a place yet where
they probably have the volume that you need to keep
people really invested in that tab. We're getting close to
probably critical mass where they felt comfortable doing it. But
even the reach on some of these posts, like if
you just go to the video tab on LinkedIn and
you watch some of the videos, you're like, how many
(09:54):
impressions on this thing? Or it's mind bogging. It's not
even like fantastic content. It's just not enough people uploading videos.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
The numbers don't make sense either, because like I had
a video they got eight hundred and eighty thousand impressions
and eighty eight likes, right, So there's something cattywampus with
going on in the back end. Did it really get
eight hundred and eighty thousand impressions. Was it not that good?
But why would they show it to that many people
if it only got eighty eight? Like, so there's something
going on there. They're obviously playing with it and trying
(10:23):
to figure it out. This next one, Benji that he
called out that was super interesting to me. He said,
SEO isn't dead, but it isn't the arbitrage it once was.
I'm actually going to disagree with him on this one.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
Let's hear it.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
I'll say, SEO is cooked.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Do you know that everybody that says something is dead
comes back to eating somehow?
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Right now? Okay, all right, very very much acknowledged that
I'm moving forward with your hot take. Yeah, I'm not
a this is dead guy. Chat GBT delivers a ten x,
maybe one hundred x better search experience, and I've been
noticing even in the last six months, it went from
(11:06):
like my really techy, nerdy friend using chat gupt as
a search function to I'm like, oh, I didn't even
know you would have thought chat jept existed, Like my
wife is not very tech forward at all.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Perplexity and chat gpt are on my home screen. Yeah,
I think I tap them more than I tap Google
at the moment.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I almost want to make it a default setting for
all sweet fish fanatics that when you open up a
new tab, instead of it going to Google, it opens
to Chatgypt because I just think, and that's.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
With like a couple of years of people trying to
adopt it. So imagine where this is three four years
from now unless Gemini does something insane where Google can
just flip it. But so far people are not going to.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Gemini, you know, And so I think SEOS cooked. There
was some data actually in an AI report that HubSpot
just did, and HubSpot, mind you, has dominated search, so
they've got a lot of incentive to believe that search
is is still going to be relevant. But in this
report they said AI usage among marketers is up from
(12:14):
twenty one percent to seventy four percent in just the
last year.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Yeah, we definitely believe it.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
So it's clear, like you know, even if marketers continue
to invest in SEO, it's clear in this jump that
AI is doing the bulk of the heavy lifting of
the creation of that content, that it's being optimized for
search engines. And so when I think about that, I go, Okay,
(12:44):
there's you. Whereas as a marketer inside of a company,
Where do you then start to focus your attention? Because
if CHADGBT is doing the bulk of the lifting on
but finding the keywords that people are actually searching for,
right and then creating the content optimized for that, where
do you go? And I think that's actually it's going
to unlock a level of creativity inside of corporate marketers
(13:07):
that we have not seen before, because they're going to
start to go, Okay, who are the personalities at this
company that we can start to build around. What are
different angles of these stories that we can tell they're
going to be interesting to the market. How are we
going to do video well, how do we think about
set design? What do we think about the formats and
the creative segments that we inject into our show? So
(13:30):
I'm really really excited. But him saying it isn't the
arbitrage it once was, I think is him probably trying
to stay away from two spicy of a take saying that.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
SEO is dead because there is a way of like,
people are still investing dollars, they're still doing what they're
doing because they are seeing some level of results. It's
just I think you are notoriously good at being either
an early adopter or just like seeing what's kind of
coming and being on that edge. And I think what
you're seeing is definitely We will be talking much more
(14:05):
about this over the next twelve to eighteen months because
we're going to have better data on where people are
going for their first answer. Yeah and yeah, I like that. Okay,
all right, let me give you one that's totally at
first when I read it a little out of left field.
One of his takes was or other observations politicians are
opting for long form podcasts to share their message. I
(14:29):
think CEO should follow suit. So yes, you know, we
get pitched all the time to be on interview or
having someone come on our show and do an interview
with us, whatever. We are big proponents of co hosted
commentary type stuff. But when you look at like what
politicians are doing, they're going on too largely conversational type platforms.
Right right now, both political candidates want to get on
(14:52):
Rogan or saying that they're in talks with Rogan. We'll
see if that pans out. We've seen I think I
would say JFK jor uh RFK junior. Sorry, like who
am I talking about RFK Junior he did the first
major podcast tour, got so like entrenched with that whole
crew that people were like, oh, he might pull real
(15:14):
big in the results. So then other politicians are like, Okay,
we need to go on podcasts. Thought I saw Kamala
and call her Daddy. We've seen Trump doing the rounds
on like THEO Vaughn and all these shows. So when
they're doing that, why are they doing that?
Speaker 2 (15:26):
They're opting for.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
A format that allows them to have long form discussions
and gives them platform. If you're a CEO at a company,
if you're someone that has genuine thoughts about where a
market should go, you need to do long form conversations
where you let other people disagree with your takes because
it will help people see the human side of you,
(15:47):
why you're doing the business you're doing.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
And like go deep into that.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
And I'm like, Yeah, politicians are doing exactly what I
think B to B leaders should be doing, exactly what
I think a lot of like people from the outside
are afraid of having their top leader look a little
like off what like non on the company message. That's
the risk of a politician doing a long form podcast.
But if they're even doing it, I would highly suggest
(16:14):
you think about why they're picking that medium. Yes, one
from an audience perspective, but two from a what does
it show about this candidate?
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Means the same thing in business.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
And when you think about ad creative, what ad creative
is going to resonate more a polished ad of that's
just glossy and perfect. Or Trump going off with theovon
about some policy that he.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
And even if you disagree with the take in that clip,
that clip will go wild because they'll lee laughing about
something whatever. Like I've seen clips from both candidates. I've
seen them using them in political ads. So like, the
type of content that's created in a long form conversation
is good for your C suite level executives to be making,
(17:00):
especially if they can put their guard down a little bit.
And yeah, again, if it's risky for a presidential candidate,
it will be risky too for your C suite potentially
at first, but it's worth it and they're doing this
for a reason. So like I just thought that's a
good insight for politicians, it's a really good insight for
like c suite.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
It exacts my third one. He says marketers are looking
to size up their spend on YouTube headed into twenty
twenty five. Benji, I used to think B to B
marketers were probably three to five years away from really
taking YouTube seriously. But honestly, the last few months and
seeing how much chatgibt is absolutely destroying.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Search, James is trying to figure out how to get
chat gpt into every one of his takes, every.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Single one of the Yeah, the speed at which it's
happened way faster than I thought. Usually I'll say like, okay,
I'll intentionally pad something because I'm like, I think this
should happen way sooner, but it's probably, you know, to
get to the masses, it's going to take longer. Yeah,
this I'm not sure about. It seems to be happening
(18:08):
much faster. Like we're we were just on a call
with a bunch of marketers, Like I don't think I've
talked to a marketer in the last three months. It's
not actively using chajibt every single day. And because of that,
I think the speed at which B to B marketers
are going to run to YouTube because chagibt is handling
(18:32):
what the expectations are from their leadership. From an SEO perspective,
Chachip's doing that, and so I think they're looking and
there's some fear and I saw that in the HubSpot
report too. There's some fear around how am I going
to stay relevant? Like if if I know that Chajibt
is doing eighty percent of the work on what I'm
was focused one hundred percent of my time on, I
(18:53):
know my boss is going to figure that out. It
might not be today, but it's going to be six
months from now. How do I add value to the business.
I think that thinking is going to lead a lot
of marketers down. Okay, video is this relatively defensible thing
against AI because it's built around a personality, and yeah,
(19:15):
you can do avatars and turn I can turn you
into a video avatar. But I think that's a little
bit further down the road.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
I think people are going to have more difficulty with
that adoption of like, I'm not looking at a real
person when I'm watching a video. Even audio is a
little bit better, like that notebook LM like it's it's
a little bit better. But I think video is your
way because you can also create better content than you've
(19:44):
ever created with like b role generated from these lms
and like whatever, but without having to take the authenticity
of the person out of it. So if chat GPT
is getting you ninety percent of the way there with
ideas and outlines, and you're able to add your unique expertise,
that makes you better in the SEO blog. It gives
you more potential that you're actually gonna have personality on camera.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
And it feels this like really.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Unique lane that we need right now of authentic content
driving to a company that can solve your problem.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Solve And there are a lot of nuances within YouTube
specifically that I think are going to require a marketer's
skill set, a marketer who understands titles, thumbnails hooks, like,
there are some nuances to it to be good, like
not being there is not enough, and we're going to
We're going to get to this place where it's like
(20:34):
all these marketers are going to flock to YouTube, most
of them are going to suck. And then then it
becomes Okay, how can I differentiate and keep my job.
It's by getting really good and optimizing this platform. Just
like the last fifteen to twenty years we've been optimizing blog
posts to make it on the first page of Google,
and so I agree with that take. I am interested
(20:57):
to know if when he says marketers are looking at
his size up there, if he's talking about YouTube advertising,
or if he's talking about like building channels, like owned
owned channels for brands. It's you know, I don't know
exactly what he's talking about that. I know that he
works with a lot of consumer brands, and I would
imagine consumer brands are thinking more on the side of
(21:17):
advertising there versus building channels, which is what we're talking about.
But I think regardless, I would agree it's not surprising
to me that they're wanting to increase their spend heading
into twenty twenty five because I think twenty twenty five
and twenty twenty six is going to be the year
that YouTube essentially replaces the all of the energy that
(21:38):
has been poured into SEO for the last fifteen years.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
Interesting, Okay, I want to get your take or what
you think of when you hear this. One one of
the things that he observed was B to B media
is performing better in a softer advertising market. So when
he says that, what do you think he's referring to
is that paid B to B media is performing better?
(22:02):
Is that organic B to B media is performing better
in a softer advertising market? Like? That one was interesting
to me because I'm like, I do think B to
B media is on the rise, But he didn't make
it super clear on like what he what he means
by performing better in a softer advertising market, Like that's
kind of a little bit broad.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Well, yeah, where my brain goes, and I could be
completely misinterpreting what he's saying here. We just have so
much grace in B to B because of how big
our deal sizes are and so performing better against a
better help ad where the lifetime value of a better
Help customer is eighty nine dollars versus the lifetime value
(22:48):
of our customer is eighty thousand dollars. So you just
have a lot more wiggle room to be effective, Like
we can spend a lot more to acquire a customer.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
And so that's my take on where he's where he's
leaning there. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Well, I started thinking about it more from just like
a if B to B, if this is true, like
B to B media is performing better in a software
advertising market, then I think what should the people that
recognize that or that agree with that, what would they
be creating? So, like, if what you're saying is true,
and it's like, okay, well, the lifetime value is going
(23:28):
to be so much higher, what should we be investing
our dollars into that could potentially work? I started thinking like, okay,
well maybe that at the top of the funnel. It's
a lot of what we've evangelized, right, So it's like
a video series that's focused on a problem or a
thing that you can help solve, but it's a very
high level whatever. If one of those things pops off,
(23:49):
how do you then take that and make it part
of sales enablement, part of LinkedIn ads? If you're if
you're actually able to double down on video in the
next let's say six to twelve months, how can you
repurpose what you've viewed as like top of funnel content
or like someday I will make this type of creative video,
but now you actually have the budget to make it,
start using that in your actual like ads that you're
(24:12):
running now. So how are you tying your top of
funnel content or a video series you could do, or
a report you've already done. You have all this data
on start making video, start making video content around that,
so that if we are in like this softer advertising market,
you're using that specifically, this really creative, hyper specific, personality
led content to fuel your paid spend. I think the
(24:35):
better video gets, the more we'll see that translate. And
I still think in some ways paid has to catch
up as far as what we're using for paid to
make it actually like compelling introductions to your company, because
it's not just talking about your product, right, it's like
actual interests content.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
So looking at paid like guaranteed distribution of your content, Yes.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
That's a very different mindset though, and I think that
that's sort of where my brain went on this is like,
if it is guaranteed distribution, we should be testing that
more in this environment. So let me give you just
my fourth real quick so you can wrap the episode.
My fourth one was just growing owned audiences becomes harder
and harder as competition for a finite amount of attention
ramps up. This has to do with AI, which you've
(25:19):
already mentioned. We got more and more content, We have
more and more people waking up to the fact that
newsletters and having a lot of people on your newsletter
list makes that asset you're creating acquireable. You have guaranteed
distribution that you own, Like that is no longer some
side conversation. That is the main conversation. Grow a newsletter,
(25:41):
grow a YouTube channel, have a podcast, Like we're going
to see competition go through the roof and people are
going to look for creative advantages, and so I do
think like we have to be very strategic about still
in these days, like what differentiates us in the next
five years for podcasting. For you, it was like I started,
(26:03):
You started B to B growth at a time where
it was like blue ocean for B to b uh,
and that's how B to B growth started and started
to thrive. I think we look at the next five
years and we're gonna have to get really smart about
the specific lane we chose because there's so much media
out there.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, well, yeah, we've been We've been having a lot
of internal conversations just about like is B to B
growth too broad based on what we find ourselves being
fascinated by and talking about being more in the lane
of content specifically. But then you look at like do
we shift into being a content marketing show? Well, that's
very loud so you came up with this language of
(26:42):
creators for companies, and it's like, I like that because
there's not really a comin in samere in b to
b land and so.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
And it's that intersection of like media and business that
we're like really curious about. It's not like content again,
we're waiting for that full evolution to happen. I feel
like we're helping spearhead that. Yeah, I think we're speaking
to it uniquely. So that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
What was your last one?
Speaker 2 (27:02):
My last one? Here, he says, growing a podcast is
really difficult. You have to be part of a network
leveraging video, an a list celebrity, or a unicorn. We've
obviously seen this coming the last couple of years. It's
why we pivoted our entire positioning of our business to
being a video podcast agency. You know, there's zero distribution
(27:25):
in podcast RSS feeds. I think you hear about discoverability
and distribution a lot, and I think for a long
time those were I just was hearing them so much
they lost their meaning. But essentially, the reason podcasts struggle
so much with this is because when you subscribe to
a show on Spotify or Apple podcast, it is because
you heard a friend talk about it, you saw a
(27:47):
clip pop off on social, you saw an episode come
up on your YouTube feed. You did not find out
about that show natively in that platform. Yet we go
and create these podcasts expecting these podcast platforms to give
us the distribution and the discovery. And that's that for
whatever reason they're they're not designed to do that. And
(28:09):
so him talking about like being part of a network, Yes,
that's that's one way to do it. There's not enough
B to B networks. I think where where it would
make sense. I think if we start focusing more on
premise and personality, you can tap into larger networks because
the show is bigger than just like and that would
be valuable for a network to bring in that show.
(28:31):
A list celebrity makes sense Unicorn. I think the most
tangible one here for B to B companies listening to
this is leveraging video and not just putting lipstick on
a pig, but like actually making sure you have a
great idea, a great angle, you have a differentiated point
of view, then adding video to that, creating a format
that it really works there, I think makes a whole
(28:52):
lot of sense. Social and YouTube just give you massive
amounts of upside from a distribution standpoint. So creating going
video first in your strategy allows you to optimize for
algorithms that do put you in front of net new eyeballs,
which are social platforms in YouTube.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
So let me tell you one thing that I've noticed.
Ryan Holiday does, Tim Ferris does. We tried a version
of it, and we don't all run the exact same play,
but I'll just give you the idea. Clearly, Tim Ferris
built his audience in podcasting. He has deep expertise and
deep curiosity that helped him originally he sees the value
(29:32):
of YouTube. But he does these monologue style videos now
where he's just talking into the camera and not being blunt.
I don't think there are all that great yet, but
I think he's testing a lot of stuff. Ryan Holiday
same thing. Built a studio video studio in his bookstore
in bass Drop, Texas. Goes in there, does monologue style
(29:54):
videos on stoicism and adds those to a YouTube channel
that is also populated with interviews or whatever. Why are
they doing that. It's not just because it's like, oh,
we want to try this content. It's because that type
of content works better on YouTube is is to intersperse
like monologue style videos that are not the same as
a long form podcast. If I was starting a show now,
(30:17):
which is something we're actively trying, I think I would
have a video series that somehow runs in conjunction with
my ongoing episodes. Because we can ramble and have fun.
We still can get tighter with our hooks. Our episode
idea can be awesome, but that episode might not pop
off in the same way. We need to be almost
like okay with that that people are coming to us,
(30:39):
growing affinity for us, over with us over time, but
also may have more of an appetite for like a
seven to fifteen minute monologue style episode where we're telling
you specifically in our case, you are doing marketing sales
videos or like marketing two oh one. Don't look at
Tim Ferriss. He's not necessarily making it a separate playlist,
but he's doing that exact strategy. He's mixing in that
(31:01):
type of content. So if you're thinking of how do
I move my video podcast strategy to also be YouTube first,
that might be a really good play for you. Could
you launch your channel less advertising the fact that you're
a show, a podcast and more just thinking, what's the
topic that we want to talk about that would appeal
to our audience, and I'm just going to monologue about it,
(31:22):
and if I like your ideas enough, I don't care
if in the next episode it's co hosted commentary. I'm
showing up because I liked your video, not because I
care if you call it a podcaster.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Yeah, So all right, moving into the research roundup segment
of the show, you found this interesting piece of data
from copy Leaks, says according to a study. This study
from copy Leaks, AI generated content on the Internet has
surged by eight thousand, three hundred and sixty two percent
(31:51):
from November of twenty twenty two when chat GBT three
point five was released to March of twenty twenty four.
So the study on that one point five seven percent
of analyzed web pages now contain AI generated content. What
stands out to you about that?
Speaker 4 (32:11):
I mean, we've had more months go by. I would
assume this has got to be over two percent at
least by now. But if you think about the history
of the Internet and then you think all of one
point five percent of all analyzed web pages are containing
it at this point, all I can do is like,
I want to hit the fast forward button and I
want to know where we're at three to five years
from now because it's so easy to publish content. I
(32:33):
think this that is really compelling to me because you
and I are talking so much about chat GPT right now,
and if people do start and are starting to go
there first, what does that mean for the types of
content that we are generating in the future, And how
are we like leveraging this idea of passing off education
to other people or making people aware of our solution
(32:54):
in ways that are actually compelling that can't just be
generated by a chatbot like this. That is going to
take some getting used to that. Most of the Internet
will probably be in some way and LLM generating that
content whole websites, like all product pages all that like that.
(33:16):
You will go there and.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
Things will be built that way.
Speaker 4 (33:18):
So it's more for me. I get introspective of like
what does that mean for the future of the Internet
and how we consume information.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
It gets me excited about what it's going to do
to the craft of marketing when the way you it,
it's a forcing function for us to focus on our
creativity and in the the way you can connect dots
(33:47):
as a marketer creatively. I was I was using CHGPT
the other day to figure out, like, what are some
different episodic series that we can do on LinkedIn, and
I just asked it. I was like, Hey, this is
what we talk about. We have a bent towards creator
economy and how it influences B to B. What are
some ideas? And the ideas were awesome. Then I got
(34:11):
to sharpen those and go, okay, yeah, let's go that concept,
but let's fill it with this source material. So let's
do this concept, but let's talk about this particular thing.
And it's the connecting of those dots creatively that I
think is going to allow you to build real affinity
with an audience in a world where three to five
years from now, who knows, ninety percent of the Internet
(34:33):
might be AI generated. And even in that, even in
what you are contributing is AI generated, but it's AI
generated with your taste embedded as an input before AI
gives you the output.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
The image of connecting the dots is a really good one.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
I like that all right.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Remember, whoever has the audience has the leverage. Commodity content
is the enemy and personality led media is the way
What if everything we thought we knew about digital media
was about to be turned upside down. That's exactly what
Alex Lieberman from Morning Brew just hinted at in his
recent threat on X. The creator economy is evolving, content
discovery is shifting, and platforms are rewriting the rules. Today,
we're breaking down what Alex observed and adding our own
(00:21):
two cents on where things are headed.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
If you're curious about the future of media and how
to stay ahead, stick around, this episode is going to
be an eye opener. So as soon as I saw
this post from Alex Lieberman at Morning Brew, Benji, I knew,
I knew we had to talk about it.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
This tweet it's a mile long, seriously long, twenty eight
observations on digital media right now, and so it covers
social YouTube creator economy touches on so much.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
But the position that he's in, I mean, they've arguably built.
You know, one of the most influential business media empires
of today got acquired by Business Insider for I think
seventy or eighty million dollars a few years ago. Guy
obviously knows his stuff, and now he started a content
agency on the back of all of that insight, and
(01:18):
so we're going to go through this episode. I'm going
to share what you know of the twenty eight. I'm
going to share the four that really hit me and
my thoughts on those. You're going to share your four,
and I'll start start our start with this one. He says,
founders continue to try and figure out ways to attach
creators to their business for some equity. And when I
(01:39):
saw that, I thought Marquez Brownley and what he's doing
with Ridge. I thought about Logan, Paul and KSI with Prime.
Do you see Peter Attia and Huberman's new protein bar?
Speaker 4 (01:51):
No, but I'm sure I will get advertised that yees
on Instagram or something. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
So you see these brands partnering with creators because they
understand that distribution is a huge unlock, and these creators
have have the distribution. So you know, I just think too,
in conjunction with this era that we're stepping into with AI,
where it's like if AI with like low code or
(02:20):
no code tools can actually build a digital product for you,
does that take the technical co founder out of the picture,
and then you replace that technical co founder co founder
with an audience co founder, somebody who has so.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
I can put your product in front of eyeball.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yes, because we no longer need to give that equity
to somebody who can actually build the product. I don't
think we're there today by any means, but it is
interesting to think if that's where we're at a few
years from now.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
And there's there are examples of people at least trying.
I mean, granted it, we're when you're giving those examples,
it's like a drink or a wall at ors. It
makes some sense around a product that anyone could go
buy today to have someone with a large audience that
then you can immediately market to that Like, your examples
(03:12):
are really good ones for where it could work today tomorrow.
That idea of technical expertise maybe being needed less than
just someone who can sit buying a camera behind a mic,
gain a bunch of attention and be like, hey, this
is what you guys should buy or because of my
expertise to this. That one is really interesting. One thing
I wanted to note just about his entire list of
(03:32):
twenty plus observations, what a great way to one do
just an X thread but having a note on your phone.
This is just a content thing From that I was
nerding out about when you sent this to me. These
are such simple, fast thoughts that I have all the
time because we're always nerding out about this stuff. I
(03:54):
don't have a doc that I document this stuff in.
But this is the perfect type of content where it's like,
what distinguishes it is? These are Alex's unique thoughts. You
could go to chat GPT and get a LinkedIn post.
You could get three hundred and sixty five for every
day of the year, but you're not gonna get this
because this is him observing what's happening and just going
bullet point, bullet point, bullet point. So I love that
(04:16):
because then you can also go, do I agree with this?
Disagree with this? How do how does what he's seeing
and form my thinking? And kind of gets you either
nodding in agreement or being like, I'm curious. I want
to push on that one a little bit. And so
for both of us, I'm sure that was happening quite
a bit. Where all he said was like, you're going
to continue to see how did the word at founders
continue to try and figure out ways to attach creators
(04:38):
to their business for some equity. But your takeaway is,
what if it goes way beyond that to replacing, and
so I think we're gonna do that a lot in
this episode, where it's like, oh, I've thought about this before,
let me just jam on that first step. Yeah, so
that's a really good first one.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
All right, what's yours?
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Yeah? My first one here is every social platform and
then he says, other than LinkedIn has officially shifted from
social graft interest graph. I actually think LinkedIn is on
its way. It's just the laggard behind the group trying
to catch up. That's fine either way. A few bullet
points under this one. LinkedIn is doing this move, and
the video strategy of now having that in the bottom
(05:16):
bar of your phone is clearly them trying to execute
to some degree on this. Now more than ever, I
think people have to focus on problem aware content, not
solution to wear content on platforms like LinkedIn, where all
you're doing is you feel like, as a top of
funnel play, I am constantly saying what the problem is
(05:38):
that my audience has and doing that in video and
figuring out one hundred creative ways to do that over
and over and over again. How do I perfect this message?
How do I perfect what they're experiencing, And I think
what he's saying here that the shift is from social
to interest means you're gonna have to find people who
are one very interested in your general niche and then
(05:59):
two that you can speak directly to where they are
like today, Because if you just think you're going to
gain a bunch of followers and that's going to guarantee distribution,
you're going to run into problems. So I think one
of the easy ways of doing this is thinking of
what's repeatable content that people will come back to because
they're interested in it. So they see one, two, three
of your videos where you're doing the same thing over
(06:20):
and over and over again, they hit follow because they
know that, and they like that video series you're doing.
They watch the next one because of the last one.
It's the same repeatable format. You're playing into their interest,
And so I agree. I am curious. Are we in
a season of time where it feels like we're talking
about the algorithm more than ever? Is that ever going
(06:43):
to shift again or is everyone just going to focus
their creativity on the algorithm and how long they can
keep someone's eyeballs on the platform. Because I do think
there's a group of people who are going to live
after this current moment that are going to be really
mad at how much creativity just got optimized for maximum
retention of eyeballs. But we're in the age of the
interest graph, so.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Oh, I mean I I like that the algorithms anchor
so heavily on wanting to keep people on the platform
because it is they're giving the user what they want,
which is content that engages them and keeps them interested.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
Yes, for the user, it could be good for the creator,
you could double down on, well, what does the platform
want more of, to the point where you're not doing
the creative thing you wanted to do in the first
place because you're so set on views. And I think
I have two very distinct sides of my brain. One
is very artistic and one is very nuts and bolts.
(07:42):
And the artistic side of me is just like, ah,
there are some times where you just know something you
should make even though you're not sure how the algorithm
is going to like it, and you should still make
that damn piece of content, like please just make it.
So it's that those sides of me warring with each other. Yes,
for the viewer, oftentimes you're getting served up more content
(08:03):
that you would like to watch. I understand why people have,
you know, shifted towards this or platforms that want to
keep people on them would shift towards this, and we
are living in it like we are in the Age
of interest.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
I also wonder if the reason LinkedIn has not been
quicker to make this shift to an interest graph is
it was a platform built on networking and relationships. It
wasn't a platform built on well so as Facebook being
a yeah yeah, and I don't do a lot of
(08:34):
content conception on Facebook, but it because because content content
was not the driving force behind.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
I think TikTok might be the first platform that started
with the intention of I'm going to show you the
video interesting the videos over and over again, and it
doesn't You don't need to know the person in the video.
If the video is interesting and you stay on it
long enough, you don't have to like it, share it,
save it. If you watch it for long enough, the
next video is going to be similar and they're just
(09:05):
going to get you in a loop. And all the
other platforms said, oh, that's a way to keep them
on platform. Because Instagram in its early days definitely had
a feed that was your friends, and it was just
showing you that even though I followed the same people. Today,
much of what I see on Instagram is now very
videos that are feeded to me to keep me on, and.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
So is LinkedIn slower to this because there just are
not as many creators creating on LinkedIn to feed what
would be an interest based algorithm.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
I think that definitely is part of it. Video content
is just, yeah, we're not at a place yet where
they probably have the volume that you need to keep
people really invested in that tab. We're getting close to
probably critical mass where they felt comfortable doing it. But
even the reach on some of these posts, like if
you just go to the video tab on LinkedIn and
you watch some of the videos, you're like, how many
(09:54):
impressions on this thing? Or it's mind bogging. It's not
even like fantastic content. It's just not enough people uploading videos.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
The numbers don't make sense either, because like I had
a video they got eight hundred and eighty thousand impressions
and eighty eight likes, right, So there's something cattywampus with
going on in the back end. Did it really get
eight hundred and eighty thousand impressions. Was it not that good?
But why would they show it to that many people
if it only got eighty eight? Like, so there's something
going on there. They're obviously playing with it and trying
(10:23):
to figure it out. This next one, Benji that he
called out that was super interesting to me. He said,
SEO isn't dead, but it isn't the arbitrage it once was.
I'm actually going to disagree with him on this one.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
Let's hear it.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
I'll say, SEO is cooked.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Do you know that everybody that says something is dead
comes back to eating somehow?
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Right now? Okay, all right, very very much acknowledged that
I'm moving forward with your hot take. Yeah, I'm not
a this is dead guy. Chat GBT delivers a ten x,
maybe one hundred x better search experience, and I've been
noticing even in the last six months, it went from
(11:06):
like my really techy, nerdy friend using chat gupt as
a search function to I'm like, oh, I didn't even
know you would have thought chat jept existed, Like my
wife is not very tech forward at all.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Perplexity and chat gpt are on my home screen. Yeah,
I think I tap them more than I tap Google
at the moment.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I almost want to make it a default setting for
all sweet fish fanatics that when you open up a
new tab, instead of it going to Google, it opens
to Chatgypt because I just think, and that's.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
With like a couple of years of people trying to
adopt it. So imagine where this is three four years
from now unless Gemini does something insane where Google can
just flip it. But so far people are not going to.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Gemini, you know, And so I think SEOS cooked. There
was some data actually in an AI report that HubSpot
just did, and HubSpot, mind you, has dominated search, so
they've got a lot of incentive to believe that search
is is still going to be relevant. But in this
report they said AI usage among marketers is up from
(12:14):
twenty one percent to seventy four percent in just the
last year.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Yeah, we definitely believe it.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
So it's clear, like you know, even if marketers continue
to invest in SEO, it's clear in this jump that
AI is doing the bulk of the heavy lifting of
the creation of that content, that it's being optimized for
search engines. And so when I think about that, I go, Okay,
(12:44):
there's you. Whereas as a marketer inside of a company,
Where do you then start to focus your attention? Because
if CHADGBT is doing the bulk of the lifting on
but finding the keywords that people are actually searching for,
right and then creating the content optimized for that, where
do you go? And I think that's actually it's going
to unlock a level of creativity inside of corporate marketers
(13:07):
that we have not seen before, because they're going to
start to go, Okay, who are the personalities at this
company that we can start to build around. What are
different angles of these stories that we can tell they're
going to be interesting to the market. How are we
going to do video well, how do we think about
set design? What do we think about the formats and
the creative segments that we inject into our show? So
(13:30):
I'm really really excited. But him saying it isn't the
arbitrage it once was, I think is him probably trying
to stay away from two spicy of a take saying that.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
SEO is dead because there is a way of like,
people are still investing dollars, they're still doing what they're
doing because they are seeing some level of results. It's
just I think you are notoriously good at being either
an early adopter or just like seeing what's kind of
coming and being on that edge. And I think what
you're seeing is definitely We will be talking much more
(14:05):
about this over the next twelve to eighteen months because
we're going to have better data on where people are
going for their first answer. Yeah and yeah, I like that. Okay,
all right, let me give you one that's totally at
first when I read it a little out of left field.
One of his takes was or other observations politicians are
opting for long form podcasts to share their message. I
(14:29):
think CEO should follow suit. So yes, you know, we
get pitched all the time to be on interview or
having someone come on our show and do an interview
with us, whatever. We are big proponents of co hosted
commentary type stuff. But when you look at like what
politicians are doing, they're going on too largely conversational type platforms.
Right right now, both political candidates want to get on
(14:52):
Rogan or saying that they're in talks with Rogan. We'll
see if that pans out. We've seen I think I
would say JFK jor uh RFK junior. Sorry, like who
am I talking about RFK Junior he did the first
major podcast tour, got so like entrenched with that whole
crew that people were like, oh, he might pull real
(15:14):
big in the results. So then other politicians are like, Okay,
we need to go on podcasts. Thought I saw Kamala
and call her Daddy. We've seen Trump doing the rounds
on like THEO Vaughn and all these shows. So when
they're doing that, why are they doing that?
Speaker 2 (15:26):
They're opting for.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
A format that allows them to have long form discussions
and gives them platform. If you're a CEO at a company,
if you're someone that has genuine thoughts about where a
market should go, you need to do long form conversations
where you let other people disagree with your takes because
it will help people see the human side of you,
(15:47):
why you're doing the business you're doing.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
And like go deep into that.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
And I'm like, Yeah, politicians are doing exactly what I
think B to B leaders should be doing, exactly what
I think a lot of like people from the outside
are afraid of having their top leader look a little
like off what like non on the company message. That's
the risk of a politician doing a long form podcast.
But if they're even doing it, I would highly suggest
(16:14):
you think about why they're picking that medium. Yes, one
from an audience perspective, but two from a what does
it show about this candidate?
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Means the same thing in business.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
And when you think about ad creative, what ad creative
is going to resonate more a polished ad of that's
just glossy and perfect. Or Trump going off with theovon
about some policy that he.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
And even if you disagree with the take in that clip,
that clip will go wild because they'll lee laughing about
something whatever. Like I've seen clips from both candidates. I've
seen them using them in political ads. So like, the
type of content that's created in a long form conversation
is good for your C suite level executives to be making,
(17:00):
especially if they can put their guard down a little bit.
And yeah, again, if it's risky for a presidential candidate,
it will be risky too for your C suite potentially
at first, but it's worth it and they're doing this
for a reason. So like I just thought that's a
good insight for politicians, it's a really good insight for
like c suite.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
It exacts my third one. He says marketers are looking
to size up their spend on YouTube headed into twenty
twenty five. Benji, I used to think B to B
marketers were probably three to five years away from really
taking YouTube seriously. But honestly, the last few months and
seeing how much chatgibt is absolutely destroying.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Search, James is trying to figure out how to get
chat gpt into every one of his takes, every.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Single one of the Yeah, the speed at which it's
happened way faster than I thought. Usually I'll say like, okay,
I'll intentionally pad something because I'm like, I think this
should happen way sooner, but it's probably, you know, to
get to the masses, it's going to take longer. Yeah,
this I'm not sure about. It seems to be happening
(18:08):
much faster. Like we're we were just on a call
with a bunch of marketers, Like I don't think I've
talked to a marketer in the last three months. It's
not actively using chajibt every single day. And because of that,
I think the speed at which B to B marketers
are going to run to YouTube because chagibt is handling
(18:32):
what the expectations are from their leadership. From an SEO perspective,
Chachip's doing that, and so I think they're looking and
there's some fear and I saw that in the HubSpot
report too. There's some fear around how am I going
to stay relevant? Like if if I know that Chajibt
is doing eighty percent of the work on what I'm
was focused one hundred percent of my time on, I
(18:53):
know my boss is going to figure that out. It
might not be today, but it's going to be six
months from now. How do I add value to the business.
I think that thinking is going to lead a lot
of marketers down. Okay, video is this relatively defensible thing
against AI because it's built around a personality, and yeah,
(19:15):
you can do avatars and turn I can turn you
into a video avatar. But I think that's a little
bit further down the road.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
I think people are going to have more difficulty with
that adoption of like, I'm not looking at a real
person when I'm watching a video. Even audio is a
little bit better, like that notebook LM like it's it's
a little bit better. But I think video is your
way because you can also create better content than you've
(19:44):
ever created with like b role generated from these lms
and like whatever, but without having to take the authenticity
of the person out of it. So if chat GPT
is getting you ninety percent of the way there with
ideas and outlines, and you're able to add your unique expertise,
that makes you better in the SEO blog. It gives
you more potential that you're actually gonna have personality on camera.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
And it feels this like really.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Unique lane that we need right now of authentic content
driving to a company that can solve your problem.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Solve And there are a lot of nuances within YouTube
specifically that I think are going to require a marketer's
skill set, a marketer who understands titles, thumbnails hooks, like,
there are some nuances to it to be good, like
not being there is not enough, and we're going to
We're going to get to this place where it's like
(20:34):
all these marketers are going to flock to YouTube, most
of them are going to suck. And then then it
becomes Okay, how can I differentiate and keep my job.
It's by getting really good and optimizing this platform. Just
like the last fifteen to twenty years we've been optimizing blog
posts to make it on the first page of Google,
and so I agree with that take. I am interested
(20:57):
to know if when he says marketers are looking at
his size up there, if he's talking about YouTube advertising,
or if he's talking about like building channels, like owned
owned channels for brands. It's you know, I don't know
exactly what he's talking about that. I know that he
works with a lot of consumer brands, and I would
imagine consumer brands are thinking more on the side of
(21:17):
advertising there versus building channels, which is what we're talking about.
But I think regardless, I would agree it's not surprising
to me that they're wanting to increase their spend heading
into twenty twenty five because I think twenty twenty five
and twenty twenty six is going to be the year
that YouTube essentially replaces the all of the energy that
(21:38):
has been poured into SEO for the last fifteen years.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
Interesting, Okay, I want to get your take or what
you think of when you hear this. One one of
the things that he observed was B to B media
is performing better in a softer advertising market. So when
he says that, what do you think he's referring to
is that paid B to B media is performing better?
(22:02):
Is that organic B to B media is performing better
in a softer advertising market? Like? That one was interesting
to me because I'm like, I do think B to
B media is on the rise, But he didn't make
it super clear on like what he what he means
by performing better in a softer advertising market, Like that's
kind of a little bit broad.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Well, yeah, where my brain goes, and I could be
completely misinterpreting what he's saying here. We just have so
much grace in B to B because of how big
our deal sizes are and so performing better against a
better help ad where the lifetime value of a better
Help customer is eighty nine dollars versus the lifetime value
(22:48):
of our customer is eighty thousand dollars. So you just
have a lot more wiggle room to be effective, Like
we can spend a lot more to acquire a customer.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
And so that's my take on where he's where he's
leaning there. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Well, I started thinking about it more from just like
a if B to B, if this is true, like
B to B media is performing better in a software
advertising market, then I think what should the people that
recognize that or that agree with that, what would they
be creating? So, like, if what you're saying is true,
and it's like, okay, well, the lifetime value is going
(23:28):
to be so much higher, what should we be investing
our dollars into that could potentially work? I started thinking like, okay,
well maybe that at the top of the funnel. It's
a lot of what we've evangelized, right, So it's like
a video series that's focused on a problem or a
thing that you can help solve, but it's a very
high level whatever. If one of those things pops off,
(23:49):
how do you then take that and make it part
of sales enablement, part of LinkedIn ads? If you're if
you're actually able to double down on video in the
next let's say six to twelve months, how can you
repurpose what you've viewed as like top of funnel content
or like someday I will make this type of creative video,
but now you actually have the budget to make it,
start using that in your actual like ads that you're
(24:12):
running now. So how are you tying your top of
funnel content or a video series you could do, or
a report you've already done. You have all this data
on start making video, start making video content around that,
so that if we are in like this softer advertising market,
you're using that specifically, this really creative, hyper specific, personality
led content to fuel your paid spend. I think the
(24:35):
better video gets, the more we'll see that translate. And
I still think in some ways paid has to catch
up as far as what we're using for paid to
make it actually like compelling introductions to your company, because
it's not just talking about your product, right, it's like
actual interests content.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
So looking at paid like guaranteed distribution of your content, Yes.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
That's a very different mindset though, and I think that
that's sort of where my brain went on this is like,
if it is guaranteed distribution, we should be testing that
more in this environment. So let me give you just
my fourth real quick so you can wrap the episode.
My fourth one was just growing owned audiences becomes harder
and harder as competition for a finite amount of attention
ramps up. This has to do with AI, which you've
(25:19):
already mentioned. We got more and more content, We have
more and more people waking up to the fact that
newsletters and having a lot of people on your newsletter
list makes that asset you're creating acquireable. You have guaranteed
distribution that you own, Like that is no longer some
side conversation. That is the main conversation. Grow a newsletter,
(25:41):
grow a YouTube channel, have a podcast, Like we're going
to see competition go through the roof and people are
going to look for creative advantages, and so I do
think like we have to be very strategic about still
in these days, like what differentiates us in the next
five years for podcasting. For you, it was like I started,
(26:03):
You started B to B growth at a time where
it was like blue ocean for B to b uh,
and that's how B to B growth started and started
to thrive. I think we look at the next five
years and we're gonna have to get really smart about
the specific lane we chose because there's so much media
out there.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, well, yeah, we've been We've been having a lot
of internal conversations just about like is B to B
growth too broad based on what we find ourselves being
fascinated by and talking about being more in the lane
of content specifically. But then you look at like do
we shift into being a content marketing show? Well, that's
very loud so you came up with this language of
(26:42):
creators for companies, and it's like, I like that because
there's not really a comin in samere in b to
b land and so.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
And it's that intersection of like media and business that
we're like really curious about. It's not like content again,
we're waiting for that full evolution to happen. I feel
like we're helping spearhead that. Yeah, I think we're speaking
to it uniquely. So that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
What was your last one?
Speaker 2 (27:02):
My last one? Here, he says, growing a podcast is
really difficult. You have to be part of a network
leveraging video, an a list celebrity, or a unicorn. We've
obviously seen this coming the last couple of years. It's
why we pivoted our entire positioning of our business to
being a video podcast agency. You know, there's zero distribution
(27:25):
in podcast RSS feeds. I think you hear about discoverability
and distribution a lot, and I think for a long
time those were I just was hearing them so much
they lost their meaning. But essentially, the reason podcasts struggle
so much with this is because when you subscribe to
a show on Spotify or Apple podcast, it is because
you heard a friend talk about it, you saw a
(27:47):
clip pop off on social, you saw an episode come
up on your YouTube feed. You did not find out
about that show natively in that platform. Yet we go
and create these podcasts expecting these podcast platforms to give
us the distribution and the discovery. And that's that for
whatever reason they're they're not designed to do that. And
(28:09):
so him talking about like being part of a network, Yes,
that's that's one way to do it. There's not enough
B to B networks. I think where where it would
make sense. I think if we start focusing more on
premise and personality, you can tap into larger networks because
the show is bigger than just like and that would
be valuable for a network to bring in that show.
(28:31):
A list celebrity makes sense Unicorn. I think the most
tangible one here for B to B companies listening to
this is leveraging video and not just putting lipstick on
a pig, but like actually making sure you have a
great idea, a great angle, you have a differentiated point
of view, then adding video to that, creating a format
that it really works there, I think makes a whole
(28:52):
lot of sense. Social and YouTube just give you massive
amounts of upside from a distribution standpoint. So creating going
video first in your strategy allows you to optimize for
algorithms that do put you in front of net new eyeballs,
which are social platforms in YouTube.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
So let me tell you one thing that I've noticed.
Ryan Holiday does, Tim Ferris does. We tried a version
of it, and we don't all run the exact same play,
but I'll just give you the idea. Clearly, Tim Ferris
built his audience in podcasting. He has deep expertise and
deep curiosity that helped him originally he sees the value
(29:32):
of YouTube. But he does these monologue style videos now
where he's just talking into the camera and not being blunt.
I don't think there are all that great yet, but
I think he's testing a lot of stuff. Ryan Holiday
same thing. Built a studio video studio in his bookstore
in bass Drop, Texas. Goes in there, does monologue style
(29:54):
videos on stoicism and adds those to a YouTube channel
that is also populated with interviews or whatever. Why are
they doing that. It's not just because it's like, oh,
we want to try this content. It's because that type
of content works better on YouTube is is to intersperse
like monologue style videos that are not the same as
a long form podcast. If I was starting a show now,
(30:17):
which is something we're actively trying, I think I would
have a video series that somehow runs in conjunction with
my ongoing episodes. Because we can ramble and have fun.
We still can get tighter with our hooks. Our episode
idea can be awesome, but that episode might not pop
off in the same way. We need to be almost
like okay with that that people are coming to us,
(30:39):
growing affinity for us, over with us over time, but
also may have more of an appetite for like a
seven to fifteen minute monologue style episode where we're telling
you specifically in our case, you are doing marketing sales
videos or like marketing two oh one. Don't look at
Tim Ferriss. He's not necessarily making it a separate playlist,
but he's doing that exact strategy. He's mixing in that
(31:01):
type of content. So if you're thinking of how do
I move my video podcast strategy to also be YouTube first,
that might be a really good play for you. Could
you launch your channel less advertising the fact that you're
a show, a podcast and more just thinking, what's the
topic that we want to talk about that would appeal
to our audience, and I'm just going to monologue about it,
(31:22):
and if I like your ideas enough, I don't care
if in the next episode it's co hosted commentary. I'm
showing up because I liked your video, not because I
care if you call it a podcaster.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Yeah, So all right, moving into the research roundup segment
of the show, you found this interesting piece of data
from copy Leaks, says according to a study. This study
from copy Leaks, AI generated content on the Internet has
surged by eight thousand, three hundred and sixty two percent
(31:51):
from November of twenty twenty two when chat GBT three
point five was released to March of twenty twenty four.
So the study on that one point five seven percent
of analyzed web pages now contain AI generated content. What
stands out to you about that?
Speaker 4 (32:11):
I mean, we've had more months go by. I would
assume this has got to be over two percent at
least by now. But if you think about the history
of the Internet and then you think all of one
point five percent of all analyzed web pages are containing
it at this point, all I can do is like,
I want to hit the fast forward button and I
want to know where we're at three to five years
from now because it's so easy to publish content. I
(32:33):
think this that is really compelling to me because you
and I are talking so much about chat GPT right now,
and if people do start and are starting to go
there first, what does that mean for the types of
content that we are generating in the future, And how
are we like leveraging this idea of passing off education
to other people or making people aware of our solution
(32:54):
in ways that are actually compelling that can't just be
generated by a chatbot like this. That is going to
take some getting used to that. Most of the Internet
will probably be in some way and LLM generating that
content whole websites, like all product pages all that like that.
(33:16):
You will go there and.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
Things will be built that way.
Speaker 4 (33:18):
So it's more for me. I get introspective of like
what does that mean for the future of the Internet
and how we consume information.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
It gets me excited about what it's going to do
to the craft of marketing when the way you it,
it's a forcing function for us to focus on our
creativity and in the the way you can connect dots
(33:47):
as a marketer creatively. I was I was using CHGPT
the other day to figure out, like, what are some
different episodic series that we can do on LinkedIn, and
I just asked it. I was like, Hey, this is
what we talk about. We have a bent towards creator
economy and how it influences B to B. What are
some ideas? And the ideas were awesome. Then I got
(34:11):
to sharpen those and go, okay, yeah, let's go that concept,
but let's fill it with this source material. So let's
do this concept, but let's talk about this particular thing.
And it's the connecting of those dots creatively that I
think is going to allow you to build real affinity
with an audience in a world where three to five
years from now, who knows, ninety percent of the Internet
(34:33):
might be AI generated. And even in that, even in
what you are contributing is AI generated, but it's AI
generated with your taste embedded as an input before AI
gives you the output.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
The image of connecting the dots is a really good one.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
I like that all right.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Remember, whoever has the audience has the leverage. Commodity content
is the enemy and personality led media is the way
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.