September 26, 2024 • 20 mins
How can content marketing change your future fortunes?
In this episode of Growing Social Now, host Barbara Rozgonyi interviews Andy Crestodina, co-founder and CMO of Orbit Media, about the future of digital marketing, content strategy, and personal branding. With over 24 years of experience, Andy shares insights on blogging, AI in marketing, and strategies for standing out in an increasingly AI-driven landscape.
Key Takeaways:
1. Original research and strong opinions are two content formats AI cannot replicate, making them valuable for differentiation.
2. AI should be used for research and performance improvement rather than just efficiency in content creation.
3. Blogging remains relevant, as it helps build a digital footprint necessary for AI recommendations in the future.
4. Personal branding through LinkedIn, newsletters, and in-person networking is crucial for thought leadership.
Surprising Moments:
1. Crestodina's stance on cream in coffee as an example of strong opinions AI can't replicate.
2. The revelation that even AI scientists don't fully understand AI, challenging the notion of "AI experts."
Tune in for the best 20 minutes you'll spend this week!
Thanks for listening and subscribing to Growing Social Now with Barbara Rozgonyi, produced by CoryWest Media.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Barbara Rozgonyi (00:00):
Well, hello everyone and welcome to another
episode of Growing Social Now,where I talk to the smartest
marketers on the planet, peoplethat I've known for a while and
had a lot of fun with over theyears, and today I'm really
excited to bring Andy Crestodinato you all.
Andy and I have known eachother for I don't know years.
(00:20):
I did find on my blog, wired PRWorks this morning a blog post
of us together picture fromSobCon in 2012.
So, yeah, we were part of thesame team.
So I've been an Andy Crestinafan for years, and if you don't
know who he is, he's theco-founder and CMO of Orbit
Media, an award-winning50-person digital agency in
(00:40):
Chicago.
Over the past 24 years, andy hasprovided digital marketing
advice to a thousand plusbusinesses.
He's written 600 plus articleson content strategy, seo, ga4,
ai and visitor psychology.
These articles reach more than3 million marketers each year.
He's also the author of ContentChemistry, the illustrated
handbook for content marketing,and if you don't subscribe to
(01:03):
Digital Marketing Tips, andy'sLinkedIn newsletter, just do
that right now.
Stop what you're doing.
Handbook for content marketing.
And if you don't subscribe todigital marketing tips andy's
linkedin newsletter, just dothat right now.
Stop what you're doing.
There are over 250 000subscribers, 174 editions, and
this is a really, really richresource that's going to keep
you on track and it's going tobe simple for you to follow,
which I love.
Things like when do yourvisitors convert?
What type of digital market areyou?
Are you a tortoise or a hare?
How to write audit prompts it'sgoing to be simple for you to
(01:24):
follow, which I love.
Things like when do yourvisitors convert?
What type of digital market areyou?
Are you a tortoise or a hare?
How to write audit prompts toimprove everything, and even the
20 best practices for your homepages, plus an AI prompt to
audit yours.
And, on top of all that, onething I found out about Andy
from LinkedIn is he is a treekeeper and I love trees.
That's one of the reasons wemoved to North Carolina, even
(01:45):
though I still love Chicago.
I feel like I live there isbecause of all the trees.
I think I have, I don't know,25 or 30 loblolly pines outside
in my backyard, and so thatthank you for your work with
trees, andy.
That's.
That's really nice.
So so, anyway, we have so muchto talk about, and what is on
(02:06):
your mind today, andy?
What would you say, are thebiggest marketing thoughts
challenges.
Andy Crestodina (02:12):
I know you're out and about a lot well, we
just wrapped up our 11th annualblogger survey every every year
we ask a thousand bloggers toanswer like 20 questions and and
it looks in several ways thatparts of blogging and marketing
are getting more challenging.
Many marketers report thatsearch getting traffic from
(02:32):
search is more challenging thanbefore.
So I'm going to be doing some,I'm having conversations about
that and we'll be publishing onthat shortly.
Also, ai, of course, is a huge,huge topic.
I think that it's interestinghow AI affects content strategy.
Many people got excited rightaway about AI for the efficiency
side of quickly creatingcontent.
(02:54):
I think that that is completelycounter to the idea of
differentiation, because if youcan write an article with a
simple prompt, your audience canalso get that article with the
same prompt.
That's the article we shouldnot write Exactly.
Barbara Rozgonyi (03:07):
Yeah.
Andy Crestodina (03:09):
So I'm teaching and speaking at events and
talking a lot about the fewformats for content that are
highly differentiated and thatAI simply cannot do.
I find that to be interesting.
Barbara Rozgonyi (03:22):
And what are those?
Oh sure yeah.
Andy Crestodina (03:27):
Well years ago, Steve Rayson, the founder of
BuzzSumo, did an article.
After analyzing, throughstatistical analysis and
crawling data, he found thatthere's two types of content
that have disproportionatelyhigh number of shares and links,
as in performance, and socialand search, and they are
(03:48):
original research and strongopinion oh, okay so that this
was probably, you know, eightyears ago, started prioritizing
those things.
I'd already been doing some ofit.
Uh, the blogger research pieceI just mentioned as an example
ask a thousand bloggersquestions every year.
Ai can't really do that.
Ai doesn't produce new original.
(04:10):
You know, if you want to be theprimary source for new
information, you've got to dothe hard work.
Barbara Rozgonyi (04:14):
Right.
Andy Crestodina (04:14):
Actually publish statistics, new
statistics that do not exist onthe internet yet.
The other one is strong opinion, which kind of is easier in
some ways but harder in others.
It takes guts to take a standfor sure.
Um so, uh, I just.
I gave this example the otherday.
I just poured a cup of coffee,so I'll do this.
I'm going to speak somesentences that a I really can't
(04:36):
ever write.
Okay, uh, cream ruins coffee.
It's terrible.
Coffee is supposed to be darkand smoky.
That that's the whole idea.
Sugar makes coffee better, butcream, that's not coffee anymore
.
I know a guy.
He turns his coffee into acandy bar.
It's all cream and sugar.
That's not.
(04:56):
It's terrible.
I would never do that.
That's the opposite of coffee.
Okay, I could do that.
We all do that all the time westate opinions.
I could not write a single oneof those sentences because it
doesn't care about anything.
It's never tasted coffee, itdoesn't know a guy, it has no
beliefs.
So that's not thoughtleadership.
(05:20):
But thought leadership is aboutmaking assertions.
I'm just talking about coffee.
You can take a stand onanything but those two formats
for content primary researchthat makes your website, you
know, the primary source for newinformation.
Data, statistics, charts thatdon't exist yet, and taking a
stand, planting a flag, drawinga line in the sand and saying
(05:45):
you know, we believe in this anddon't believe in that.
Ai is never going to be good atthose things, because it
doesn't have any.
It can't create new originalresearch, nor does it have any
any personal views.
So, uh, that's.
Those are the things that Ithink uh should be prioritized
in our content strategies.
Barbara Rozgonyi (06:05):
Yeah, and that's so true.
If you ask AI for an opinion,you're not going to get anything
and, honestly, you know that'sreally how you.
Everybody talks aboutauthenticity.
I don't know if that's stillgoing around in the marketing
conferences.
The past few I've been to, it'sstill been forefront, but you
can't get authenticity with AI.
So I kind of ask you to pausethere If you want to continue on
(06:25):
.
I know you spoke at MAKON,which is marketers and AI, on
AI-powered SEO and contentmarketing.
What kind of takeaways did youhave there that you'd like to
share with us?
Andy Crestodina (06:38):
Well, there are a lot of trends that we're all
watching.
My point of view is partly justrelated to what I said AI is.
You know, efficiency isn't thebest use for AI, even though
it's its most famous benefit.
Research is a fantastic use forAI if you use it to trigger
(06:59):
ideas that you might want towrite about so I shared some
prompts, such as one example Igave going back to coffee.
If I was a coffee companytargeting office managers, I
could write a prompt that sayswhat are some relatively mundane
, almost trivial topics that arevery provocative for office
(07:22):
managers, things they may care alot about, and it comes back
and suggests eight things andI'm freely dismissing most of
them that we all need to use airesponsibly and not just agree
with everything it says.
Right, be critical of itsresponses, and some of them are
like, um, you know, open officeplans are they really good for
productivity?
If you wrote that questioningthe idea of an open office plan,
(07:46):
everyone, everyone has aperspective on that, right.
Barbara Rozgonyi (07:48):
They do, or back to work.
Yeah, yeah.
Andy Crestodina (07:52):
Or the thermostat.
Oh 100% of people have anopinion.
So, you can provoke emotion,which provokes responses, which
also, in social media, triggersthe algorithm.
Barbara Rozgonyi (08:04):
Yes, yes, to show it to many more people,
which also in social mediatriggers the algorithm.
Andy Crestodina (08:06):
Yes, yes, to show it to many more people.
So I taught AI for topicresearch, finding those
emotionally triggering orthought-provoking topics Right.
I showed how to use AI toimprove your search rankings by
suggesting copy edits thatincorporate semantically related
phrases.
Incorporate semanticallyrelated phrases.
(08:28):
I showed how to use AI toimprove lead generation by
auditing pages to find thequestions they didn't answer or
the objections they didn'taddress for sales, like how to
convert more visitors into leads.
I showed how to use AI toanalyze data, like upload some
Google Analytics reports and askit to find insights in your
(08:50):
data.
That's a fun one.
Go to the pages report and addtraffic source.
It's a blue plus.
You click that and add sourcemedium traffic, session source,
medium Export that.
Give it to AI and say whatworks well in which channel, and
it'll tell you.
These topics are great forsearch.
These topics are great forsocial.
(09:10):
There's a bit more to it thanthat, but we don't need to go
into the GA4 details here,barbara unless you want to do a
deep dive, but anyway, yeah, I'musing it for performance, not
for efficiency.
Barbara Rozgonyi (09:27):
Okay, yeah, and for anyone who's listening,
if you look at Andy's articleson LinkedIn, he does a really
good job of doing an overviewthat's step-by-step.
So start there and you're goingto get a lot of benefit just
even from doing the initialsteps and getting better results
.
So thank you for sharing that,andy Sure.
Andy Crestodina (09:50):
They're fun topics.
Barbara Rozgonyi (09:51):
Yeah, they are for marketers.
They can also be reallyconfusing and frustrating.
So I think it's a good time forus all to really look at just
going forward with the futurebut also sticking to what's
worked in the past.
So you said you've got 11thannual blogger survey coming out
and I have heard people sayinglately that AI experts how long
(10:14):
is it?
Let's say, could you say you'rean AI expert like three years
ago?
I don't know.
But anybody, if that's a funquestion right there, I know, I
know, I know.
Yeah, we can take a stand.
Andy Crestodina (10:24):
I'll make a strong statement.
There's no such thing as an AIexpert.
Right, All right.
Even the AI scientists don'tquite understand it.
I don't know Exactly, yeah.
Barbara Rozgonyi (10:33):
It's still evolving.
So what do you say to peoplewho say I know, as someone who's
had a blog since 2006,.
I know things are changing, soshould we keep blogging?
I think I know your answer, butwhy should we keep blogging is
maybe a better question.
Andy Crestodina (10:54):
Boy, I'd love to just have this conversation
with a true dissenter who'sskeptical of content marketing.
I know that you're.
You know you and I are not, sojust to be up front.
But I'll ask, I would challengethat, that point of view, which
I welcome because we just saidprovocative.
You know that it's alwaysinteresting.
You know it's more interestingthan being bland, right, it's
(11:15):
like making a statement yeahblogging is dead.
It's not the most original ofthe strong statements, because
you hear that all the time.
People have been saying thatforever.
But anyone that thinks thatblogging is dead because of ai
probably believes so becausethey they understand that ai is
now summarizing content on theinternet and that visitors can
get answers without visitingblog posts right the ai overview
(11:37):
in google, or an a response inperplexity, or even chat gpt.
It'll answer your questions.
I said a minute ago that youcan differentiate your content
from that by taking a stand orpublishing original research.
But even a better answer mightbe this If you think blogging is
dead, step back and ask thishow can you get AI to recommend
(12:00):
your company or your content?
To recommend your company oryour content?
Because in the future, even ifthe use of Google declines, even
if the use of browsers decline,even if we go straight to the
AI app and say, like, who's thebest web design company in
Chicago?
How do you get in that mix?
Good, question.
(12:21):
Yep, the best question for 2025,right?
We'll all be asking thisquestion here shortly and I
would say you have to have lotsof your brand and insights in
the training data for AI for itto mention your brand, for it to
cite you as the number oneresource for X.
Who's the best?
(12:43):
Which marketing experts are thebest at lead generation?
Um, you know, list five googleanalytics experts that uh
understand how to get insightsfrom data.
You know how do I make myself,how do I appear in those
responses?
Content vr right blogs?
(13:04):
right, you have to.
How can you possibly train theai to believe that you are the
number one resource on theinternet which is your goal
sooner or later, whether yourealize it or not without
publishing?
You just think that.
I mean there is the.
The brands that will berecommended by AI in the future
(13:25):
are the brands that have thebiggest digital footprint.
You want all of your data, allof your recommendations, all of
your reviews, all of yourinsights, all of your ideas to
be ingested and processed andincluded in responses.
So I just can't imagine afuture where a brand that does
(13:47):
not publish will be recommendedby an AI.
It's going to become irrelevant.
Same as before, but the channelis different.
In other words, search maydecline, but content discovery
is bigger than search, andcontent discovery includes
search and AI, but regardless ofthe channel, it's still content
(14:11):
discovery and you have to putyourself out there to be
discovered.
Pr, digital PR, biggest digitalfootprint, large social media
presence.
Be active in communities, bepresent in every directory.
Large social media presence.
Be active in communities, bepresent in every directory and
(14:31):
publish everywhere all the time.
Podcasts, videos, do what we'redoing now.
So if you stop recording, stophitting publish, if you stop
writing, how are you going to berelevant in the future in AI or
anywhere?
I just don't understand it.
Barbara Rozgonyi (14:42):
I don't either , and I did ask perplexity what
I don't either, and it's.
I did ask perplexity whatquestions I should ask you and
it went and it gave me a bunchof questions, but it has eight
citations.
They're all back to thispodcast and if I didn't have a
podcast it wouldn't know what tosay.
So so we've talked aboutbusinesses.
Can you talk about personalbrands and people that want to
(15:02):
be thought leaders?
Thought leaders leaders?
Because I know there's oneconference I spoke out a few
years ago and I was like themarketing communications person
in their brochure.
Now they have 267 speakers.
So I don't know where thesesessions are taking place or
what all these people aretalking about, but it's, it's.
I do a lot of work withspeakers on a member of the
(15:23):
national speakers association ofcarolinas and, before that, nsa
illinois.
So what can we do as people whohave a mission to get the
information out there?
How can we enlarge our personalbrand, protect it, grow it and
really rise up into a thoughtleader position that people can
see and recognize?
Andy Crestodina (15:41):
well, to get really prescriptive, I would say
LinkedIn, I would say LinkedInnewsletters.
I would say pick a few topics ayear and take a stand and just
make some assertions, startconversations.
I would also say thatimmediately connect with anyone
(16:03):
online that you met offline andpeople that you meet online.
Also look to connect with themoffline, because the high touch
human face-to-face interactionsare gold and we can't
de-emphasize that.
Like go to events, host anevent, host a meetup, create a
community to the extent possible, just get together with people
in real life to the extentpossible.
(16:23):
Like, just get together withpeople in real life.
But also, you polish yourLinkedIn profile to perfection,
because if anyone searches foryou, that's what's going to rank
.
People search for each other ina meeting.
Guess what?
When you start a meeting, yourname is underneath your face in
Zoom.
If that person doesn't know youyet they are looking for you
during the meeting, like rightnow Exactly, yeah, meeting like
(16:44):
right now.
Barbara Rozgonyi (16:45):
so many people connect with me during meetings
and I'm like we're doingmeetings you know, but they, you
know, it might as well.
I mean, we're there to connectand get to know each other, so,
yeah, that's great advice.
Well, andy, we have covered somuch today.
We could probably talk forweeks on end and about digital
marketing and what's new, what'snext, but thank you so much for
(17:06):
your leadership and everythingyou do to keep us all moving
forward in the right direction.
So, just to wrap up ourconversation today, what would
you like to leave marketers with?
Andy Crestodina (17:19):
well.
The future is uncertain, but itwill very likely be won by
those that go deeper into theirtopics.
They experiment with strongopinions, taking a stand,
thought leadership, publish astudy once or twice a year.
These are the things that willwork for content marketers going
forward.
And then personal branding.
(17:40):
Barbara, I love your question.
I think more people should dowhat you are doing today, what
we are doing together.
Put yourself out there haveconversations like, let's record
something.
This was great.
We go way back and it was greatto reconnect today, so thank
you for the opportunity.
Barbara Rozgonyi (17:56):
Oh, you're welcome, and we didn't even dig
into Social Media Club Chicago,but that I mean for me.
Two years before that, Istarted my blog and then in 2008
, we kicked off Social MediaClub Chicago and you and I went
to SOBCON, the Successful OnlineBloggers Conference.
So to your point about gettingtogether and really being live
and in person.
I would really recommendeverybody do that, and if you're
(18:18):
in Chicago AMA Chicago I'm amember.
I think you probably are too,andy.
So one thing I ask my guests isat the end of of our
conversation is what is yourword of the day?
Andy Crestodina (18:29):
Hmm, my word of the day is clarity In my
content, in my one-to-one emails.
In my focus, I am alwayslooking and trying to create a
better filter to confirm thatevery word I use is unambiguous,
is direct, is concise, becausecommunication online, offline,
(18:55):
you know, my ultimate goal is tocreate clarity in my mind and
the mind of my readers.
So that's my word today.
Barbara Rozgonyi (19:04):
I love that, and when I read your stuff and
listen to you, there's no roomfor question.
I know exactly what you'retrying to say.
So thank you for having so muchclarity.
And for people who want to findyou online I already mentioned
your fabulous LinkedInnewsletter, and do you want to
tell us about your website, anyother places you'd like people
to go to connect?
Andy Crestodina (19:24):
Orbitmediacom.
I write a blog post there onceevery two weeks.
That Orbitmediacom I write ablog post there once every two
weeks.
That's been my cadence for 15years.
If you subscribe there, you'llget just the new ones.
And then LinkedIn Find me onLinkedIn.
The blue button right now forme says follow, but you can skip
that and find the connectbutton and then we can DM anyone
that wants to connect with methere as well.
Barbara Rozgonyi (19:43):
Sounds great.
Okay, everybody.
Well, thank you for listeninginto the future of marketing AI.
I don't know what all wecovered ChatGPT and blogging.
If you want to blog, keepblogging.
We want to see those pieces ofcontent published, not just us,
but AI too.
So, anyway, thanks again anduntil next time this is Barbara
Rozgonyi with Cory West Mediaand keep marketing.
Well, hello everyone and welcome to another
episode of Growing Social Now,where I talk to the smartest
marketers on the planet, peoplethat I've known for a while and
had a lot of fun with over theyears, and today I'm really
excited to bring Andy Crestodinato you all.
Andy and I have known eachother for I don't know years.
(00:20):
I did find on my blog, wired PRWorks this morning a blog post
of us together picture fromSobCon in 2012.
So, yeah, we were part of thesame team.
So I've been an Andy Crestinafan for years, and if you don't
know who he is, he's theco-founder and CMO of Orbit
Media, an award-winning50-person digital agency in
(00:40):
Chicago.
Over the past 24 years, andy hasprovided digital marketing
advice to a thousand plusbusinesses.
He's written 600 plus articleson content strategy, seo, ga4,
ai and visitor psychology.
These articles reach more than3 million marketers each year.
He's also the author of ContentChemistry, the illustrated
handbook for content marketing,and if you don't subscribe to
(01:03):
Digital Marketing Tips, andy'sLinkedIn newsletter, just do
that right now.
Stop what you're doing.
Handbook for content marketing.
And if you don't subscribe todigital marketing tips andy's
linkedin newsletter, just dothat right now.
Stop what you're doing.
There are over 250 000subscribers, 174 editions, and
this is a really, really richresource that's going to keep
you on track and it's going tobe simple for you to follow,
which I love.
Things like when do yourvisitors convert?
What type of digital market areyou?
Are you a tortoise or a hare?
How to write audit prompts it'sgoing to be simple for you to
(01:24):
follow, which I love.
Things like when do yourvisitors convert?
What type of digital market areyou?
Are you a tortoise or a hare?
How to write audit prompts toimprove everything, and even the
20 best practices for your homepages, plus an AI prompt to
audit yours.
And, on top of all that, onething I found out about Andy
from LinkedIn is he is a treekeeper and I love trees.
That's one of the reasons wemoved to North Carolina, even
(01:45):
though I still love Chicago.
I feel like I live there isbecause of all the trees.
I think I have, I don't know,25 or 30 loblolly pines outside
in my backyard, and so thatthank you for your work with
trees, andy.
That's.
That's really nice.
So so, anyway, we have so muchto talk about, and what is on
(02:06):
your mind today, andy?
What would you say, are thebiggest marketing thoughts
challenges.
Andy Crestodina (02:12):
I know you're out and about a lot well, we
just wrapped up our 11th annualblogger survey every every year
we ask a thousand bloggers toanswer like 20 questions and and
it looks in several ways thatparts of blogging and marketing
are getting more challenging.
Many marketers report thatsearch getting traffic from
(02:32):
search is more challenging thanbefore.
So I'm going to be doing some,I'm having conversations about
that and we'll be publishing onthat shortly.
Also, ai, of course, is a huge,huge topic.
I think that it's interestinghow AI affects content strategy.
Many people got excited rightaway about AI for the efficiency
side of quickly creatingcontent.
(02:54):
I think that that is completelycounter to the idea of
differentiation, because if youcan write an article with a
simple prompt, your audience canalso get that article with the
same prompt.
That's the article we shouldnot write Exactly.
Barbara Rozgonyi (03:07):
Yeah.
Andy Crestodina (03:09):
So I'm teaching and speaking at events and
talking a lot about the fewformats for content that are
highly differentiated and thatAI simply cannot do.
I find that to be interesting.
Barbara Rozgonyi (03:22):
And what are those?
Oh sure yeah.
Andy Crestodina (03:27):
Well years ago, Steve Rayson, the founder of
BuzzSumo, did an article.
After analyzing, throughstatistical analysis and
crawling data, he found thatthere's two types of content
that have disproportionatelyhigh number of shares and links,
as in performance, and socialand search, and they are
(03:48):
original research and strongopinion oh, okay so that this
was probably, you know, eightyears ago, started prioritizing
those things.
I'd already been doing some ofit.
Uh, the blogger research pieceI just mentioned as an example
ask a thousand bloggersquestions every year.
Ai can't really do that.
Ai doesn't produce new original.
(04:10):
You know, if you want to be theprimary source for new
information, you've got to dothe hard work.
Barbara Rozgonyi (04:14):
Right.
Andy Crestodina (04:14):
Actually publish statistics, new
statistics that do not exist onthe internet yet.
The other one is strong opinion, which kind of is easier in
some ways but harder in others.
It takes guts to take a standfor sure.
Um so, uh, I just.
I gave this example the otherday.
I just poured a cup of coffee,so I'll do this.
I'm going to speak somesentences that a I really can't
(04:36):
ever write.
Okay, uh, cream ruins coffee.
It's terrible.
Coffee is supposed to be darkand smoky.
That that's the whole idea.
Sugar makes coffee better, butcream, that's not coffee anymore
.
I know a guy.
He turns his coffee into acandy bar.
It's all cream and sugar.
That's not.
(04:56):
It's terrible.
I would never do that.
That's the opposite of coffee.
Okay, I could do that.
We all do that all the time westate opinions.
I could not write a single oneof those sentences because it
doesn't care about anything.
It's never tasted coffee, itdoesn't know a guy, it has no
beliefs.
So that's not thoughtleadership.
(05:20):
But thought leadership is aboutmaking assertions.
I'm just talking about coffee.
You can take a stand onanything but those two formats
for content primary researchthat makes your website, you
know, the primary source for newinformation.
Data, statistics, charts thatdon't exist yet, and taking a
stand, planting a flag, drawinga line in the sand and saying
(05:45):
you know, we believe in this anddon't believe in that.
Ai is never going to be good atthose things, because it
doesn't have any.
It can't create new originalresearch, nor does it have any
any personal views.
So, uh, that's.
Those are the things that Ithink uh should be prioritized
in our content strategies.
Barbara Rozgonyi (06:05):
Yeah, and that's so true.
If you ask AI for an opinion,you're not going to get anything
and, honestly, you know that'sreally how you.
Everybody talks aboutauthenticity.
I don't know if that's stillgoing around in the marketing
conferences.
The past few I've been to, it'sstill been forefront, but you
can't get authenticity with AI.
So I kind of ask you to pausethere If you want to continue on
(06:25):
.
I know you spoke at MAKON,which is marketers and AI, on
AI-powered SEO and contentmarketing.
What kind of takeaways did youhave there that you'd like to
share with us?
Andy Crestodina (06:38):
Well, there are a lot of trends that we're all
watching.
My point of view is partly justrelated to what I said AI is.
You know, efficiency isn't thebest use for AI, even though
it's its most famous benefit.
Research is a fantastic use forAI if you use it to trigger
(06:59):
ideas that you might want towrite about so I shared some
prompts, such as one example Igave going back to coffee.
If I was a coffee companytargeting office managers, I
could write a prompt that sayswhat are some relatively mundane
, almost trivial topics that arevery provocative for office
(07:22):
managers, things they may care alot about, and it comes back
and suggests eight things andI'm freely dismissing most of
them that we all need to use airesponsibly and not just agree
with everything it says.
Right, be critical of itsresponses, and some of them are
like, um, you know, open officeplans are they really good for
productivity?
If you wrote that questioningthe idea of an open office plan,
(07:46):
everyone, everyone has aperspective on that, right.
Barbara Rozgonyi (07:48):
They do, or back to work.
Yeah, yeah.
Andy Crestodina (07:52):
Or the thermostat.
Oh 100% of people have anopinion.
So, you can provoke emotion,which provokes responses, which
also, in social media, triggersthe algorithm.
Barbara Rozgonyi (08:04):
Yes, yes, to show it to many more people,
which also in social mediatriggers the algorithm.
Andy Crestodina (08:06):
Yes, yes, to show it to many more people.
So I taught AI for topicresearch, finding those
emotionally triggering orthought-provoking topics Right.
I showed how to use AI toimprove your search rankings by
suggesting copy edits thatincorporate semantically related
phrases.
Incorporate semanticallyrelated phrases.
(08:28):
I showed how to use AI toimprove lead generation by
auditing pages to find thequestions they didn't answer or
the objections they didn'taddress for sales, like how to
convert more visitors into leads.
I showed how to use AI toanalyze data, like upload some
Google Analytics reports and askit to find insights in your
(08:50):
data.
That's a fun one.
Go to the pages report and addtraffic source.
It's a blue plus.
You click that and add sourcemedium traffic, session source,
medium Export that.
Give it to AI and say whatworks well in which channel, and
it'll tell you.
These topics are great forsearch.
These topics are great forsocial.
(09:10):
There's a bit more to it thanthat, but we don't need to go
into the GA4 details here,barbara unless you want to do a
deep dive, but anyway, yeah, I'musing it for performance, not
for efficiency.
Barbara Rozgonyi (09:27):
Okay, yeah, and for anyone who's listening,
if you look at Andy's articleson LinkedIn, he does a really
good job of doing an overviewthat's step-by-step.
So start there and you're goingto get a lot of benefit just
even from doing the initialsteps and getting better results
.
So thank you for sharing that,andy Sure.
Andy Crestodina (09:50):
They're fun topics.
Barbara Rozgonyi (09:51):
Yeah, they are for marketers.
They can also be reallyconfusing and frustrating.
So I think it's a good time forus all to really look at just
going forward with the futurebut also sticking to what's
worked in the past.
So you said you've got 11thannual blogger survey coming out
and I have heard people sayinglately that AI experts how long
(10:14):
is it?
Let's say, could you say you'rean AI expert like three years
ago?
I don't know.
But anybody, if that's a funquestion right there, I know, I
know, I know.
Yeah, we can take a stand.
Andy Crestodina (10:24):
I'll make a strong statement.
There's no such thing as an AIexpert.
Right, All right.
Even the AI scientists don'tquite understand it.
I don't know Exactly, yeah.
Barbara Rozgonyi (10:33):
It's still evolving.
So what do you say to peoplewho say I know, as someone who's
had a blog since 2006,.
I know things are changing, soshould we keep blogging?
I think I know your answer, butwhy should we keep blogging is
maybe a better question.
Andy Crestodina (10:54):
Boy, I'd love to just have this conversation
with a true dissenter who'sskeptical of content marketing.
I know that you're.
You know you and I are not, sojust to be up front.
But I'll ask, I would challengethat, that point of view, which
I welcome because we just saidprovocative.
You know that it's alwaysinteresting.
You know it's more interestingthan being bland, right, it's
(11:15):
like making a statement yeahblogging is dead.
It's not the most original ofthe strong statements, because
you hear that all the time.
People have been saying thatforever.
But anyone that thinks thatblogging is dead because of ai
probably believes so becausethey they understand that ai is
now summarizing content on theinternet and that visitors can
get answers without visitingblog posts right the ai overview
(11:37):
in google, or an a response inperplexity, or even chat gpt.
It'll answer your questions.
I said a minute ago that youcan differentiate your content
from that by taking a stand orpublishing original research.
But even a better answer mightbe this If you think blogging is
dead, step back and ask thishow can you get AI to recommend
(12:00):
your company or your content?
To recommend your company oryour content?
Because in the future, even ifthe use of Google declines, even
if the use of browsers decline,even if we go straight to the
AI app and say, like, who's thebest web design company in
Chicago?
How do you get in that mix?
Good, question.
(12:21):
Yep, the best question for 2025,right?
We'll all be asking thisquestion here shortly and I
would say you have to have lotsof your brand and insights in
the training data for AI for itto mention your brand, for it to
cite you as the number oneresource for X.
Who's the best?
(12:43):
Which marketing experts are thebest at lead generation?
Um, you know, list five googleanalytics experts that uh
understand how to get insightsfrom data.
You know how do I make myself,how do I appear in those
responses?
Content vr right blogs?
(13:04):
right, you have to.
How can you possibly train theai to believe that you are the
number one resource on theinternet which is your goal
sooner or later, whether yourealize it or not without
publishing?
You just think that.
I mean there is the.
The brands that will berecommended by AI in the future
(13:25):
are the brands that have thebiggest digital footprint.
You want all of your data, allof your recommendations, all of
your reviews, all of yourinsights, all of your ideas to
be ingested and processed andincluded in responses.
So I just can't imagine afuture where a brand that does
(13:47):
not publish will be recommendedby an AI.
It's going to become irrelevant.
Same as before, but the channelis different.
In other words, search maydecline, but content discovery
is bigger than search, andcontent discovery includes
search and AI, but regardless ofthe channel, it's still content
(14:11):
discovery and you have to putyourself out there to be
discovered.
Pr, digital PR, biggest digitalfootprint, large social media
presence.
Be active in communities, bepresent in every directory.
Large social media presence.
Be active in communities, bepresent in every directory and
(14:31):
publish everywhere all the time.
Podcasts, videos, do what we'redoing now.
So if you stop recording, stophitting publish, if you stop
writing, how are you going to berelevant in the future in AI or
anywhere?
I just don't understand it.
Barbara Rozgonyi (14:42):
I don't either , and I did ask perplexity what
I don't either, and it's.
I did ask perplexity whatquestions I should ask you and
it went and it gave me a bunchof questions, but it has eight
citations.
They're all back to thispodcast and if I didn't have a
podcast it wouldn't know what tosay.
So so we've talked aboutbusinesses.
Can you talk about personalbrands and people that want to
(15:02):
be thought leaders?
Thought leaders leaders?
Because I know there's oneconference I spoke out a few
years ago and I was like themarketing communications person
in their brochure.
Now they have 267 speakers.
So I don't know where thesesessions are taking place or
what all these people aretalking about, but it's, it's.
I do a lot of work withspeakers on a member of the
(15:23):
national speakers association ofcarolinas and, before that, nsa
illinois.
So what can we do as people whohave a mission to get the
information out there?
How can we enlarge our personalbrand, protect it, grow it and
really rise up into a thoughtleader position that people can
see and recognize?
Andy Crestodina (15:41):
well, to get really prescriptive, I would say
LinkedIn, I would say LinkedInnewsletters.
I would say pick a few topics ayear and take a stand and just
make some assertions, startconversations.
I would also say thatimmediately connect with anyone
(16:03):
online that you met offline andpeople that you meet online.
Also look to connect with themoffline, because the high touch
human face-to-face interactionsare gold and we can't
de-emphasize that.
Like go to events, host anevent, host a meetup, create a
community to the extent possible, just get together with people
in real life to the extentpossible.
(16:23):
Like, just get together withpeople in real life.
But also, you polish yourLinkedIn profile to perfection,
because if anyone searches foryou, that's what's going to rank
.
People search for each other ina meeting.
Guess what?
When you start a meeting, yourname is underneath your face in
Zoom.
If that person doesn't know youyet they are looking for you
during the meeting, like rightnow Exactly, yeah, meeting like
(16:44):
right now.
Barbara Rozgonyi (16:45):
so many people connect with me during meetings
and I'm like we're doingmeetings you know, but they, you
know, it might as well.
I mean, we're there to connectand get to know each other, so,
yeah, that's great advice.
Well, andy, we have covered somuch today.
We could probably talk forweeks on end and about digital
marketing and what's new, what'snext, but thank you so much for
(17:06):
your leadership and everythingyou do to keep us all moving
forward in the right direction.
So, just to wrap up ourconversation today, what would
you like to leave marketers with?
Andy Crestodina (17:19):
well.
The future is uncertain, but itwill very likely be won by
those that go deeper into theirtopics.
They experiment with strongopinions, taking a stand,
thought leadership, publish astudy once or twice a year.
These are the things that willwork for content marketers going
forward.
And then personal branding.
(17:40):
Barbara, I love your question.
I think more people should dowhat you are doing today, what
we are doing together.
Put yourself out there haveconversations like, let's record
something.
This was great.
We go way back and it was greatto reconnect today, so thank
you for the opportunity.
Barbara Rozgonyi (17:56):
Oh, you're welcome, and we didn't even dig
into Social Media Club Chicago,but that I mean for me.
Two years before that, Istarted my blog and then in 2008
, we kicked off Social MediaClub Chicago and you and I went
to SOBCON, the Successful OnlineBloggers Conference.
So to your point about gettingtogether and really being live
and in person.
I would really recommendeverybody do that, and if you're
(18:18):
in Chicago AMA Chicago I'm amember.
I think you probably are too,andy.
So one thing I ask my guests isat the end of of our
conversation is what is yourword of the day?
Andy Crestodina (18:29):
Hmm, my word of the day is clarity In my
content, in my one-to-one emails.
In my focus, I am alwayslooking and trying to create a
better filter to confirm thatevery word I use is unambiguous,
is direct, is concise, becausecommunication online, offline,
(18:55):
you know, my ultimate goal is tocreate clarity in my mind and
the mind of my readers.
So that's my word today.
Barbara Rozgonyi (19:04):
I love that, and when I read your stuff and
listen to you, there's no roomfor question.
I know exactly what you'retrying to say.
So thank you for having so muchclarity.
And for people who want to findyou online I already mentioned
your fabulous LinkedInnewsletter, and do you want to
tell us about your website, anyother places you'd like people
to go to connect?
Andy Crestodina (19:24):
Orbitmediacom.
I write a blog post there onceevery two weeks.
That Orbitmediacom I write ablog post there once every two
weeks.
That's been my cadence for 15years.
If you subscribe there, you'llget just the new ones.
And then LinkedIn Find me onLinkedIn.
The blue button right now forme says follow, but you can skip
that and find the connectbutton and then we can DM anyone
that wants to connect with methere as well.
Barbara Rozgonyi (19:43):
Sounds great.
Okay, everybody.
Well, thank you for listeninginto the future of marketing AI.
I don't know what all wecovered ChatGPT and blogging.
If you want to blog, keepblogging.
We want to see those pieces ofcontent published, not just us,
but AI too.
So, anyway, thanks again anduntil next time this is Barbara
Rozgonyi with Cory West Mediaand keep marketing.
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