Social media and PR often go hand in hand. In B2B in particular, LinkedIn and YouTube have become two of the most important platforms to be present and active on.
If only determining a strategy were easier. Every time you think you’ve cracked the code, the algorithms change.
My guest, Andy Lambert, modern B2B marketing expert and author of Social 3.0 (2022) and Spheres of Influence (2025), will be with me to discuss all things social media for PR and communications pros, with a focus on LinkedIn and YouTube.
We’ll cover questions including:
- How often – and what – should you post?
- How effective is video on LinkedIn?
- Do B2B companies need to be on YouTube?
- Which platforms does AI trust most?
Show summary:
In this episode of PR Explored, host Michelle Garrett, a PR consultant, author, and writer talks with her guest Andy Lambert, co-founder of ContentCal (acquired by Adobe) and author of Spheres of Influence, to discuss how B2B companies should approach social media and PR, especially on LinkedIn and YouTube.
Lambert highlights LinkedIn’s algorithm shift toward personal profiles and subject-matter expertise, advises prioritizing original content over reshares, and notes strong performance from carousels and polls when used thoughtfully.
He explains LinkedIn’s crackdown on automated AI comment tools while distinguishing useful AI assistance from low-quality AI-generated posts.
The conversation emphasizes consistency, content pillars, and quality over “hacks,” plus the growing importance of LinkedIn and YouTube for AI-driven search, including the value of long-form YouTube and LinkedIn articles/newsletters.
Lambert also shares practical AI search wins like creating a Wikipedia page and aligning messaging across profiles and review sites.
00:00 Welcome and Introductions
00:54 Andy Lambert Background
02:55 Being Everywhere to Audience
04:56 LinkedIn Trends and Algorithm
06:54 Formats Video Carousels Polls
09:56 Reshares Versus Original Posts
11:34 AI Comments and Content
19:40 Posting Frequency and Timing
23:21 Quality Over Hacks
26:21 Hashtags on LinkedIn
27:05 Why LinkedIn and YouTube
29:51 AI Search Proof Point
33:14 Think Like Media
34:00 Search Is Audience
36:50 Long Form and Articles
38:48 Newsletters and Repurposing
41:42 Do You Need YouTube
44:07 Budget and Authenticity
46:21 Trust and Human Stories
49:24 Algorithm Proof Strategy
50:18 Three AI Search Wins
53:19 Wrap Up and Thanks
Show notes:
Subscribe to Andy Lambert’s Substack: https://spheresofinfluence.substack.com
Follow Andy Lambert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyrlambert/
Andy Lambert’s latest book, Spheres of Influence: https://spheresofinfluence.co/
Full transcript:
Social Media Strategies to Boost Your B2B PR Efforts
Michelle Garrett: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to PR Explored. I’m so happy to be back today. PR Explored is a, the PR podcast where we delve into trends and topics related to public relations. I’m your host, Michelle Garrett, a PR consultant and writer, and my guest today is Andy Lambert. Yay. Welcome, Andy.
Andy Lambert: Michelle, good to see you.
Michelle Garrett: I have been a fan and follower of yours for quite a while and I always appreciate, your advice, focused on social media, primarily for B2B companies, which is, my, where I like to play as well. Yeah. And so it’s always interesting to see what you’re sharing. And I know you have such an interesting background.
You’ve written two books. Tell us, just why don’t you just tell us a little bit about yourself?
Andy Lambert: I’ll do the very quick version. Co-founded a company in 2016 called ContentCal, social media marketing software business. It was [00:01:00] my second startup but this one went very well. And yeah I ran everything related to growth, so everything across sales and marketing.
And yeah, became the fastest growing company in our category of social media- … marketing platforms. And predominantly that growth was driven through word of mouth and content marketing, which then got me all very interested in all of the things we’re gonna talk about today, how you build a reputation at scale for a business.
And the story I tell many times is that, throughout the journey of growth, I heard so many times our customers or prospects at the time would have gone like- “Hey, you guys feel like you’re everywhere.” And I was like, “No, we don’t have the budget for that. We’re just everywhere that you are.”
And that was like the biggest signal to me that our marketing approaches were right. So anyway, we sold the business to Adobe tw- in 2021, so five years after founding it, which was obviously amazing. I spent four years building products at Adobe. I wrote two [00:02:00] books, as you said in that process.
The latest one, Spheres of Influence, was basically trying to put a language behind something that we did at ContentCal that I didn’t quite know how to describe. So it’s something is happening here, I needed to codify it and and make it a teachable thing rather than “Hey, we just grew through word of mouth.
People loved us, used us, and we just grew organically.” I was like, there, there was more going on than that. So Spheres of Influence was the result of that, which is basically what I just said people felt like we were everywhere- … and that was the whole concept behind, we’re just in everyone’s spheres of influence.
So that, that’s it. That’s me.
Michelle Garrett: That’s so great. I love what you said, “Everywhere that you are.” I wrote that down because … I feel like that I have that same conversation sometimes with clients because they’re not always so interested in the measurement piece, but when they walk into an event and the CEO and people are coming up to him and people are saying, “We’re seeing you everywhere,” that’s the idea.
Yeah. That’s what we’re [00:03:00] trying to do. Everywhere that your audience is looking for you, that’s where you wanna be showing up. So I, that’s, I, that’s right on.
Andy Lambert: Very true. Those second-order effects that don’t show up in marketing dashboards, but you can only get through those qualitative interactions that’s where all of the goodness is.
So yeah yeah. A million times yes to what you’ve just said.
Michelle Garrett: I am so excited that you are spending a little time with with me and my audience today, and I can’t wait to dive in because we are talking about… I’m just gonna introduce the topic a little bit because we’re talking about social media and PR, particularly for B2B companies. And I think we’re gonna focus a lot on LinkedIn.
And we might talk a little bit about YouTube and anything else that Andy thinks that we should be talking about. We are gonna dive into some questions that I have for Andy, but I would love for you to ask your questions as we go. We’re happy to answer. I’m sure Andy’s happy to answer questions.
That makes the discussion more [00:04:00] valuable to you, so please feel free to ask questions if you have any, and we will we’ll get to those. I’m just gonna start firing away. And knowing that whatever Andy says today will be true for today and then
Andy Lambert: Yeah. By
Michelle Garrett: tomorrow it will be d- ’cause you just did, I just saw your update for…
You do your updates on Tuesday, right? I just saw the one on- … yeah. So we’ll probably get to some of that, so
Andy Lambert: Yeah. Listen, that’s no good.
Michelle Garrett: So on LinkedIn you provide weekly social media updates geared toward B2B companies. So what are you watching in particular right now? So what developments are really standing out to you?
Andy Lambert: Yeah. It’s a big question, so I’ll try and, I’ll try and keep it short. So yeah, LinkedIn in particular is one that I’m watching very carefully, obviously. Latest algorithm changes are interesting for a couple of reasons. One we’re seeing a lot more, even more so than we’ve seen before engagement with personal profiles rather than company pages.
Like [00:05:00] 63% delta between the two, so much more interaction on personal profiles. Fine. I think we all knew that, but now we’ve got kind of data to, to prove it. They’ve changed the algorithm as well, which is focused more on unique expertise, subject matter expertise, which is good. Which has therefore meant that lots of more of the kind of- LinkedIn creators are bemoaning the fact they’re not getting the same amount of reach as they did before.
And if I think back five years, my LinkedIn was booming. I was getting 50,000, 100,000 impressions on my content, which just doesn’t happen anymore, right? And that’s, that was okay. There was, like, that kind of COVID boom where LinkedIn started to get even more personal than than it is right now, ’cause the…
They’re always tweaking the dial. But I think they’re getting the balance right now, which is- … okay, we’re not in this to go viral on LinkedIn. I’m- I don’t subscribe to the viral hacks and the hooks that you need to do on LinkedIn. I like the kind of keeping it real approach, which is, good quality, lived experience, [00:06:00] well-articulated on LinkedIn with a defined subject matter targeted at a def- well-defined audience.
That’s all we need to focus on. So as long as we get that as a fundamental right. So that’s the thing I’m tracking very closely, and then that … I’m tracking that very closely into what formats are working. ‘Cause, even though it’s always subject first the story comes before the format.
You’re a PR professional. You get this, right? But of course, if there is any upside to using different formats, I pay attention to that, right? So video is something I continue to do even though video performs continually poorly, right? Okay. It’s one of those things I, I’ve invested in.
I’ve probably done 900 videos on- … LinkedIn now. I think every single week I do my, 90-second roundup of the four social media news updates you need to know. I’ve been doing that solidly for seven years now. … Eight years actually. So [00:07:00] obviously over that time has … there’s a lot of second-order effects that come off that.
But it really, the reach is about the same as it was. Probably get 5,000 people watch it maybe. Great. That’s fine. I’ll take 5,000 people in a room anytime, right? For sure, but it’s, it doesn’t go viral by any means. But I carry on doing it because video builds memory structures, and that’s the thing i- and this is why I resonated so much with the story that you shared at the beginning, Michelle because when I turn up to events or I’m on calls, people are like, “Oh, hey, you’re the guy that does those roundups, I think.”
And that’s the really important thing. Yeah … numbers will never quite- Help you justify how important that part is. Anyway, back onto formats, the other things I’m tracking. So some practical tips. Carousels are p- outperforming every other content type on LinkedIn. So they’re your kind of PDF uploads.
So you’ll see this, they’re called document posts. They’re a little bit cumbersome to create but they’re the [00:08:00] wipe through things on LinkedIn that you’ll see where it’s like, “Here’s your top seven tips for,” “creating a standout PR campaign,” for example, and like swipe through those.
They’re generating a lot of reach and engagement, so that’s good. Also, and this is a format I sleep on, to be honest, is is poll posts are doing wonderfully right now. So if there’s any insight that you wanna get from an audience polls are both underused and achieve a whole heap of reach. So yeah they’re two, two tips.
Outside of that generally, as long as you’re … Y- you’ve got real good quality subject matter expertise, these are the things that you know that LinkedIn cares the most about. Reshares, don’t bother. So many people do that. LinkedIn are all about original content right now. Anyway, that’s what I’m fixing-
Michelle Garrett: Okay.
Andy Lambert: Yeah. There’s a million- Okay … things
Michelle Garrett: to
Andy Lambert: talk about, so I’m gonna restrain myself.
Michelle Garrett: No, I just wanna ask, I just wanna follow up on a couple of things you said. So no reshares. I do … I usually, I [00:09:00] do those sparingly, but when I do, I’m doing it to help, whoever that is get … y- have more … get more visibility for their post.
But you’re saying it doesn’t really work.
Andy Lambert: What you’re doing is very generous, right? Yes. And it … For sure, I’m guessing if you’re doing this on behalf of like maybe a client or something you’re working with, then it makes sense because it’s a signal to the algorithm. Shares are like the highest value engagement metric, right?
So- Okay … so this is good. This is good to help your client. But if … Let’s take … I see in a lot of situations where the business’s company page posts something on LinkedIn and the CEO reshares it. No point. You might as well not bother. Like it does nothing. LinkedIn does not want- … like recycled similar content.
Okay. The thing you should do in that scenario is rewrite whatever that message was in the tone of the CEO and post it as a, as an original thing. And yeah, there’s … That’s where LinkedIn is just super fixated on on [00:10:00] original content right now. And in fact, that- that’s a trend across all the platforms actually.
Instagram are really turning the dial on like content aggregators, like pushing out on resharing things. Because, that doesn’t really help the consumer of LinkedIn if they’re seeing all the same stuff in their feed. That’s a bad user experience, so LinkedIn are trying to engineer a way from that.
Michelle Garrett: On that note, let’s, let me ask you about AI because I feel like a lot of posts read like they’re written by AI, comments as well. Ah. So what does LinkedIn think about all that?
Andy Lambert: So let’s tackle them as two separate things. Let’s talk about AI comments and replies. And number one, don’t do it please is the number one thing, but LinkedIn is clamping down on it in a level that I’ve never seen before.
Michelle Garrett: Okay.
Andy Lambert: You could, you can search this on Google, it’s very interesting. LinkedIn there’s some class actions against LinkedIn at the moment because LinkedIn have been shutting down companies or third [00:11:00] parties access to the LinkedIn API at a rate that I’ve never seen before. For anyone that’s breaching LinkedIn’s terms of service, and a lot of that is in like these comment bots and those tools that allow automatic comments.
So the key takeaway is choose your LinkedIn tech stack very wisely. Make sure it’s compliant with its terms of service because cer- products that are not compliant with LinkedIn’s term- terms of service both risk the user and themselves as a company. So try not- try and avoid it.
But LinkedIn are clamping down hard on that. You’re gonna see less of that. You’re gonna see less engagement farming. Yeah. Those posts that we often see on LinkedIn which have comment playbook to get my, to, to get my playbook on-
Michelle Garrett: Oh …
Andy Lambert: that’s, it’s horrible. But, and that’s gonna go, that’s going away.
All of that engagement farming is going away. Now, AI generated content LinkedIn aren’t doing anything about that in itself in terms of AI writing. And I think that’s just up to [00:12:00] our own curatorial judgment. We can be the change we want to see of like higher quality content.
‘Cause yes, there is a lot of, yeah, suboptimal stuff on LinkedIn, but that’s always gonna be the case and I’m less concerned about it. I only care about the stuff that we can do to use LinkedIn for our advantage.
Michelle Garrett: Yeah. I I guess I, I’m a writer. I have a writing background and with a focus on PR, but I just have such a, an affinity, for writers and good writing and in my opinion, using AI to write your email and your LinkedIn posts and your…
I just don’t, I don’t really see the need for that. And it does take out the authenticity and I feel like that is what people are wanting. And obviously it sounds like the platforms are gravitating in that direction too.
Andy Lambert: Fro- from a comment point of view because there’s a lot of there’s a lot of- Fakeness there, right?
And I think it’s, fr- from my own point of view I try not to see AI as black and white, and that’s not good or bad, right? It’s all a use- … it’s all a use of a [00:13:00] tool. I’ll use AI to refine my thinking all the time. My narr- my flow is I speak my thoughts and have AI condense the, the thinking into a narrative.
Take even the my basic roundups, I take the transcript and use Claude to then turn the transcript into that social post, right? So it’s original thinking and of which I’ll do the final edits. So it’s my editing partner, but again, I think it’s a case of AI isn’t bad in itself, but if you’re using AI to try and amplify a really thin subject that you just don’t know that much about- Oh, yeah
it’s, yeah, trash in, trash out basically .
Michelle Garrett: Yeah. So you wanna share your real expertise that, the area that you are an expert in. And that’s… I saw somebody else talking about you just wanna be really focused on that more so on LinkedIn now. It’s like you just wanna be really clear about your area of expertise.
Andy Lambert: Correct. [00:14:00] Exactly. And AI is helping people, provided you’ve got a depth of knowledge in a particular domain, AI can help you articulate that in a way that’s concise enough for LinkedIn. And that not everyone’s blessed with the same kind of writing skill set as someone like you, Michelle.
So I do the fact of that’s why I see AI as useful. But I have noticed actually LinkedIn have rowed back some of their AI prompts for posts, which were terrible. They were really encouraging just people just to post just really thin content- … that … actually what I’m now seeing is higher quality, deeper thinking is working better on LinkedIn, and that’s the way it should be.
Michelle Garrett: And yes, I agree. I did think it was interesting what you said about the carousels are so cumbersome to b- I’ve done those for clients and posted them before, and it’s like you have to upload a PDF or whatever. I d- it just feels so I don’t know. It it feels very old school to me in some way, but I guess that’s-
Andy Lambert: It is.
It is. It is very strange. [00:15:00] Anyway. LinkedIn still baffles me, to be honest, with some of the choices. We are where we are.
Michelle Garrett: It’s tiring, right? That’s what I was saying yesterday to somebody. I’m like, “It just sometimes LinkedIn just makes me tired,” it’s like I know I need to be over there, but it’s just woof.
And then the polls. That feels very almost Twitter, X. I don’t… I think that’s odd. I feel like that’s… I don’t understand why those are doing so well, but I’ll have to try that maybe.
Andy Lambert: Yeah. I, again, it’s it’s one of those things. I use those those suggestions cautiously, right?
Because it doesn’t work for everyone, and only use- don’t use them to growth hack or try and engagement bait anything. It’s oh, if there is something meaningful where you wanna get a call from your audience on a particular topic, great, go for it, and, they’re performing well.
Especially, this is great in any B2B context because we always need market insight, right? And if we can get that market insight whilst improving our reach, then, everyone’s a winner. It’s just using it judiciously. But you … And again, [00:16:00] you would only use it infrequently, and I think that’s possibly the reason why the data is showing that those formats are performing well, purely on the basis that, one, ’cause carousels are a bigger lift, right?
So you’ve put more effort into creating them, likely they’re probably better quality, hence they tend to perform quite well. And polls aren’t used very frequently at all. Yeah. So therefore, when they are used they probably generate, “Oh, this is a bit different on LinkedIn,” because it’s mostly passive consumption.
So it’s a different pattern for a user to engage with. But if everyone starts doing it, very quickly they’ll become the lowest performing thing. Swings and roundabouts.
Michelle Garrett: Oh, that’s the thing. It’s And and I feel like clients sometimes they expect, they expect you to know and be the expert on, these what works.
And it’s I, we can try something. I it could be, it could change. That maybe that worked two weeks ago and doesn’t work now as well. But I feel like the engagement is definitely different a- and down lower. So I feel like this is probably as good a time as any to experiment a little bit [00:17:00] because- Okay
What do we have to lose?
Andy Lambert: Exactly. And I, generally I think with LinkedIn, looking at this looking at the question you’ve got on the screen as well-
Michelle Garrett: Yeah …
Andy Lambert: yeah. Do you want, do you wanna talk through this question first before … ‘Cause it feels like-
Michelle Garrett: Yeah. No, we were … I put it up there ’cause we were kinda talking about the formats and so I
The question is “With LinkedIn it can be difficult to keep up with what kinds of posts perform best. What would you advise as far as frequency and format?”
Andy Lambert: Yeah. A- again, this is a bit of a how long is a piece of string type of question. It is it really does depend. LinkedIn rewards consistency, and that consistency might mean as low as once a week.
General best practice is about three a week, and also spaced out. I always personally will post every other day, like Monday, Wednesday, Friday or … It’s actually Monday, Tuesday and Thursday actually that I do. But I try and give higher … The posts that I really want to go well, I will give them space to breathe, right?
Okay. Which means [00:18:00] not posting something on the following day. Okay. Because LinkedIn, as we all know, has a longer half-life. People are gonna see the content the following day. This isn’t like Instagram where it’s, y- you just need that engagement immediately and it disappears.
The tail off is real, but the tail off is slower in the performance of the post.
Michelle Garrett: Okay.
Andy Lambert: So give it time to to breathe. If you’re posting too much then you’re essentially cannibalizing your own reach. So-
Michelle Garrett: Okay …
Andy Lambert: don’t post too frequently is a key thing. But a regular cadence and consistency is good for the algorithm, but also just good for the end user and your target audience.
What can they expect? And for me to li- lighten that cognitive load, that’s why I’ve always thought in content topics and, or content pillars really, right? So Tuesday, as you said, is the day I do a social media roundup.
Monday is like a general thought leadership post. And then Thursday is gonna be some best practice or tip or [00:19:00] something like that.
It lowers the cognitive load when you have a framework to operate within, right? Yeah. So that’s
Michelle Garrett: what
Andy Lambert: I typically do. Posting times, I’ve always found the mornings have been the time. There’s been some suggestions to say that … some other data’s pointed to good performance in the afternoons.
All data h- historically has always been LinkedIn posting in the morning. Like irrespective of time zone, 8:30, 9:00 AM, first thing in the morning has typically been the good time. But some of the latest data I’ve been seeing and I haven’t validated this because I’m … Old habits die hard, even with someone that’s a social media nerd like me, I still post in the morning.
But where 3:00 PM has actually been a really good time where people have a bit bit of downtime in their day. They’re having their kinda afternoon, coffee or something like that. Yeah. Having a scroll on LinkedIn. So I think the … It will also depend massively on your target audience.
So I kinda, I try not to give [00:20:00] general best practices on this because, depending on who you’re targeting, you might be targeting CFOs, for example- And they are probably not scrolling at 3:00 PM. They’re probably working late and maybe even 7:00 PM or something like that when they’re getting the train back or out of the office.
I don’t know. But yeah, experimentation there is important. Timing is not critical either. This is all secondary stuff compared to the actual story of what it is that you’re trying to say and who’s it for. I think my general bugbear with social media experts or gurus or however they call themselves, try- we always- we’ve got fixated by trying to think in hacks and tips and tricks, and all that does is distract from the core thing.
If we could just say really good things, high-quality thinking that is all wrapped around the things that our target audience deeply care [00:21:00] about everything else falls into line from that. Content quality over everything. And yeah, I’m… This is why I’ve never bothered with I have no time for anyone talking about “Oh, here’s hashtag strategy.”
All of that’s window dressing for, like… Yeah, it’s secondary stuff where it makes people feel all professional that they’re talking about this. None of that matters. Timing doesn’t matter. Even some of the consistency stuff matters less. Still that bit more important, but matters less- Yeah
Than the core subject topic. And just a final thing to close off this thought on this question is even though I’ve already shared some tips on format, LinkedIn is the most format independent platform. It- where it doesn’t really matter. Some of my posts are text only, and I’m- I see lots of data.
Text only posts are performing really well. Video posts can absolutely go viral if they’re good, for sure. So it doesn’t really matter. Whatever the medium is not the most important part of this. The [00:22:00] good posts are gonna perform well, that’s all.
Michelle Garrett: Yeah. I’d say the same thing about PR.
It’s if you have a good story, we can work with that, but if you don’t, we can… And we can put all the money behind it and all the wire services or what- and it’s probably still not gonna do as, perform as well as something that’s, obviously compelling. So- Sure.
Sure … it’s common sense, but I think you’re right that so much of, in every profession related to marketing on the digital end, it’s just- it’s become ugh, it’s so hard to find people that are really experts, and those are the people you want to find and follow and really kind of- Live and die a little bit on their advice.
‘Cause there are a lot of people that are not experts, but, think they are, pretend to be.
Andy Lambert: Yeah, exactly. And the ones- Yeah … you can always tell an expert ’cause they’ll make it sound more complex than it actually is. When s- when someone when someone is an expert and has lived and breathed it, they’ll tend to speak to it in a [00:23:00] much more simple way.
That’s always a sign. If it, if someone’s making something sound really complex, it’s probably ’cause they don’t know it well enough.
Michelle Garrett: That is that’s really important what you just said. And hashtags, I had seen that those do not matter at all now. Yeah. But I don- but I don’t know if they ever did, so who knows.
Andy Lambert: No, I d- not really. Useful for tracking, but LinkedIn-
Michelle Garrett: Yeah … I don’t- if you’re in an event or something, that’s the thing that I used to like about Twitter, X, is that I could be at a conference or something and I could see who was posting with the hashtag and follow along f- with something.
But yeah, I don’t know. I don’t… I still see people use them on LinkedIn. I feel like maybe though they copied the post from Instagram, so they used
Andy Lambert: You want-
Michelle Garrett: The hashtag.
Andy Lambert: Pro- probably. Yeah. Or if you’re getting suboptimal advice. Either way, doesn’t matter.
Michelle Garrett: Yeah, don’t worry about that.
You heard it here, I am going to s- let’s talk about why are, why LinkedIn and YouTube [00:24:00] are especially important for B2B companies, because do you agree that those are the two most important social platforms for B2B?
Andy Lambert: Yep. Yeah, 100%. The ones that we can do. I think some people might throw Reddit into the mix, but that is that is next level difficult to to go after, and most people shouldn’t. However, LinkedIn, YouTube, definitely. And I think, yeah, both predominantly really, and I think this is, this is why PR has just got so much more important, right? Because, we talk about AI search or AEO or GEO or whatever your kind of flavor of acronym is, but the reality is this is just digital PR, right?
Which is just PR, right? This is just having other people talk about us. And this is the lens that we need to think of YouTube and LinkedIn through as well. So couple of things. Number one- These two platforms have just got more important. YouTube always [00:25:00] had a search component to it, which…
And an SEO value to it, but now it’s next level. And obviously LinkedIn is now the number one cited resource for professional queries across AI platforms. That’s that’s flipping massive, right? And that kinda just adds so much fuel to the fire of why we should be doing LinkedIn. And the important part about all of this is none of this content needs to go viral either, right?
This is not about, trying to- … engagement bait and hook our way or hack our way to success. This is about just high-quality content that is really focused around the terms that we want to own. Again, the terms we wanna own the problems of our customer. This is where your social strategy needs to be so tightly coupled with your broader marketing and business strategy.
And I’ve seen this time and time again where, especially in B2B, social media is run by the most junior intern in a business. [00:26:00] It’s like- Yeah … “Oh, let’s just put it out on socials.” This is the bane of my life where you’re like, this is the world’s biggest and most important communication platform, and it’s like a flippant, “Oh, I’ll just chuck it out on socials.”
No. No. That is not what we do. This is now so strategically important, and I’ve seen this time and time again. Couple of real examples. I was … I wrote about this in my newsletter actually last week. I was searching, … I was being lazy, and I could have looked in my Substack articles or archives for a piece of research that I did.
But I was like, “Oh, I wonder if it’ll appear on Google.” So I put it into Google the term I was going after was, like, BEST content strategy, and this is an acronym. That’s why I do air quotes. B-E-S-T. Like, this- it’s an acronym. It’s a content strategy I- I came up with.
Michelle Garrett: Yeah.
Andy Lambert: And and basically the- the Google AI overview right at the top above everything else, bear in mind BEST content strategy is a pretty chunky term, [00:27:00] right?
It- it didn’t cite my website. It cited a LinkedIn post I did on this and y- a YouTube video that someone had posted of me talking about this. And I was like, in that moment, my website was nowhere to be found. It’s probably on page three or four of Google ’cause I haven’t done any SEO work on it.
But the fact is, that singular topic- Front and center, cited by the Google AI overview- … bang it, right? That is the most valuable real estate on the internet that now contains something about me. And I was like, I knew this to be true, but when you see it and experience it firsthand, you’re like, it’s visceral.
You’re like, “Holy moly, something has changed here.” This is- Yeah … this is the work of six months to try and get you to the first page of Google if you’re lucky. Yeah. Now, PR has got a say on LinkedIn and YouTube. This is why this stuff is so important and why, we need to think about LinkedIn and and YouTube, not just through the lens of, okay, our [00:28:00] own search terms that we wanna go after.
Thinking about these two platforms as search platforms, not just content platforms that we just wanna post our latest company announcement to. Don’t do that. Think about it properly. And also, don’t just think about these two platforms through the lens of the stuff that we’re gonna post, like what do we wanna say?
Amplify what other people are saying. Empower others. And this is where, this goes back to the, my book Spheres of Influence, of who else in your industry, you know, again, this is PR thinking that you know better than anyone, right? Who else in the industry is talking about this?
Who cares about this story? Who has something to say? Influencers, micro-communities, just other personalities. Yeah. Get them to talk about you because that’s the stuff that builds the narrative around a business. And yeah, like the way most B2Bs use LinkedIn today, and it’s just … It’s so far removed from, like, how I’ve just been describing it.
It’s like the company [00:29:00] page is basically just a list of “We’re delighted to announce,” or, “Oh, we’re hiring. We’re looking for a new senior manager of X.” That ain’t gonna do anything at all. And the only people that are clicking it are the people that are within the company anyway. And the YouTube is just typically some poorly cut stuff of a CEO talking at an event or something, where you’re like, you’re missing the opportunity.
B2Bs need to think like a media company more than they ever have done before, right? Because- Yeah … that, that’s the thing that will separate you. Anyway, I could talk forever, so I’m gonna get, let you get a word in edgeways.
Michelle Garrett: I’m ma- I’m taking notes, sorry. I’m busy writing things down that you’re saying.
No think like a media company. Yeah, I- here’s the thing. When my clients get on YouTube I work with manufacturing clients often, and they will show videos of their the equipment that they make in action and things like that, and that’s really powerful for them. And then coupled with the trade media coverage that I help them secure, that helps them, surfaces them in those [00:30:00] AI the AI-driven search.
The GEO- … the AEO, whatever you wanna call it. So it’s S- SEO, GEO, all of this is really important for that, and I feel like that’s the thing that people sometimes forget about too, is like you’re not only doing this for the person, the audience anymore. The, it’s, it is its own audience. The search is an audience, right?
So that’s what we need to be thinking about too. Even if two people watch your video on YouTube, it’s still helping you.
Andy Lambert: Yeah. Don’t care. Don’t care. It could… the LinkedIn post that was cited in the example that I gave you I think it had six likes. It was a LinkedIn article. It’s I don’t care.
But the point is like what we’re doing we’re training the internet to remember us, right? So- … and in the same way that we fight for mental availability in the minds of our consumer or our customer, right? That’s, that’s- … that’s the number one job of marketing, mental availability.
Be first to mind when someone needs a piece of manufacturing equipment or a mobile [00:31:00] phone or whatever it might be, right?
First to mind. So now yes, that is still the job, but we also want to be first to mind for AI, for… Basically I’ve started just calling it search everywhere optimization.
Yeah. We wanna be first to mind on any AI platform, which might include Google AI Overviews or Claude or or ChatGPT. And being first to mind there means, LinkedIn and YouTube are two of the most highly sou- cited parts of that. So as long as we are focusing on the search terms that our audience care about, and then deploying that, yes, through websites still matter, y- so yes, blog content still matters.
But deploying that through YouTube and LinkedIn, that’s a very different way of thinking about those two platforms ’cause you’re thinking now through the lens of an SEO person. You’re not thinking about this through the lens of, hey, this is what I want to say, here’s my announcement. Let’s post it on LinkedIn and YouTube.
It’s a much more strategic lens we need to look through.
Michelle Garrett: [00:32:00] Yes. Yes. And I… The other thing that I always remind people is that Google owns YouTube
So that’s another reason it’s important. ‘Cause I think a lot of people when they hear YouTube they’re like, “Oh my gosh, we do not have the energy, the budget, the time.”
And, as somebody who I’m playing with it myself now because it… And it does help you show up because it will… If you use… You do have to do certain things. You have, you do have to use hashtags on YouTube. I think so. Maybe you can talk about that. But yeah, I think that some- I’ve seen some of that help my, help me come up in search for things that I, for terms that I wanna show up for.
Andy Lambert: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Again, I would still go back to the point of your title and topic of the content is the most important element. And I wanna give two other extra bits of detail related to AI search relate, and these two platforms a bit more specifics. So YouTube, the stuff that ranks the best is your long form content, ’cause obviously you’ve got YouTube Shorts, which is [00:33:00] like the kinda TikTok feed, and then YouTube long form.
It’s the long form stuff that’s more valuable from that, because obviously it’s richer, deeper context and content, transcripts, et cetera. So yeah, long form on YouTube is important. And the interesting thing with LinkedIn, ’cause we often just think about LinkedIn from a f- posting the feed perspective the majority of citations on LinkedIn are actually coming from LinkedIn articles, not posts.
Michelle Garrett: LinkedIn ar- okay.
Andy Lambert: Okay … 60. It’s… When I say not posts, it’s 60/40 towards articles.
Michelle Garrett: Okay. Now, that’s really interesting, ’cause I did that for a long time and I kinda took a break ’cause I felt oh, it’s too much. But it’s really, if you’re already doing the content for, say, your newsletter or your blog or whatever it is, you can repurpose that content and use it as a LinkedIn article, right?
Couldn’t you do that?
Andy Lambert: Percent- and I… Talking of repurposing, it’s all about figuring out what the right workflow is. But let’s take your manufacturing client. If I was them I’d, shoot the long form [00:34:00] video of walk through of the machine or whatever it is. You’ve got the transcript from that.
Put the transcript into, your LLM of choice. Obviously give it your own human judgment. That’s a LinkedIn newsletter right there. You’re doing the same thing at the same time, and also importantly, you’ve got then LinkedIn and YouTube working together on that same term that you wanna go after, right?
Michelle Garrett: Okay. Does
Andy Lambert: that make sense?
Michelle Garrett: It does now, but I do wanna ask a question to clarify. LinkedIn articles versus LinkedIn newsletter. Is that… Are you seeing that the same, or h- It’s- Talk about that a little …
Andy Lambert: it’s actually the same. Gr- it’s a really good question. Thanks for clarifying that. It’s the same thing. I run a LinkedIn newsletter.
I, I love it. It’s been brilliant, actually. I wouldn’t give that one up. So LinkedIn newsletters I ha- personally recommend. And a LinkedIn newsletter’s all they are i- are articles, but with a subscription layer over the top of it. So really you get like a double whammy from a LinkedIn newsletter [00:35:00] because you get all of the juice from the article, which obviously as we know is valuable for AI search, but you’ve also got the email subscriber base over the top of it.
So that when you publish a newsletter, Michelle gets a ping to say, “Andy’s published on LinkedIn, here’s the latest article.” So you stay top of mind from a human perspective ’cause you’re landing in people’s inboxes, but you’re also staying top of mind from an AI perspective because at its core, the newsletter is just a collection of articles.
Michelle Garrett: Okay. That’s… i, yeah. I think it’s hard sometimes to think about… i, it, I probably saw this advice a long time ago, but there was some advice about publishing on LinkedIn after you’d published it on your own blog or site or your newsletter, and then so it didn’t… I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s even relevant now.
Andy Lambert: I s- I do… I actually know what you mean about this. This is about unique content and not having content appearing on, in different places. ‘Cause I publish my, the same content on my [00:36:00] Substack newsletter as I do on my LinkedIn newsletter, just different audiences, different district, different distribution.
And yeah, I see no penalty from that, but it doesn’t hurt though just to give it some tweaks between different versions of an article. ‘Cause you might wanna have, let’s say you put the article on your website blog, for example. Yeah. I would personally run that through a, probably with AI.
I would give that a little rewrite before putting it on my LinkedIn really. It’s only because Google likes original content, so yeah, it’s always good to give it a little bit of a tweak. I don’t really have any other evidence to suggest that is bad but I think it’s just general good best practice.
Doesn’t hurt.
Michelle Garrett: Yeah. Yeah, no, I just, I think we’re trying to make it easy for people, but also you do have to put a little effort in. So you don’t wanna just phone it in, I guess so. We’re totally off track with our questions, but that’s totally fine [00:37:00] because this is all s- very relevant and important for us to be talking about.
Let’s see where we’re at here. Oh, we’ve ki- we’ve been talking about YouTube, but this question is really about again, whenever I bring up YouTube or often when I bring it up people will roll their eyes and cringe a little bit. “Oh, do we have to be on there?” So do B2B companies need to have a presence on YouTube now?
What do you think about that?
Andy Lambert: I think we probably covered that answer in the previous one. I would say yes, really. Yeah, noth- nothing more to say to that. I can’t think of a scenario where you wouldn’t really. No … yeah, maybe someone can message me with a scenario, a complex scenario that means that they wouldn’t be on it.
But this is the best possible platform you have to demonstrate your expertise, the things that you do, go behind the scenes. So much interesting stuff. Again it’s our job to think like a media company, behave like a media company because quite frankly, it’s what’s happening with our economy [00:38:00] in general is that- very few businesses have a true kind of like differentiated moat around them. Everyone- … everything becoming commoditized very quickly. Really, distribution becomes our only advantage. The way that we optimize for distribution is thinking like a media company, trying to think about what thinking like a media company actually means is looking at the things that we do inside the business, and thinking, “Okay that’s interesting, our kind of manufacturing process.
How can we then deploy that on on YouTube that answers a common question that people are asking in and around our category?” And that’s it. So yeah, the short version of that is yes, you do.
Michelle Garrett: I think too when you when you are, when it’s coming from the company, they own that perspective, and then it’s authentic.
Because now we have AI generated fakes and, all of that. So I feel like when it’s coming from [00:39:00] the company it’s, you can trust that more so than you can anywhere else, right? ‘Cause it, we’re, it’s coming from us. We own it. This is our stuff,
Andy Lambert: yeah. Agreed.
Michelle Garrett: And then also I just want to ask, and you, I know you’re not like a videographer, but but how
Is it important for if companies want to do more on YouTube, is it important to spend a big, a, have a big budget for that? Or can you be pretty scrappy about it? And do people just want the real, the real deal?
Andy Lambert: I think, yeah, there, there’s room for both really. I think in a general day-to-day the real deal is good.
People, some of the top performing content across the internet is usually someone pointing a phone at themselves telling, saying something interesting, right? Yeah. Humans will make your content perform so much better. I know that will make most B2B businesses want to crawl under the nearest sofa and hide because, people hate being on camera.
[00:40:00] But yeah, I think what I’m seeing is more and more B2B businesses hiring people specifically because they’re good on camera and good at YouTube. And that just goes to show like the modern businesses are really taking this seriously where that’s actually defining your marketing hires. Are you good at YouTube?
Are you willing to get in front of camera? Then cool, yeah, you’re hired. Yeah I think it’s… Scrappy is fine, but also there, there’s, there are also times for good quality, high quality production. But that’s like your, your marquee type of stuff that you’d only do like maybe once a quarter, right?
There, there’s a time and a place for that. But every, every video doesn’t need to follow that, for sure.
Michelle Garrett: No, I like that because, yeah, you can have, you could have a budget for, maybe a couple of really high quality, well-produced pieces a quarter or something, and then just do some some things that are less, fancy, because I feel like people just, they don’t want to have to guess if it’s AI anymore, right? They want to just know that it’s a [00:41:00] person or a, … I don’t know. I feel like there’s … I hear a lot of people trying to distinguish the difference,
Andy Lambert: that’s going to get increasingly hard, to be honest.
And yeah, so we need to lean into that as much as we can, right? The kind of unique humanity, the stories within our business, the subject matter expertise, all of that stuff. Yeah this is why that whole kind of thinking like a media company, yada, yada, is so important because to your point, AI is eroding trust, and trust is a number one buying and decision-making criteria for everyone.
And, trust is not a rational, human emotion, right? It’s not based on logic. It’s based on feels. And that’s, that’s one of the reasons why we had such a push when we were building ContentCal to have, the faces of our company and the people behind the scenes so front and center.
It wasn’t for reasons of ego. It’s just for reasons of if people know who they’re dealing with, they’re going to be [00:42:00] more likely to buy from that person. It’s quite … It’s very simple.
Michelle Garrett: That is great advice for your website too, because I cannot tell you, I’ve been, in marketing and PR for quite a while, and used to be that you would always put your leadership team and your maybe even the, a picture of your entire team on your website, and I cannot tell you now how few companies seem to do that.
It’s often, they don’t even have bios. There’s no pictures. I feel like you need to be emphasizing that you are human beings, and, human beings wanna buy from other human beings. Whether it’s B2B, B2C, whatever it is, I feel like we need to lean into that a little bit.
Andy Lambert: Oh, for sure. And I think there’s, this is going to to matter greatly, and already even in consumer world, y- we’re seeing a growth of more kind of artisanal brands and smaller brands with purpose and meaning and more of a kind of cult following around them.
And [00:43:00] that, that same will become true of B2Bs because, the bar has been lowered, right? Anyone can craft pretty good messaging, generic corporate stuff, you know- … and a website. Anyone can s- can spin that up in a moment. But what they can’t spin up is who you are and the stories you tell as an organization.
That’s the thing that’s tr- does become truly defensible because when people have bought you and will stay with you because they’re like, “We believe in Michelle,” then, that, that’s the only moat that you can create around a business. Yeah, I really do believe that.
Such a good point you bring up, Michelle.
Michelle Garrett: Yeah. I know we’re running out of time. I’m gonna ask you one more question.
Andy Lambert: Go on.
Michelle Garrett: And I think I pr- I think I know what you’re gonna say, but it feels like social media advice changes and moves so fast. What are some things every B2B company can focus on that will help them regardless of how the algorithms change?
Andy Lambert: Yeah. To be honest, I think I’ve, I probably covered this i, i- in the [00:44:00] main really. This is just drown yourself in customer insight, and the more you understand your end user, the more you get customer empathy and the problems that they’re facing, the better stories you can tell, and those stories then need to be told through a human lens, LinkedIn and YouTube.
And a couple of of tactical things, ’cause I know there was another question that you were gonna ask on question six. I’m actually gonna address that real quick. Okay … ’cause we’re talking about AEO and GEO and that kind of thing. And there’s a- … a couple of quick wins that, that people can can apply.
So we’ve already spoken about the platforms that, that matter most, which is yeah, LinkedIn YouTube and Reddit. But a couple of other things that’s really worthwhile knowing. They’re not really social, but I wanna bring them up anyway, right? Sure. So we said Reddit, super important.
Like a real quick win, I’m gonna give you three quick wins here. Like one if there is not a Wikipedia page [00:45:00] for your business, set one up like immediately because Wikipedia is cited very heavily. We need a Wiki page. Number two have a look at your kind of main corporate hero messaging, and if you’re…
Obviously I operate in B2B tech, right? So but I’m sure this is different for each of us. We’re probably as a business on a bunch of different review sites- … and on every single review site we probably describe ourselves slightly differently. I was noticing it the other day with my own business.
I was like, “Every different review site is slightly different.” Update that so you’ve all got the same like bio and heading. You describe yourself in exactly the same way, which is like your most aligned messaging that you wanna be known for. Then apply the same also to your LinkedIn, to all of your personal profiles, your company profile.
If we’re trying to teach the internet to remember us, give the internet an easy time by making sure very simply go do this tomorrow, hygiene factor, 15 minutes, look at every single third party [00:46:00] resource that you have that you at least control, whether it’s Google My Business page, Trustpilot, whatever it is.
Make sure that it’s all speaking the same language. That’s gonna give you yeah, a really good start with with appearing in a, search everywhere, whatever, AI search, whatever you wanna call it.
Michelle Garrett: Yeah. Was that… Did you… Was there a third one? Was that it?
Andy Lambert: Was that…
I said three. I think I covered three. I don’t know. My brain’s fried now. It’s 6:00 PM. It’s okay. Go with that.
Michelle Garrett: No, I think that is very important. The Wikipedia, I’m curious because I don’t… I think, I feel like there’s certain criteria you have to meet for them to allow you to have a page, but I think that’s something everybody can- Look into and figure out for them, and it’s good advice ’cause I do see those coming up.
Yeah. And the- and Reddit, I loved what you said about Reddit ’cause I feel like there’s a lot of talk about Reddit, but i- for anyone who’s ever tried to do anything over on Reddit Godspeed because it’s [00:47:00] it’s r- it is not for everyone, and it can be really difficult. Yeah.
Andy Lambert: Yeah. But
Michelle Garrett: I love having you here. Thank you so much, Andy. Please follow Andy. I’m gonna put up his website again. And I I’m just really grateful for your time today. Thanks so much.
Andy Lambert: Appreciate it. Thanks so much, everyone.
Michelle Garrett: Thank you.
Andy Lambert: Yeah. Bye-bye. Bye.
Michelle Garrett: [00:48:00] Bye.
About the host: Michelle Garrett is a B2B PR consultant, media relations consultant, writer and author of B2B PR That Gets Results, an Amazon Best Seller. She helps companies create content, earn media coverage, and position themselves as thought leaders in their industry. Michelle’s articles have been featured by Entrepreneur, Content Marketing Institute, Muck Rack, and Ragan’s PR Daily, among others. She’s a frequent speaker on public relations and content. Michelle has been repeatedly ranked among the top ten most influential PR professionals.
Learn more about Michelle’s freelance PR consulting services here. Book a no-obligation call to talk about your needs here. Buy Michelle’s book here.
