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Every day marketers sift through dozens of headlines, posts, and slacks telling us about the latest and greatest trend we should be following.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and like you have to figure it out by yourself. But you don’t have to do it alone. Content Matters with Nicole MacLean (Compose.ly’s CRO) is your digital partner for filtering the trends and focusing on the content that matters most — creating connection that drive results.
For more, head to our site: https://compose.ly/content-matters
Produced in partnership with Share Your Genius: https://shareyourgenius.com/
[00:00:00] Nicole MacLean: Marketing is at the heart of everything. I mean, it is. If you're doing it well, you should be touching customers. Obviously, you're touching sales. You should have a pulse on what is coming and how you're positioning yourself for the future if you are a strategic marketer. And you're sitting at the epicenter of the whole company.
[00:00:18] Nicole MacLean: Not only do you have a voice to help move things forward, but you can't be displaced by ai.
[00:00:27] Nicole MacLean: I'm Nicole MacLean, and this is Content Matters Created in partnership with Share Your Genius. This show is your digital partner for filtering the trends. And focusing on the content that matters most, creating connection that drives results. Let's cut through the marketing chaos together.
[00:00:46] Nicole MacLean: Hello everyone. Welcome to a very special edition of Content Matters because this is our one year birthday party, one year anniversary. If you have seen Kaylee on any calls. Or any of our clips that is her, her go-to. Um, but yeah, it is, it's so exciting. It does not feel like a year, I don't know where the time has gone, but as we were kind of prepping for this and talking to our team, they had a really, really fun idea, which was, Nicole, why don't we flip the scripts and make you talk about things and get interviewed?
[00:01:24] Nicole MacLean: And I very reluctantly said, okay, I will do it. So. In the spirit of that, I have brought in a ringer, Ms. Kaylee Peterson, who is our director of delivery here at Compose.ly, she's so fun. I know you've been prepping really hard for your moderation. Podcast, hosting debut all day,
[00:01:44] Kaylee Peterson: all night. I've been watching Barbara Walters.
[00:01:46] Kaylee Peterson: I've been really deep diving, thinking of some hard hitting questions. It's my first time interviewing someone and I feel like I'm gonna kill it
[00:01:52] Nicole MacLean: a hundred percent. So you guys are in for a real treat, but truthfully, we just kind of wanted to take a moment to. Look back, you know, kind of think about some of the lessons we've learned, reflect on what we think the go forward's gonna be.
[00:02:04] Nicole MacLean: So this is a just kind of fun, quick pick me up for you guys in your day. But with that I'm going to, I don't know what I'm doing as a guest, but I'm gonna pass it over to Kaylee and, and we'll see how this goes. This
[00:02:16] Kaylee Peterson: is so fun. I don't know what I'm doing either. This is gonna be the best time ever. Take it till you make it, and that's the name of the game.
[00:02:23] Nicole MacLean: Alright? That's really what I've learned in this podcast is just. If you just show up and put a smile on and talk to some cool people like it, it'll work out in the end.
[00:02:33] Kaylee Peterson: You know the difference between people who do it and don't do it are people just do it. And we've always said that. Just do it. Nike,
[00:02:42] Nicole MacLean: just like Nike told you guys, you're in for, for a fun treat here.
[00:02:48] Kaylee Peterson: Alright. It's been a year. We built this from the ground up. It's your project. You've talked to so many cool people about so many cool things we have. Walk me Down Memory Road. What are some of your favorite moments from the last year?
[00:03:03] Nicole MacLean: Oh gosh. It is really crazy. Like, I dunno, where the year has gone. It feels like five years and five months at the same time, which everyone says that.
[00:03:13] Nicole MacLean: I mean, it's been such a blessing. Like every time it's so easy to get in the details and. Kinda get into your little bubble of your company and your role. And I think one thing that's been so great is to just kinda take a step above that and like just talk to people and understand their seat. And I definitely walk away every time with like, oh, I suck at this, and I, I definitely need step my game.
[00:03:38] Nicole MacLean: Like, oh, that's a good reminder. Yeah. So that in itself has just been so great, but thinking back. Again, I mean, we've had such a great team supporting the podcast, but the recommendation was to start with someone like people you know, people that you already have good rapport with. And so when I think about our first few episodes, specifically with Chris Basto and Keara Dowd, who were both Compose.ly customers, but people that I'd gotten to know before, like that was just kind of fun to, it was just nice to kinda enter in.
[00:04:12] Nicole MacLean: To this new project with a little bit of safe space and I think to date both of their episodes are, are some of the most engaged with. So not only was it a safe space for me, Kaylee, to like figure this out, but really great context or just really great content. I remember in Keara's episode in particular, she talked about this idea of like.
[00:04:35] Nicole MacLean: Friendship and like content friends and like thinking about your persona. And I, I remember having like a dumb line about like, oh, we need to have this crochet on a pillow, like all marketer. And it was just like that kind of stuff, which is really fun. So the start of course, was great. Amanda Salem from Constant Contact also joined earlier.
[00:04:56] Nicole MacLean: She is just a hoot and a half. Again, some of my favorite times didn't make it on the recording, but if anyone has watched Amy Poehler's good hang. Podcast And there's the clip with Seth or um, yeah, Seth. What is Myers? Thank you. Seth Myers. I try to say Seth Rogen different vibe. And Rachel Dratch and I think Fred Eson like that episode.
[00:05:19] Nicole MacLean: Yeah. But there's a clip that went semi viral of like Rachel Dratch. Trying to get headphones and like untangling them and like her doorbell rings. And that literally was the almost like frame for frame start of my podcast with Amanda was like, she tried headphones, like didn't work, had to go get like her son's gaming headphones and then like her dogs were bang on the door and it was just like so fun.
[00:05:41] Nicole MacLean: And then I think that really showed into the episode. Really. My favorite ones are just like the good relational ones. But it was great content as well, which is really helpful. I, I think. Some themes though that like consistently come up. I was really surprised that almost everyone I talked to started somehow in journalism.
[00:06:02] Nicole MacLean: Oh, like very rarely was it someone that was like, so I went to school for marketing. I graduated from college with marketing.
[00:06:10] Kaylee Peterson: Well, I do think marketing is something you kind of stumble into. You're doing some other odd in job and you're like, great, I could do this.
[00:06:19] Nicole MacLean: Because marketing's so fun. But the journalism piece was interesting, and it was also really interesting to have those conversations in the year that AI has had.
[00:06:28] Nicole MacLean: And it feels like consistently a lot of the things that people said made them successful as marketers was the background in journalism, in trying to think through a story and a, and the storytelling and the narrative and the like. What is my point of view in this piece, and who am I speaking to? Which really is the foundation of marketing.
[00:06:50] Nicole MacLean: But it was very interesting to me that almost I, I mean I could, maybe I have some bias in this. We should, I should go back and look, but I mean, I would say 60 to 75% of our guests somehow started in like communications or journalism.
[00:07:04] Kaylee Peterson: Yeah. As you were saying that, I was going, oh, I have a communications degree.
[00:07:09] Kaylee Peterson: Right. Yeah. There you
[00:07:11] Nicole MacLean: go. I feel like I'm the oddity, like I did go to school for marketing.
[00:07:15] Kaylee Peterson: You just knew back then this was your future.
[00:07:19] Nicole MacLean: So I had a really lovely high school teacher who was my computer apps teacher of all of all things, taught me how to type. If she was telling the story, would say I was a little high strung as a, as a high schooler.
[00:07:31] Nicole MacLean: No, I know. Crazy everyone. But my senior year, she's like, you just need like a fun class. And literally marched me into my guidance counselors. Office like the end of my first semester, senior year and said she's gonna take my sports recreation and entertainment marketing class, which was basically like the 2 0 1.
[00:07:50] Nicole MacLean: Like we had just basic marketing and then we had this and you had the prerequisite to take marketing. And I was like, I can't take your class. I've never taken marketing. I don't know what this is. She's like, I don't care. You're fine. Like I'm approving this, like you're just gonna join this class. It's gonna be fine.
[00:08:05] Nicole MacLean: So like over winter break, I like looked at marketing, I like read the marketing textbook and I show up day one. And it was all project based, which was really fun. But we had to do like if you were at Six Flags and you had to create a like Willy Wonka, I think Charlie, the Chocolate factory had just come out.
[00:08:21] Nicole MacLean: So it was like, imagine you're doing a collab with Six Flags and like what would your attraction be? It was like March Madness. Everyone had to pick a college and then figure out how you would do a campaign around that college being in March Madness and like promoting it. And it was actually that class.
[00:08:38] Nicole MacLean: They said, oh, this is what I wanna do for my life. And so I changed my major to marketing and
[00:08:42] Kaylee Peterson: here we are. Here we are. Yes. I'm as someone who had six majors in college. I'm very impressed by that direction.
[00:08:52] Nicole MacLean: I was very, very blessed. We are still, I had coffee with her like yesterday actually, so I'm very fortunate that I, I get to keep in touch with her, which is cool.
[00:09:00] Kaylee Peterson: Wow. I feel like we should send her a personal thank you guard.
[00:09:03] Nicole MacLean: I sent her a lot of thank you cards. I'm being honest. But no, she's great. And yeah, those teachers, man, if you're a teacher listening to this, thank you for your service.
[00:09:13] Kaylee Peterson: For your service. Truly she, so much. You are so brave. Truly, so brave. Okay, so you've talked to some cool people.
[00:09:21] Kaylee Peterson: Yeah. She's had some great conversations. It sounds like journalism is a theme, but I'm curious like what. Moments or conversations have really resonated with you this year and stuck with you maybe in a way that's changed the way you think about things or that you kind of go back to?
[00:09:39] Nicole MacLean: Oh, that is a good question.
[00:09:40] Nicole MacLean: Ms. Barbara Walters, thank you so much. Coming in has changed or stuck with me. There is a conversation with Sheri Otto that really stuck with me for a few reasons. So she's a former HubSpot. A person she did a lot. If you didn't watch the episode, I would highly recommend, but she unk out for me in two ways of the conversation.
[00:10:05] Nicole MacLean: The first is she has really focused her professional growth around like psychological principles and like psychological behavior. And so it was so fascinating every time I talked to her, she talks about the psychology behind marketing and like why you do this CTA or like when you run tests like. If you're doing an email, make sure you have three things because like the rule of three or you know, trying to like reverse psychology, you know, so take this approach and test that and see how it gets people to engage.
[00:10:37] Nicole MacLean: I actually, my minor originally was in psychology because that was by thought was like, okay, well if you're gonna market to people, you need to know how the brain sink. I did change my minor, but it was, I think a lot of times people like marketing has made the shift over the years and that actually is a theme I've noticed over the years.
[00:10:55] Nicole MacLean: I'd say the last five to 10 years, marketing has so desperately tried to say like, we're not arts and crafts. We're not fluffy, we're not brand. Totally. We're demand. Let's talk about legion, let's talk about metrics. Let's talk, let's bring the science into marketing. And with Sheri, it was interesting of like that she was almost bringing like behavioral science to layer on top of it that does yield real tangible metrics.
[00:11:22] Nicole MacLean: So I think that was very interesting. The second piece was just more the personal connection with her is because she did work at HubSpot and you talk about Barbara Walters, but I asked her this question. She's like, honestly, no one's like, I've never had the space to talk about it, but I was like, how often, because you have HubSpot in your resume, do people just assume you know all the answers or just assume that like, oh, well she was in HubSpot, so like people do this all the time.
[00:11:47] Nicole MacLean: Like, oh, you were at Google, you were at Meta. Yeah. Obviously you're gonna be the saving grace for our company. And there's pros to that and there's incredible experience, but there's also kind of a, I think like a really high expectation that comes with that and things. And so I just really love to hear her perspective on that because it definitely, she was like, yeah, that does actually happen to me a lot.
[00:12:10] Nicole MacLean: So I really liked that reminder of the. Like psych psychological principles and how that can overlap in what we're doing. Two other ones, again, really personal, which is like what, why we built this show to begin with was the personal. Yeah. But Myles joined our show, gosh, probably way longer ago than I thought it was, but he and I have like still stayed in contact so much after that.
[00:12:38] Nicole MacLean: And like we talked a lot about, of course, what he's doing at his company trolley, which is really cool. But. He also talked about like his personal mission, which is to help coach people and kinda do like some career coaching. And I think that was just another one that really stuck out and reminded of like, again, how easy it is to get stuck in the mire of what you're doing in day to day.
[00:13:02] Nicole MacLean: Mm-hmm. And thinking about like, I know that I am where I am today because I had really great people who were willing to do coffee chats, zoom chats, and take that. And so I think that was just a good reminder of remembering. Okay to take that step out and like find someone that, you know, whether it's a local networking or going to your alma mater or finding a school to to talk at, or someone happens to reach out to you on LinkedIn, that's a student.
[00:13:27] Nicole MacLean: Like being willing to kinda give that time and perspective. So that one has really stuck with me. And then one of our, I think to date probably most. Watch and also like longest watch episodes with, um, with Jillian. I always pronounce her last name wrong. Uh, and she's actually one of my really good friends, but I think it's Hoefer is how you pronounce it.
[00:13:48] Nicole MacLean: But she talked a lot about data, which I also think is, especially in the world of ai, something that it's kinda like video. We talk a lot about how the barrier to entry of video has gone down. Like how many car videos do we see of people and it, if it's good content, who cares? Um, I don't think enough brands are taking advantage of proprietary data or just like putting a survey together or looking at their community, and I think as AI search continues to trend upwards.
[00:14:21] Nicole MacLean: And I kind of mentioned this earlier, but to bring it full circle, like I do think there is a shift from demand focus to brand focus. Again, who are you? Do you have a unique perspective in the market? Can a bot or a person clearly know what you do and why you're the best at it? And proprietary data is a great way to go to market with an owned point of view.
[00:14:43] Nicole MacLean: Again, kinda that journalism background. And yet, I think it's one of those things that most marketers just like never do because we think about it as like, well, if it's not a Gallup poll, who's gonna care about this data? And Jillian brought up some really good and easy ways to focus on that, that I think more people need to remember.
[00:15:04] Kaylee Peterson: Yeah, I think it's a great point that some of the best data you have is data nobody else has access to. And it could be as simple as, you know, when I worked in real estate, how many people were buying houses? That year versus the year before. We were probably the only ones with that number for that market in that range.
[00:15:20] Kaylee Peterson: And you just don't think about, people do care to know those numbers and do wanna share that kind of information. And it changes the way that people see your brand if you're the one able to say, but we're noticing these things and you should notice them too.
[00:15:34] Nicole MacLean: Well, no, no offense to our journalism, but as a, as a business marketer degree, I did have to take stats class.
[00:15:41] Nicole MacLean: Wow. Which was probably one of the most challenging classes I took in my collegiate career. But we love stats.
[00:15:48] Kaylee Peterson: See, and look at you now. Look at you Now, let me know. We, on the other hand, made it through six majors, not one math class. What? Yeah. That's no way. Sure. To be fair, I came to college with enough credits to be a sophomore, so I skipped a lot of the intro stuff and had a lot of time to try whatever I wanted.
[00:16:08] Kaylee Peterson: Much to my mother's.
[00:16:10] Nicole MacLean: Here I am now, mom and here you are now. And how much time do you spend in data and spreadsheets? It's
[00:16:16] Kaylee Peterson: every day of my life,
[00:16:18] Nicole MacLean: so it's fine. You didn't do it in college and now you just get to do it professionally. That's what I said
[00:16:22] Kaylee Peterson: to teach myself what ifs.
[00:16:24] Nicole MacLean: It's fine. Oh my gosh.
[00:16:28] Nicole MacLean: Deadlines looming and you're chuckling a million projects. Maybe you've tried outsourcing to an agency before, but how can you be sure that they're going to deliver on your specific goals on time? And on budget, well look no further than Clutch, the number one leading marketplace for B2B Service providers.
[00:16:45] Nicole MacLean: Let's streamlines your search, helping you kick off projects faster so you can focus on what you do best on Clutch. You can select from over 2000 unique services and specialties to quickly narrow in on a comprehensive list of the agency's best for your project. Then filter down to a short list of qualified providers through filters or use Clutch’s project brief technology to match you to the best fits.
[00:17:06] Nicole MacLean: From there, just compare the providers by reading in-depth the verified client reviews to learn more about the work that these agencies have done for businesses like yours, so you can make a confident hiring decision. Get matched to the best agencies for your business and request quotes at clutch.co/contentmatters.
[00:17:23] Nicole MacLean: You'll be one step closer to having those projects off your never ending to-do list, so you can shift focus back to the big picture. That's clutch.co/contentmatters.
[00:17:35] Kaylee Peterson: Okay. Thinking about, it's been a crazy year for content for SEO for ai. I feel like everything changes every time we turn around. What do you feel like this year?
[00:17:48] Kaylee Peterson: You've noticed are the biggest changes, the biggest shifts. You've talked to people from all over in all different positions. What are you seeing happen in the market right now? Yeah, this is a really
[00:17:58] Nicole MacLean: good question. I definitely think the switch from demand to brand is a big one. A lot of people talking about storytelling and the narrative of their content and their brand.
[00:18:09] Nicole MacLean: I think there is a big shift from quantity and scale of content to. I would rather produce less, that's higher quality and that I can better repurpose across multiple channels. Yep. A lot more conversation. I mean, we've always talked about repurposing and the wheel, like the hub and spoke model or like micro content, pillar content into other things.
[00:18:32] Nicole MacLean: That's existed for a while, but now I am seeing more people and I think that's partly thanks to AI is it's easier than ever to repurpose. The generation is still really kind of a scary place to live, but. Doing a podcast and taking this transcript and repurposing it and clipping these videos and putting it on social and being able to not just say, okay, I wrote a social post and let me copy and paste it on Facebook and Twitter now X and LinkedIn and Instagram.
[00:19:01] Nicole MacLean: Let me throw a random picture on and I'm done. But saying, okay, no, actually I, I want to have this through line. Like this is the, this is the point of the podcast. I just listened to Nicole on. And I'm gonna adjust that per platform, like those types of things. I just feel like now more people have, we're not just talking about it philosophically.
[00:19:21] Nicole MacLean: I'm hearing people talk about how they're actually executing that on a day-to-day basis. So that's actually an exciting thing for me is to see that type of evolution because it is something we've talked about, but now I think people are actually doing it and doing it more effectively than ever before.
[00:19:41] Nicole MacLean: A lot more thought leadership. I probably also, it's probably our third most common trend I've heard, but is that like thought leadership or founder led content and we talk a lot about, is that the right thing to do? What if your founder isn't really that much a thought leader or like, that's just not their jam?
[00:20:02] Nicole MacLean: How do you prevent cringe content on LinkedIn and it still works. Like I don't want to move people away from that. I think if anything we're craving authentic person led content,
[00:20:15] Kaylee Peterson: totally.
[00:20:16] Nicole MacLean: LinkedIn's algorithm just switched again, and I think it is really now. Leaning more heavily on the person's, like a person account versus a company account.
[00:20:25] Nicole MacLean: Mm-hmm. There was a point where it moved to like, I don't care if this is a post that's three weeks old. If it's good, I'm gonna show it. And I feel like they're kind of going back to like, if you post every day, you're gonna show up all the time. So figuring out what LinkedIn wants. But with AI too, I mean, I just think it's that authentic narrative.
[00:20:43] Nicole MacLean: What is something, you know, whether it's data or an anecdote that you can put in the market that no one else can. And I think the final thing is just it is hard to do good marketing. Like it's not hard to have a good idea, or it's not always hard to execute, but like it's now easier than ever to just put trash out.
[00:21:07] Nicole MacLean: Like one of our most recent episodes with Miki, which was a case study, which was a really cool episode, to just focus on one specific project, which was we built a site and we put up. Boatload of AI generated content that we didn't really like. We started, you know, editing it with humans, but it was going well.
[00:21:26] Nicole MacLean: So then we just poured gas on the fire and it kind of got unwieldy and we literally had to like shut down the whole site and start over because it was so flagged by Google. It's easier than ever to have terrible marketing, but everyone wants that silver bullet. Like, let's keyword stuff the heck out of this blog and magically I'll get leads.
[00:21:44] Nicole MacLean: And now it is really forcing us to say no. Like let's do the brand work. Let's do the founder led work. Who are we? Do we have proprietary data? What is a cohesive campaign? Oh, I actually have to write a good blog post that will rank and the LLMs will pick up and Google will pick up. And so I think that just the bar is.
[00:22:05] Nicole MacLean: Raising like marketers who have always been good at their job are just gonna become more and more invaluable. And if you've kind of been like looking for that silver bullet and just hope and like you've gotten lucky, that I think is be gonna going to become rare and rarer as we move forward.
[00:22:22] Kaylee Peterson: It does bring to mind the turtle versus the hair.
[00:22:25] Kaylee Peterson: That all ass fable. Ooh. Yeah. Where I've always said foundational, slow. Good content, good work. It gets you so much further in the long run than just trying to get there as fast as you can by any means possible. And I think AI's really highlighted that, where if you took AI and you ran with it, I think you're seeing some of those consequences happen six months in eight months in these sites that are just crashing from so much.
[00:22:57] Nicole MacLean: Well, and there is an AI boom. Which everyone's saying, and I'm really trying not to just be like, oh, well AI, like the AI bubbles here. Like I think some of that is noise and market things like people, it's not that people aren't using ai, but I think a lot of companies said, let me custom build this workflow, or like, let me custom build how AI can solve this specific problem.
[00:23:20] Nicole MacLean: And I don't think we're at a point yet. Where people want to pay for that specificity when they can like trip through it with the basic tool. Yeah, and I think that's gonna be an interesting thing to follow over the next few episodes. I, oh, it is spacing me who. Which we talked about this, but we recorded the episode like right after the Ag agentic AI came out with chat GPT, and I think that is going to actually shift a lot of our conversations go forward.
[00:23:53] Nicole MacLean: It's gonna be how are you creating workflows with ai? Mm-hmm. Versus like, are you using AI for your content? Are you using AI to repurpose this? It's gonna be more like, how are you setting up a whole new structure where AI is purposefully built at very crucial moments of the process to save time. And now you're moving away faster, and I think that's gonna be a shift.
[00:24:15] Nicole MacLean: We talk about more in 20. We're not in 2026 yet, so Oh,
[00:24:19] Kaylee Peterson: close.
[00:24:19] Nicole MacLean: We're so, so
[00:24:20] Kaylee Peterson: close. I'm curious, thinking about the impacts of ai, the workflows, what's, what you can do with AI now? How much it's. Changed and grown even in just the last year. When you think about, when you said noise in the market, it just made me think of how often I'm hearing marketers right now panicking about AI and their jobs, and especially in content, and I'm curious your perspective on what the future looks like for marketing for companies with ai.
[00:24:50] Kaylee Peterson: Where is the marketer's role in the world of ai?
[00:24:55] Nicole MacLean: Oh gosh. I mean, I think if I knew that. I'd probably be in a very different spot. Yeah. Right now I am equally seeing some companies double down and say like, no agencies, no new hires. We're freezing our hiring budget. Figure out how to do it with ai. And I think that, I mean, I think there's some shortsightedness to that, but like I get it.
[00:25:20] Nicole MacLean: It. They're trying to force to see if it, it works. And on the other hand, I am seeing people who are taking a more thoughtful, I don't wanna, I don't wanna say the other is not thoughtful, but like a more, they've seen the risks, I'll say of ai. And so they're still looking for people. To be more heavily involved in the process.
[00:25:39] Nicole MacLean: I have said this for a while. I still think that the skillset of editing is just gonna continue to be more and more of a valuable skill with ai. Again, you have to be a good writer to prompt, you have to be a good writer to be able to see like if this is trash, but more so is the editing eye. And actually I think a lot of people are terrible editors.
[00:26:01] Nicole MacLean: So that is gonna be interesting to me as we go forward, because I, I just think if you're not using AI at this point, it's not, oh, you're so dumb. Like it's gonna be wrong. It's, you are so dumb, you're not being efficient or using the tools at your disposal. So it's just learning how to do that well. And then I go back to the journalism thing like that is really interesting to have marketers who are the strategists.
[00:26:27] Nicole MacLean: Probably the second most common trend I heard is like marketing is at the heart of everything. I mean, it is. If you're doing it well, you should be touching customers. Obviously you're touching sales, you should be touching product. You should have a pulse on what is coming and how you're positioning yourself for the future.
[00:26:44] Nicole MacLean: And if you are a strategic marketer. And you're sitting at the epicenter of the whole company. Not only do you have a voice to help move things forward, but you can't be displaced by ai. I think that's the opportunity for marketers,
[00:27:01] Kaylee Peterson: it feels like to me. There are people choosing to use AI as a tool and people choosing to use AI as a replacement.
[00:27:09] Kaylee Peterson: And I do think the more that you use ai, the more you get to know it doesn't know as much as you would hope that it knows and it does take someone who knows what they're looking at to be able to tell if it's good content or bad content, or if you're getting good output or bad output. I can't tell you how much SEO output you get that you're like.
[00:27:30] Kaylee Peterson: I don't think that's how that works. I don't think that's right and I, I think that strategic stronghold that marketers have feels like kind of the thorough line here of what keeps marketers a valuable position at any company too.
[00:27:43] Nicole MacLean: I'll say, I don't know that this should count because it wasn't on my podcast, our podcast, but the thing I watched, which was a 32nd clip from an interview with Sam Altman, that is probably the thing that has affected, affected me the most is.
[00:27:59] Nicole MacLean: Everyone right now is talking about a EO and AI search, and I think we are all comparing and thinking of chat PT as a competitor to Google. I would posit that Sam Altman does not consider Google a real competitor or threat to chat PT because what he said is like most especially like elder millennials, gen X boomers primarily use chat GBT as a Google replacement.
[00:28:25] Nicole MacLean: We are just asking it questions. It is a query. Yeah, thing, gen Z is using it as an operating system and if you read some of what they put out and some of the visioning stuff they put out about AgTech ai, that is what they're after. They want to be like when you say, oh, I'm gonna go use chat, should t to book to, to ask it to build an itinerary for me going to Italy.
[00:28:53] Nicole MacLean: Cool. What it actually wants to do is say you're gonna go to Italy. So what I'm gonna do is I'm in your bank account. I have all of you, I have your, I'm in your Delta, I have your passport information. I'm going to go book your flight. I'm gonna book you your experiences. I'm gonna book your hotel. I'm gonna give you the confirmation numbers.
[00:29:13] Nicole MacLean: I'm gonna make sure there's an Uber waiting for you when you need to leave, and you literally just needed to approve this itinerary. And I've gone and done all of this for you by having access to everything. In your life. And that sounds cool, and this is a conversation another day. But as I, I think a little terrifying.
[00:29:32] Nicole MacLean: And as marketers, we are so laser focused on, oh my gosh, we're gonna lose organic search. And like, how do we get our leads? And don't get me wrong, I know like it keeps me up at night too, guys. But I think we're missing like, what's the saying? Like you can't see the forest through the trees. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:29:48] Nicole MacLean: And right now I think we're so like. The tree is AI search and where's my leads and how am I driving traffic to my website? And please don't fire me, boss, because like all of this is changing and I think we're missing like a little bit as a population, but as I think business people of like, that's why I said workflows, I think will be a bigger conversation.
[00:30:09] Nicole MacLean: Mm-hmm. Or something I wanna push on on our conversations go forward here is it isn't just the singular prompt or the singular blog post. It is truly. A broader forest of how we're using ai.
[00:30:21] Kaylee Peterson: Totally. And I think the fact that AI is so personalized too means, you know, for SEO. The same PE three people Google the same three things, they're probably gonna get relatively the same results.
[00:30:34] Kaylee Peterson: That's just not how AI works. Mm-hmm. AI is gonna give you the result it thinks you want to know more. If I ask a question and my sister who's a teacher asks it the same question, we're gonna get different responses because we have different perspectives and we ask for different things. And I think that makes it less about appearing in specific instances and more about making sure that it understands.
[00:30:54] Kaylee Peterson: You and your brand and when it's appropriate to recommend, when it's appropriate to use your site to purchase things. They've just done Etsy and Shopify integrations. You don't even have to leave chat GBT anymore to make purchases. So I, I think it's, yeah, it does make marketing more of a, actually marketing everywhere matters now.
[00:31:13] Kaylee Peterson: And not just am I ranking for my keyword, but like, do I have a presence? Do people know me? Do people talk about me?
[00:31:21] Nicole MacLean: Well, Chris Baszto, who I mentioned is one of my early guests, gave me screw a EO and GEO. But SEO search everywhere. Optimization. Yeah. And I am so for that term I said I am stealing this and telling everyone about it 'cause that is what it is.
[00:31:38] Nicole MacLean: Search everywhere. That is the community.
[00:31:40] Kaylee Peterson: We, well just never stop asking questions. It's human nature. They're always gonna ask a question somewhere, and we just have to adapt to where they're asking the questions. Agreed.
[00:31:50] Nicole MacLean: I think the last thing, I'd love to leave on this because it does come up in a lot of episodes and like as we're talking about it, it is both equally exciting and terrifying and just a little bit of the heartfelt of like, it is hard being a marketer.
[00:32:06] Nicole MacLean: Mm-hmm. I would argue it's one of the hardest jobs because it is right and left brain. Unless you're at like a really great enterprise and you can really hone in on like one or the other. But for like a lot of us, B2B, like mid-market, small, scrappy teams, you have to be good at everything. You have to manage up, you have to manage out.
[00:32:27] Nicole MacLean: Your priorities are almost never the priority. It's always what sales that the customer needs, which is the right thing. I'm never mad about that, but it is a reality and no, and everyone thinks they're a marketer and very few are actually good at it or know what it is, and it is just a really hard job.
[00:32:43] Nicole MacLean: And. It is a really hard job, especially when there is a market who doesn't even know what the market wants right now. And so I just leave you with like, keep going. Find people that you enjoy talking to, like build yourself a community because without, it is really hard to sometimes recognize that like you have a hard job and you're probably doing a better job than you think you are.
[00:33:07] Nicole MacLean: I am, like, I say this to our team, but like the grit and just getting through times like this is often those are the, the teams and the people that come out on the other side stronger. That a little sappy, but that's that for you. It's great.
[00:33:22] Kaylee Peterson: It was very heartwarming. I was gonna ask you, do you feel like content matters in 2026?
[00:33:30] Nicole MacLean: Okay. Barbara Walters. Hi. Hey. Good. Yes.
[00:33:36] Kaylee Peterson: Just thought about myself just now.
[00:33:38] Nicole MacLean: Content still matters. Content still matters in 2026.
[00:33:46] Nicole MacLean: It does. Easy question. It just does, and that's why we're gonna keep, we're gonna keep going. We're gonna be finding the matters and figuring out what we need to do.
[00:33:56] Kaylee Peterson: Anything you're excited for in the next season of Content Matters. Compose.ly, just like
[00:34:01] Nicole MacLean: more cool people. I mean, that, that has just been the biggest gift.
[00:34:05] Nicole MacLean: Uh, if you couldn't tell by most of, I, I don't know that I gave you guys a ton of tact, tactical action items, but, uh, the people relationship has just been so freaking cool. So that, that's been great. So if you're listening to this and you haven't been on the show and you have some cool content matters to discuss, hit me up.
[00:34:24] Nicole MacLean: Love to have you. I do think that the conversations will shift. Which will be cool. You know, it's not just like, should you use ai, but how are you using ai? And so I'm excited to kind of see that evolution. Yeah, I think those are kinda my two things I'm most excited for. Excellent. Well, congratulations on one year.
[00:34:47] Nicole MacLean: Thank you. And again, you know I said this earlier, but we have a great team behind it. You guys have to see my face. I'm so sorry in every episode, but there are so many awesome people behind the scenes supporting us, our team at Share Your Genius and our marketing team at Compose.ly. So this is a, a fun celebration for all of us, and thanks for coming along the ride, everyone.
[00:35:08] Nicole MacLean: Woo. Let's go another year. Let's go. Let's just keep rolling. Keep it all right. I'll see you on the next one. Thanks for listening to this episode of Content Matters created in partnership with Share Your Genius. If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a review, and share with a friend. Otherwise, you can find all the resources you need to stay connected with us in the show notes Till next time.