Benjamin Ard00:00 — welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Nicole. Nicole, welcome to the show.
Nicole Gates00:05 — Hi, thanks for having me.
Benjamin Ard00:06 — Yeah, Nicole, I'm excited. This is going to be a ton of fun. was saying before we clicked record, I think this is one of those episodes. A lot of marketers might nod their head to saying, yep, preach. This is exactly what we're talking about. Yeah, exactly. But before we dive into it, Nicole, let's get to know you. Let's get to know your background, work history, just so the audience gets to know who you are.
Nicole Gates00:16 — Fingers crossed.
Yeah. So right now I'm VP of global growth at Veronis. They're a cybersecurity company. I've been there for about four years now. My background, I've been various industries, various roles, but all kind of in content marketing, social media, demand gen, and now as we call it growth.
Benjamin Ard00:41 — I love it. And it's a ton of fun as someone who was in charge of growth for a company. have the empathy. I know the pains of good months and bad months, all of the goodness that comes around that exactly every single month is a brand new fight. And it's all sorts of good stuff right there. love it. Well, Nicole, what we're going to talk about today is the future of B2B marketing and how it'll be around user generated content. So
Nicole Gates00:51 — Yes, live and die by the pipeline.
Yeah.
Benjamin Ard01:08 — What's the driving element here for your belief that user generated content is the future of B2B marketing? What's going on to make you kind of feel like that's where things are headed?
Nicole Gates01:19 — Yeah, I mean, I saw early signals that I'm sure other people have, you know, with this already working, you know, I think LinkedIn already shows employees more than they showed brand pages. Influencer marketing is starting to kind of evolve in B2B. And I always say what's happening in B2C, you know, two to three years later starts happening in B2B. And we know content creators and influencer marketing has been a huge surge in B2C. And now I think it's starting to trickle into B2B.
⁓ but I would say that, AI is probably going to make this even more of an emphasis. think, you know, just with the rise of all the automation and you can make a hundred ads in three seconds and you can write your own emails and send them all out personalized to your whole database. just think, people are probably going to be a little bit more skeptical of brand messaging and brand content and going to be looking for that human element. And so I think, you know, there's just going to be a rise in.
kind of leaning into user generated content, whether that's your own employees, whether it's influencers, content creators, know, people who your audience trusts and has a human face to, I think is where people are going to lean to versus like trusting that branded voice. And that's kind of been what's been on my mind lately as we're all trying to come to terms or trying to figure out this whole new AI landscape in marketing.
Benjamin Ard02:35 — I love that. And I agree 100%. That's the kind of content I want to read. That is 100 % the people I don't want to interact with a business account. I want to see the people that are in the business. What do they do? What are their faults? What's their personality? What do they care about? It's really like the right way of doing it. Now I have kind of a follow up question on the AI side because you're right. Like there is this inherent lack of trust that comes from AI being able to do so much so quickly, including the personalization.
How do you make the user generated content actually look authentic? I know some people actually try to make it look, you know, little lower quality, things of that nature, but like when you look at the trust, how are you building up trust to make sure people know this is a real human versus AI in that situation?
Nicole Gates03:23 — yeah, that's interesting. mean, because for me, right now, we're really exploring a lot of the employee advocacy and industry influencers. And it's more of like building that personality up versus like, so I don't really put a lot of parameters around it, especially when it comes to the employees. I give them some guidance, but I really encourage people who are doing it naturally already. We have a few sales reps who are loading up videos of them talking in their car, kind of talking about.
our product or where they're going for the event. And so I'm going to try to give them more tools to do that even better. And I want them to have that, their own personal touch versus me trying to make sure I'm deciding the brand or the look or the feel of the piece. mean, that's the whole point of user generated content, right? And then with the influencers, I they already have a trusted audience. They already have trusted views. People are familiar with them already. And so for me, it's more just like, how can I get them either talking about her
company in a way that's value driven and not feeling like a brand or getting our own subject matter experts, you know, associated with them or bringing them onto our own content. like bringing that human feel, think regardless is kind of that. And just like capitalizing on those personalities that do feel human-like and aren't just a bot that's kind of talking to you or sounding like every other email or social media posts that's going up.
Benjamin Ard04:42 — And I love the confidence of investing in, you know, the employees, the external resources, the influencers, but not prescribing how they do things. But like you said, I'm giving them the tools. How can they do more? How do they use their own voice? So I like that you're leaning into it as opposed to saying, you got to say this phrase and you should publish this and you should do this.
Then it is just, what's the brand account? But it happens to have someone else's face on it. So I'd like that you're going in that direction and really lean into it. Yeah, exactly. No one wants to do that. With user generated content as well, it kind of changes the landscape about where the conversation happens. So large language models are pulling from YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit. This is something you were emailing me about all of a sudden in B2B, these channels that traditionally like have almost no presence.
Nicole Gates05:08 — Right. And no one's going to post that too. Yeah, exactly.
Mm-hmm.
Benjamin Ard05:33 — becomes super valuable. How are you kind of getting into these channels for B2B and how is that making an impact here?
Nicole Gates05:39 — Yeah, I think, mean, as all marketers are probably thinking about, AEO and GEO and kind of figuring out this new landscape, you know, I've been doing a lot of research on what are those main platforms that they're pulling from. And like we were talking earlier, we both kind of came from that SEO background back in the day of, you know, keyword stuffing and...
Google algorithms and rankings and now it's like the new it's like that 2.0. And so it's like, okay, what are those new areas that you can kind of hack and figure out? And I've been seeing that it's obviously reddits one. But LinkedIn and YouTube are big ones. And so I'm just like, okay, there's obviously this kind of trend towards LLMs are trusting more user generated areas versus like something like Google search or somewhere where you can kind of pay to play. so even just if you're thinking about
AEO and GEO and how you're going to optimize your marketing to show up when people are looking, you kind of have to already be kind of thinking about these ways that you can have people posting more on these channels, whether it's your own YouTube or other people posting on YouTube. know, LinkedIn, you can't just have your brand talking about it. I think you've got to have employees and everybody kind of sharing the same story, the same narrative, the things that you
think people are asking about. want them, you know, for me talking about data security, AI security in multiple ways. and then obviously Reddit is known for hating marketing and you know, anything that sniffs or sounds close to marketing, they will get rid of. so finding those subject matter experts who can authentically kind of, you know, interact and build and have engagement and community on Reddit is going to help you be able to.
push, not push your narrative, but share your story on these, you know, these platforms that are probably not as easy to control as what we've been used to in the past.
Benjamin Ard07:25 — Which I love that last phrase because that is really kind of the whole point. Like that's why they are authoritative sources. You can't really get away with the old marketing, pushing your own message and agenda. They really do promote authentic conversation and value and helping each other out. So I think that's cool. Okay. So let's say I'm a business sitting here listening to the podcast and I'm thinking, okay, yeah, you know, we've seen the trend. Maybe we dipped our toes in the waters with influencers, user generated content.
Nicole Gates07:33 — Right.
Benjamin Ard07:53 — Where do I start though? Like where do I go? Like what does that process look like? Where are kind of the first steps to even see if it's right for my business and to prove to leadership, the board, whoever it may be that it's maybe an avenue that's worth investing in.
Nicole Gates08:09 — Yeah, I mean, I'd always start with a good foundation of like knowing what story you want to be told. You know, you don't want to start unleashing the hounds almost and not give them guidance of what to be saying. So make sure you know what story and narrative you want out there. Another piece that I've been really hammering home with my team is just having a unique point of view, you know, with AI generated content. I think there's going to be a lot of like flattening of messaging and it's all going to start sounding the same. So having that unique point of view and that unique
vision will also help just kind of elevate that content. So figure that out first. And then I always say, look at the strengths that you already have in your company, like depending on your business or, you know, what stage you're in. Maybe you have, you know, a co-founder who's easy to kind of come on. He's open to kind of posting on LinkedIn. Start there. Maybe you just have an internal subject matter expert who's open to it. Usually you can find these people within your team and they just need the tools or the encouragement to kind of go forward with it. A lot of people are just scared that they're doing something wrong.
And so if you give them that direction, they're probably more than happy to do that. If that's not the case, I think just working with, you know, industry influencers is a great, easy way to kind of get out there. Depending on your budget, you know, for me, it's a lot of networking and I kind of just find people who I like to follow, you know, they might not even have the hugest following, but they're talking about the right things. And, you know, you can start with a smaller influencer. You don't need to go get the 1 million plus type following and kind of be like, Hey, I saw you have a sub stack, you know, could
We like advertise here. Can we have, you know, come on your podcast and talk about that, like start small and just test it out. ⁓ but yeah, just lean into what, your strengths are. Don't feel like you have to, copy exactly what everybody else is doing. And then as far as the board, ⁓ or, know, your CEO or whoever, that'll probably be your toughest ask because. You know, coming from the growth pipeline girl, it's not going to have direct ROI right away.
but it's going to have that word of mouth and you're going to how I approach it, tell like, you know, my CEO that doing this will help change the conversation and he's going to hear it in those customer meetings or those prospect meetings more because we're doing this versus like, you know, this huge brand push that might not necessarily resonate. think if people just feel like organically, they're kind of hearing, you know, Veronis is doing XYZ. I heard about this. Like, could you tell me more?
and you'll just naturally start hearing it come up in conversations more hopefully if you're doing it well.
Benjamin Ard10:28 — I love that. That's super cool. Okay. Lots to take there. Great steps for getting into the space. Love that you started with the story. There's no reason to go out externally and find people to tell your story if you don't know what the story is in the first place. So I love that. I love that. That's a great phrase right there. I'm all about that. Okay. Well, one final question, because we're almost out of time. Nicole, I want you to pull out the crystal ball and you're seeing kind of this change in transition.
Nicole Gates10:41 — Yes, it always comes down to the story, yes.
Benjamin Ard10:55 — I like that you talked about, everything in like direct to consumer and B2C marketing, you know, give it a two or three lag and it hits B2B. So let's look two to three years in the future. What does content look like for businesses? How does the brand content really partnership with the user generated content? Does the brand ever even post anymore? Like what, does that kind of look like for you in the future as things kind of shape and develop?
Nicole Gates11:20 — Yeah, I think, you know, we will just see an expansion of more human user generated content and using, you know, employees or whoever like putting human faces on things again to prove this is an AI generated. I'm already seeing it also in B2C ads where people are literally calling out in their billboards like this was not AI generated. Like I think Polaroid just did something and they're like not AI pictures. And it's just like, I think that's going to be a differentiator that we'll see in B2B as well.
But where brand comes in, mean, for me specifically, what resonates really well is like the technical expertise. And I think like the brand can still kind of bring in like the technical expertise, the product level stuff, you the things that you probably middle bottom of funnel type content will still hold in the brand. But it might not be like, you'll probably maybe look for thought leadership with other people is probably where you want to go. That'll be your top of funnel is maybe where I would predict things going.
Benjamin Ard12:13 — Yeah, I love that. Plus, as an individual at a business, it may not be a bad opportunity for you to go out there, build up a little bit of a self personal kind of a brand. It'll make you even more marketable as you go to another business and they're all bought in on user generated content and say, ⁓ you're an expert in the field and you have an audience and you're going to go do this at our company. That's not a bad combination that most other people don't have. And so it's not a bad opportunity to build that up for yourself.
Nicole Gates12:21 — Yeah.
Exactly.
Benjamin Ard12:38 — Nicole, this has been incredible. I love it. I love the direction you're taking things. I a hundred percent agree with this philosophy, user generated content, authenticity, building trust, using the right markets and the right channels for doing that. Knowing your story first and then how to ultimately convince everyone else in your business, what it's good for, how to get on board, how to make the investment. think it's awesome for anyone who's listening to the episode.
and wants to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you?
Nicole Gates13:07 — Yeah, you can follow me on LinkedIn. share crazy memes about marketing. So if you think that's funny, feel free to follow me. And I also have a sub stack called perspective and pipeline. And I share my thoughts on just marketing, growing a team, know, working in growth marketing and B2B specifically, and also share my random thoughts on notes there. So feel free to connect with me, either one.
Benjamin Ard13:29 — Love it. Very cool. So for everyone listening, scroll down to the show notes, you're going to see the LinkedIn link and you're going to also see the sub stack link. So go subscribe or whatever the sub stack term is, follow, join, whatever. And then, yeah, exactly. And then go connect with Nicole on LinkedIn. Nicole, this has been great. Thank you so much. Really do appreciate the time.
Nicole Gates13:42 — all of them.
Yeah, thank you so much. This was fun.
