Is AI Enhancing Human Connection? Ep. 586

Hi, welcome back to another Front Field episode of the Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. I am your host, Matt Bertram. This podcast is really a continuation of the last podcast. I'm recording it back to back. So if you liked the last podcast, great. Keep listening. If you didn't, wait for my next one. And if you're new to this podcast, a lot of these podcasts are great to binge listen to, especially say listen to the one previous because it kind of is the prequel to this podcast, if you will. Really, I've kind of started a little bit of a series or some kind of thought leadership, I guess. I don't know. Not a lot of people are talking about it. A lot of people are talking about what you can do with AI. I'm really trying to understand what it means and how it's going to affect search online and how people connect. Search engine optimization, SEO, what this podcast is about is super important. It's really about algorithms. It's really about how to give the user, how to give the visitor, how to give somebody on the other side of it, the absolute best thing they're looking for through different kind of signals and algorithms with Google to give the person the best personal or best perfect answer to what they're looking for. Each algorithm actually on a standard deviation bell curve for every keyword combination, there's actually something that's an absolute perfect score. And what you're trying to do with search engine optimization is you're trying to, well, answer that specific question, but you can't write a new page about every single question. Now, Google is jumping into the pages, the position zero, and is looking at what's on the pages and pulling out that exact answer. So you actually could now, I guess, have a page and then on the page answering multiple questions and Google's indexing that page and able to pull that answer and deliver it to somebody. But there is one perfect answer based on the algorithms for everything. And

no one knows what that exact perfect answer is. And what we're trying to do is we're trying to make our answer the most perfect out of every other answer. And there's a lot more things getting indexed. Things are taking a lot longer to kind of show back up. Google's taking a lot longer to go around the mountain to index everything. Back in the day, everything was indexed like super quick, but so much content's being created. You got to be really thoughtful of what you're creating. And then when Google comes back, you need to make sure, well, your website doesn't have any errors because those spiders will leave if it can't easily skate through your website. And this is stuff that I've gone into in past podcasts. So if I'm talking too fast here, go check out maybe some of our older podcasts. We have 500 and something of them. But yeah, so search is changing. Information's getting bigger, but the goal is still the same. Everything goes back to giving the person the best possible answer of what they're looking for. Okay. So let's maybe get into the topic here because there's a lot of stuff I could really go on about. And I like to share that with y'all and I love the comments, but I know a lot of people are here to get the real meat out of this. And so let me pull this over so I'm not talking away from the mic, but AI and human connection, right? Or the AI human connection is kind of changing the landscape. And I'll go into this more maybe in a later podcast. Maybe this becomes a series. I don't know. I've been doing a lot of blogging on our site. I've coined it the digital disruptor. I'm just having fun with it. Writing for other publications, they're pretty limiting on what you can write about, what you can talk about, what they allow you to say. Everything to me is becoming pretty bland out there and I'm not getting the real meat

of what I'm looking for. I don't think people are telling you what's really needed to rank. And I think that's what people are looking for. Unfortunately, I would say do the real work. What does that mean? Well, understand how people are searching and build out content in a way that takes them to the next step of that customer journey. You can't just throw a bunch of stuff together and then move on to the next thing. And so SEO is not scalable like it used to be. And also it's about the quality of the content and the quality of the content means there needs to be some TLC in what you're putting out there. And it needs to be really thoughtful. And it's funny, as hard as people work, the last thing they look at is what the first thing that people are seeing online is, is their website and how that presents itself with, well, mobile. And we've been guilty of that. And that's really something that trying to drink our own Kool-Aid and present that sometimes it's kind of cobbler's kids have no shoes. If any of you know what that means, it's like, you're always working on client stuff and you need to work on your own stuff. And also if you have a small business out there and you're not like one of the, a lot of the marketers that, that listen to the show and agencies you need to look at what you're putting out there and what people are connecting with and what your unique selling proposition is. And I would say, go back to the basics of understanding how to connect with people online. Now, stage right entry. I don't know. I don't know what the analogy is, but inter AI, right? And AI just helps everyone do everything better. I mean, it's kind of like grammarly on steroids. Grammarly just helped you write better. Um, it should be a assistant to what you're trying to do. Uh, it shouldn't replace what you're trying to do. I've even seen,

uh, some data with the degradation of models that are out there. Um, you know, AI is trying to read what, well, other AI and, and then it kind of degradates the models. I would tell you, I don't know Elon Musk. I don't, um, you know, never talked to him. I've watched a lot of his stuff. I do like him. Um, I think he's a smart dude. I think probably, and I'm totally guessing here. The reason he bought Twitter, uh, is to get all the bots out of that and get the real data. And for those of you that don't know, he actually was one of the key figures in starting open AI. Uh, he recruited, uh, the, the really the top person that made all that happen. And in a lot of respects, they might be further along, uh, than Google in some aspects. And, uh, you know, at least from Elon Musk perspective, he said that, uh, certainly Google's been doing it a long time and they've been really, um, stepping it up, um, recently. And there's a lot of really smart people there. And I think I heard a story about Elon Musk and Sergey Brin used to be friends and, you know, Elon Musk felt like there shouldn't be, um, a monopoly on creating a super intelligence. And that's why he started open AI. And then now Microsoft came in, put $10 billion plus whatever. Uh, and, um, it's just, you know, so we've got two giants now and, uh, Elon Musk talks about, well, if this is an existential risk, uh, and these AIs have passed the turn tests and are getting very, very smart. And, and really it's taking like different kinds of AI, uh, data sets and combining them and seeing what they learn. Really, really interesting stuff. I'm super fascinated with it. Uh, I had a friend actually, he's been doing AI stuff for a long time. He's really in the trading space. Uh, and he sold a couple of algorithms to Goldman Sachs, et cetera. Um, that

is not a game for anybody that is not in the game. Um, it is very, very tough, uh, with, you know, you're competing against AI and algorithms and charts and everything like that. So again, tangent, I'll bring it back. But, um, yeah, so Elon Musk, I think bought Twitter. He's going to combine that with a lot of the other data he has, but he wanted to get all the bots out of it to get the real human data. Uh, and, and I do think he's probably going to try to start another AI company. And, and he said, the only way to stop an AI company is probably with another AI because the AIs are 10 times smarter than us. And they're going to be like, they're going to be just so far, uh, beyond us. And, and a lot of these, um, interviews that I've watched of some of the main people, even, uh, I think it was deep mind, the guy that left it, uh, he's going around on a podcast tour and he's sounding the alarm. And these people are saying, we don't know what's going to happen in six months, like five years. What are you going to be in five years? What's happening in five years? They're like, we don't know what's going to happen in six months. And so, yeah, so that's a super interesting topic. I'm more interested in how it connects with humans and how AI is going to, uh, at is the advent or adjunct to, to what's going on with human connection and how it's kind of really raising the bar and helps you better articulate what you're trying to say and certainly more eloquently articulate. I mean, here's some of the topics. I mean, personalization AI with personalization has been a big thing. Um, how to, well, amplify those personal experiences, uh, you know, one to many, um, but like where you, where, uh, if you have an email list, it puts their name on the email, right? So you can send an individual email

to every person. Uh, you can even customize it to, um, things that maybe it filled out a form online or something that you put in a CRM. Uh, there's a lot of ways to personalize what's going on. And I was using a little bot, I think it was called birthday buddy or something like that on Facebook. And, uh, for a long time, uh, it would rotate through giving everybody a happy birthday. Um, and it made sure every one of my connections was, was well wished a happy birthday. Cause I, you know, anybody I was connected to, maybe I was too busy, but like I was connected to him for a reason. I had met him at some point in my life. And so, so I really liked that. And so there's a lot of ways to personalize what people are doing and make somebody feel special. Uh, and I think a lot of people want to create for people, uh, and really have positive reasons to do that, but they're just so busy doing other things. I would even say that plays into chatbots and virtual assistants. Now, you know, people have offshored recently, and there's a lot of call centers in a lot of areas of the world. And there's a lot of people that listen to this podcast from all over the place. I would tell you, I am concerned for major call centers outside the world. I think that some of these chatbots and virtual assistants can, as they continue to do more and more sophisticated things, there's less of a need for a physical person to do it. And so I think that these chatbots and virtual assistants are going to start really replacing people. Not only that, um, in social media, um, you know, AI helps personalize the content feeds and it can help with community building and social interactions. And, uh, I'm planning on starting a Facebook group. And, you know, one of the big things that I want to do is create that experience and that messaging, uh,

to someone that joins the group. And, and you can build all that in, in a pretext. And then through some of the AI, you can even personalize it and customize it to them. And, uh, you know, one of the things I have a buddy, it, it, it hasn't, haven't, it hasn't happened yet, but I'm going to take all the logs that I've written. I'm going to take all the podcasts that we've done, anything about me online, we're going to scrape it and we're going to feed it into a bot. And then we're going to have that bot in the Facebook group. So you can ask me a bunch of questions and if I've ever answered the question before, I'm going to be able to give you an answer as bots. So that's going to be pretty cool. Um, AI is finding its way into healthcare, like telemedicine, like think about it. Um, you know, you used to use a MedMD or whatever, right? MedMD has got to transform their business. I would tell you also what I've seen is the big businesses with the big moats, um, when a disruptive technology comes in, they need to snap up some of these companies or get involved or develop them themselves. It's hard for them to sometimes move. Uh, but if they don't, they're going to get replaced. It's almost kind of like a, what is it? Uh, Netflix to blockbuster situation here with AI. So, um, you know, also AI can help foster doctor patient relationships and healthcare access. So there's, there's a lot of interesting stuff there. I think the biggest thing, and I did talk about this in the last podcast is, you know, people are pretty lonely, especially since COVID. And, uh, also like in therapy, like emotional AI and helping, uh, understand the emotions you're having, helping you solve stuff. I mean, AI is probably know more about us than we know about ourselves. Uh, and then think about if you can input that data, um, what it teaches you. I don't

know if you've ever sat there in front of a, you know, chat duty or something like that, and just talk to it and like ask it questions and, um, really insightful stuff. Now, the biggest thing is like, is there any biases in, in those answers, but you're going to be able to build your own data sets. And you can actually do that now, where you can start putting in, uh, different books and different topics, uh, and, and say, Hey, uh, what is, you know, like make connections between these things and give, give me an answer. And I think that that's really cool. I think, uh, AI enhanced learning is going to be amazing. Um, I think it's going to help a lot of people teach, think about having a personal tutor, right. Um, or your kids, uh, having a personal tutor, uh, and, and how that's going to open up access to help people learn better with maybe speech, um, or, uh, OT occupational therapy for kids, um, for, for anything for learning and the access to a greater amount of technology. And again, there's a lot of these ethical concerns that are associated with these things, but man, I think it's, it's, it's really going to be interesting. And so a lot of people are like, Hey, I, I, I, um, I am, you know, like, I think it's going to change everything. I really do. So I understand why people are doing that. I'm trying to understand. Um, because the, again, you see that the topics are so broad. Um, where, where do I fit in? Where, where do marketers fit in? Um, well, this is what I'll tell you. And this is what I'll try to end on here is that we are the representatives right now to, um, well, I, I wrote an article called the language of AI is SEO. And, um, I think that we are, if you're doing SEO, we are the closest thing to communicating, uh, with AI and letting, and sending the signals and, and, and

trying to have that conversation. And the, the, the internal links and the backlinks and the, uh, well forward links, um, are helping, well, tell a story, tell a conversation to build this kind of hive mind of human knowledge and to provide the absolute best answer. I mean, when we get the chips in our brain or whatever, uh, we're going to be able to recall this information and there's probably right. One best answer. We're getting to the, what is it? The, uh, event horizon, right? Uh, there's one best answer to, to everything. And, and you want to be the subject matter area in that area. And so what SEO is, I believe are have an immense responsibility, uh, as the representatives or advocates or, uh, online, I guess, representatives like a PR representative or like an agent. I actually think it's like an agent, like these businesses hire companies to represent them online and to tell their story. And I think that it's a lot more difficult than people think it is. Um, and, and I think you need to really think about, uh, who you want to align yourself with, who do you trust, who knows your business well enough to, um, communicate to the public what it is you're about and who you are. And if you start thinking about search engine optimization like that, and you started thinking about your agency or your market or your representative like that again on social media as well, you know, cheaper is not always better. Right. Um, you know, you want to look for that experience. You want to look for those ethics. Uh, you want, uh, to know that, well, the algorithm never forgets. Okay. Um, things that you post online, uh, example of that things you post on Facebook when you were in college or even the kids growing up now, it's all going to be out there. It's never going to be erased. And so you need to know who your representative is going to be and, um, make sure that they understand

what you're trying to communicate. And if they're not doing a good job, uh, or they don't check the box and a number of areas, go find somebody that is, because I think this is a big deal. Um, and, and I think that there's a bridge here between, uh, the human connection and the AI and the people that understand how that connection works. Uh, and I think AI's are a lot of, or sorry, SEO's, SEO's are a lot of it, uh, to help bridge that gap. And so, um, I don't know. I just, I just think this is a really, really important topic. And I know that this is a little bit different format than we've usually done. And I will do another podcast, uh, here quickly that is the old format. So anybody that is hearing this and doesn't like this or, uh, whatever, um, you know, I'll still have that for the way we've always done it and probably take this a different direction. I am doing a lot of, uh, coaching and kind of closed group settings. Um, and where we get into some of this stuff and you can get really deep on how to do SEO to really connect and guess what? Guess what? It ranks so much better than what everybody else is doing. So, uh, understanding the strategy, uh, and understanding how to approach these things. Then when you put the tactics in, uh, you can execute. And, and so, uh, I gotta, gosh, I'll pull it up next time for all you that are watching on YouTube. But, um, I mean, I have a client that for five years, it was just like the steady increased up. They've been doing SEO for a long time. You know, I'm sure they had a great agency. And then we came on and we've started to implement some of these strategies that I'm talking about now, kind of from this, uh, reference or frame of reference. Right. And I'm going to tell you, we tripled their traffic and like, I don't

know, two months. Yeah. Triple their traffic. And they had a decent amount of traffic. And it's just like this flat line for those you think about it or see you're listening. And then it just shoots just straight up. Okay. Because guess what? That's what the algorithms really good to do is to find people that are actually having real conversation that are writing things online that are opening themselves up that are genuine and sharing something and trying to connect with people. The algorithm is hungry for that. And if it finds somebody that's doing that, that is a expert, um, uh, in what they're talking about, Google will rank you. And that's what this is about. It's not that hard. Don't worry about all the different algorithms. Certainly there's some best practices to stay on top of, but if you understand what you're trying to do and what good looks like, then it's, it's really easy to, well, do that. Well, it's actually really hard to do that because you actually got to do the real work. Um, and it's very hard to outsource that as well. Um, and that's why SEO is not scalable. And that's why not a lot of agencies do it or don't do it well. Um, because it's so tailored to, uh, what you're trying to communicate and whoever you're bringing on to do that is your representative. So, uh, we'll go ahead and end there. Um, and, uh, maybe, uh, next, next episode, we'll talk about SEO local and, and, uh, how to get that rank to the maps. Cause also how people are searching online has completely changed. And again, everybody's underwater to the point that some people for certain industries are not going below the maps because Google well wants to sell ads. And so there's a lot of ads and the, you know, unlimited scrolling. Um, now they're able to add more ads. And so they've been changing where the organic placement is. I still think organic, so about 50% of search, but 50% of the other searches,

the maps and is the ads. And so, um, you really need to understand that SEO is a tool in the tool belt. Uh, but maps is so important if you're a geographically located business, uh, those reviews, um, people don't understand this and I'll go into this next podcast, but the maps and SEO local, that's actually a whole different search engine. Uh, it's kind of like YouTube is a whole different search engine. YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world. Uh, and Google owns that too. And so they wrap all this together in something called universal search. And, um, you know, you need to be proficient in, in all these things because people search differently. So until the next time, uh, if you're looking to grow your, uh, brand product service business with the largest, most powerful tool on the planet, utilize the internet and then supplement it with some AI. Uh, and you will have success. Uh, if you'd like to reach out to us to find out more, how we can help you, um, EWR digital.com bestseopodcast.com stuff's in the show notes. Find me on LinkedIn. Uh, and, uh, until the next time, bye bye for now.