Understanding Research Engine Optimization and Its Impact on SEO with Shama Hyder

0:08Hello and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantz and my guest today is Shama Heider. She's a visionary strategist for the digital age, a web and TV personality, best-selling author, and award-winning CEO of Zen Media, a global marketing and digital PR firm. She's a best-selling author of The Zen of Social Media Marketing, now in its fourth edition, and Momentum, How to Propel Your Marketing and Transform Your Brand in the Digital Age. So Shama, welcome to the show. Thanks, John. Pleasure to be here. It's been a while. I haven't seen you for a long time.

0:43I know you were on with probably with the zen of social media marketing, but I actually asked you to be on the show because it was sparked by a post you did on LinkedIn where you talked about a topic that I think is starting to get more buzz, but it's still a fairly relatively new term. And that's REO, not the band. I'm old enough to have had a band called REO Speedwagon playing at my prom, but that's not what we're going to talk about. REO, well, let's, just to get into it, you know, in your own words, SEO versus REO, what are the difference? What's the difference between those two terms? Yeah, so REO, this is just something, you know, I made a whole chart and had fun with it.

1:26But I call it sort of recommendation engine optimization, right? Where I think, so SEO, obviously, as you know, search engine optimization. So that's not going away, by the way. Search engines are still here. They're evolving and so forth. But what I'm really, you know, curious about and explore, like exploring really with our clients and having these conversations and is this broader idea that now search engines aren't the gateway that they used to be. Right. And that's not just because of the I multiple things and we can get into that. But so I'm thinking about search engines now as a subset of sort of greater discovery rate on on the Internet.

2:03And so it goes from, that's why I'm calling it recommendation engine optimization, which is sort of this broader umbrella term, and then the specific types of optimization and channels that fall under it. Well, and you know, it's interesting. I mean, I think we've had this since the advent of, say, Google reviews or even social media. I mean, we've had people going to other places to get recommendations, right? And not just turning to search engines. There were certain things search engines could never really produce a very good recommendation for. I think the suggestion here is that all of these things are kind of coalescing around some new tools that are going to make it even easier, right?

2:41I mean, that we can actually collect all these things in one place. Is that kind of the idea that like we're bringing together all the places people can recommend? And so then the implication is we as marketers have to find ways to optimize that new behavior? You're right. So historically, it was never just like people finding things to search engines, right? So there have always been other mediums, meaning even picking up the phone and calling your buddy for a recommendation, that's still a different way to discover something. What's happened now, I think more so than ever before, is the scale and speed at which we're using different tools.

3:20So before, search engines still controlled the majority. And the way I think about this, John, is that they were the discovery engine. So it's like you were trying to find something and you started with your search engine to find that topic, research that. Your research kind of began there. What's really interesting is now what we're seeing, even with Zen Media, with clients, with different, we have a lot of data, too, that we analyze and look at, which is wonderful. B2B, a lot of tech, even B2C clients. And you see the similar patterns where search engines aren't necessarily the gateway that they used to be, but more the portal for finding that brand that you've been hearing about.

4:02So it's very interesting to see kind of that, you know, where their discovery engines to now, I guess, they are in many ways like the gateway or the portal to find the website URL that you're looking for. Right, right, right. Phone number. Yeah. An example would be, you know, someone's listening to this, right? This podcast. and you talk about something on here, John, and you highlight something, and then they hear, you know, then they go back and they're in their Slack channel talking to their team, and someone posts a link to a similar concept, and they start seeing it more and more places, right?

4:34So it's not just sort of a one. And then they're like, what is this company that I keep hearing about? Then they go to Google or their search engine and they look for it. And so it's a very different way of finding information and, or, you know, WhatsApp groups, obviously. So there are, you're right in that there is a convergence of dark social. There is a convergence of AI platforms coming to play. And there's also just the generational changes, right? Workforce changes. Like I don't think people realize that in 2024, there are now more Gen Zers in the workforce than baby boomers. Yeah, you millennials are old farts now, right?

5:12The majority of the workforce as is. But there is something that happens when a new generation, right? becomes the majority than the existing. So obviously that's going to also cause some shifts. So there is a convergence of these three sort of factors, which is leading to what I call these new rules of influence. Or in this specific case, we're talking about recommendation engine optimization or how do people discover your brand? And that's really the broader question. And I think that will change. It's not just going to be... And John, we've been around long enough to know like when it was keyword stuffing, right.

5:50And you could game the search engines. Well, in fact, you had, because that was the only place that people would go. You had to do that. Right. You didn't exist, you know, in the first sort of world of digital, if you weren't, you know, on page one of, you know, Google. Yeah. You know, 1.0 was keyword stuffing, right. SEO 2.0 was where we're like, Oh, you have to actually care about users and create good content and all these things. And so it's definitely had a trajectory. And I think it's going to continue to go in this direction where you can't rely on search engines. And that's the other thing.

6:25I think over-reliance on any one channel, I think that's sort of the broader message here, is what's going to get marketers and brands in trouble. Well, in fact, you mentioned generational. I have some Gen Z employees and they will turn to Discord communities as their first place to go searching, you know, rather than a search engine. And, you know, that behavior, we can talk a little bit about dark social. That behavior is not really even being captured or measured, I think at the level that it's going on. So, so explain what dark social is just in case somebody hasn't heard that term and how you see that plan a role in this.

7:01Yeah. So dark social is very interesting. And, you know, your example, your micro example was perfect john if you've got gen z employees where their starting point is discord where so many people are like discord we don't even touch that what is discord right it's like a whole different world for so many folks so dark social the concept is basically this and by the way this term was coined in 2014 so it's not a new the term is not new and it's funny because you see a lot of these terms that were coined like in 2014 in 2011 even like google's you know zero moment of truth and stuff that are now you see it and it's because it required sort of a tipping point it required right right scale to be right and so dark social is basically this idea that the simplest explanation that i can provide is that we're we consume publicly but we share privately and that's very different than the internet of yesteryear so when like facebook first came out for example gosh you could have a page about anything you could have a page on you know i love donuts with sprinkles and get like a million likes overnight because people are so excited to engage in the internet with the internet in this money there's a certain novelty factor that exists yeah now that's forward and that novelty factor has turned into this weariness that we all feel i think around internet and digital and it's it can be draining right and so what happens is we are still consuming all this information, but that novelty of liking and leaving comments and so forth goes away.

8:34And so a lot of what happens is in dark channels. So for example, when I posted this thing about REO on LinkedIn, John, I can't remember if you left a comment or not, or if you just sent me a DM saying, Hey, this would be a cool topic to chat about. And so that's a great example of dark social emotion. It happens all the time for me. I get way more DMs on my posts than I do actual comments because that's just how people engage, right? So that is dark social in a nutshell. It's that we are consuming publicly, but we are sharing privately. And to your point, you can't track that. Yeah. So I guess, can you give me an example of how somebody, if we're saying people need to be optimizing recommendation engines, and I'm out there doing marketing in the traditional sense, I mean, what are some examples, case studies, or however you want to present it of how I would do that.

9:26Yeah. So let's break it down a little bit, right? So when I say recommendation engine optimization, I was looking at it in four categories and I called it tree because I really do think it reminds me of like a tree visual. The first is you still have your traditional search engine. So that's like your traditional search engine optimization. You're still getting traffic. Although if you look at even the experience, Google doesn't have pages anymore. You just have this incredible scroll, which can be a little exhausting. Depends on what device you're on, depends on where you're located when you're doing the search.

9:58I mean, it's crazy. Totally. And then you see if you search on desktop, you have tabs called perspectives. So, you know, they've talked about how experiences matter so much. So now they have perspective. And for big, it's interesting, they now have a tab for layoffs. So when someone, like, so they have now changed. So even traditional search engine is changing. But let's just say that, like, Here's your traditional search in an optimization box. Then you have what I call rented channel optimization, which is social, right? A good example of this is our buddy Rand Fishkin and SparkToro. They do a lot on LinkedIn, on social channels, like rented channel optimization.

10:37And so many people discover their things through Rand's posts or their team does videos and so forth. So they are optimizing the rented channels, right? The third, I call that earned media. So earned media, yes, traditional PR, but also digital. And basically it's who vouches for you becomes incredibly important. And guess what? These are the same things that Chad GPT looks at. You know, SEO for Google and stuff for the longest time said, oh, yeah, you know, first they kind of denied, no, none of the, you know, we don't look at these things. Then they said, yes, it matters. And now, of course, they say like, yes, it's hugely important.

11:15expertise, experience, you know, their EAT model, right? Authority, trustworthiness. Well, how do you establish experience, expertise, authority, and trust? Earned media is a big part of it. It's who's getting quoted in the media, these podcasts, like all of it, right? And so it's interesting because we now also have dual identities in many ways or multiple hats because, John, as I talk to you right now, in many ways, in a traditional world, you would be considered a journalist, right? It's like, but it's one hat you wear now as a podcaster, as a curator. And so looking at earned media and investing in it becomes very important.

11:54So that is another channel that you want to think about how you're optimizing. And then the last but not least is emerging media. So that is voice, which I, by the way, I think Alexa did us all a disservice in a little bit because it was just, you know, it's still clunky, especially when you compare it to chat GPT. But think about the next iteration. So voice, chat GPT, discord, I would also put in this sort of emerging media channel base, right? And so these are the things that I think you have to look at beyond just traditional search engines. Where do we show up? How do we show up? Because look, I mean, and I just posted about this today, it takes 27 to 32 touch points for someone to go from prospect to buyer, like to 32 touch points.

12:40And if you think those touch points are happening just through search engines, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think that, gosh, I wish, right? Because it'd be so much easier, but no, look, I think this channel fragmentation that began really with the advent of the internet is continuing more and more. Yeah. And that's not always, that's not always great news for brands. Like they don't want to always hear that. But more work. Yeah. Yeah. So how do you, and, and I mean, we're all guessing, right. When we talk about what's going to happen next, but how do you see search changing? I mean, because I think the traditional search engine model, you know, is not going to be able to stay put.

13:25We're all getting used to being able to put in a prompt. I'm going to Italy next week, and I'm going to go to these three cities, and I'm going to be with these four people, types of people or ages, and, you know, give me an itinerary. And like getting that kind of like just conversational info. Do you see a day when that's what a search engine in general does? It already is, right, John, to many degrees. Like Like if you put in, and Google start even before ChatGPT, if you put in, for example, weather in Miami, right? It would just give you the answer. Or if you say, you know, right, like we could choose almost anything and put something in there.

14:04And Google will first give you the answer and then it'll give you all the stuff if you want to go through and find more. And so this is called snippets, right? So anybody who's been in SEO or snippets was introduced way before ChatGPT. this is just an evolution of that and that's why i think you know boy it's going to be so interesting to watch because yes i think anybody who's been like think about anybody who depended on social media ads in the last few years right like that cost of acquisition was so cheap and now it's gone through the roof and i think that's something that we'll all have to contend with and rather than make sort of excuses i think this hurts marketers too by the way where we don't just own up and say, yes, you know what?

14:46Cost of acquisition for customers is higher than it used to be. Like that is a truth. Like inflation is a reality. The idea that it costs more to go after and get buyers. Absolutely. It's just the truth. You know, I talked to a prospect the other day and they were looking at it and they're, we're looking at their Google AdWords and stuff. And they were like, I don't understand, man. It was, you know, five years ago, we had just, We were killing it. Like, you know, what could we do? What could we be doing differently? And it's like, look, are there things you could be doing differently? Sure, right?

15:20There's always ways for efficiency and effectiveness. But if you're comparing to five years ago, of course it's going to be more expensive. The early days of AdWords, I mean, I would get 22 cent clicks. It was amazing. Yeah, can't wait to tell our grandkids about that one day, John. Like, oh, I remember when those clicks were doing it. And you know what they're going to say to us, right? They're going to say what clicks. Yeah. What's a click? Yeah. Yeah. What's a, what's Google? What's a browser? No question. So I don't know. I was going to say, this is the last question I was going to pose or last topic, but this is such a big one.

15:56How do you see the whole idea of privacy of, you know, we talked about generational differences, you know, generational different, you know, have different views of privacy when it comes to what they're doing online. How do you see that? AI is playing a part of that. Dark social is playing a part of that. Everything people are doing already through, say, email. What privacy and data seems like it's a piece of this puzzle that everybody likes to talk about, but people are really having trouble coming to any kind of conclusions on? So it is very fascinating. And you're right. There are certain generational differences.

16:34I think so there's a couple of things at play, right? One of them is that we are happy to trade some amount of our data for convenience. I mean, we do it all the time. Like when you call an Uber or a Lyft or ride sharing service, you're giving them a lot of data about you, right? But you're doing it to say, yeah, look, get me a ride and keep me safe. So like I want you to have my data. You can match that and whatnot. So we are giving people, we are willingly trading. And we always have always historically traded some amount of our data for convenience. That's always going to be a trade off. And when you are younger, I think that seems like an easier trade off.

17:14Like you choose convenience more. As you get older, I think that you start to question that a little bit more. Again, these are just sort of generational, you know, kind of very broad stroke speaking. But I think more importantly is that as the novelty of the internet wears off, our appetite for giving up our privacy lessens more and more. So like, it's, I'm not, before, you know, remember those days, Dawn, when people would just give you like their email address, right? Like that was a very quick, it got a lot harder to get people's email address. I mean, you just have to look at all the backlash against gated content.

17:55You're like, why do I give you anything? And then you have plugins that will fill in with fake data just so you can. So people have found all these ways around gated content and so forth. And yeah, I think that's what happens is there is our appetite for giving our data up lessons as more content, you know, content grows. But that novelty wears off. It's like, yeah. And this is the other thing to think about, you know, when you're the only, when you're the only shop in town or you're the only one that has the report or I can get that data, great. Like, right? Supply demand. Like, let's think business basics here.

18:33But now if you have a, if you have a report coming out on something and guess what? 10 other companies have a report on that. If you, if I have to give you my blood type to get that, but company X over here, I'll just go get that. And what stops someone from pulling a PDF or something and sharing it again in a Slack channel or Teams with their entire team, right? And so, again, that's sort of dark social at play. So there are, there's quite a few factors all coming together. But yeah, I think this battle for privacy and you think you add deep fakes to it. I mean, this is going to be the biggest challenge, I believe, of the next generation.

19:17will be disinformation. Yeah, no question, 100%. Well, this is an emerging topic that we could probably bat around for hours, but we've come to the end of the show. Is there some place that you would invite people to connect with you to find out more about your work? Yeah, I'd love to say hi on LinkedIn. That's my social home. I hang out there. And if you're curious about, you know, more about what we do, then you can definitely check out zenmedia.com. Awesome. Well, again, appreciate you taking a few moments So stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days soon out there on the road.