PPCChat | Finding Leads & Building Your Brand in Today’s Social Landscape | 21st January 2025

Significant changes have occurred in the social media landscape recently, making brand-building through these channels more challenging. How are experts using channels to build their brand and/or find business? Have the recent shifts in social media impacted their strategies for 2025? What are their main priorities for brand development? These and more were discussed by host Julie F Bacchini during this week’s PPCChat session.

Q1: Do you use social media to either build your brand and/or find business or leads? If so, which platform(s) do you use?

I do for both. I use: Twitter, LinkedIn, Threads and Bluesky. @NeptuneMoon

YES! LinkedIn & Twitter and it’s been working wonders for me. @BorisBeceric

Yes to both. I use Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. I also sometimes use Reddit and Instagram. I just got on Bluesky but not sure how to find my old Twitter network there. @revaminkoff

I’m very active on LinkedIn. And started aggressively using BlueSky.TikTok and Instagram were used but no longer. X same story. @navahhopkins

@revaminkoff I forgot about Reddit. @NeptuneMoon

Other than having my LI profile somewhat optimized, I don’t really do anything on social to build my personal brand. I’ve been consulting for 6 years and at this point, word of mouth drives my business along with getting cold messages from random companies on LinkedIn.I don’t do any outbound or brand building through content, although I do plan to do a lot more outreach this year to my network to help sell services for my colleagues. @Austin_Dillman

Reddit has never produced for me. Besides content ideas. @BorisBeceric

I’m trying to be more active on YouTube. @navahhopkins

I don’t do a lot to build my own personal brand honestly, but I do use LinkedIn to look for more work when I have availability. Also just to keep in touch with old friends who I have had the great fortune to work with in my lifetime so far. @lchasse

Used X and LinkedIn in the past. I use X the most for consumption & for the latest.LinkedIn – I intend to resume this year. @alimehdimukadam

I have thought about working on my personal brand more and to do that, I do feel like YouTube would be the place to do that. @lchasse

Yes for my personal brand, yes for my clients brands. @JuliaVyse

I am doing my best to lean into LinkedIn for my personal brand. @jord_stark

I’m on Linkedin, but have found it difficult to build my audience on Twitter/X. Each platform demands a unique approach & sometimes I find it difficult finding my voice there. @DiiPooler

Q2: Have you found using social media to be helpful in either building your brand and/or finding business or leads? If so, how? And if not, why not?

Definitely – it helps stay top of mind. @revaminkoff

Social has been huge for me in building my brand and my expertise credibility. As for business and lead generation, it is much more meh, especially lately. @NeptuneMoon

Absolutely! That said, different channels have different tones. I tend to do better on channels where there is a professional undercurrent. @navahhopkins

The biggest deal of my life was through a cold DM I received on LinkedIn a couple years back. It was completely inbound and I wasn’t working on building a brand per se then. It works for sure. I feel like the building personal brand is a treadmill if we approach it that way. Especially the like/comment/share game to gain exposure. @alimehdimukadam

Yes to both. For me being active on LI directly correlates with business. It’s not like people reac to posts and then slide in your DMs . It’s more like decision-makers will lurk and note who’s relevant and knows what they’re doing. Then, once they’re ready to buy, they drop you a message. So yes, being top of mind is big. @BorisBeceric

Yes! LinkedIn is a great way to contact folks who you have worked with in the past to see if they need help with their brands. It is also just a good friend to do to check up on old friends, so you get a double bonus. @lchasse

I’ll be the grump in the room. I worked hard on social for a long time, focusing on Twitter, back when being loud on Twitter was supposed to be the way to grow your clout in the industry. Couldn’t even get a polite hello at conferences, except in extremely rare cases. @ferkungamaboobo

I find I have gotten more podcast invites and public speaking gigs off of my LinkedIn work than any other channel. That said, it’s supported by my regular contributions to other publications. @navahhopkins

@navahhopkins 100% the case for me as well. @BorisBeceric

I got three leads in one day off a LinkedIn post last week – they were all people with some connection to me, but I think it just added urgency/put me top of mind too. @revaminkoff

Which is to say that real social goes FAR further than social media. @ferkungamaboobo

Not really. It’s likely due to the nature of my business, as holdcos tend to respond to public RFPs and a more formal environment. But I do get speaking requests and podcast guest opportunities that way. @JuliaVyse

Regarding which “personalities” get “chosen” I believe there is a bias towards anti platform perspectives or people who have worked at software companies so there’s data to share. @navahhopkins

I will say that reach on most platforms has really gone done, at least for me, in the last 3-4 months. I should clarify too that this happens more on business posts than non-business posts. @NeptuneMoon

It’s rare to see purely positive people who are agency or in-house for non-household names get picked. @navahhopkins

@navahhopkins Yes, this makes sense, they love data and having personalities folks know and recognize are going to help with their traffic vs. random folks who are not as well known in the industry or may not have a good amount of data to share. @lchasse

Right but everyone on this thread could be a personality. But they don’t get picked or recognized because politics of selection committees or other factors. @navahhopkins

This is why efforts to help new voices be heard is so important! We have help here through PPC Chat if you want to pitch to speak at conferences. And if you want to write a post on the site, I am always accepting pitches for that too! @NeptuneMoon

I have passed personally, but that falls on me not doing much of my own brand building over the years, except the folks I have met either in real life or online. @lchasse

LinkedIn is a decent source of inbound leads for me, but not from anything special I’m doing in terms of content creation or personal brand building. @Austin_Dillman

I was actually just trying to figure out where to apply to be a speaker for a bunch of the conferences coming up… but it also seems like it’ll be harder to get started in speaking more. @revaminkoff

Check out Women in Tech SEO, Innovation Women, and Speaker Lineup. Links to pitch events are usually open now for end of year. @navahhopkins

Not really, but it’s probably because I’m such a lurker as is. @JuliaVyse

I’m very introverted & not very “salesy” so social media has helped businesses & other professionals find me and reach out – which has been amazing! I want to have a collaborative relationship, not one where I need to poach or convince anyone. @DiiPooler

Q3: Have any of the recent changes on social platforms (Meta dropping fact checking or TikTok being banned and unbanned for example) changed your social media plans for 2025?

I am participating in the Meta boycott and deleted TikTok from my phone. I’m taking stock of my meta addiction and it’s informing the likelihood that I’ll fully withdraw from those channels (discord and slack are great replacements for WhatsApp) @navahhopkins

For me it’s less about any top-down changes and more about audience changes. X became a ghost town. Facebook never was the place for business. LinkedIn has always been a very weird kind of corporate glurge. For my clients, I’m suggesting less and less social-centric strategies, but it’s important to be there, obviously. @ferkungamaboobo

The only thing I post on Meta these days is my wildlife photography. I’ve never used TikTok – hate it personally. Not really into IG. I only use X to follow sports conversations about my favourite teams, but these days, I’m using Reddit for that. Just not a fan of social media for the most part. I’m getting old and would rather spend time outside. @Austin_Dillman

I deleted TikTok, X and Threads. Now on Bluesky. @JeffreyHain

Meta includes WhatsApp. And Instagram obviously. @navahhopkins

Twitter is where a lot of PPC Chat people still are, but the reach there is in the toilet for me.LinkedIn used to be huge in reach for me and now it is a tiny fraction of what it was last year. I cannot get any real business traction on Threads. Bluesky the jury is still out on. Love having this Slack and our Discord. @NeptuneMoon

Honestly, I have slowed my own use of platforms a lot. I probably would not have some accounts if I did not need them for running brand ads. If family was not on Meta, I probably would never post there, but they are so everyone in the family can keep in touch as well as some of my friends who live in other states, etc…For me honestly it is a time vs. opportunity thing. If I was getting a lot of business or value, I would be posting a lot. @lchasse

See it’s interesting – I found that the quality of LinkedIn started to deteriorate as X became a porn site. And Meta/TikTok has continued the erosion. @navahhopkins

I am taking part in the Meta boycott and have deleted Meta from my phone. I was never on TikTok in the first place, so certainly not going to start now. I agree with @navahhopkins that doing this has made me realize I am probably more addicted to social media than I’d like to be, and will likely change my long-term habits. @revaminkoff

I think we’re all missing the LLM boom as a cause of social media rot. @ferkungamaboobo

Until Bluesky becomes big, I won’t create another account that takes my time. I may just be getting old, but just swapping one time sink for another if the value is not there is really not worth the time and energy. @lchasse

@lchasse Family on Facebook and What’s App, so stuck there also. @JeffreyHain

The things that are really useful on Meta are still really useful – but there is so much other junk on there that it keeps trying to serve me… and it’s hard. @revaminkoff

I opted out of allowing Meta to use any off site data about me and the ads I get now are wild. @NeptuneMoon

@ferkungamaboobo what functionality in an LLM are you thinking could help with connecting with humans? @navahhopkins

I have plans for YouTube & LinkedIn.X will be business as usual. Bluesky – not so sure. Every platform will ultimately drift towards a pay to play model.Newsletters/Substack is also where I am keeping an eye on – not a lot of marketing peeps there. The quality is good. @alimehdimukadam

To finish the thought: I’m of two minds on the LLM boom being a cause.

1. 99.9999999% of industry stuff on social was always low-effort spam.
2. That so much of content strategy could be replaced by things not written by humans and not to be read by humans puts a lot of strategy over the past 15 years into deep question.

I include my own posts in that 99.9999999999% @ferkungamaboobo

I would like to take a more principled stand on these platforms and feel like it matters but also it’s hard when I realize that we’re dependent on them for so many things – so the key is first to break the dependency, I think? @revaminkoff

@navahhopkins I uh, really don’t use LLMs so I’m not sure. @ferkungamaboobo

I remember when FB first launched, businesses could get tons of eyes on their posts and as these platforms move towards a pay to play model, those organic eyes decline quite a bit. Whether it is Bluesky, LinkedIn, etc… they will all move that way, because they want those ad $$$ to increase revenue. @lchasse

Future of personal branding I believe will be within these communities. Where you build your brand in a place like ppcchat/psa/ppclive.Other places people won’t know what’s real or what’s AI very soon. And that may create a distrust coz everyone’s gonna sound like an expert. @alimehdimukadam

@alimehdimukadam That’s kind of what I mean — if AI can be an expert, what kind of content were we actually producing? @ferkungamaboobo

I was talking with Fred about this – he believes we’re in the last era of human influencers. I disagree, but I get why he thinks it. @navahhopkins

@ferkungamaboobo even with AI being the expert – the standout will be insights that AI won’t know. The ‘personal’ of the personal brand. AI will give a standard response but what happens, the story with a client, etc will be the key to stand out. @alimehdimukadam

What’s the value of interacting with “Navah Hopkins the human” when an AI can recreate my likeness, tone, and content. I’d like to think it’s the soul inside, but even that has debatable value. @navahhopkins

AI is going to change everything and honestly, AI-written stuff will probably be better content that what a lot of the spam I see is today in many ways. The problem is, we won’t have any real thought on stuff and if the AI content does well that is what we will see a lot of instead of the well-thought-out content with data and people’s real experience. We will miss that a lot! I love seeing what others are testing and how they view things even if it is very different than my own thoughts. That is how we learn right, not by seeing everyone who believes and thinks the same way we do.I am a better marketer because I have seen stuff I did not agree with, but it made me think about things in a different way. @lchasse

But AI is wrong – a lot. So part of what we will be battling is lots of authoritative-sounding incorrect content. And prospects won’t generally know the difference. It is concerning. @NeptuneMoon

Yeah, I don’t think AI is going to be able to take over for anything until it is actually accurate. And even then, a lot of us connect for connection – we want responses and to make people think – so a bot doesn’t cover that. @revaminkoff

Well the AI replies on LinkedIn are enough to drive you screaming from your screen…@NeptuneMoon

AI can only create data based on rules and data sets the “controller” of the AI provides, so it will be wrong or biased in so many ways. It won’t look at the data in the same way a human would with thoughts outside just the strict data. @lchasse

Yup, and it’s easy to spot AI content. LinkedIn actually made it worse by enabling AI for comments and stuff. Platform has become a little unbearable. Btw anyone who wants a prompt to not have their content sound AI generated – DM me and I’ll share  @alimehdimukadam

Q4: How do you think you can differentiate yourself going forward?

This is a real challenge for me. I work in a big corp, which gives me access to lots of resources and support, but it also has a comms team and a pr team and lots of rules about how we show up when we rep our brand. I think I’ve done an okay job at this so far, but it’s tricky. @JuliaVyse

I am an odd one and I lean into my oddness. I truly believe this is the era to let your geek flag fly and own your non-work interests as you discuss clever work tactics and trends. @navahhopkins

I would like to think that continuing to offer valuable content and perspective will be enough in a sea of AI-sounding slop. I guess that remains to be seen though? I have seen some pieces lately about how we are headed to AI interacting with other AI as far as content goes and it make me want to cry. @NeptuneMoon

ugh, the bots in bot convos. it’s rough out here! @JuliaVyse

I am definitely aware that I need to start doing more personal brand-building. I’ve been procrastinating under the guise of wanting to create a clear visual identity for posting. Also, genuine engagement, as the spam/auto-commenting increases I think niches are consolidating around people who are putting the effort in @ChrisMurray

In all seriousness, I think showing human thought it going to be a big one. How did your brain being involved with something make it better? @NeptuneMoon

Increasingly for me it’s POV. Obviously a double-edged sword. @ferkungamaboobo

Taking a stand is definitely one way. but it comes with (sometimes) unpleasant conversations to manage. @JuliaVyse

AI is going to create a new level of laziness for lack of a better word, so you can differentiate yourself by using the tools AI will provide, but give your own true thoughts on things. Run your own tests, analyze your data and if you use AI to help analyze data (as it gets better), then don’t just take the info it gives you, but really look into it. Even in our industry, there is no “right way” of doing things and each industry or brand can be very different. How many times have we run something super successful for one brand that tanked for another? If you are like me I have seen that a LOT. Just put in the work and use the tools, but also continue to use your own head and write your thoughts not the machine’s. @lchasse

Just having an opinion and voicing it is often a differentiation. @revaminkoff

A lot of the LinkedIn bros don’t like having their opinions challenged or their authority questioned. I had one of them block me for advocating for more diversity and to give credit to this community. @navahhopkins

Having an opinion and voicing it are great @revaminkoff  Getting a decision-maker to agree to test it is the challenge. @JeffreyHain

@navahhopkins Don’t worry, you are not alone. I am a little (okay maybe a lot) odd. But being odd could be a good thing. @lchasse

If odd means out of the box thinking and questioning why things are done the way they are, sign me up! @JeffreyHain

We don’t need more news sharers – we need intelligent opinions on how to make the most of the news. @navahhopkins

Standout will be the ‘personal’ of the personal brand. And more of you should do X to get Y or this helped me do X. Sharing real stuff and not platitudes. Difficult to control once we get on the treadmill of reach and likes. Best is to know ‘why’ are we posting whatever it is that we are. Read this today. @alimehdimukadam

I sign off most videos with, “May the path to profit and victory ever find you” – it’s something I started with my Mando guild in the Star wars MMO. Things like that are brand specific @navahhopkins

99% of the news isn’t actionable though. Strategies haven’t changed. UX from the PARC era is still valid. We’re just, as an industry, so far behind. And obsessed with bringing breaking news that we can upsell off of. @ferkungamaboobo

This year is the first year I’m going to be creating content for my business across YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, mostly for sharing PPC Tips from settings through to everything else. I don’t want to sell myself through my social media, I just want to help other PPC people get better at doing PPC so we stop inflating CPC’s on silly things due to the forgetting a setting or not understanding negative keywords and how broad match or PMax works etc. @Meriem

I think everyone should just choose to be themselves and you’ll attract the crowd best suited to you. @DiiPooler

Q5: What are your top priorities for building your brand and/or finding business and leads in 2025?

I’ve started forming partnerships with agencies that can take on the work that doesn’t fit my team of consultants. I plan to sit in more senior strategic/advisory roles with the client + agency while the agency does the day-to-day execution. Client gets someone to hold the agency accountable and provide another perspective. Agency gets a feedback partner to keep service quality high and someone with a bizdev POV that also looks for additional opportunities to sell other services to the client based on business needs. @Austin_Dillman

Reconciling the ethics implications of being on platforms I don’t agree with and the business need as an individual and employee of a major brand in the space. @navahhopkins

Growth in my region. We have a position on local media, and while I dearly love my global clients and big brands, I care about my city and my province. West Coast rise! @JuliaVyse

I’m planning on building my LinkedIn and industry presence this year, writing and speaking more. I’m also strengthening partnerships and continuing to focus on delivering high-level customer service so we can continue to grow our business. @revaminkoff

Community Engagement remains a priority (with or without the objective of gaining business)Will do the below only after we have systems in place to manage the inbound and are clear about why we are doing it.Substack, YouTube, LinkedIn. @alimehdimukadam

I don’t think that being on social or speaking necessarily immediately translates to x revenue – it also has to be something you want to do for you because you enjoy it and you think what you have to say matters and you care about making a difference. @revaminkoff

Posts or speaking engagements that are just sales pitches are really frustrating – and people see through them most of the time. Ok off my horse now. @revaminkoff

One of my big priorities for brands this year is to get them to diversify their ad spend on different platforms. Also working to get those who are still bashful about creating videos to start doing more of those. We have so many platforms now to advertise our brands on and many brands are still only using 2-3 of them at any given time. If I was going to start working on my own personal brand it would be easy. I would start using YouTube along with LinkedIn to build my own brand. For me it is easy as it comes down to time vs. reward. I look for that for the brands I work with as well as for myself. @lchasse

@revaminkoff Speaking used to be the biggest thing you could do for your own personal brand when I first started a few years back (okay, maybe a lot more than a few). It is nice there are a lot more options now and speaking I think is still very valuable, but it probably comes in second or third to things like YouTube or Podcasts. @lchasse

For me, I’m going to be speaking at more events this year or at least start planning ideas. I think it’s time to get back out there, it’s been WAY too long and I used to enjoy doing stuff like that.  The business leads etc, I think they just come naturally when you are more visible and your clients are happy… so hopefully that continues to maintain @Meriem

@navahhopkins Your comment reminds me I have worked on several brands to get more ads in places like Twitch too. There are a ton of folks who enjoy gaming after working all day and there is a great and varied audience on that platform. @lchasse

I’ve been putting off podcast/YouTube plans for personal reasons – WILD two years – but it might be time to get out there. @JuliaVyse

^ same. 10-20 hours of video content this year would be a great goal to hit. @AshSanh

PPCChat Participants

• Julie F Bacchini @NeptuneMoon
• Jeffrey Hain @JeffreyHain
• Reva Minkoff @revaminkoff
• Navah Hopkins @navahhopkins
• Reid Thomas @ferkungamaboobo
• Ali Mehdi Mukadam @alimehdimukadam
• Boris Beceric @BorisBeceric
• Austin D @Austin_Dillman
• Lawrence Chasse @lchasse
• Julia Vyse @JuliaVyse
• Jordan Stark @jord_stark
• Dii Pooler @DiiPooler
• Chris Murray @ChrisMurray
• Meriem @Meriem
• Ash Sanh @AshSanh

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