What is EEAT from Google? and Brand Ambassadors on the RISE! w/Chris Carver, CEO Sessionboard | Ep. 339

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Do This, NOT That: Marketing Tips with Jay Schwedelson"

Episode Title: What is EEAT from Google? and Brand Ambassadors on the RISE!
Guest: Chris Carver, CEO of Session Board
Release Date: May 23, 2025

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1. Introduction to the Episode

In this episode of "Do This, NOT That!", hosted by Jay Schwedelson from GURU Media Hub, the focus is on understanding Google's E-E-A-T framework and the rising importance of brand ambassadors in modern marketing strategies. The guest for this episode is Chris Carver, CEO of Session Board, a platform revolutionizing speaker management for events and webinars.

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2. Meet Chris Carver and Session Board [00:02 - 02:19]

Jay opens the discussion with enthusiasm about Session Board, highlighting its innovative approach to speaker management. He expresses his admiration for the platform, emphasizing its relevance in today's marketing landscape where human faces and authentic connections are paramount.

Key Points:

• Session Board's Origin: Chris shares the journey of founding Session Board, mentioning a pivot from managing operations for music festivals to developing a platform that aids nonprofits during the COVID-19 pandemic. This experience underscored the value of content and speaker management, leading to the creation of Session Board.

• Mission of Session Board: The platform aims to delve deep into content management for events, efficiently managing speakers to maximize marketing ROI.

Notable Quote:

Jay Schwedelson [00:55]: "I was blown away by the platform that he's created. It's this whole speaker management platform for webinars, for events, all this stuff. I'm like, why didn't this exist before?"

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3. Decoding Google's E-E-A-T Framework [02:45 - 05:52]

The conversation shifts to Google's E-E-A-T (Expertise, Experience, Authority, and Trust) framework—a pivotal factor in content ranking and visibility.

Key Points:

• E-E-A-T Explained: Chris breaks down the acronym, explaining how Google's algorithm now prioritizes content that demonstrates expertise, real-world experience, authority in the field, and trustworthiness.

• Impact on Marketing: He draws a parallel between E-E-A-T and the role of speakers in events, asserting that speakers embody these qualities. Their real-world experience and authority make them invaluable for content creation and brand building.

• Challenges with AI-Generated Content: Chris highlights the limitations of AI-generated content, which often lacks the human touch and authentic experiences that speakers bring, making human-centered content more valuable.

Notable Quotes:

Chris Carver [02:45]: "It's an acronym that stands for expertise, experience, authority and trust. So they were, they were signaling for content that is based in that."

Chris Carver [04:45]: "We're starting to leverage our brand and connect it with those speakers, those authorities, those subject matter experts, is very much like what the B2C world did with influencers."

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4. The Rise of Brand Ambassadors in Marketing [05:52 - 10:58]

Jay presents his "hot take" on the necessity of brand ambassadors, regardless of company size or industry. He posits that incorporating brand ambassadors is becoming essential, much like maintaining a blog.

Key Points:

• Universal Need for Brand Ambassadors: Jay argues that all brands, whether small or large, B2C or B2B, need to have recognizable humans acting as brand ambassadors to add authenticity and human connection.

• Chris’s Supporting Data: Chris backs up Jay's assertion with compelling statistics:

  • Edelman Research: 62% of B2B buyers trust influencer endorsements more than brands' self-promotion.
  • Demand Gen Report: 71% of B2B buyers are more likely to engage with content shared by someone they respect.
  • Salesforce Study: 92% of B2B buyers are more likely to engage with a brand after reading a trusted review.
  • Ogilvy Statistic: B2B campaigns using influencer marketing can generate up to 11 times higher ROI compared to traditional digital marketing.

• Strategies for Effective Brand Ambassador Programs: Chris discusses how companies like Money 2020 and Salesforce effectively utilize speakers and brand ambassadors across various platforms and events to maintain consistent engagement and authority.

Notable Quotes:

Jay Schwedelson [05:52]: "Every brand is going to need to have humans, well known humans in their category that are operating as brand ambassadors. ... that are onboarded to amplify, to speak, to be involved."

Chris Carver [07:00]: "93% of CMOs plan to increase their use of B2B influencers in the coming years. It's really critical."

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5. Implementing Brand Ambassador Strategies for All Companies [10:16 - 13:20]

The discussion emphasizes that even small companies can effectively implement brand ambassador programs without the need for large budgets or celebrity influencers.

Key Points:

• Cost-Effectiveness: Rather than investing heavily in paid advertisements with uncertain returns, companies can allocate resources to onboard brand ambassadors who authentically champion their brand to a dedicated audience.

• Building Long-Term Relationships: Chris highlights the importance of nurturing relationships with brand ambassadors, ensuring mutual investment and sustained collaboration.

• Session Board in Action: Chris shares how Session Board manages to effectively utilize external subject matter experts for webinars, podcasts, and other marketing activations, demonstrating the platform's scalability even for small companies.

Notable Quotes:

Jay Schwedelson [10:16]: "You're spending money ... that budget is so much better spent onboarding an ambassador that can champion you into their, in front of their whole audience."

Chris Carver [10:58]: "We're really small, but we're having to walk through the event marketer shoes as well. We're trying to leverage these subject matter experts in everything we do. And it's just really critical."

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6. Deep Dive into Session Board’s Features [11:13 - 12:45]

Towards the end of the episode, Chris provides a comprehensive overview of what Session Board offers to marketers and event organizers.

Key Points:

• Streamlined Speaker Management: Session Board automates the speaker management process, saving significant time (approximately 2-3 hours per speaker) by handling end-to-end tasks.

• AI Evaluations: The platform incorporates AI to evaluate speakers, ensuring they align with specific session topics, agendas, or webinar requirements.

• Comprehensive Speaker Database: It aggregates, indexes, searches, invites, activates, and manages speakers across all event marketing portfolios, including in-person events, webinars, podcasts, and more.

• Integration Capabilities: Session Board seamlessly integrates with various registration systems and webinar platforms, enabling marketers to efficiently identify and utilize the right speakers based on topics, expertise, and other attributes.

Notable Quotes:

Chris Carver [11:13]: "We started with streamlining the speaker management process... Our system saves about two to three hours of that time."

Chris Carver [12:30]: "We consolidate all of that in one place with various integrations with your different registration system, your webinar platform and then other avenues that you can now actually search by topic, area of expertise, whatever attribute."

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7. Host’s Endorsement and Call to Action [12:45 - 13:36]

Jay passionately endorses Session Board, sharing his personal experience using the platform for managing virtual events with numerous speakers. He commends Session Board for exceeding expectations and highlights its indispensable value in modern event management.

Key Points:

• Personal Endorsement: Jay emphasizes his trust in Session Board by using it exclusively for his company's large virtual events.

• Recommendation: He urges listeners to explore Session Board, promising that it will add significant value to their marketing and event strategies.

• Final Remarks: Both Jay and Chris exchange acknowledgments, underscoring the collaborative effort behind Session Board's success.

Notable Quotes:

Jay Schwedelson [12:45]: "My company puts on some of the world's largest virtual events. We have a zillion speakers. Session Board is our exclusive platform that we use and it's one of the few Martech platforms that we use that our team actually thinks it goes beyond."

Chris Carver [13:20]: "Shout out to our team at Session Board. They just are killing themselves to, you know, continue to add and add more value."

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8. Conclusion and Next Steps

The episode wraps up with Jay encouraging listeners to subscribe for more actionable marketing tips and to access free virtual marketing events at guruEvents.com. He also promotes Endpointastic, an event featuring Chris Carver as a speaker, further emphasizing the collaborative ecosystem built around Session Board.

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Key Takeaways

• E-E-A-T Framework: Understanding and leveraging Expertise, Experience, Authority, and Trust is crucial for content ranking and brand credibility in Google's algorithm.

• Importance of Brand Ambassadors: Authentic human connections through brand ambassadors significantly enhance trust, engagement, and ROI in both B2B and B2C marketing.

• Session Board’s Solution: An innovative platform that streamlines speaker management, integrates seamlessly with existing systems, and empowers marketers to efficiently utilize subject matter experts for maximum impact.

• Actionable Insight: Regardless of company size, investing in authentic brand ambassadors can outperform traditional paid advertising in driving meaningful engagement and conversions.

Final Thoughts

This episode underscores the evolving landscape of digital marketing, where human-centric strategies and authentic connections are paramount. By integrating platforms like Session Board and embracing brand ambassador programs, marketers can navigate the challenges posed by AI-generated content and algorithm changes, ensuring sustained relevance and engagement in a competitive marketplace.

Transcript

[Jay Schwedelson]

What up? Welcome to do this not that, the podcast for marketers. I'm Jay Schwedelson. Let's dig into some tips and some randomness. We are back for do this not that podcast presented by Marigold. And we have somebody on the show today that I was like, I need this guy on the show. He's Chris Carver. He's the CEO of Session Board. And the reason I need him on the show, I was blown away by the platform that he's created. It's this whole speaker management platform for webinars, for events, all this stuff. I'm like, why didn't this exist before? Because it really speaks to what's going on on the planet in terms of the value of faces in your business brand, your consumer brand, whatever it is. Of course we call it influencer marketing, but it's beyond that. And I want to get into why it matters so much now. And I'm just fired up. So, Chris, welcome to the show, man.

[Chris Carver]

Thanks for having me. This is awesome. Appreciate it.

[Jay Schwedelson]

So before we get into this idea that the days of faceless marketing are over, whether you're a B2B brand consumer, doesn't matter. Your brand needs faces. Okay? And people, what is your deal? How did you wind up Session Board and organizing speaker speakers and call for papers? What happened?

[Chris Carver]

Yeah, it's a long, winding road, but I, I, I have 60 seconds to do it. So 12 years ago, was in the nonprofit space, and my partner and I started a tool to help most of the major music festivals around North America manage their operations. Covid hits no music festivals. So we pivoted and built a platform to help nonprofits raise money. During COVID Virtual Event Platform, everybody was doing it, so we sold that in about 10 months. But during that time, we really started seeing the value of content and had this hypothesis about what we thought was going to happen in the space and blah, blah, blah. And so we took the proceeds from that acquisition and dumped it into another company and started from scratch. And that's, that's where Session Board was, was born. And our whole hypothesis is that we want to go super deep into content management for events and really efficiently manage speakers and the power that is a part of them to really help marketing teams kind of maximize their roi.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Well, you know, it's funny, sometimes you hear people say, like I heard Damon John say the other day, there are no new ideas. There's just different spins on old ideas. I'm gonna tell you right now, I think session Board's a new idea, and it's a great one and you guys are crushing it. So good job with you. I'm telling Damon Johnny was wrong. So I want to get into something. I'm seeing everywhere. This stuff about eats, E, E, A T S or whatever is Google eats. Everyone's eats. What is this eats thing? Why does it matter what's going on?

[Chris Carver]

Yeah, this, this kind of blew my mind when I saw this about a year and a half ago. So essentially when we started, the company is really to focus on managing speakers end to end for a, for a big conference, right. And, and as we were doing that, we were focused on saving the organizer a ton of time. And then I see this article, I forget who put it out, about how Google was changing their algorithm to focus on what they call eat based content. So it's an acronym that stands for expertise, experience, authority and trust. So they were, they were signaling for content that is based in that. And immediately I was like, that's your speakers. That's your speakers for your conference, for your webinars, for your community events, for your field marketing events. And you know, your speakers are, when you think about it, they, they really are a key component. So if you break it down, speakers have that lived experience that AI generated content lacks. Speakers naturally bring that real world experience. They often bring a network which gives them authority. Obviously they've built trust over the years because they've gone super deep into their specific area of expertise. So the idea that we are starting to leverage our brand and connect it with those, those speakers, those authorities, those subject matter experts, is very much like what the B2C world did with influencers. Right? And so your speakers are your subject matter experts, they're your thought leaders, they're your champions, they're your content creators, but they also have that network. But most importantly, they bring a human connection, they bring that personal resonance to the topic and to your brand. So, you know, the other interesting thing is if you look on the other side of it and you and I have both spoken, spoken at other events is speakers want to speak, they want to share their knowledge, right? So giving them the opportunity to speak throughout the year, not just on stage, is a big win for both sides. And so it's really exciting to be a part of this, especially as you see all of the stuff that is impacting marketing teams and the challenges that they're having with AI generated content being 10x that of human centered content, how search engines are starting to, obviously the AI results are filling up the top third of the page and they're they're also anchoring on more, more paid ads, more sponsored. So that's just pushing the organic content down, which is why organic content is down like 30% year over year for the last five years. And then what? What we didn't talk about is is Gartner just released a study that said that 30% of all searches will soon be AI agent based searches. So that totally changes how human centered search is going to be different than the agent based search. So we really need to anchor our full marketing strategy across the board, not just for events to those speakers and those subject matter experts.

[Jay Schwedelson]

You know it's funny, this is my hot take and I'm curious what your opinion on it. I believe in the next, let's call it 24 months, regardless of company size, you could be a five person company, a 5,000 person company, you could be a consumer, a B2B boring regulated industry company, I don't care. But that every brand is going to need to have humans, well known humans in their category that are operating as brand ambassadors. Every brand is going to have multiple brand ambassadors that are not employees of their company necessarily, but that are onboarded to amplify, to speak, to be involved. And I think it's going to be table stakes just the way it was table stakes that have a blog, you're going to have table stakes, that you're going to have brand ambassadors adding that human element to what you're doing and speaking on your behalf. What do you think of that nonsense?

[Chris Carver]

Well, I just, it's been really interesting diving deep into this because the stats actually say it all. So Edelman did some research not too long ago that says 62% of B2B buyers trust what influencers say about a brand more than what the brand says about itself. And then demand Genreport did another one that says 71% of B2B buyers are more likely to engage with a brand's content if it is shared by someone they know and respect. And then Salesforce did some research that says 92% of B2B buyers are more likely to engage with a brand after reading a trusted review. The other one that I love, and we'll talk about it at Eventastic, is that B2B campaigns with influence marketing can generate up to 11 times higher ROI compared to regular digital marketing. And that's only going to increase. So the reality is we're a small company, we're growing small company still, but we're having to walk through the event marketer shoes as well. We're, we're Trying to leverage these subject matter experts in everything we do. And it's just really critical.

[Jay Schwedelson]

It really is. And you know, you saw Salesforce went into this early on with Matthew McConaughey. He's not really a subject matter expert, but he has become, you know, their celebrity brand ambassador, influencer, whatnot. But what we're seeing now is these smaller brands that are taking people that, you know, have a mid sized following, a hundred thousand people, whatever it may be, that are regarded highly in their category and they're on board of these brand ambassadors. And especially for B2B companies, the consumer guys get it. But the B2B companies, I think the word influencer is just a bad word. People think it's stupid and juvenile, but if it's like you're an ambassador, you're. And it's a speaker and it's not like somebody that you're bringing on to speak once, like in your world, are you seeing more of this where it's not just transactional come and do this one webinar. Are you seeing more of that? One person is now doing a series or a bunch of stuff and how is that looking?

[Chris Carver]

Two things there you look at like what groups like Money 2020 are doing, right? They, they use their speaker throughout the entire event like eight times. You know, they go from the stage to a step and repeat PR style interview to a podcast. They're going and leading a PhD level session and then throughout the year they're putting them on their podcast and things like that. That's what brands need to be doing, right? Salesforce is doing it with, with their podcast team and their broadcasting team. Which is why there's another stat by Ogilvy. 93% of CMOs plan to increase their use of B2B influencers in the coming years. It's like really critical. And then the other point I should mention is, is these don't necessarily have to just be external folks. There are so many internal folks that love to champion their expertise. So let them thrive. But you need, you need a system to be able to connect and see who those are so that you can search by topic and location or whatever attribute you want to make it as easy as possible to execute that in your marketing strategy.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Yeah, and I also think it's so important that this is for everybody. You know, somebody out there is listening. Oh, I'm in a 30 person company. We're not going to have an influencer. That's ridiculous. And that couldn't be further from the truth. You're spending money Right now on random, you know, paid ad, on Instagram, on LinkedIn or search that's generating clicks that go nowhere. That budget is so much better spent onboarding an ambassador that can champion you into their, in front of their whole audience. That is what, that's where we're headed. I mean, this AI stuff is pushing us more into being human, which is the irony of all of it, right?

[Chris Carver]

Yeah, the small company thing, to your point. Like for example, we do two, three webinars, podcasts style a month with external subject matter experts. We're really small, but we then actually try to leverage them when we're in market, hosting a dinner so that they're coming or you know, we're thinking about like even going to a third party conference. We make sure that we are building around them because the more we invest in them, they're going to invest back in us. Right. And we're a channel as much as they are a channel. And so as soon as we understand that, it just becomes, you know, easier and easier to break through the noise of all the things that we've seen happening. And it's only going to get expedited more and more.

[Jay Schwedelson]

All right, all right, before we run out of time here, I want you to explain to everybody because I really want to get this across. I want you to do a commercial for Session Board because I want you to explain to everybody what it is that you guys have built, what it is that you guys do and how to find you, because this is important.

[Chris Carver]

Okay, so you can find us, very simple, session board.com. you can always email me directly. I'm okay with giving out my Chris at Session Board. Any feedback, really critical. No matter what, whether you work with us or not, it helps us make the platform better. So we actually do two things. So we started with streamlining the speaker management process. So if you have a conference, usually spend about five to seven hours per speaker, end to end. Our system saves about two to three hours of that time. It just automates that. And then we're rolling out things like, you know, with AI evaluations, evaluating those speakers to make sure that they're right for your particular session or your agenda or webinar, whatever it might be. So we really hyper focus there. The second area that is so critical is now giving you a tool that allows you to automatically aggregate, index, search, invite and activate and manage all of those speakers that you have across your entire event marketing portfolio. So whether that is your in person events, that's your field events, your webinars, your podcasts your community, your marketing activations. We consolidate all of that in one place with various integrations with your different registration system, your webinar platform and then other, other avenues that you can now actually search by topic, area of expertise, whatever attribute, it pulls up those list of folks that you can quickly identify and leverage so that when you're, you have a certain marketing activation, you, you can pull the right folks.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Listen, I'm telling everybody the truth right now. My company puts on some of the world's largest virtual events. We have a zillion speakers. Session Board is our exclusive platform that we use and it's one of the few Martech platforms that we use that our team actually thinks it goes beyond. It like does more than we thought it was going to do. So I'm not just saying that because I'm staring at you and it'd be awkward if I said the opposite. I'm saying it because it's 100 true. We're going to put all this information in the show notes and everyone's got to go to Eventtastic to see Chris speak there. The world's largest virtual event about all things events. Chris, man, I appreciate you being here.

[Chris Carver]

Oh no, I, I appreciate you, I appreciate your team. And shout out to our team at Session Board. They just are killing themselves to, you know, continue to add and add more value. So I wouldn't be here without them.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Awesome, man. All right, thanks again.

[Chris Carver]

All right, have a go.

[Jay Schwedelson]

You did it. You made it to the end. Nice. But the party's not over. Subscribe to make sure you get the latest episode each week for more actionable tips and a little chaos from today's top marketers. And hook us up with a five star review. If this wasn't the worst podcast of all time. Lastly, if you want access to the best virtual marketing events that are also 100% free, visit guruevents.com so you can hear from the world's top marketers like Daymond, John, Martha Stewart and me. GuruEvents.com check it out.