Zoom has a brand awareness problem, but not in the way that you think. The tech company is trying to convince people that it\u2019s an end-to-end, AI-first work platform rather than just a meetings platform, and it\u2019s building an AI visibility strategy with creators to accomplish that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The platform hasn\u2019t discounted plain old advertising on AI; it\u2019s part of the ChatGPT advertising pilot. But rather than relying solely on paid ads in LLMs, Zoom is betting on creators to up its chances of being cited in AI search results.<\/p>\n
Zoom isn\u2019t the only one testing the link between creators and AI visibility. In June, Priceline told Digiday<\/a> that it had increased its social spend, favoring influencers and content creators for storytelling. And ad agency Modern Impact had a client, a car care company that execs declined to name, that recently wanted to use creators to produce a campaign to spark organic attention.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the past, brands would target creators based on their reach, so those creators can share content that gets a reach. But now brands are looking to target creators who are being cited by LLMs,\u201d said Joseph Levi, CEO and co-founder at Noise Media Group.<\/p>\n Zoom\u2019s evolving creator strategy<\/p>\n Over the summer, for example, Zoom launched a campaign with Nayeema Raza, a journalist, filmmaker and host of the podcast, \u201cSmart Girl Dumb Questions.\u201d Across Instagram and YouTube, Raza has more than 30,000 followers. Raza is featured in campaign spots across Zoom\u2019s social channels, and Zoom will sponsor a six-part series in the \u201cSmart Girl Dumb Questions\u201d podcast. Raza will also be a keynote speaker at Zoom\u2019s annual conference in October. Financial details of the partnership were not made available.<\/p>\n Kimberly Storin, CMO at Zoom, acknowledges that there\u2019s no explicit link between creators and AI visibility that marketers can point to \u2014 at least not yet. Instead, she said, the partnership with Raza is a bet on building authority and credibility \u2014 two variables that factor into how AI chatbots decide what to surface in an AI search response.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not a direct correlation at this point, but the influencers, we believe, is so important to that \u2018be present and be believed\u2019 aspect of the framework,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n Learning by doing <\/p>\n When it comes to AI visibility, marketers are learning by doing. What they do know is that LLMs have preferred sources. For example, ChatGPT has an estimated 15.4 sources, favoring Wikipedia and Reddit, according to Semrush\u2019s AI Visibility Index<\/a>. Meanwhile, Google Gemini has 3.3 sources on average, favoring YouTube, Wikipedia and e-commerce sites.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing featured on high-quality publications \u2014 even if they\u2019re not necessarily the publications that are being cited \u2014 it certainly adds towards your overall authority,\u201d Levi said.<\/p>\n