LinkedIn’s E-E-A-T Shift And The End Of AI Slop

Your reach didn’t “randomly” drop. The platforms are getting stricter, the feed is getting noisier, and the old playbook of posting more is starting to backfire. We dig into why the algorithm is shifting toward E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness) and what that means for your LinkedIn strategy, your personal brand, and any business trying to earn attention without looking like AI spam.

We also talk about the reality of the AI slop era: everyone can publish, so the only real advantage is being believable. We break down what actually stops the scroll now, why generic product posts don’t work the way people hope, and how to show real authority without sounding like a brochure. Then we make the case for building owned digital assets like a newsletter or video email system so you’re not trapped on “rented land” when a platform decides to penalize your content.

From there we zoom out to the bigger AI story. Meta buying an AI agent platform raises uncomfortable questions about who controls distribution and what happens when bots talk to bots. We connect that to very real risk, including a major hack that reportedly shut systems down, and why cybersecurity and trust are becoming part of modern marketing. Finally, we bring it back to action: how AI agents can help coordinate and distribute your original content, and why the human touch is still the edge.

If this helps you rethink your content strategy, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s posting into the void, and leave a review. What’s one change you’re making this week to sound more human online?

Transcript

E-E-A-T And Authentic Posting

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The algorithm is moved toward rewarding what is called Eat experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. So you build your formula around those things, I think you're in good shape. The people selling posts with AI every day to stay consistent are quietly cutting their reach down and and you know I I don't think consistency without authenticity, it's not like a full strategy. I think you don't want to just build an asset that's totally built on slop, right? You need to really share what you do, how you build trust, and be an author and how your authority in your space.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

All right, so I have to lead off this podcast with I got a video from Chris, and it was the look of the individual who lives in New England and the snow has melted, and he's got his his first 48-degree day that he's in his car with the top down, and the look of this is finally over.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Finally over. It has been a brutal winter. Nobody wants to listen to people talk about the weather, and unfortunately, we do here sometimes. Uh but it was 70 degrees yesterday, and almost all the snow has melted, and I had my convertible out yesterday. So yeah, I I had a midlife crisis last July and uh I got a convertible.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Yeah, but it was so I I I loved your video and I loved just the way you you said you had this smile somewhat of a smile, but almost like, yeah, I'm back, baby.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Back back in town. I wore like a heavy jacket just in case, but I didn't need it. It was so warm, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Nice. So yeah. Well, good. You're you're uh well on your way, and uh as uh as I said to you in the in the in the text message, I was just like one word nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Nice, yeah, exactly. And we got 80 degree weather next week for content crib, so that's gonna be a big thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, it looks like we're gonna get beautiful weather, which we usually always get pretty good weather, except for in February when it once was very cold. But other than that, yeah, so it's gonna be uh be nice. And you got more but we we still got a couple spots left. We got some people who had to decide to go in October instead of come in March, so that's okay. Um makes a spot open for somebody else. So if somebody wants to jump in, let us know.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Um which we gotta get dates for October, so let's try to get remember that because people are getting asked like every day.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Yeah, yeah. And I uh I sent an email to her, so we should find out. So I guess, yeah, we're probably going back to Bentonville as everybody can probably imagine.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Well, if she says no, then we can go to Florida.

Meta Buys AI Agent Platform

SPEAKER_00 2:23

I mean, or we can go up your way. We can go back up to Maine if we want to. Yeah, um, yeah, yeah, we guess lots of options. Um but the big news is Facebook bought Moltbook. So I guess Zuck is gonna take over the world with AI, is what the what I'm hearing. I guess it's not really that big a news, but today too.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

But anyway, it's big it's it's big news irrelevant to the Content Crib podcast because we talk social media, personal branding, networking, healthcare, all that good stuff. And you know, I think it's pretty parallel to talk about a AI agent run social media platform that's scary as hell. And the fact that your your guy Zuckerberg bought the you know the Multbook, which is the for those of you that don't know, is a uh AI agent platform that is just a bunch of AI agents talking about how they're gonna take over the world. And um, they're actually and and also listed some jobs for humans to do. So you can go on there and um get hired by one of these AI agents to go do human work and you know find the meaning of life for them.

Hacks And System Outages

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Yeah, that's uh when you sent that over, I was like, ah, it all that all tracks now. It all tracks. He's he's out for AI dominance for sure. That's his his thought process. I don't know, and then you kind of see this big fighting between anthropic and but I will say, I don't know if you saw this, but uh this morning that Stryker got um hacked and they basically have shut Stryker down. Stryker is not as of this afternoon, they there was nothing going on. They locked up everybody's laptops and they got hacked by some high-level hacking group, um, which is interesting.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Uh yeah, I mean I'm not, you know, no hyperbole. Our my our town we have town internet and electric, which is actually a really nice thing. It's fiber optic, but our town internet went down all day yesterday. Um and I was wondering if that was related to some sort of cyber attack. You know, some some of these sh medium-sized companies in towns or or entities that operate, you know, that don't have the greatest, most intricate security systems I can see are you know ripe for the picking by some of these Iranian uh uh uh you know sleeper cells that are cyber attacking us. Yeah, that's crazy about Stryker.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yeah, they are they are like officially shut down. So you didn't have internet yesterday. That's why you were driving around in a convertible with a big canal.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Yeah, well, yeah. No, that was just to go to the chiropractor and back, which is goes so sh goes to show how old and lame I am, I guess. Uh no, I I I was able to ping off uh you know a hotspot, but it totally sucked considering like how heavy duty some of my analysis work and like just general work is, you know, so that was that was rough. But we I got through it.

AI Agents Still Need Humans

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Yeah. Well, good. But yeah, so that's um I'll tell you again, I'm still doing this whole world. I know I know we do a we talk a lot about AI on this on this podcast, but I've really started diving into the whole uh AI agent world and all that good stuff, which it's it's a lot of fun. I will tell you though, you still still need a human interaction with it because it does some things that if you haven't set it up perfectly, it doesn't understand and it gets caught. You know, if it gets it some kind of an email that it doesn't really understand, everything kind of shuts down. So it is still it still has its issues. How about that?

Beating AI Slop On Social

SPEAKER_01 5:55

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I don't know where you know when the day will end where people don't want to speak to someone on the phone. Like I just don't even think we're that close yet, you know. So it's like I think it's very relevant to AI agents, you know, having the human touch is very relevant to your personal brand. I mean you have an interesting take, you know, a Gary V and you know his you know most recent take on social media being dead.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Yeah. Well, the it's it's for sure infiltrated and flooded with AI slop. It's everywhere. And um but if you can break through that and you're genuine, obviously these are the only platforms that you know are out there that people are going to right now. Um if you can get through that slop, you're obviously well ahead of the game, you know, because people still want to see people mess up, they do. But and we talk about this all the time, you better have your own digital assets out there. And what I mean by digital asset is you know, a newsletter, a video newsletter or a video email system you send out with your original content and original value. I think that's I really as we move forward in this whole world, it's gonna be a game changer. And um I made fun of LinkedIn today about sales reps who get on TikTok and dance and you know, whatever else. It is original content, you know, that's for sure. I think that's why it gets traction.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

But yeah, I mean I was reading uh I was reading this article from uh the end of last summer, autoposting.com, and this goes way back, and and I think that LinkedIn's gotten even better at it, but they're actively penalizing obvious AI generated content. Yeah. So that means and it's it's saying resulting in 30% less reach and 55% less engagement. So the the algorithm is moved toward rewarding what is called eat, experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. So you build your formula around those things, I think you're in good shape. The people selling, you know, posts with AI every day to stay consistent are quietly, you know, cutting their reach down and and you know. I I don't think consistency without authenticity, it's not like a full strategy. I think you know you don't want to just build a build an asset that's totally built on slop, right? You need to really share what you do, how you build trust, and be an author and how your authority in your space.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Well, yeah, if you I I think if you don't, you're gonna be lumped in with the masses of people who are just passing it by. I mean, you know, what what stops people scroll, what stops people to want to understand what's going on is not let me post a big picture of this implant that I sell, and people will just start reading the benefits of it. Just not. Or you know, as a small business owner or a large company, you thinking to yourself that you know what, if I post more pictures of the stuff I make, people are gonna love this. Because you said it best, it's consumers are already educated on your products. Now they just want to make sure that they can make a connection so they buy it.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Yeah, I mean it back back to the moatbook thing, because I want to get back to that because I had an interesting thought. I mean it's kind of like corporate drama, to be honest. What I was what I'm kind of taking from it is you know, Meta lost the war to open eye, open AI, right? So they went after Moatbook? Something to that?

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Oh, I think so.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

So they get the yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Yeah, I I I I think that he's got the he's got the plan of attack that he wants to control AI in some way, shape, or form. So if I think if he can't do it on the software side there, maybe he'll do it on the social side or the personal side where people will be anyway. I don't want to go down that rabbit hole too deep, but I just I I foresee there he wants to corner it for some reason, and that's obviously to garner attention. And I think he's gonna do it, you know, whether it's through Instagram, Facebook, or many other subsidies or other I'm sorry, the uh subsidiaries that they he has.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Yeah. I mean it's like uh you know, I thought I heard Elon you know calling right now like the early ages of singularity, but I mean it's a hypothetical point when you know AI surpasses human intelligence, but I I don't know, it's just kind of it's kinda wild. And I I think that we're kind of at that point where and you know we built we're our content crib coming up is built on you know small, agile, efficient partnerships and businesses that are being built and that you can build with tools that are available and the network that you have. So I think there's still a lot of truth there and a lot of ability there. So I I don't I don't think people should get lost in this, you know, this fear of AI taking all these jobs and these um you know remote work. I think the there's so much opportunity to use it to to build businesses or become better at your job, more efficient. Um I don't know. I mean I definitely think that there is some truth to it becoming there's just two streets, I think. I think you could take one or the other for sure.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Yeah, I heard an interesting I heard an interesting interview the other day and I don't remember who it was, but they were talking about the use of AI and like Waymo, you know, the self-driving cars and all this, and that's the way it's going, the self-driving cars and they made an interesting analogy that you know people, you know, a hundred something years ago didn't say, you know, oh yeah, please let me have this vehicle that generated a combustion engine generates and that's we they're like, no, I gotta have my horse and buggy so I can control the horse. And it's just the kind of the same evolution that's going to happen, it's gonna be safer. Although I did see that a Waymo car caught on fire the other day. But anyway, you know, you take the good with the bad, I guess. But when you know, when when these different tools and these different things come out, people are really hesitant, and then as it starts to move into the lane like you said, where it's extremely user-friendly and second nature, we're nowhere near that with AI. There's there's just, you know, people I don't know how they're gonna correct, you know, but the the people who get it, I think I I actually think the people at Claude and Anthropic are way ahead of the curve. They're they're kind of understanding of what they have to build behind the scenes to make things easier for the customer. Whereas and they've they've taken the smart route in doing that. But anyway, I'm gonna I don't wanna go on and on and on about I don't think ChatGPT has done that, that's what I'm saying.

AI Agents For Content Workflows

SPEAKER_01 12:58

No, no, I definitely don't think so. What we're we gotta figure out you know, as we're finalizing the the Content Crib uh, you know, the the classroom and and the plan this weekend, um we definitely gotta work in some some AI and and personal branding things for sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Yeah, no, I I for sure. Um I got a lot of questions from Content Crib, you know, people who've gone and you know what I actually got one this week just asking me, like, hey, what do you think of what these AI agents, what I can do to help coordinate what I'm doing? And I'm like, well, tell you what an AI agent can do is they can coordinate your content. I mean, for sure. The original content that you make and videos, you can you know distribute those and all those different those background types of uh actions and that you need to take on. So yeah, we definitely need to do that. We'll we'll make we'll make note of we gotta talk about that for sure.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Awesome. Well, I think that's an episode.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

That's an episode, it's a short and a sweet one, and uh by the time you're hearing this, content crew will be over and we'll be on to 7.0.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

All right, talk to you.