The only 2025 marketing plan that’s guaranteed to work

How do you distribute B2B content these days?

Every channel that can connect you with potential customers is loaded with risk. Each wants zero-click content and wants to own the relationship between you and your readers. They want all the eyeballs on their web properties, where they can monetize. They want you to put all kinds of time and energy into “cultivating a presence” that you can’t migrate elsewhere.

And while this has been the case for a long time, it feels more pressing here in the early days of 2025 because of Google’s AI Overviews. For years, all the social networks have been de-emphasizing links, but Google has mostly brokered relationships between companies and readers. And that’s been a wonderful thing for us content folks.

This isn’t another “SEO is really dead this time and I mean it!” post. Rather, it’s a quick reflection on the confluence of AI Overviews, the demise of X and the rise of LinkedIn, which is the destination for B2B folks to hang out.

If everyone wants the eyeballs for themselves, what are your options for distributing content?

The looming LinkedIn slump

Every B2B marketer I know is spending more time on LinkedIn lately, which is what prompted me to write this post.

LinkedIn has emerged as the place for marketers to hang out. They want to see what’s going on the industry, network, grow their own presence, etc. That’s all mostly great—with the caveat that I’m not sure anyone really enjoys it—but when it comes to distributing content, there are some huge problems with LinkedIn:

• It wants you on LinkedIn. No links, which incentivizes algorithm bait and prevents its users from finding any content that isn’t available on LinkedIn.
• It caters to people who cater to it. The folks who understand how to get engagement get tons of it. I believe this dumbs down the feed.
• Its incentives are only loosely aligned with your incentives. They want engagement, you want readers and customers. There’s an indirect path (at best) for you to get what you really want.
• It’s doomed to decay. All channels decay, and it’s very difficult to migrate your presence on one of them to another. This is part of the game, and we always need to be learning new channels while accepting that each is temporary.

LinkedIn has provided a really valuable place for discourse, and that can’t be overlooked. But that’s also the point: it’s great for distributing ideas, but it’s terrible for distributing content. Therein lies a very important difference.

LinkedIn (like all social networks) was cool with links until it grew enough that it didn’t need links to spur engagement. Then, it closed the doors. LinkedIn requires massive amounts of user-generated content to thrive, and I suspect that marketers aren’t going to provide that forever. LinkedIn is now a place for Idea Distribution.

If you’re a B2B content marketer thinking about how to get your content out there, or a CMO thinking about how your channels keep getting harder to win on, are you sold on Idea Distribution?

How much effort are you really going to put into impressions and comments?  Are we going to keep telling ourselves a story about building trust over the long-term, that customers will eventually find us if we make a positive impression and give them “value” in the form of LinkedIn knowledge bombs? When does LinkedIn fatigue set in? And then, what’s next?

There will always be value in a social network where you can interact with peers, but does it deserve your attention as something beyond that? My firm take is “no.”

Asking, “Where should we distribute our content?” is the wrong question. If you don’t know the answer before the content is created, then you’re drifting into no man’s land. It assumes far too much, especially in a time when it’s really, really hard to distribute content anywhere.

So, what will work in 2025?

While it’s possible there’s a new channel or tactic that emerges in 2025, I think the safest and most exciting opportunity is getting back to basics.

Here’s what a few recent (and very smart, experienced) guests have said on our podcast, Content, Briefly.

Tracey Wallace, Director of Content Strategy at Klaviyo, and publisher of Contentment from episode 86:

Something that makes me feel grounded right now is that the basics are working extremely well. Webinars, calendars, templates, tools - anything offering practical help is performing strongly. Benchmarks especially are doing well. Content that provides practical advice and help to audiences is converting as well as ever, if not better. I was discussing this internally recently - while really innovative content is interesting, I can only find other content marketers talking about cutting-edge research and predictions, but they aren't my target audience.

Lane Scott Jones, Director of Content Marketing at Zapier from episode 83:

Recently, Zapier organized a pickleball meetup for customers. It was niche and unconventional, but it really connected with attendees. The events team has been hosting similar events nationwide, like beach volleyball meetups, giving people chances to connect offline. We see strong positive social media engagement afterward. We're working to quantify the customer love metric and long-term value of building these relationships.

While it's currently grassroots and scrappy, we plan to make this core to our 2025 marketing strategy. As automated programs become easier to scale, we believe we'll differentiate through these intimate human connections.

Kasey Hickey, Senior Director of Brand and Content at Attentive from episode 78:

Brand differentiation goes beyond our core strengths of unique insights, expertise, and data. It's about emotional connection - how we make people feel, memorable campaigns, and customer interactions. You can't win on features alone in tech, as innovations happen rapidly and competitors quickly catch up. Brand is the key lever that must work alongside technological innovation. Without strong brand identity, you're merely competing on features.

What I’m hearing from all the best content marketers I know is that they are leaning into fundamentals: proven-and-unsexy tactics like webinars, events to spark human connection, brand building to differentiate. None of these folks mention channels. That stings a little because if you’re thinking about channels, it may mean that you need to backtrack.

2025 has the potential to be a wonderful year for content marketers. The reason that “back to basics” feels both safe and exciting is that it puts the emphasis back on the customer. AI will change your workflows this year, channels will rise and fall, your CMO will want answers you might not have. “Back to basics” allows you to focus on the one thing—customers!—that lets everything else fade into the background.

‍