Daniel Kushner, CEO and Cofounder of Oktopost.
Ask any B2B buyer how they research vendors today, and their process will likely sound very different from what it did even a year ago.
Instead of heading straight to search engines or downloading content, buyers are now turning to AI for vendor comparisons, using Perplexity to summarize options or relying on Google’s AI Overviews for recommendations. Your next customer may have already “spoken” to an AI agent about your brand before they’ve ever spoken to you.
This shift means traditional SEO tactics are no longer enough. A brand’s AI search visibility has become a new strategic KPI, and it’s being shaped not just by their website but by their presence across social platforms like Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube and beyond.
AI is now a first-impression engine.
Today’s AI tools are trained to gather data from across the public web. They synthesize everything from structured websites to social conversations to generate contextual, “human-like” answers.
And they’re not treating all content sources equally.
According to a recent Profound study, LinkedIn accounts for 13% of citations in Google AI Overviews and 5.3% in Perplexity, making it one of the top‑ranked professional platforms cited by AI. By comparison, Reddit leads with 21% in Google AI Overviews and 46.7% in Perplexity, but LinkedIn’s presence is particularly impactful in B2B contexts. For brands targeting decision makers, optimizing for LinkedIn is critical for AI visibility.
Therefore, if a brand is active and visible in the places AI utilizes for insights, it’s likely to appear in the AI-generated summaries that are now guiding buyer decisions. If not, the brand is simply not part of the conversation.
Social presence is now AI presence.
For B2B brands, it’s no longer about optimizing for a featured snippet or climbing the organic ranks. It’s about feeding the AI ecosystem with the kind of content it wants, and that means being present, active and relevant on social-first platforms.
This process is already underway at Reddit, for instance, which now licenses its data to AI companies for tens of millions of dollars annually. That means content, whether it’s a product walkthrough on YouTube or a leadership post on LinkedIn, can and will be included in the datasets AI tools rely on to form answers to business-critical questions.
And in a world where AI overviews are replacing search results, brand visibility in those answers is just as crucial as a Google ranking.
The Risks Of Being AI-Invisible
Traditional SEO KPIs, such as click-through rate, rank position and uploading content to the schema markup, are still useful, but they don’t tell you how a brand is performing in AI search.
The danger is this: A brand could be ranked first place on Google and still lose a deal because AI never mentioned it.
AI search results don’t work like traditional snippets. Instead of linking to a single source, they aggregate perspectives, prioritize community consensus and lean into human language—something that platforms like Reddit and LinkedIn excel at.
The content that LLMs trust is no longer what’s optimized for SEO. It’s what’s human, authentic and shared. For B2B marketers, that means letting go of the idea that SEO is about website structure. It’s about strategic content distribution on the platforms where AI builds its knowledge base.
Winning AI search starts with social strategy.
So, what should B2B marketers do? There are practical steps brands can take to achieve AI visibility in their content. Some examples are:
1. Prioritize LinkedIn for thought leadership. AI models heavily reference LinkedIn for professional credibility. Ensure that your team, especially subject matter experts and executives, consistently posts insights, data and opinions.
2. Get involved on Reddit. Reddit is AI gold. Join relevant subreddits (e.g., r/marketing, r/sysadmin, r/dataengineering) and participate authentically. Consider AMAs or sharing product experiences that solve real problems.
3. Use YouTube for explainers and testimonials. Google’s AI tools are increasingly citing video content, particularly how-to guides, customer stories and demos. A content format that is transcribable, trustworthy and accessible is essential and is being incorporated into AI platforms.
4. Elevate company blogs. Blog content is still vital, especially when it is well-structured and internally linked. However, it’s most effective when paired with visibility on social media platforms.
What does this mean for B2B marketers?
In the age of AI search, content doesn’t just inform buyers; it teaches the machines that inform buyers. If a brand isn’t part of that learning process, it’s ceding ground to competitors who are.
AI search has become the new front door to brands. And like any front door, brands should be the ones welcoming the next customer in, not watching them walk straight to a competitor.
The B2B brands that succeed next won’t be those with strong websites. They’ll be the ones with strong, social visibility, the kind that educates, influences and appears where AI looks for answers.
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