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Welcome to Volume 258 👋
Happy Thursday!
In this week’s newsletter, we cover:
- 📱 10 Proven Tactics to Increase Social Media Engagement
- 📉 SEO Rank Checkers Suffer as Google Cracks Down on SERP Scrapers
- 👀 The Latest in B2B SaaS This Week
- 🧠 This Week’s Brain Food
- ➕ The Best Content Across the Web
- 🤝 Foundation is hiring — check out our open positions below!
Let’s get into it.
📱 10 Ways to Increase Social Media Engagement
Most brands are still using outdated social playbooks from 2020.
Engagement is still the primary goal, but savvy audiences can spot generic posts, half-heated trendjacking, and AI content a mile away. If you’re not educating, entertaining, or empowering your readers, they’ll scroll right past.
Last week I talked to Foundation’s Senior Social Specialist, Ari Paulin, about the tactics she uses to transform passive followers into pipeline opportunities. We had a great conversation about real client campaigns that generated measurable business results.
Here’s a taste of what we covered:
- Crafting platform-specific hooks: The first 125 characters determine engagement. Data hooks work on LinkedIn but Instagram Stories are all about questions.
- Using native features strategically: LinkedIn articles and native videos consistently outperform external links in the algorithm.
- Matching content to platform culture: The same Cardi B meme that flopped on LinkedIn generated 40,000 views on TikTok.
- Tracking quality over quantity: Focus on follower growth from target accounts and asset sharing rates, not vanity metrics.
Ultimately if you want real engagement, you need to prioritize meaningful interactions over surface-level metrics. You want executives screenshotting your frameworks for board meetings and managers adapting your insights for their teams.
Want the complete breakdown of expert social strategies to drive real engagement? Check out the full analysis on Foundation Labs.
📉 SEO Rank Checkers Suffer as Google Cracks Down on SERP Scrapers
Google just pulled the rug from under the entire rank tracking industry, and the fallout is bringing up some uncomfortable truths about our data.
Last week, Google quietly disabled the &num=100 parameter that let users (and more importantly, SEO tools) see 100 search results at once. The change has broken most third-party tracking tools and exposed something shocking: much of the Google Search Console data we’ve been analyzing for the past year might be completely wrong.
SEO researcher Brodie Clark discovered that GSC impressions plummeted immediately after the change. Some sites lost 200,000+ daily impressions overnight. He has an interesting hypothesis: The “Great Decoupling” we’ve been blaming on AI Overviews (where impressions skyrocketed but clicks stayed flat) might have actually been bot traffic from rank trackers all along.
The timing is particularly brutal. We’re still in the middle of Google’s August 2025 spam update, GSC data has been wonky, and third-party tools are unreliable. For now, I’ll leave you with the words of Barry Schwartz:
“Careful with Google rank tracking tools – seems like many may be having difficulty related to this change”
👀 What’s the Latest in B2B SaaS This Week? 👀
- 🌏 Groww, backed by Satya Nadella, set to become first Indian startup to go public after U.S.-to-India move | TechCrunch
- 🛒 ChatGPT search update focuses on quality, shopping, format | Search Engine Land
- 🔍 Catch up with the creators and publishers you care about on Discover | Google
- 📉 Google Kinda Comments On Search Console Impressions Dip | Search Engine Roundtable
- 🤖 Reddit wants a better AI deal with Google: users in exchange for content | The Verge
🔈 Come See Ross at Canada’s Largest SEO Conference 🔈
Ross is heading to Toronto to speak at SEO IRL this October 16-17 to talk about how brands can scale their distribution engine without sacrificing on quality and position themselves for success for years to come.
You don’t want to miss this session:
Content Distribution in the Age of AI: How to Win Long Term
Here’s what else is on the docket for this year’s SEOIRL:
✨ 250 attendees
🎤 14 speakers
📆 2 jam-packed days
⚡ 100% dynamic & fun
This is going to be one of the best opportunities this year to connect, learn, and share insights with some of the brightest minds in SEO.
Use the promo code ROSS15 for 15% off when you grab your ticket at seoirl.com
See you in Toronto!
#SEOIRL
🚨 New Podcast Alert: Your Buyers Are Asking AI About You 🚨
Traditional marketing funnels are broken. By the time prospects book a demo, they’ve already made up their minds about your brand through ChatGPT comparisons, Claude analyses, and Reddit AI summaries.
In the latest episode of The Ross Simmonds Show, Ross reveals how AI has become the new middleman between businesses and buyers, fundamentally rewiring the purchase journey. The old playbook of SEO rankings and gated content won’t save you when AI platforms are serving answers without sending traffic your way.
The conversation exposes why “GEO” (Generative Experience Optimization) isn’t just another SEO acronym, it’s a paradigm shift that asks for fresh strategies. Ross breaks down how to manipulate the machines that influence your buyers while doubling down on what AI can’t replicate.
Here’s what you’ll discover:
- The decentralized discovery revolution: Why search now starts on TikTok, Reddit, and AI tools — not Google.
- Pre-demo evaluation: How buyers arrive fully informed through AI comparisons before speaking to sales.
- Trust through the machine lens: What signals AI uses to determine credibility (author authority, citations, platform presence).
- Building content moats: Creating authoritative content that AI can’t ignore or misrepresent.
- The pre-sales journey alignment: Restructuring your funnel for buyers who’ve already done their homework.
- Your human advantage: Why empathy and emotional intelligence become your ultimate competitive edge.
Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcast or Spotify to learn how to thrive when AI controls the first impression.
🧠 This Week’s Brain Food 🧠
AI is making it easier than ever for companies and movements to create artificial traction on social media. With all the conversations about astroturfing going on these days, I wanted to look into the etymology of the term.
(For those who don’t know, astroturfing is the deceptive practice of hiding the sponsors behind an orchestrated campaign to make it appear as genuine grassroots support.)
The term comes from former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, who in 1985 faced a coordinated campaign of letters from insurance companies posing as concerned citizens. His response was perfect: “A fellow from Texas can tell the difference between grass roots and Astroturf” in reference to the artificial turf brand.
The term captures how these campaigns create a “fake” appearance of organic support while concealing their financial backers. The problem is compounded by the convergence of AI and social media, which makes astroturfing much easier, flooding everything from review sites to political blogs with manipulated content that appears authentically grassroots.
Pressing Publish Isn’t Enough. Here’s How to 10x Your Distribution in Minutes
You spent hours creating your best content yet.
An article. A podcast. Or maybe a video interview.
You hit publish, and then… nothing.
- No shares.
- No traffic.
- No results.
The truth?
Your content isn’t the problem. Your distribution is.
The brands that win don’t just create.
They share content obsessively. They get seen.
They squeeze every ounce of value from every single post.
And now, you can too.
With Distribution.AI, your content shows up everywhere. No extra effort needed.
One upload becomes a LinkedIn thread, a blog post, show notes, X posts, and more.
Minutes later, you’re everywhere your audience hangs out.
- More reach.
- More impressions.
- More ROI.
All from the content you’ve already made.
No more publish and pray.
No more watching your best work go unnoticed.
Just traction, visibility, and results, all on autopilot.
Ready to fix your broken distribution and 10x your output without rewriting a single word?
Want to sponsor our next issue? Reply to this email, and we’ll share how you can reach more SaaS founders and marketers today.
🏅 Reddit Post of the Week
For those who have used AI in their marketing strategies, what have been your most surprising learnings or insight In r/marketing
🎖️ LinkedIn Post of the Week
MIT just exposed the hidden cost of using AI by Ashley Nicholson
🤳🏽 Nice Finds You Should Binge
- How people are using ChatGPT | OpenAI
- Why Hasn’t AI Solved Your Marketing Problems Yet? | ADWEEK
- Google thinks it can have AI summaries and a healthy web, too | The Verge
- The GenAI Wall Effect: Examining the Limits to Horizontal Expertise Transfer Between Occupational Insiders and Outsiders | Harvard Business School
💻 Job Postings Worth Checking Out
Looking for a new opportunity? Here’s a round-up of some exciting job openings in the B2B SaaS space.
- Foundation Marketing | Account Executive (Growth)
- Foundation Marketing | Senior Account Manager
- Foundation Marketing | Director of Strategy
- Foundation Marketing | Senior Account Coordinator
- Foundation Marketing | Data & Insights Analyst
- Foundation Marketing | Fractional Recruiter
- Foundation Marketing | Executive Assistant
- Foundation Marketing | Reddit Specialist
- Foundation Marketing | Content Creator
Want us to include your job postings in our next issue? Reply to this email, and we’ll share how you can reach more SaaS professionals today.
🎧 What We’re Wired Into This Week
Fred again.. – Rooftop Live (Fedae’s Roof, Naples)
This SaaS news smattering is brought to you by Ethan Crump!
If you have any feedback, suggestions, or ideas you want to see in this newsletter, feel free to email me at ethan@foundationinc.co. We’re always looking for ways to improve and provide the best B2B SaaS marketing resources.
Have a great weekend!
