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Welcome to Volume 281 👋
Happy Thursday!
In this week’s newsletter, we cover:
- 📺 Massive YouTube Study Reveals What Actually Drives Virality in 2026
- 🔎 Reddit Ranks Ahead of Most B2B Vendor Sites. AI Is Making That Gap Worse.
- 👀 The Latest in B2B SaaS This Week
- 🧠 This Week’s Brain Food
- ➕ The Best Content Across the Web
- 📣 We’re Hiring: Check Out Our Open Positions!
Let’s get into it.
📺 Massive YouTube Study Reveals What Actually Drives Virality in 2026
According to Richard and the team at 1of10, an analysis of 62.6 billion views across 323,000+ outlier videos found that emotion — not information — is the strongest predictor of YouTube performance. Titles triggering joy, controversy, or anger consistently outperformed neutral ones, while titles with numbers saw roughly 11% fewer views on average.
The packaging insights are equally sharp. Titles around 30 characters received nearly 60% more median views than those beyond 70 characters. Thumbnails with text saw ~19% fewer views than those without. And despite the short-form boom, videos in the 15–25 minute range consistently outperformed shorter content across all niches.
According to the study, business and finance content specifically performs strongest between 25 and 40 minutes, where depth builds trust — a signal B2B brands should note.
For marketers building a YouTube presence alongside their GEO strategy, this data reinforces something important: YouTube is already one of the most-cited sources across AI search engines like Gemini and Perplexity. The brands packaging content with emotional hooks and visual clarity are not only winning clicks, but citations too.
🔎 Reddit Ranks Ahead of Most B2B Vendor Sites. And AI is Widening the Gap.
Reddit currently holds over 8,300 top-3 SERP positions for “best [software]” keywords — including 471 for “best CRM,” 118 for “best payroll,” and 78 for “best ERP.” Those aren’t casual browsing queries. Those are the exact searches buyers make when building a shortlist.
Now layer on the AI angle: Reddit pages have been cited 5.3 million times by Google AI Overviews, 5.5 million times by Perplexity, and 4 million times by ChatGPT. And with G2 now feeding verified review data directly into Reddit Pro profiles, the structured review layer and the community trust layer are formally connected for the first time.
B2B marketers still treat Reddit as a platform for B2C brands, but the data says otherwise. Brands that show up early are earning compounding credibility that latecomers will pay a premium for.
Here’s the full breakdown, including why paid is the smartest entry point.
👀 What’s the Latest in B2B SaaS This Week?
- Exclusive: As AI threatens search, Profound raises $96 million to help brands stay visible | Fortune
- Stripe is reportedly eyeing deal to buy some or all of PayPal | TechCrunch
- HubSpot Acquires YouTube-Based Media Brand Starter Story | Adweek
- Anthropic Education Report: The AI Fluency Index | Anthropic
- More startups are hitting $10M ARR in 3 months than ever before | TechCrunch
🚨 New Podcast Alert: Reddit Is the New Front Page of B2B
In the latest episode of The Ross Simmonds Show, Ross breaks down why Reddit has quietly become one of the most influential platforms in B2B — and shares a practical framework for brands ready to show up where buyers are actually making decisions.
With LLMs like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini pulling directly from Reddit threads, the platform isn’t just a community hub anymore. It now shapes the answers AI gives. Ross walks through how to use that to your advantage — without getting banned or ignored. Here’s what he covers:
- The buyer journey has moved. Prospects are getting personalized answers in Slack groups, Discord, WhatsApp, and Reddit long before they hit your website. If you’re not part of those conversations, you’re invisible to consumers.
- Reddit fuels AI search. LLMs frequently pull from Reddit to inform their responses — meaning your presence in threads can directly influence how AI platforms talk about your category and your brand.
- The Listen, Learn, Leap framework. Ross shares a three-step approach to Reddit: audit what customers are saying, study the content patterns that earn engagement, then create native content that aligns with community expectations. Treat it as a long-term investment, not a campaign.
- Niche down to break through. Large subreddits are competitive. Ross explains how starting in focused communities — like r/MSPs — and reverse engineering top-performing post formats can drive real traction before you scale.
- Word of mouth is the ultimate growth flywheel. Reviews, Reddit threads, tweets, and blog posts compound over time. The brands engineering moments that spark conversation are building sustainable demand — not just traffic.
Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcast or Spotify to learn how to make AI your unfair advantage and 10X your output without losing your voice.
📌 You need a Reddit strategy. This free blueprint will save you months of figuring it out.
66% of ChatGPT citations include a Reddit URL. 75%+ of Perplexity citations pull from Reddit or YouTube. Your buyers are already there, asking for recommendations in subreddits you’ve never opened.
Ross put together a free 10-chapter blueprint covering everything he’s learned about turning Reddit into actual pipeline — including the mistakes that got him banned 18 times and the framework that’s driven 40-60% lower CPLs than LinkedIn retargeting.
It includes a 90-day launch plan you can hand to someone on your team tomorrow.
👉 Grab the free Reddit B2B Marketing Blueprint here
🧠 This Week’s Brain Food
A new meta-analysis in the Journal of Consumer Behaviour synthesized 48 studies and 34,302 respondents to figure out what actually drives people to use chatbots. The findings challenge some common assumptions.
Making bots more human-like? It boosted enjoyment but did nothing for trust. What did build trust was perceived intelligence — users need to believe the bot actually understands them and can respond accurately. Satisfaction was the single strongest predictor of continued use, followed by attitude and perceived usefulness. Meanwhile, social influence and social presence barely registered. People don’t adopt chatbots because their peers do. They adopt them when the bot delivers.
That last point is worth sitting with. It suggests people evaluate chatbots more like tools than social experiences. They’re running a personal cost-benefit analysis: Is this useful? Is it easy? Does it do what it says it will? The moment performance slips — or worse, the bot “hallucinates” a confident wrong answer — trust craters and doesn’t come back easily.
The takeaway for brands investing in conversational AI: stop optimizing for personality. Start optimizing for performance. A chatbot that’s charming but unreliable will entertain people once. A chatbot that’s accurate and effortless will keep them coming back.
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
Ai slop and a warning to Marketers In r/marketing
🎖️ LinkedIn Post of the Week
Everyone talks about Google Discover like it’s a black box. by Metehan Yeşilyurt
💻 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 | GEO Partnerships Coordinator (PT)
- Foundation Marketing | Senior Account Manager
- Foundation Marketing | Reddit Specialist
- Foundation Marketing | Content Creator
- Foundation Marketing | Senior Account Coordinator
- Foundation Marketing | Senior Content Strategist
- Foundation Marketing | Executive Marketing & Outreach Assistant
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
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!
