Listen via

Quick Summary

Tim Cameron-Kitchen, founder of Exposure Ninja, explores AI’s impact on search and Google’s evolving strategies. He discusses threats from ChatGPT and TikTok, Google’s AI-driven updates like Search Generative Experience (SGE), and the challenges of optimising for AI-driven search results.

The conversation covers AI’s role in marketing, business operations, and decision-making, as well as the growing importance of video in remote interactions. Tim also shares his favourite books and podcasts, offering insights on success and the future of search.

Follow Tim Cameron-Kitchen :

Who is Tim Cameron-Kitchen

Horrendous Digital Marketing geek, Best-Selling Author of How To Get To the Top of Google, Podcaster and Vlogger, founder of Exposure Ninja and fan of underdogs.

Tim grew up always wanting to be a professional drummer. At school, he became completely obsessed and spent every waking hour becoming the best drummer he could be.

After uni, he achieved his goal. He had a studio in the farmhouse he lived in with his band, got featured in all the drumming magazines he’d read growing up, recorded some DVDs and wrote a book.

Then in 2011 he built a website that changed someone’s life for the better and realised that digital marketing was what he needed to be doing. Having such a positive impact on someone was extremely addictive, and whilst drumming was great fun it couldn’t compete with the rush of the ‘life-changing’ testimonial. The desire for this rush still guides Tim today.

Takeways

  • The emergence of Chat GPT and TikTok poses potential threats to Google’s dominance in search.
  • Google has responded by integrating AI functionality into its search engine, such as SGE and Perspectives.
  • Exposure Ninja was one of the first agencies to optimise for SGE and share the process with others.
  • Google’s release of AI overviews, which provide generative AI answers to user queries, received negative feedback.
  • While AI has the potential to disrupt search, Google is adapting to stay relevant. Generative AI has the potential to revolutionize search engine results, but it has not yet posed a significant threat to Google’s dominance.
  • AI models like ChatGPT and Claude can be used to analyse documents and transcripts, providing tailored and fast results for complex queries.
  • Video presence and attention to detail are crucial in remote interviews and online interactions.
  • Success can be measured by the balance of health, family, and business, with a focus on avoiding regret in the future.

What you’ll learn from Tim Cameron-Kitchen

29:57 Threats to Google’s Dominance

31:49 Negative Feedback on AI Overviews

34:04 Generative AI in Search Engine Results

36:16 The Dominance of Google and the Challenges Faced by New Search Engines

39:14 AI in Business Operations: Analysing Documents and Transcripts

46:02 The Importance of Video Presence and Attention to Detail in Remote Interviews

51:12 Recommended Books and Podcasts for Learning and Inspiration

54:26 Measuring Success: Health, Family, and Business


Quickfire questions

1. What resources should people dive into?

I’m not going to pretend to be much of a reader. I used to be, but my intention spans just disappeared. favourite, I’ve got two favourite books which have sort of influenced my thinking. Ogilvy on advertising, which is a good sort of primer for anyone who wants to start thinking about marketing. And then the ultimate sales letter by Dan Kennedy, which is a very sort of tactical marketing book, but it’s really useful. Even if you’re like, if I think if you’re just going to start a business. You’d want to read that book because it talks about the customer and understanding the customer and how that sort of influences audio marketing. those two would be ones. In fact, Dan Kennedy has really influenced loads of my thinking about marketing in general. He’s pretty old school. There’s a lot of like old audio tapes and videos of him with like a overhead projector and some dingy hotel room in like Texas in the 1980s or whatever. But it’s really good stuff. He’s really, really bright.

Podcasts, I have to shout out the Exposure Ninja podcast. We have a really good podcast. We’ve also got some great books as well, including how to get to the top of Google. I quite like the All In podcast. I don’t know if you know that. So some people get turned off because some of the All In guests or some of the All In hosts are a bit right wing, but there’s also some left wing hosts as well. The thing is they just talk about business and politics and it’s just quite interesting to hear from them.

Other than that, I spend a lot of time on YouTube, so I work out a couple of times a day and I usually stick something on YouTube, just learning about retrofit or funding for social housing, decarbonisation or whatever the topic is of the day. So I’m a big fan of YouTube. I think you can learn how to do anything that you want on YouTube really. So that’s my go -to resource.

2. What’s your genius?

What’s my genius? I can usually come up with an idea to solve whatever problem someone’s got.

3. What drives you every day?

Fear of regret when I’m older.

4. What unpopular opinion do you hold?

That following your passion is a good way to start a company. Terrible idea.

5. What’s the most significant risk you’ve taken?

Handing over Exposure Ninja to a CEO (Charlie Marchant in November 2023)

6. How do you measure success? Not in business, but in life?

My three main things are like health first because health is like the default. Family, are my family happy with me? Do they like me? Am I going to have regret? And then business. And those are really the only three things I care about. Social life has sort of fallen by the wayside. I don’t really care about it. I’m focusing on my family while they’re young. So that’s how I sort of look at my life is the relative balance of all of those three things.

7. If you were to write your own eulogy, what would you want to be remembered for?

To be honest, I don’t really care how I’m remembered. Other than by my children, I’m gonna be dead, yeah.

8. What’s the most recent thing you’ve learned or the most recent skill you’ve acquired?

Well. At the moment I’m recruiting a site manager for a construction business. So I’ve learned a bit about site management in order to do that

9. What’s the biggest myth in business?

I think one of the biggest diversions in business is thinking that business is here to act as a charity. think businesses can have a cause, but fundamentally a business is there to make money and that money can then be deployed to further particular causes. But I think it’s rare that you see a business that has genuinely moved a cause forward. I think make the money first, then deploy the money.

The people who are good at making money are very rarely the people who are good at deploying it for causes. So having you wouldn’t employ the same person to do both of those things. So aces in their places. Bill Gates make the money. Melinda handle the distribution.

Enjoyed the show? Leave a Review