"New B2B Challenges" [Essay for ASBPE Young Leader Scholarship]

This is the essay I submitted as part of my application for a Young Leader Scholarship awarded by ASBPE. I was awarded the scholarship in 2024 along with two other B2B editors.

I believe that one of the primary challenges that business publication editors face is how to effectively connect with younger, up-and-coming professionals.

There has been a cultural shift in how people interact with content. As a member of Generation Z, I've grown up alongside the development of the Internet and its subcultures. Increasingly, I've seen that today's youth are less and less trusting of faceless organizations in favor of individual personalities (think podcasters, YouTubers, and bloggers) who create content as a solo operator. There is a cynicism toward media organizations and news outlets owned by for-profit companies. In contrast, independent outlets are seen as more authentic, their motives more pure. While this shift is largely isolated to consumer media currently, I think it will shift into the B2B journalism sector as my generation grows into their professional careers. Readers will want authentic insight, distilled from real stories and lived experience, from professionals in their industry that they know and trust via their personal brand—rather than articles written by contributors who may not have relevant experience and instead rely on secondary and tertiary sources.

Considering that, I think B2B brands would benefit from pivoting to be driven by personalities rather than publication prestige. Such a change would entail adopting a more conversational, first-person approach to producing content that let unique voices shine, rather than bringing all content in line with a monolithic "brand voice." Exploring different mediums would be a necessary part of this; web research indicates that video and podcasts are growing in popularity, likely because those mediums allow the audience to connect with the person behind the subject matter expertise at a deeper level than articles allow.

A worthwhile example might be independent political commentary channels, such as The Young Turks or The Daily Wire, that are gaining in popularity. Though the two outlets are ideologically opposed, they are similar in that they are widely known by the personalities that represent them—i.e., Cenk Uygur and Ben Shapiro. Moving forward, young professionals familiar with that content model may look for other such outlets specific to their industry.

I don't think an essay on this topic would be complete without discussing artificial intelligence (AI). AI will highlight this shift—the genericized brand voices of many B2B trade publications will become off-putting to up-and-coming readers due to their suspicion that the content is AI-generated and, effectively, optimizing for search engine rankings instead of helpful insight. In response, readers will increasingly seek out known subject matter experts producing original, resonant content. Google has arguably confirmed this, what with their recent updates that will award content meeting EEAT criteria.

B2B publications have a bright future—but it may require a fundamental shift in how they approach producing content in order to remain relevant.