In a year that has been defined by platform fragmentation, disruption of organic search, and rising expectations for brand trust, B2B marketers are evaluating how to best connect with their customers. To shed light on these challenges and the opportunities to overcome them, our own Jane Bartel, Director of Search & Content Marketing at TopRank Marketing, recently shared her insights in a webinar hosted by Content Marketing Institute.
Jane’s message on the topic advises B2B brands to forego chasing shiny object trends and focus on building genuine authority across channels in ways that are anchored in audience-specific experiences and credible voices. Of course that perspective aligns very well with the pillars of Best Answer Marketing (BAM), especially the emphasis on multi-channel visibility, trust signals, and experience-rich content that answers buyers’ questions wherever they’re looking.
Owned channels are the strategic center of content gravity
Jane opened the webinar with a reminder that has become increasingly relevant as algorithms shift and discovery experiences spread across more channels:
“Owned channels are worthy of the most energy because they’re foundational-and all of that content can be repurposed for other channels.”
What a lot of B2B brands have rediscovered this past year is that owned platforms including websites, blogs, resource centers, email lists are the few places where brands can fully control the message, data, and experience the put into market. In the BAM model, this is where experiential content begins: structured, high-value, high-credibility content assets that become the raw material for broader distribution and repurposing.
In our experience, B2B marketers that treat owned channels as experience hubs are finding the greatest advantage. This goes back to the hub and spoke content model we’ve advocated for many years. Every asset can become a nucleus for multi-format, multi-channel activation whether it’s social media posts, influencer quotes, executive POVs, PR mentions, or even AI-search citation optimization.
Organic search isn’t dead. But it has changed
On the topic of organic distribution, where a lot of transformation has happened this year – or maybe disruption is a better word – plenty of marketers are talking about declining traffic. Many B2B brands that have previously relied on high-funnel definition pages are seeing diminishing returns. That kind of broad concept content no longer earns clicks when AI-generated summaries and answer engines provide instant, standardized responses.
However, organic search can still provide meaningful visibility for B2B brands, Where organic search continues to perform is in specificity, intent alignment, and audience research-led personalization, which are all key elements of the BAM Data-Informed pillar.
Instead of broad “what is” explanations, B2B brands can win in organic search by producing content that reflects:
- Niche industry language
- Real operational contexts
- Hands-on practitioner questions
- Scenarios with no one-size-fits-all answers
These are the types of answers where AI search provides visibility to trusted, expert sources vs. more generic definitions. As a result, it gives brands who invest in best answer content depth an advantage. We help companies do just that with our content and search marketing consulting solutions.
Paid media is a trust multiplier
Many B2B marketers still think of PPC and social ads as a single channel of visibility and customer acquisition. However, the B2B marketers that take a best answer marketing approach, share a more strategic interpretation. As Jane said during the webinar:
“The opportunity with paid media is less about buying clicks and more about fueling multi-channel amplification.”
While highly targeted ads can engage buyers directly, in today’s environment of information discovery, paid media becomes most effective when it validates and amplifies the stories a brand is already telling across its owned and earned ecosystems. Research from McKinsey found that B2B buyers engage with an average of 10.2 distinct channels during their journey. For B2B brands, use of paid media can go beyond customer acquisition to reinforce brand trust and “buyability” as Mimi Turner and Jann Schwarz from LinkedIn have been advocating.
Examples of extended paid media beyond single channel acquisition include:
- Amplification of thought leadership
- Extending reach for research reports
- Reaching hidden buyer groups
- Promoting expert-driven or influencer-driven content
- Keeping brand narratives visible in longer enterprise cycles
In the BAM framework, this use of paid media for full funnel visibility aligns tightly with Multi-Channel Discovery and the Trust System: trust-rich content distributed with thoughtful intent.
Paid media also creates the connective tissue needed to meet buyers where intent is emerging. That means LinkedIn as well as niche communities such as Reddit, Substack ecosystems, and vertical-specific conversations.
Subject matter experts are your distribution powerhouses
One of the strongest themes to unpack when it comes to content distribution that builds brand trust is the growing importance of influential practitioners, internal subject matter experts and even B2B focused creators with real-world and practical knowledge of your solution. As Jane says,
“If we can get people talking about a brand who truly have hands-on experience with it, that’s crucial for demonstrating authority and trust.”
Building trust and influence is a team sport and the people that have a combination of first hand experience, a distinct point of view and an audience can be the MVPs for your content distribution goals. This is one of the most important ways to distinguish B2C from B2B influence. Instead of celebrity-style promotion, the voices that carry the most weight are those centered in real-world experience, credibility, and relevance that is validated by peers.
Subject Matter Experts as influencers and creators can help to:
- Humanize complex topics
- Bring authenticity to distribution
- Strengthen brand authority signals
- Improve AI and algorithmic visibility through citations and mentions
Within BAM, this is the beating heart of the Trust System, an engine of credible voices, proof points, and earned authority that optimizes every content asset for trust and credibility. Because if you have great distribution without trust, what’s the point?
Private communities are the new frontier for reaching B2B buyers
While traditional social media algorithms often fluctuate, professional communities in places like Slack, Substack, and other semi-private environments are thriving. Why? These channels are “anchored in utility,” where the content and interactions are:
- Actionable
- Often tool-based
- Drawn from experience
- Showcase real expertise
For many B2B audiences, these spaces now function as the new “third place” where things are not quite public, not quite private, but participation is rich and meaningful. In the BAM model, these communities support the notion of experiential content and multi-channel engagement, which gives B2B brands an opportunity to go beyond broadcasting to meaningful participation. For these private communities, authenticity rules. Showing up as a person vs. as a brand is where engagement is possible and trust is earned.
Distribution in 2026 requires multi-channel authority
Jane closed the webinar with a recommendation that captures where B2B marketers should focus their energy in the coming year: Make your content distribution multi-channel, keep messaging aligned with your audience, and layer in credibility wherever possible.
I may be biased, but this is great advice and aligns perfectly with the opportunity B2B marketers have to evolve and elevate as Best Answer Brands:
- Data-Informed: Understand what buyers want and how they search.
- Integrated Strategy: Align messaging across channels and teams.
- Trust System: Build credibility through experts, influencers, and proof.
- Experiential Content: Create content designed to be discovered and referenced.
- Multi-Channel Visibility: Publish everywhere your audience looks.
- Unified Analytics: Measure what truly drives engagement and revenue.
The days of any single channel tactics are over. A strategic approach that emphsizes credibility, experience as well as multi-channel distribution is critical for B2B brands to engage audiences in less mechancal and more meaningful ways in 2026.
What B2B marketers should do next
To position your brand for success in 2026, here are several practical steps you can take:
- Audit your owned content for trust signals and depth.
- Conduct new audience research to uncover niche intent opportunities.
- Build SME and influencer-driven contributions into your core content.
- Plan distribution as a system, not just a sequence to include owned, earned, paid, and private communities.
- Design content for AI and human discovery equally.
Brands who invest in these areas are in the best position to become the Best Answer Brands their customers think of first, trust and invest in.
Be sure to sign up for the Best Answer Marketing Playbook here and if you’d like help evolving your content distribution to be more strategic and impactful, we’re happy to help.
