Love At First Search (formerly Social Slowdown)

AI can know that you exist without fully understanding what belongs to you.

Your website, LinkedIn profile, podcast appearances, old bios, offers, frameworks, and years of published work may all exist online — like puzzle pieces scattered across a table. But if the relationships between those pieces aren’t clear, AI systems can struggle to see the complete picture.

I learned this firsthand when I searched my name in Perplexity in 2025. It knew I had hosted The Social Slowdown. It separately knew that Aggressively Human existed and that I co-hosted it. But it hadn’t connected those facts to the same Meg Casebolt.

The information wasn’t missing. The relationships were.

In this episode, I explain:

• what an entity actually is, without the technical jargon
• why established experts are especially vulnerable to entity fragmentation
• how old brands, titles, bios, and offers can muddy your current identity
• why your identity can be distributed across the web without being fragmented
• what “consistency” actually means — and why every bio does not need to say exactly the same thing
• how an Entity Signal Statement can help make important relationships explicit
• why entity clarity is the foundation of AI authority, but isn’t enough by itself to earn a recommendation
• simple ways to repair missing connections without rebuilding your whole website

Your digital history isn’t necessarily a liability. It can be evidence of experience and authority — as long as search and AI systems can connect those pieces back to the same source.

The goal isn’t to force every puzzle piece into one place. It’s to connect them well enough that the picture of your expertise becomes obvious.

Resource

Want to strengthen your own entity signals?

Get the Entity Optimization Playbook in my free AI Findability Library:

https://loveatfirstsearch.com/ai-library/

If AI isn’t recommending you, the common reaction is to do more marketing.

Publish more. Post more. Pitch more podcasts. Build more backlinks. Show up on more platforms.

But if the thing blocking you has nothing to do with reach, all that extra visibility may just amplify the wrong signal.

In this episode, I’m breaking down the sequence I use to think about expert authority: how you move from simply being understandable to becoming distinctive, reinforced, trusted, and eventually difficult to separate from the ideas you’re known for.

You’ll learn why:

• clearer expertise has to come before broader distribution
• being specific isn’t the same as being distinctive
• your website, podcast, LinkedIn, YouTube, and guest appearances should reinforce the same underlying associations rather than create five different versions of you
• trust is an inference created by accumulated evidence, not something you can declare
• attribution becomes more likely when your ideas are repeatedly connected to you across your own body of work and third-party sources
• authority building works better as a sequence than as a giant marketing checklist

I call this sequence the Unmistakable Authority Method, but the point isn’t to memorize five stages.

The point is to figure out what is actually blocking recommendation right now.

Maybe you have a clarity problem. Maybe you’re interchangeable with everyone else in your category. Maybe your strongest ideas are buried in a fragmented archive. Maybe your public evidence is solid, but it isn’t reinforced or corroborated anywhere else.

Different problems need different interventions.

If you want help identifying yours, take the free AI Signal Check: https://loveatfirstsearch.com/signal-check

If you prefer the written diagnostic to the Signal Check assessment, check out the Content Signals Diagnostic.

AI can know exactly who you are and still never recommend you.

That’s the distinction Meg Casebolt explores in this episode of Love At First Search: the difference between being recognized by AI systems and being selected as a strong fit for a specific problem.

Recognition answers questions like:

• Who are you?
• What do you do?
• What company are you connected to?
• What topics are you associated with?
• Recommendation asks something harder:
• Why you, for this specific need?

That requires more than identity. It requires enough public evidence for a system to understand your expertise, trust your authority, distinguish your point of view, and connect you to the right problem.

In this episode, Meg talks about why broad visibility is not the goal, why smaller specialists can outperform bigger generalists for specific recommendation queries, and why established experts often already have the expertise but lack a clear enough public record for AI systems to recognize the pattern.

She also explains why “just publish more content” is often the wrong advice, how fragmented expertise creates ambiguity, and why recommendation emerges from patterns across a body of work rather than from one optimized page or one self-declared claim.

The key idea: Recognition means the system knows who you are. Recommendation means it has enough evidence to choose you.

And for service providers, consultants, coaches, and other experts, that second outcome is the one that actually matters.

Go deeper in the AI Findability Library: https://loveatfirstsearch.com/ai-library/

Search isn’t dead, but Google isn't the only tool that peoplea re using anymore And the path between someone asking a question and finding the right expert has changed.

For years, search worked through a fairly simple model: someone typed a query into Google, Google ranked a list of webpages, and the goal of SEO was to earn a high enough position to get the click.

That still happens. But it’s no longer the whole system.

Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and other AI-mediated search tools can now interpret questions, retrieve information from multiple sources, compare what they find, and synthesize an answer before someone ever visits a website.

That changes what experts need to make visible.

In this episode, Meg Casebolt, founder of Love At First Search, explains how modern search is moving beyond page rankings and keyword-first content strategy toward a system that also has to understand the source behind the information: who you are, what you know, what you’re known for, and whether there is enough evidence to trust and recommend you.

You’ll hear about why AI did not suddenly replace search when ChatGPT launched, how individual ideas can be retrieved from webpages and synthesized into larger answers, why Meg no longer starts content strategy with keyword volume, and why expert ideas need to be stated explicitly enough for both humans and machines to understand.

Meg also explores how zero-click search changes measurement. Rankings and traffic still matter, but they no longer tell the entire story. Citations, mentions, branded searches, recognition, trust, and recommendation are becoming part of the discoverability picture too.

The takeaway: modern search is no longer only about getting a webpage to rank. It’s about making your expertise understandable enough to retrieve, credible enough to trust, and clear enough to recommend.

Go deeper

For more on AI discoverability and how search systems evaluate information and expertise:

• How AI Chooses What to Cite
• https://loveatfirstsearch.com/how-ai-chooses-what-to-cite/
• Google AI Search: How Search Is Changing
• https://loveatfirstsearch.com/google-ai-search/
• Why I Returned to Blogging for AI Discoverability
• https://loveatfirstsearch.com/blogging-for-ai/
• AI Findability Library
• https://loveatfirstsearch.com/ai-library/

After nearly three years of podcast silence, I’m reviving this feed — but not to pick up exactly where Social Slowdown left off.

Search has changed. My work has changed with it. And the questions I’m most interested in now are less about ranking for keywords and more about how experts become easier to understand, trust, and recommend across Google, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, YouTube, and the rest of the public web.

In this reintroduction episode, I explain why I decided to revive an old podcast feed instead of starting from scratch, what happened when dormant listeners immediately started downloading three-year-old episodes again, and how I’m thinking about the value of old content, existing audiences, and accumulated authority.

I also lay out the experiment I’m running across the blog, YouTube, this podcast, and LinkedIn: taking the same core concepts, translating them into different formats, and tracking both how humans respond and how search and AI systems pick them up.

Over the next several episodes, we’ll get into:

• recognition vs. recommendation
• the Unmistakable Authority Method
• entity clarity
• semantic territory
• authority architecture
• public evidence and reinforcement
• why you can’t build authority in private
• how omnichannel distribution can strengthen your signal
• positioning and narrative differentiation
• what to do when years of accumulated content start making you harder to understand, not easier

If you’ve been here since Social Slowdown, thanks for sticking around. If you found me more recently, welcome.

Love At First Search is now about expert authority, discoverability, and the future of search.

Explore the AI Findability Library: loveatfirstsearch.com/ai-library

Jessica Abel's background as an author led her to assume that mass marketing and a large audience was the ONLY way to succeed as a business owner; Thankfully, she finally figured out that her business models needed to first pay her bills, and THEN she could make decisions about audience and marketing style.

In this week's episode, Jessica (she/her) and I discuss:

• How to think about choosing a business model, and why/when you may choose one over another
• Choosing a business model that allows you to make more money in less time
• Working with fewer clients for more money versus working with more clients for less money
• Figuring out how social media fits into your marketing - what do you need it to do for you?

Connect with Jessica:

• Learn more on Jessica's website
• The Autonomous Creative podcast

A little bit about Jessica:

Jessica Abel (she/her) is a graphic novelist, author, creative business coach, and the founder of Autonomous Creative, a coaching company that helps mid-career creative professionals build businesses that can pay their bills AND honor their creativity. Abel founded the company in response to the ever-greater struggle creatives face in making a living. Pushing back on the “starving artist” mythology, Abel focuses on business fundamentals, stripped of jargon and adapted to the unique needs of creative professionals, and puts the tools of making real money in less time—without creative compromise—into the hands of the artists, writers, and entrepreneurs who need them.

Support the Show.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://loveatfirstsearch.substack.com

By now we know that what works for one, may not work for another. And in this week's episode, I'm talking with Jessica Lackey all about business models, and how sometimes what makes sense for other people may not make sense for you and your business. Maybe the traffic-based business models that we're sold can actually be less profitable than a lower, slower pace of business.

Jessica Lackey is a strategy and operations advisor who is on a mission to radically disrupt mainstream business culture in an effort to create sustainable businesses with a human-centric approach. With a background in corporate leadership, McKinsey & Company consulting, and a Harvard Business degree, Jessica knows a thing or two about hustle culture and what it feels like to judge success by the bottom line…at all costs.

Now, she combines her deep experience in consulting, Fortune 500 operations leadership, and coaching to help businesses grow without sacrificing the well-being of their clients, team, and community.

Here's what you can expect from this episode:

• The importance of community and relationship marketing
• The "cult-ish" side of social media (in regards to online business)
• Why you DON'T need to build your business like everyone else
• Business models and the math behind scale

Connect with Jessica:

• Sign up for her newsletter and/or take the quiz "What’s Your Stage of Business?"
• Learn more about Jessica

Support the Show.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://loveatfirstsearch.substack.com

Marissa Lawton is an 8-year online entrepreneur and conduit for ancient women’s wisdom who guides feminine seekers to reclaim their divine power and channel it into their businesses.

As a former licensed therapist who left the medical model of mental health care, Marissa had a behind-the-scenes look into how patriarchal systems and structures continue to diminish women’s ability to co-create the lives and businesses that serve their innate needs.

And her Work in the world is to change that.

By helping women reconnect to nature’s rhythms, Marissa aims to reintroduce long-denied mysteries and reestablish deep feminine roots in the entrepreneurial space.

In this week's episode, Marissa and I are talking about how you can bring more feminine energy into your business. We discuss:

• Living from a rooted place
• Intuitive decision-making for your business
• Listening to your intuition versus having an analytical mindset when it comes to business decision-making; Can you do both?
• What does masculine and feminine energy look like in a business?
• Traditional marketing with a mystical, sacred flare and how you can bring mysticality into your business
• Redefining your measure of success
• Some examples of how you can bring more feminine energy into your business

Connect with Marissa:

• http://rootedfeminine.com
• Rooted Feminine Podcast
• Follow Rooted Feminine on Instagram
• Marissa Lawton - Side Hustles for Psychotherapists
• Take the quiz: "What season of “re-rooting” are you in?"

Support the Show.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://loveatfirstsearch.substack.com

In this week's podcast episode, I'm thrilled to be speaking with Diann Wingert, a fellow female solopreneur with ADHD.

Diann Wingert became a business strategist, coach, and mentor after a 20-year career as a psychotherapist. Her mission is to help ambitious outliers with big ideas and busy brains get focused, fired up, and flame retardant. Diann is the creator of The Boss Up Breakthrough, host of The Driven Woman Entrepreneur Podcast, and an expert on creative female entrepreneurs with ADHD traits.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Therapy vs. coaching: What's the difference, and which one should you seek out?
• Why the shift from a social media-based marketing strategy to an SEO-based marketing strategy may be the exact thing you need and why many female solopreneurs are afraid to make this switch
• Rejection sensitivity, confidence, and fear of failure
• Social media and mental health
• How ADHD and giftedness in women can be both challenges and advantages in self-employment

Connect with Diann:

• Learn more about Diann Wingert
• Connect with Diann on LinkedIn
• Listen to The Driven Woman Entrepreneur Podcast

Support the Show.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://loveatfirstsearch.substack.com

This is the second part of my 2-part conversation with Briar Harvey about all things social media, online marketing, neurodiversity, mental illness, and accessibility. If you haven't already listened to Part 1, you can listen here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1887252/13429205

We also talk about our ability to focus, the importance of our choice of words, and how the average attention span has decreased significantly over the past decade.

About Briar Harvey:

Briar Harvey is a storyteller and systems witch. She believes that everything has a story and exists within a system. The trick then, is figuring out how to change the rules and tell a better story. She is an IDEA Consultant (that's Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility) with a focus on Neurodivergence (that's ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia, etc). She helps companies create and implement accessibility plans that increase employee retention by at least 50%.

In her free time, she writes stuff and records podcasts. She’s the founder of The Neurodiversity Media Network, a collaborative and accessible media company that is hosting and curating all the news that is relevant to neurodivergent folks. Find her at http://briarharvey.com/ and http://neurodiversitymedianetwork.com/

Support the Show.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://loveatfirstsearch.substack.com

Buckle up for Part 1 of a 2-part episode with Briar Harvey about all things social media, online marketing, neurodiversity, mental illness, and accessibility.

We talk about the fear of missing out on social media, what it's like to run an online business AND consume content as someone who is neurodivergent, and more.

Listen to Part 2 here.

About Briar Harvey:

Briar Harvey is a storyteller and systems witch. She believes that everything has a story and exists within a system. The trick then, is figuring out how to change the rules and tell a better story. She is an IDEA Consultant (that's Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility) with a focus on Neurodivergence (that's ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia, etc). She helps companies create and implement accessibility plans that increase employee retention by at least 50%.

In her free time, she writes stuff and records podcasts. She’s the founder of The Neurodiversity Media Network, a collaborative and accessible media company that is hosting and curating all the news that is relevant to neurodivergent folks. Find her at http://briarharvey.com and http://neurodiversitymedianetwork.com

Support the Show.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://loveatfirstsearch.substack.com

This episode is all about planning your marketing strategy as an entrepreneur.

Michelle Mazur talks about the importance of figuring out your messaging before your marketing. We talk about:

• The importance of collaboration for your marketing strategy
• How you can do less, but BETTER and more efficiently - so you can do more of the things you love
• It's not just about the strategy - it's also about the metrics!
• The Expert Up Club

Connect with Michelle:

• The Expert Up Club
• Learn more about Dr Michelle Mazur and her business, Communication Rebel

More about Michelle Mazur:

Michelle Mazur works with brilliant business owners who are shaking things up...but having trouble talking about it. She combines the tools of successful social movements with the qualitative research skills she earned in her communications PhD to help them craft their powerful, captivating message. The author of 3 books (including the newly-updated 3 Word Rebellion) and featured in Fast Company, Entrepreneur and Inc., she knows that speaking about what you do in a clear and captivating way is the key to reaching the people you could help the most.

Support the Show.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://loveatfirstsearch.substack.com

In this week's episode, Jen Liddy talks about how her Facebook account got hacked and caused her to completely rethink her marketing strategy for her business.

We also discuss:

• When TikTok and other social media platforms can work for you, versus when it can be much harder to make it work for you
• The pros and cons of scaling your business
• The value and cost of labor
• Where your freedom comes from as an entrepreneur
• The importance of relationships as you grow your business
• Reexamining the relationship you have with your business: what do you want and why do you want it?

Connect with Jen:

• Learn more about Jen Liddy
• Content Creation Made Easy Podcast with Jen Liddy

Click here to read the blog post

Support the Show.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://loveatfirstsearch.substack.com

Last week I launched my new book, Social Slowdown: Market Your Business Without Sacrificing Your Mental Health.

So for this week's podcast episode, I figured I'd give you a sneak peek into the book with an audiobook version of the introduction.

If you want to read the whole book, you can get it for just $3.99 for the Kindle, or for $9.99 for a paperback copy - OR you can get a signed paperback for $20.

About this book:

In a digital world dominated by social media, Meg Casebolt made a bold decision that would challenge the status quo. Seeking respite from the incessant noise and distractions, she embarked on a 100-day social media break, uncertain of the consequences it might have on her business.

To her surprise, Meg discovered that her hiatus had no detrimental impact on her thriving SEO marketing agency. Curiosity piqued, she delved deeper into the experiences of fellow entrepreneurs and small business owners who shared their secret desires to break free from the clutches of social media's grip.

Driven by a desire to understand the dangers lurking beneath the surface, Meg embarked on a profound exploration of the hidden perils of social media. With meticulous research and personal anecdotes, she unraveled the insidious links between addiction, depression, anxiety, and patriarchal oppression that often go unnoticed in the digital landscape.

Meg, in her wisdom, realized that boundaries were the key to reclaiming control and finding balance in the digital realm. Drawing from her own transformative journey, she shares five invaluable strategies to establish healthier relationships with social media—ways to protect your mental well-being, safeguard personal privacy, and nurture genuine connections in an era of superficiality.

But Meg doesn't stop there. She extends a lifeline to those yearning for liberation from the clutches of social media's alluring yet detrimental embrace. With passion and expertise, she unveils a comprehensive array of 20 marketing alternatives—innovative, impactful strategies that can catapult businesses to success while enabling them to ditch social media for good.

Join Meg on an eye-opening odyssey as she dismantles the myths and illuminates the shadows surrounding social media. Through her empowering words, she invites entrepreneurs and small business owners to embrace a new paradigm, one that champions mindful engagement, authentic connections, and unparalleled growth beyond the constraints of the digital universe.

This book is an invitation to reimagine the future—a future where you can thrive without surrendering your sanity to the endless scroll. Are you ready to embark on this transformative journey and discover the untapped potential that lies beyond the confines of social media?

Support the Show.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://loveatfirstsearch.substack.com

Ohhhh gosh y'all...

You're probably wondering why I'm releasing a podcast episode today instead of Tuesday, and if you pre-ordered the Social Slowdown book, then you already know that we ran into some ~technical~ issues.

Well, I'm here to be fully transparent about what went awry.

If you're listening to this episode on July 27th, 2023, - then today is the day that my book's pre-orders were SUPPOSED to go live. But as we all know too well, being a business owner comes with its own obstacles.

In this episode, I talk about the pre-publishing errors I encountered with the Social Slowdown book, what I learned from this experience, and the reality of making mistakes as a business owner.

• Get a signed paperback copy for $20
• Download the Kindle version for $3.99

Support the Show.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://loveatfirstsearch.substack.com

I hired Lacy Boggs to help me write the first draft of the Social Slowdown book, and today she's here with me to talk all about the writing process.

We also talk about:

• Book launch strategy
• How it felt to work with a ghost writer
• The difference between a ghost writer and a co-author
• The book publication process
• Thought leadership

Lacy Boggs is a content strategist, author of the bestselling Kindle ebook, Make a Killing With Content, and the mastermind behind the podcast, "Ace Stone, Marketing Detective.” As director of The Content Direction Agency, she helps small business owners create and implement content marketing strategy that feels like a playground for ideas and results in deceptively powerful nurture content to create massive growth.

• The Social Slowdown book is available for pre-order for only $3.99 on Amazon!
• Learn more about Lacy Boggs

Support the Show.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://loveatfirstsearch.substack.com

Did you hear?! The Social Slowdown book is coming out on July 27th, 2023!

If you didn't already know, I wrote a book, taking all of the best bits and pieces from this podcast and putting them together into an easily digestible format.

In this episode, I explain WHY I wrote this book and what you can expect from it.

You can pre-order the e-book for $3.99 or the paperback for $8.99 on Amazon.

For the full show notes, transcript, and more info, visit https://www.socialslowdown.com/social-slowdown-book-coming-soon/

Support the Show.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://loveatfirstsearch.substack.com

Erika Tebbens is a Growth Strategist for visionary entrepreneurs, leaders, and changemakers who are looking to make their mark doing things differently –– and leave a legacy of positive impact.

She provides growth consulting and training through her company, Erika Tebbens Consulting; her podcast: Sell it, Sister!; and through being a featured speaker on podcasts and for communities such as The Tory Burch Foundation and Honeybook/Rising Tide.

She's also the author of You've Got This!: A Counterintuitive Guide to Powerful, Inevitable Changemaking

In today's episode, Erika and I talk about her new book which focuses on how you can make a difference in the world without sacrificing who you are and what you care about. Erika also gives us a behind-the-scenes look at her book-writing and self-publishing process.

For the full show notes, transcript, and more, visit http://socialslowdown.com

Support the Show.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://loveatfirstsearch.substack.com

"So I went to my team and was like, 'We are gonna only have 9 posts on our Instagram and we're gonna archive everything else" - Jordan Gill

After taking a look at her social media analytics, Jordan Gill (of Systems Saved Me) decided to ditch the way she'd previously been using Instagram for her business for a 9-grid strategy.

In this episode, we talk about:

• How and why Jordan "9-gridded" her Instagram
• Pivoting your business/niching down
• Word-of-mouth marketing
• Content or relationship marketing - which one is better for you to get good SEO results?

Jordan Gill is a 7-Figure Business Strategist whose mission is for high-achieving business owners to prioritize rest without sacrificing revenue! She’s helped over 400 coaches and consultants work with clients only 4 days a month with VIP Days! When she’s not spreading the gospel of VIP Days, she’s working on one of her thousand-piece jigsaw puzzles or traveling the world with her husband and bonus son.

Jordan helps service providers and strategists structure and sell virtual VIP days. Click here to get her Free VIP Day Roadmap!

The Membership to Get Data-Driven by Lanie Lamarre

Support the Show.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://loveatfirstsearch.substack.com

Hey friends! Today I'm here with Maryellen Dance of the Okay-ish Podcast to talk about comparisonitis on social media.

Maryellen is a therapist in New York who's working to bring awareness to the dark side of social media that makes us feel bad about ourselves, feel the need to be present all the time online, and gives us a level of isolation like never before.

In today's episode, we're talking about HOW these social media platforms play a role in affecting us mentally and how we can navigate such a saturated online space.

We also cover:

• vulnerability on social media
• influencers and performative content
• experiencing the imposter complex
• how can we decrease our comparisonitis

Listen to the Okay-ish Podcast
Follow Maryellen on Instagram
Subscribe to Maryellen's new YouTube Channel
Learn more about Maryellen

For the full show notes and transcript, visit https://www.socialslowdown.com/overcoming-comparisonitis-on-social-media-with-maryellen-dance/

Support the Show.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://loveatfirstsearch.substack.com