Summary and pictures by Isabel Valencia Martinez
On the 3rd of December 2025, the Berlin SEO & Content Club came together for its 10th edition, a festive, slightly Christmassy evening full of strategy, debate, and reflection about where search is heading. As always, amid the informal atmosphere and good conversations with our favourite crowd of marketers, SEOs, and content folks, we explored what happens when clicks disappear, PR evolves, and AI meets very human expectations.
Strategy, Originality, and a Christmas Touch at BSCC #10
This 10th edition had a special tone: less “tools and hacks” and more “where are we really going and how do we want to work?” We mixed strategic business thinking with fresh, sometimes provocative perspectives, all wrapped in the emotional, end-of-year feeling that makes people a bit more open, curious, and collaborative.
Zero-Click, Trust, and New Metrics by Fernando Angulo
Fernando Angulo kicked off the night with a deeply strategic talk that zoomed out from tools and tactics to how people actually search today. He started his talk with a simple but effective question:
Do Gen Z and Gen Alpha still say “I’ll Google it”?
Which leads us to the next question. For the next generation, is Google still the starting line, or just one of many stops in a journey that now runs through socials and AI?
We are moving from a world of keyword-driven search to a natural, conversational discovery process. This isn’t just a platform shift; it’s a mental shift. People don’t think in “keywords” anymore; they think in questions and dialogue.
To navigate that world, our classic metrics won’t be enough. Fernando contrasted familiar KPIs like search volume, CTR, conversion rate, and bounce rate with the kinds of signals we’ll need to care about next, such as:
- AI citation frequency: how often your brand or content is referenced by AI agents
- Zero-click satisfaction: users get what they need without visiting your site, but it’s still coming from your brand
- Conversation depth: how far people go in dialogue where your brand plays a role
- Source attribution patterns: how and when AI tools name and surface you as a trusted source
His core message: we need to start building a new measurement framework for search. New KPIs that acknowledge that visibility, trust, and influence now live far beyond the traditional SERP.
Digital PR in the Age of LLMs by Bert-Jan Vos
After an energetic Q&A with Fernando, the room changed pace with Bert-Jan Vos, who brought a quieter, reflective tone to a topic that turned out to be surprisingly urgent: Digital PR in the new search ecosystem.
Bert-Jan started by clearing up a common misconception: Digital PR is not just link building.
Modern Digital PR is about much more than acquiring links. It’s about growing brand awareness through credible, trustworthy sources and strengthening your overall digital footprint.
He reformulated the classic “Is SEO dead?” clickbait into a fresh question:
“Is Digital PR dead?”
And answered it without hesitation: Digital PR is more alive than ever. If you want to be cited by LLMs, included in AI answers and recognised as a trustworthy source, you need a PR strategy, not just a backlink strategy.
To build that wider digital footprint, brands should focus on the triangle of content + mentions + expertise. Some of his key recommendations:
- Create research-based, data-driven content that others genuinely want to reference.
- Share insights with media and journalists, not only on your own channels.
- Participate actively in online communities (yes, places like Reddit count!)
- Encourage reviews, comments, and testimonials, which reinforce your authority and trustworthiness.
In a world where LLMs are constantly scanning the web for patterns of credibility, Digital PR is no longer a “nice to have”. It’s one of the main ways to get your brand into the conversations that matter. As I like to say, brand mentions are the new link building, and they matter.
AI Content Under the Microscope by Tina Reis
We closed the evening with a refreshingly honest and nuanced talk by Tina Reis on why using AI for content creation often doesn’t work the way we hope and what we can do instead.
Right from the start, Tina set the tone: this was not a sermon, but an invitation to discussion. She emphasised that things are changing fast, that no one has the final answer, and that we all need the freedom to change our minds as we experiment and learn.
Tina backed her perspective with data, for example, on hallucination rates based on different prompt types. It was clear she knows how to present information in a way that today’s audiences actually understand and remember.
Several points resonated strongly in the room:
- The more you work with AI content, the faster you recognise when a text has been generated by AI.
- AI still struggles to replicate a true brand voice. We all agree tone, nuance, values, and personality are hard to fake.
One of the highlights of her talk was a study comparing AI-written content vs. human-written content. The results were eye-opening:
- AI-generated content performed quite well in AI environments.
- But it performed worse in Google compared to human-written content.
This shifted the conversation from “Can AI write?” to “Where does AI content actually perform?”
Tina wrapped up with an open question and a call for collaboration: Would the results have been different if the human writer had been trained in AI search and the AI had been guided by longer, more detailed instructions?
If you’re curious to explore that question further, you’ll definitely want to talk to Tina Reis.
A Community Ready to Grow
The 10th edition of the Berlin SEO & Content Club had a clear Christmas flavour: emotional connection, honest questions, and a shared sense that we’re building something bigger than our individual projects.
With each edition, BSCC grows not just in size but in depth, and this 10th event showed that the community is ready for the next step. We can’t wait to see where we go from here.
