Jasmine Granton joins Search with Candour to discuss the mental health crisis in SEO and digital marketing. Jasmine’s experience as both a digital PR professional and a qualified psychotherapeutic counsellor means she’s especially qualified to discuss this topic.

They explore how always-on culture, Slack urgency, KPIs, AI-driven expectations, and perfectionism keep marketers in fight-or-flight, reducing creativity and productivity.

Jasmine shares practical techniques, including setting boundaries, “closing loops” at the end of the day, tracking energy and feelings, and building a “wins” folder to counter negativity bias and boost self-compassion.

Time stamps

01:14 Introduction

03:00 Welcome Jasmine Granton

05:09 Why marketing feels harder

07:44 Perfectionism and self-worth

12:24 Spotting burnout early

15:08 Journaling and closing loops

21:37 ‘Always on’ culture

27:10 Psychological safety at work

30:30 Learning from failure

32:30 Control circles and change

34:17 Building downtime into work

35:56 Creative focus time at work

37:17 Building self-compassion

38:22 Closing failure loops

40:32 Celebrating your wins

48:21 Track your feelings

49:55 Safety checks

55:22 Recommendations

01:04:00 Where to find Jasmine

01:05:26 Episode wrap-up

Annie-Mai Hodge, founder of Girl Power Marketing and creator of the Social Tea newsletter, makes her triumphant return to Search with Candour to discuss how to do SEO for social media.

Annie-Mai explains practical keyword research for social using tools such as TikTok Creator Search Insights and AlsoAsked, and existing SEO tools, then consolidating ideas into a simple spreadsheet and testing performance via platform analytics.

They cover everything from captions, on-screen text, audio, and profiles without keyword stuffing; how to choose channels and formats by researching native results, spotting content gaps, and repurposing across platforms; and why posting time matters less than you may think.

Follow Annie-Mai:

🌟 Girl Power Marketing: https://www.girlpowermarketing.co.uk/

🌟 Social media SEO workbook: https://offers.hubspot.com/view/social-media-seo-workbook

🌟 The Social Media Tea: https://www.girlpowermarketing.co.uk/newsletter

🌟 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anniemaihodge/

🌟 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/girlpowermarketing/

🎧 Annie-Mai’s previous episode: https://withcandour.co.uk/podcast/tiktok-as-a-search-engine-with-annie-mai-hodge

▶️ Watch Search with Candour on YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8c8k5Yy8FltVNsIsP1iUCSXDfE5cq2pM&si=K24FYKx9JiTMfWsh

▶️ Follow on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4AILSpWLI74daOhECb8Hm0

Chapters

00:00 Welcome Back Annie-Mai

00:52 Why Social SEO matters

02:43 Keyword research tools

06:02 Testing keywords in analytics

09:07 Client audits and strategy

12:43 Avoid keyword stuffing

14:57 Posting times and expectations

20:21 Choosing content formats

25:20 Search intent on social

29:24 Repurposing across platforms

33:52 Trends vs core content

35:54 Meme trend pitfalls

36:36 Viral origins stories

38:58 Brand consistency

42:43 Human first optimisation

48:18 Profile basics that work

52:15 Are followers or views better?

56:24 Recommendations: Actionable tips, tools and Project Hail Mary

59:23 Wrap up

Jack Chambers-Ward hosts a solo episode of Search With Candour, recapping the last 6 weeks of SEO news from the Core Updates newsletter.

Jack covers Google’s February 2026 Discover update, a fast March spam update, and the ongoing March 2026 core update.

He then highlights Bing Webmaster Tools, adding AI Performance reporting, Google’s WebMCP new UCP features.

📧 Core Updates: https://coreupdates.com/

🤝 SearchNorwichXL: https://searchnorwich.org/

Google updates

🔗 https://status.search.google.com/incidents/mYbNTqV1ytDc2fA8hUz4

🔗 https://status.search.google.com/incidents/VbnSXAH4SmEcxPtx4YSD

🔗 https://status.search.google.com/incidents/7eTbAa2jWdToLkraZj5y

Bing’s AI performance report

📊 https://blogs.bing.com/webmaster/February-2026/Introducing-AI-Performance-in-Bing-Webmaster-Tools-Public-Preview

📊 https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en/blog/post/march-2026/the-ai-performance-dashboard-your-view-into-where-your-brand-appears-across-the-ai-web

UCP and MCP

🛒 https://developer.chrome.com/blog/webmcp-epp

🛒 https://block.github.io/goose/blog/2026/03/17/webmcp-for-beginners/

🛒 https://ppcnewsfeed.com/ppc-news/2026-03/google-publishes-help-page-universal-commerce-protocol/

🛒 https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/shopping/ucp-updates/

Chapters

00:00 SEO news rundown

00:47 Google Discover Update

02:42 March Spam Update

03:43 March Core Update

05:15 Bing AI metrics debut

06:55 Inside AI Performance Report

11:03 New Bing AI metrics

14:42 WebMCP explained

18:06 UCP Agentic Checkout

20:43 UCP new features

22:45 Walmart vs ChatGPT conversions

25:02 Wrap up and next steps

25:44 Newsletter and event plug

27:16 Final thanks and teaser