Networking To Build A Brand

Last week, I delivered training for a professional services firm… One key takeaway? If you don’t write your story, someone else will. We discussed how your digital presence is your first impression. Your LinkedIn profile, content, and engagement don’t just represent you - they define how clients, partners, and future employees perceive you. But it’s not just about individual profiles. 💡 Your company brand is only as strong as the personal brands of the people within it. Every interaction, every post, every comment from your team shapes how your business is perceived. When leaders and team members actively shape their digital presence, they don’t just build credibility for themselves they elevate the entire organisation. Yet too many professionals assume their work will speak for itself. The reality? If you don’t tell your story, someone else will and it may not be the story you want. How to Take Control of Your Professional Brand: ✅ Who is your audience? Speak directly to them. What do they care about? What challenges are they facing? Shape your content to address their needs. ✅ Make your people the stars. The best company brands are powered by strong professional brands. Encourage your team to share insights, celebrate wins, and engage in conversations. When your people show up, your brand becomes more human and relatable. ✅ 1 post, 1 purpose. Every piece of content should be intentional. Is it educating, inspiring, or starting a conversation? Keep it clear, valuable, and focused. Key Takeaways 🔹 Start where you are. Comment on posts, share insights, and support others. 🔹 Be consistent. One post won’t build a professional brand but showing up regularly will. 🔹 Empower your team. Equip them with the confidence and strategy to represent your brand online, it’s one of your most valuable marketing assets. 🔹 Think long-term. Your digital presence isn’t just about today it’s shaping the opportunities you’ll have tomorrow. If you don’t write your story, someone else will. And if you’re a leader, take this to the next level by ensuring your team is equipped to do the same. #digitalfirst #marketing #linkedin

“Irina, how do I STOP our employees from posting on social?” “Why would you want to?” Truth is, less than 7% of people click on ads but nearly 70% act when a peer recommends something. People trust people more than brands. Advocacy scales your reach through authentic, human voices in ways your corporate account never will. Johnson Financial Group leaned into this. Their advisors wanted to post but were stuck with compliance concerns, time constraints, fear of saying the wrong thing. So instead of locking it down, they removed friction with Hootsuite: → Pre-approved, compliance-vetted content → Sharing that takes seconds, not hours → Mobile access (even unlocking Instagram, previously blocked on corporate laptops). They generated 314% higher engagement than the financial services average and 1.6M impressions on a key campaign (4x benchmark). Your employees want to advocate for your brand but most just don’t know what’s safe to say… especially in highly regulated industries. Give them the tools, create the guardrails, and stop treating employee voices as a risk to contain. In moments of opportunity or crisis, an engaged network of advocates amplifies your message faster than any comms team could alone. -- What's your take? Are employees a risk to manage or a distribution channel? 👇

How My Business Went from Zero to Being Taken Seriously — Overnight When I first started Hawke Media, it was just me. No team, no reputation, just the experience of having built and sold a few companies. But as a brand? We were a nobody. Not surprisingly, my first client was a friend. He saw the value in what I was doing and was paying me to help with his marketing. A few months in, he asked to have a talk. I could tell something was up. He got straight to the point: “Erik, I don’t have a lot of money to pay you right now, but I love the progress we’re making. I want you to do more. What else can we do?” I had two choices: Stick to a rigid time-for-money model. Or get creative. That’s when it hit me. He wasn't just a friend and early client. He was a partner in the making. I knew he was a contributing writer for Forbes, so I said, “No problem. I understand money is tight. We’ll find a way to partner on this and keep moving forward if you can feature my company in Forbes. Would that work?” A few weeks later, the article went live: “Why You Should Outsource Your Marketing to Hawke Media.” That single article changed everything. Suddenly, people searching for outsourced marketing and fractional CMO services were landing on our website. To this day, we still get traffic from it. But that’s not even the best part. The real value wasn’t just in the clicks. It was in the credibility. When a trusted publication puts your name out there, people start to pay attention. That’s the power of third-party validation. It opens doors. Build trust. And sometimes, it changes everything. 

Owned authority and earned recognition: which factor is more important for AI visibility? AI systems validate credibility through what others say about a brand. It's not limited to what the brand says about itself. Across platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity, 85% of brand mentions come from third-party sources. Only 13% are drawn directly from brand-owned content. Though owned content builds the foundation, external validation amplifies it. Brands that appear consistently across trusted sites, reviews, and communities create stronger authority signals that AI systems recognise and surface. Listicles and comparison articles now drive nearly 90% of third-party mentions in AI search. Within those, 80% of featured brands appear among the first three companies listed, showing how placement in external content directly shapes visibility. Owned assets still play a vital role. Product pages and homepages account for over 25% of first-party citations. Especially when users move from discovery to evaluation. Clear, consistent messaging on-site helps AI systems verify information accurately. Each AI model weighs authority differently: 68% of brands appear in only one platform. Consistency across web mentions ensures broader reach and recognition. Brands with unified narratives, cited across reliable third-party sources and anchored in strong owned content, gain lasting visibility. Brands should focus on building clarity in what they publish and credibility in how others repeat it.

I am not exaggerating; I was asked how AI decides what to say about a company more than 100 times in two days. Here's what I said: it triangulates. AI isn't looking at one source. It repeats what it sees confirmed in multiple ways. This is what I know to be true today (and validated by the more than 109 proof of concepts and campaigns we've run). Research can back me up: → Brands that show up across multiple independent sources are 2.8x more likely to be cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity. Overlap reads as consensus. (Daily GEO Insights, 2026) → 85.5% of AI citations come from earned media, not brand-owned websites. (Muck Rack, 1M+ prompts) → Brand mentions across the web correlate 3x more strongly with AI visibility than backlinks. (Ahrefs, study of 75,000 brands) So being the answer in AI comes down to one thing: corroboration. And you impact it through a Perception Triangle. Three corners, working together. - Own it. The definitive answer on your own site. Your source of truth. - Back it. Authority content that says the same thing in an editorial voice. Your credibility. - Spread it. Independent coverage on outlets, newsletters, and third-party validation AI can actually read. When all three tell AI (and heck your stakeholders) the same or similar story, it presents the perception you're after. In one controlled study, distributing content through third-party outlets alone produced a 239% median lift in AI visibility (Stacker and Scrunch). Now picture all three corners firing at once. You might have one corner (and not even at scale), but all three are what build the modern-day PR lane. #AIVisibility #PublicRelations #Communications #AI

I just watched a promising beverage brand disappear from shelves the moment their founder stopped traveling. Not because the liquid was bad. Not because the packaging failed. Because no one advocated for them when they weren't in the room. "My distributor should be selling my product." That assumption just cost a craft RTD brand $2.3M in wasted inventory. Your brand needs advocates even when you're not there. Here's how to build a self-advocate culture: 1. Stop thinking your distributor is your sales team. They're your logistics partner. I shadowed a major distributor rep last month. They presented 14 brands in 18 minutes. Your brand got 77 seconds. 2. Make your sell sheets distributor-focused, not consumer-focused. Distributor reps need 3 things: margin, velocity data, and selling points that fit in a single breath. A spirits brand I helped redesign their sales material saw sales jump 41% in 90 days. 3. Create a portable story, not a perfect one. "It's the only craft vodka that uses local potatoes and sells through twice as fast as the category average." That travels. Your 10-minute origin story doesn't. 4. Build a rep incentive program that's embarrassingly simple. $25 gift cards to the first 5 reps who place your product in a new account type. Complexity kills execution. 5. Treat distributor market managers like your board of directors. When they feel like partners, they act like partners. A non-alc brand I advise sends monthly "insider updates" to their top 10 distributor contacts. Distribution success isn't about getting picked up. It's about creating advocates when you're not in the room. What's one distributor advocacy tactic that's worked for your brand? Truthfully, Sam P.S. Need help building distributor advocacy systems? That's what we do at BevAssets. Or catch more insights on this week's DrinkUp Podcast.

43.8% of AI citations come from "best X" lists. That’s more than blog posts, landing pages, product pages, and homepages combined. So I dug into the data to understand how brands can use this to increase their AI visibility. Here's the playbook: 1. Earn third-party recommendations Your homepage is what you say about yourself. A third-party comparison page is what someone else says about you. AI cites the second far more often. 2. Get on the lists AI already trusts AI isn't discovering brands from scratch. It's finding them through recommendation content that's already ranking. Tip: Use a tool like Mentions to find these pages. 3. Aim for the top, not just inclusion Being included in lists helps. Being included near the top helps more. Brands that appear higher in lists appear more prominently in AI recommendations. 4. Create your own list pages Many brands appearing in AI recommendations are also publishing their own lists. - Best-of pages - Alternatives pages - Comparison pages 5. Keep these pages fresh Nearly 80% of cited list pages are recently updated, they seem to earn more trust. 6. Don't let domain authority stop you A surprising number of cited lists come from relatively smaller websites. AI doesn't always reward the biggest site. It also rewards the most relevant page. 7. Build consensus across the web One recommendation is an opinion. Repeated recommendations become a signal. The more trusted sources you have mentioning you, the stronger your AI visibility becomes. 8. Track where competitors are being recommended AI visibility often comes from the same recommendation sources appearing repeatedly. Find those sources. Then figure out how to get included too. 9. Think beyond rankings For years the goal was ranking your website. Now there's a second goal: Ranking the pages that recommend you. Almost half of those pages AI cites are "best X" lists. The brands that jump on this early and do it well have a huge advantage for years to come. PS. I share ideas, trends, and growth opportunities like this every week in my newsletter: jakeward.io

$7k in prizes. Millions of impressions. And the best marketing ROI I've ever seen came from the most underutilized channel in B2B. This summer at Invisible, we ran what might be the scrappiest campaign I've run since I was 24. We called it Social Summer – a company-wide competition to see who could generate the most LinkedIn impressions. The budget? Just $7K in prizes. The result? Several viral employee posts, millions of organic impressions, and something even more valuable: we cracked the code on why most companies fail at employee advocacy. Here's the uncomfortable truth about LinkedIn: While everyone's obsessing over paid ads and influencer partnerships, they're sitting on a goldmine. Your employees' networks are 10x more valuable for pipegen than your company page will ever be. Why? People want to engage with people, not faceless brands. But most employee advocacy programs fail because they treat people like content distribution bots. Send this! Post that! Share our press release! 🙄 Instead of pushing corporate content, we encouraged employees how to tell their own stories. We coached them on the algorithm (yes, there's a method to the madness). We made it a competition because, for better or worse, gamification works. The magic happened when employees got over that initial hurdle of posting. Once they started, they couldn't stop. Our sales team was sharing why they enjoyed relationship building. Our ops team was dropping productivity tips. Our engineers dropped AI insights. Real humans. Talking about real work. The ripple effects were amazing: • Warm inbound from their networks (crucial when you're selling multi-million dollar enterprise deals) • Started showing up in VC market maps (the ultimate Silicon Valley validation) • Employees becoming mini thought leaders in their respective lanes The kicker? This whole campaign cost less than one month of LinkedIn ads (and got more impressions, too). Employee advocacy isn't about getting your team to shill your product. It's about unlocking the expertise that's already there. Teach them the game, give them the tools, and get out of the way. Your next best marketing hire might already be on your payroll. They just don't know it yet. 🚀 Huge shout out to our winners John Cutter, 🌎 Jacquelyn Nicholson, Korina Skhinas, Lydia Andresen, Carey Montgomery, to Aimee Stewart and Mechiel Louw for an amazing summer campaign, and to John Koelliker and the Leland team for the inspiration!

Has the day of the ‘Corp-fluencer’ arrived? 🤔📣 I think it has and the signs are everywhere. For years we’ve all said that people are our greatest asset 👥 and that the most powerful form of marketing is still word-of-mouth. Yet most organisations have never fully connected those two truths. That’s changing fast. 🔄 This week, at a dinner hosted by Akhila Venkitachalam and Inge Hatton at Ekimetrics, the idea of “freedom within a framework” came up again and again, the balance between empowering teams to speak authentically while giving them the guardrails to stay on-brand. And when you get that balance right, something magic happens ✨: Your colleagues don’t just represent the brand… they become the brand. A few brilliant examples bring this to life: 🔹 Asda – Granfluencers 👵🧓 Adam Zavalis Zavalas shared a wonderful story about featuring grandparents who actually work in ASDA. Who do you trust more than your grandparents? Warm, familiar faces from your own community speaking with genuine pride, that’s advocacy at its most human. 🔹 Marks and Spencer – 70,000 Colleagues, 70,000 Brand Ambassadors 🌟 At The Marketing Society Changemakers Conference, Sharry Cramond told the story of how M&S empowered every single colleague to share what they genuinely loved. From staff social accounts to badges showing favourite products to behind-the-scenes buying insights, they turned a workforce into a nationwide community of advocates. It wasn’t a campaign; it was a cultural shift. 🔹 Currys plc – Store Teams as Social Stars 🎥😄 Dan Rubel showed how Currys’ store teams have built a huge social following through funny, relatable content filmed on the shop floor. The result? Cultural relevancy, footfall uplift 🚶♂️🚶♀️ and clear commercial impact, all driven by the people who meet customers every day. 🔹 Great Influence – From the c-suite to everyone Ash Jones, founder of Great Influence has seen this trend explode, where he says its no longer just about the c-suite advocating for a brand. Its about everyone being involved. The amplification is off the charts! Across all these examples, the same truth emerges: When you trust your people, they earn trust for your brand. 🤝 Authenticity, relatability, localisation, all delivered at scale by the colleagues who know the products, the customers, and the community best. So yes, I think the era of the corp-fluencer is finally here. And the smartest brands aren’t resisting it, they’re embracing it, nurturing it and giving their people permission to shine. ✨

Most employee advocacy programmes never reach a single real client. Instead they circulate inside a tiny Linkedin echo chamber of stakeholders Where buyers fear to tread And that’s why most programmes quietly fail. The numbers are frankly blunt: - Employee posts get 8× more engagement than brand posts - Personal LinkedIn posts get 341% more reach than company pages - People are 3× more likely to trust employees than CEOs or corporate accounts (Edelman) - Employee networks are 10× larger than company pages Huge opportunity. Gone bad. The problem is most firms build the wrong system. 💡The Old Model: Amplification💡 Typical “employee advocacy” looks like: ↳ repost company updates ↳ copy approved captions ↳ share leadership content ↳ push campaigns In theory: they want reach. In reality: they get a small echo chamber. Most engagement comes from colleagues, internal teams and marketers, not ideal clients. 💡The New Model: Ambassadorship💡 The firms growing fastest do the opposite. They empower experts to share real expertise in their own voice. Content becomes: ↳ insights from client work ↳ commentary on sector shifts ↳ lessons from deals or projects ↳ informed opinions Which compounds into: visibility → trust → inbound demand. Inside the Rainmaker Lab, we see this every week. Our 10-week lunchtime cohort for service firms is booked out until autumn with ambitious partner-led and PE-backed firms. The ethos is simple: The fastest-growing firms build cultures where fee-earners create visibility, influence and pipeline in the newsfeed. When that happens: ↳ A lawyer sharing deal insights becomes the journalist’s first call ↳ A tax advisor explaining complex rules simply becomes known before the first meeting ↳ A design or architecture partner sharing project lessons becomes trusted before the tender The real shift? Leadership teams rarely ask: “Can we get more posts?” They ask: “How do we make it safe and easy for experts to share what they know?” Employees aren’t distribution channels. They’re credibility engines. If your employee advocacy programme isn’t working… you built an amplification system. When what you needed was a credibility system. Because the internet doesn’t reward amplification. It rewards expertise. ------------- 👉 Follow Fin Wycherley for frameworks on rainmaker cultures, expert authority and inbound pipeline. 👉 Share this with a managing partner or marketing leader still asking staff to repost company updates.