{"id":6014,"date":"2025-06-25T16:26:25","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T20:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beomniscient.com\/?p=6014"},"modified":"2026-03-18T15:31:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T19:31:17","slug":"brand-gravity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beomniscient.com\/blog\/brand-gravity\/","title":{"rendered":"Brand Gravity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When your brand appears in relation to a query or categorical phrase – best CRM<\/em>, construction ERP<\/em>, Paleo cereal, B2B personalization, pizza in Williamsburg <\/em>\u2014it picks up mass. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mention by mention, through various touchpoints – private Slack channels, Reddit threads, Product Hunt roundups, and of course, listicles, review sites, and blog posts – you pick up a sort of categorical ubiquity or top of mind awareness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This relates to LLM optimization and SEO, but it also resembles a natural path to product discovery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine I\u2019m on the hunt for a new book recommendation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If one person were to mention The Power Broker<\/a>, it would pique my curiosity but perhaps not tip me to the point where I run to the book store to purchase it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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However, if every single person at my proverbial cocktail party raves about The Power Broker, I\u2019m sort of helpless. I\u2019m going to check out that damn book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s obviously not linear and clean like this, as some sources and mentions are more influential than others (i.e. hearing a book recommendations from the NY Times versus a random person as a party you just met), but a good rule of thumb is that more mentions equals more awareness which translates to product signups and conversions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is the basis for what we\u2019ve called Surround Sound SEO<\/a>, where you attempt not only to rank your page, but to monopolize the rest of the results with favorably mentions. That way, when someone searches \u201cbest CRM,\u201d you\u2019re the obvious choice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cumulative exposure gathers enough pull that the next in-market buyer is operating under a conscious and unconscious assumption that your brand is a logical choice. They orbit the brand that shows up everywhere, and that brand, at the very least, enters the consideration set. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That magnetic accumulation is brand gravity<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It follows a cumulative logic, as well, given product quality and experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, I eventually did read The Power Broker and I haven\u2019t shut up about it since. My business partner David even bought me a mug that says \u201cI finished The Power Broker,\u201d and I often drink from it on virtual calls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know that I\u2019ve explicitly convinced three people to buy and read the book (and potentially more, given I\u2019ve reviewed it on Goodreads and in my personal newsletter). Flywheels, baby!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Brand gravity is logically important, and it always has been, but it\u2019s also likely the most reliable route to organic visibility, because large-language models no longer send traffic the way ten blue links once did. They synthesize a variety of sources and training data (plus customization based on memory, context documents, and multi-chain prompts) into a single response. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To earn a place inside that response, you must seed the consensus itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a bit hand wavy to say \u201cbuild your brand,\u201d or \u201cgo get brand mentions,\u201d though isn\u2019t it? I\u2019ll elucidate here how we think about it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brand Mentions are the New Backlinks<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Backlinks, to an arguable degree of impact, tell Google whose page to trust; brand mentions now, to a similarly arguable degree, tell LLMs which brand to recommend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two architectural facts explain why:<\/p>\n\n\n\n