Good Day, Fabulous Entrepreneurs and Brand Enthusiasts!
July has a particular energy, doesn't it? It feels like the second half of everything. The year you planned in January is either working or it's requiring some much-needed adjustments. The campaigns you launched in spring are either landing, or they're teaching you something you didn't think you needed to learn, but are grateful you did.
Whatever camp you're in, this is the week to pay attention. This week's stories all point to the same conclusion:
We're moving from the Attention Economy to the Trust Economy.
This makes me hopeful because it is now very possible that there will be a significant pause in TikTok dancing, and my daughter can stop requesting my amazing mom moves every other day.
But let's leave me out of this; the truth is businesses can produce more content than ever before. The question is whether customers believe what they're seeing, and whether your brand is the one AI, search engines, and customers feel confident recommending.
Ready? We've got a lot to cover, so let's dive in!
1. Transparency Is Becoming Part of Your Brand.
Google has begun rolling out AI transparency labels across Search, YouTube, and Discover. Consumers can now see when generative AI was used to create or significantly modify an advertisement through a new "How this ad was made" panel. In some regions, those labels may even appear directly on the ad itself. (blog.google)
On the surface, this looks like a policy update. I believe it's something much bigger.
In my opinion, it's one of the clearest signs that transparency is becoming a competitive advantage.
Why It Matters
For the past two years, businesses have been racing to figure out how AI can help them create content faster. Customers are beginning to ask a different question:
"How do I know what I'm looking at is real?"
This is an important shift to pay attention to. The conversation is moving away from whether businesses use AI (because duh) and toward whether businesses are honest about how they use it.
Trust has always influenced buying decisions. AI is simply bringing it to the forefront.
What This Means for Your Business
Using AI isn't the issue. Most businesses are using it in some way, just like most businesses use stock photography, templates, or scheduling tools. The tool itself isn't what people remember.
What people remember is whether the experience feels genuine.
Think about the last time you walked into a restaurant and the menu photos looked nothing like the food that arrived at your table. Nothing was technically "wrong," but something felt off. Expectations and reality didn't match.
Our brands work the same way.
If AI helps you write a first draft, that's one thing. If it starts saying things about your business that don't sound like you, that's something else entirely.
As these transparency labels become more common, I don't think people are going to spend their time asking, "Did they use AI?" I think they're going to ask a better question:
Does this still feel like the business I thought I knew?
That's the question worth preparing for.
Your voice. Your perspective. The stories only you can tell. Those are the things no label can replace.
L.A. Branding Perspective
This update reminded me of something I've believed for a long time: people aren't looking for perfection; they're looking for something they can trust.
AI can help you create polished content. Templates can make almost any business look professional. But neither can create the confidence that comes from knowing exactly who you are and communicating it consistently.
When someone visits your website, reads your emails, sees your social posts, or talks with your team, the experience should feel connected. Not because every word is identical, but because the same business shows up every time.
That's what builds trust.
The tools (as you can see) will continue to change. The businesses people remember will be the ones that remain recognizable, no matter where they're encountered. Shout out to Disney World, once again. Lol
2. AI Recommendations Are Becoming the New Front Door to Your Business.
New research and industry data suggest AI assistants are becoming a meaningful source of customer discovery. In one large e-commerce analysis, visitors referred by AI recommendations converted at significantly higher rates than traditional search traffic. At the same time, emerging research shows that when AI recommends a brand, people are more likely to search for it, visit its website, and continue exploring it elsewhere online. (TechRadar)
This isn't just another traffic source.
It's a different way people are making decisions.
Why It Matters
People are increasingly asking ChatGPT questions they once asked Google.
Questions like:
- Who should I hire?
- What product should I buy?
- What company should I trust?
That’s a different type of marketing opportunity than traditional social advertising.
The user is already looking for an answer.
What This Means for Your Business
I wouldn’t recommend that every business rush to spend money on ChatGPT ads tomorrow.
But I would recommend paying attention.
Especially if:
- You sell professional services
- You offer consulting
- You solve specific business problems
- Your customers have high intent
L.A. Branding Perspective
Everyone gets excited about the next advertising opportunity.
Meanwhile, customers are still trying to figure out what half these businesses actually do.
If your message isn’t landing, a new channel just gives more people the chance to misunderstand it.
Clear positioning travels well.
Confusing positioning struggles everywhere. Everywhere? Yes, everywhere!
3. LinkedIn launched its Creator Marketplace this month.
Currently in alpha for select brands and creators in North America, the Marketplace connects brands with B2B creators by topic, content expertise, and audience fit. It also allows marketers to see existing organic content that already features their brand and amplify it through Thought Leader Ads. Separately, LinkedIn is testing a feature that lets organizations define brand guidelines that AI writing tools must follow when generating content on the platform.
Why It Matters
Two different things here, and they matter for different reasons. The Creator Marketplace brings creator partnerships into a professional context that didn't previously exist — a very different audience dynamic than Instagram or TikTok creators. The brand guidelines for AI writing is the one I'm watching more closely, because LinkedIn is acknowledging the reality that businesses are already using AI to produce content. Instead of pretending that isn't happening, they're building tools to make it more consistent.
What This Means for Your Business
If you've been using AI to draft LinkedIn posts and finding that the output doesn't quite sound like you, the brand guidelines feature is worth testing as soon as it's available on your account. But the tool only works as well as the guidelines you put into it. And if you haven't explored the Creator Marketplace yet, it's worth a look even in alpha. The bar for thoughtful B2B creator partnerships is still relatively low.
L.A. Branding Perspective
LinkedIn making space for brand guidelines inside AI writing tools is, honestly, a good sign. It puts the responsibility back on the business to define its own voice, rather than letting a generic model decide what "professional" sounds like for you. That's exactly where it belongs.
4. Two Meta updates that connect directly.
Meta has launched its Creator Marketing Hub, which merges Creator Marketplace and Partnership Ads Hub into one destination for managing creator relationships. More urgently: all creator content involving any form of compensation, whether it's paid partnerships, gifted products, affiliate commissions, discount codes, or access arrangements, is now required to run through Meta's Partnership Ads format.
Additionally, creator whitelisting permissions no longer persist indefinitely. They now require active consent renewal every 90 days.
Why It Matters
If you've been sending products to creators and letting them post organically without a formal arrangement, that arrangement no longer meets Meta's policy. The platform has drawn a clear line: if anything changed hands, it's a partnership, and it needs to be disclosed. The intent is transparency, and the stakes are real. So much so that any posts that don't comply can be flagged or removed, along with any active campaign running through them.
What This Means for Your Business
Audit your current creator relationships this week, not just the formal paid ones. If any creator is posting about your business in exchange for anything at all, check whether that arrangement is running through Partnership Ads. Then put a recurring calendar reminder for the 90-day whitelisting renewal, because if consent lapses, then the active campaigns pause. That's not something you want to discover mid-campaign. The Creator Marketing Hub is worth exploring as a consolidation tool, even if your creator partnerships are currently small.
L.A. Branding Perspective
Let's face it, trust is getting harder to earn. Transparency is the theme running through every platform update right now, and when platforms start requiring what was previously optional, it usually means consumer trust in unmarked content is already declining. People want to know who's recommending something, why they're recommending it, and whether there's a business relationship behind it.
Getting ahead of that shift and being clearer about your creator relationships more than the policy requires is the kind of move that builds long-term audience credibility.
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A Thought From Behind The Brand: The Crockpot Way |
Last weekend I decided to make what I am now calling long-form chili and beans. Not the quick version. The humbling version, that challenges you if you're already hungry. I browned the meat, chopped the vegetables, soaked the beans, measured the spices, stirred everything together, put the lid on...and then waited.
About thirty minutes later, I lifted the lid. Nothing looked different. An hour later...Still didn't look like much.
If I'd judged the meal in that first hour, I probably would've assumed I'd done something wrong. Why? Because I had grown used to making the easy (and not nearly as tasty) version. But cooking doesn't always work that way. Some things need time before they become truly recognizable.
Brand building reminds me of that every single week. Someone starts posting consistently for two months and wonders why referrals haven't doubled.
Another business rewrites their website and expects customers to suddenly "get it." Someone launches a podcast and checks the download numbers after three episodes.
I understand the feeling.
When you've invested time and energy into something meaningful, you want proof that it's working. But clarity has to simmer before people begin repeating it.
Trust has to simmer before referrals start happening.
Reputation has to simmer before someone you've never met recommends you in a room you weren't even in.
That's why these platform updates don't make me nervous.
Whether it's Google, LinkedIn, TikTok, or Claude. They're all getting better at recognizing what has been consistently true over time. None of them can speed up the part where people learn to trust you.
And honestly...
Do you really want them to? The businesses people remember rarely became memorable overnight. They became memorable because they kept showing up with the same ingredients long enough for people to recognize the recipe.
So here's the question I've been sitting with this week...
Are you changing the recipe every week because it doesn't look finished yet?
Or are you giving people enough time to discover what makes your business worth coming back to?
Quick Tips & Tricks
Read It Out Loud
Before you publish your next email, webpage, or social post, read it out loud. If you stumble over a sentence or catch yourself thinking, "I'd never actually say that," rewrite it.
One of the quickest ways to strengthen your brand voice is to make sure it sounds like you in conversation and not just on the screen.
AI can help you create. But your voice is still your responsibility.
This Week's Dos & Don'ts
Do: Audit your last 10 posts and look for the thread. Is there a consistent topic area? A recurring perspective? A recognizable tone? If someone scrolled your feed as a stranger, would they know what you stand for? If not, that's your content strategy! Woot Woot, that means not more varying posts but clearer positioning in the posts you're already making.
Don't: Assume that posting more will solve a message that isn't landing. When content isn't working, the first instinct is usually to try more volume, a different format, or a new platform. Usually the problem comes earlier: the message doesn't have a distinct point of view. More of an unclear thing is just more noise.
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Google's AI Mode - Search Yourself
This isn't a product I'm recommending. It's a ten-minute exercise that might be the most useful thing you do for your brand this week.
Open Google, turn on AI Mode, and search for your business name, your personal name, and your area of expertise. Read what comes back. Not to grade Google, but to see what your existing public content is communicating to a system reading it cold, without any help from you.
If the summary is accurate but generic, that's your creative brief for the next 30 days. If it surprises you in a good way, you'll know exactly what's working. I've started doing this for my own brand and before my new client strategy sessions. It cuts through the noise faster than almost anything else.
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Trend Worth Watching
Earned media is becoming a primary visibility asset, not just for PR, but for search.
For years, showing up in search meant working on your own pages: right keywords, right structure, right technical setup. That still matters. But as AI-powered search becomes the default discovery layer, the math has changed: AI systems cite sources they consider authoritative, and 84% of those citations come from earned media. Those are going to be your press mentions, expert roundups, guest contributions, podcast appearances, and third-party reviews.
Being quoted somewhere credible is now worth more for brand visibility than a well-built page on your own site. The brands building media relationships, pitching thoughtfully, appearing on podcasts, and contributing to industry publications are building the infrastructure that gets them cited in AI answers. The ones that have been heads-down on owned content alone may have a visibility gap they won't see until someone else is filling it.
The smart move right now: identify two or three credible outlets or podcasts in your space and build a simple PR habit. Even one pitch a month adds up faster than most people expect.
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Community Engagement Corner
This week's question:
If you handed a work AI platform your current about page or business bio right now and asked it to write a proposal or pitch on your behalf, how close do you think the result would be to what you'd actually write yourself? And is there a gap between those two things that you've been meaning to close?
Try this out and let me know what comes up.
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Remember...
The goal has never been to keep up with every platform.
The goal is to build a business that's easy to recognize, easy to trust, and easy to recommend - no matter where people find you.
When your foundation is strong, change becomes something you can navigate instead of something you have to fear.
See you next week!
Lena Anderson
Founder & Chief Branding Enthusiast, L.A. Branding
