A 4-Step Brand Audit to Prove Your Content Authority to the AI Algorithm
In the zero-click search environment AI has created, share of voice is a critical metric demonstrating your brand’s digital presence. The more share of voice you have, the more reputable, trustworthy, and credible your brand becomes.
When you create quality, authoritative content that is well-researched and demonstrates thought leadership, the AI algorithm rewards you with share of voice; a direct path to outranking your competition.
AI Search Has Changed the Role of Share of Voice
Share of voice has become more of a focus than ever before in response to AI search. Your brand’s share of voice now signals how visible you are compared to your competitors based on how often your brand shows up across search and social media.
In a recent webinar hosted by Storyblok Head of Content Georgie Jones, guest Heike Young, a content and social expert, advised marketers to think of LLMs as one of their target audiences. And she makes a great point. The LLM is parsing your content for the same value your audience is asking for and, like your audience, if the LLM isn’t satisfied, it moves on.
The AI algorithm (and your audiences) are demanding more, and those trying to game the system for clicks and engagement aren’t being rewarded; instead, they’re handing share of voice squarely over to the competition.
Follow this essential audit to strengthen your brand strategy in the areas that count the most for AI search, credibility, and clawing back share of voice.
4-Step Audit to AI-Proof Your Brand and Protect Its Share of Voice
1. Establish Strategic Alignment
All too often, a brand becomes fractured across search results because there is no strategic alignment. As a result, AI will award share of voice to another brand with a cleaner, clearer story to tell.
Strategic alignment ensures every part of your brand is presented consistently across all touchpoints, ultimately building consumer trust and clarity by connecting your visual identity, messaging, and operations.
It also eliminates the need to fall back on AI slop for clicks and views – instead, you know what your brand needs, how marketing can support it, and what activities drive business success.
Start with these key elements:
- Connect your messaging to ensure your brand narrative, visuals, and the customer journey reinforce the same value promise.
- Promote adoption across internal teams to ensure all content, decision-making, and customer interactions connect to and accurately reflect your brand.
- Review your assets regularly to confirm that marketing, sales, and customer service are all telling the same story and driving consistency across all touchpoints
2. Level Up Your Systems and Tools
AI-powered systems and tools can tap into your brand’s visibility, measuring share of voice across search results. Most tools provide metrics around your brand’s performance in AI search, branded search volume, and AI citations, helping you wrap your arms around your brand’s presence among your competitors.
These tools can also optimize your content for AI search, helping you capitalize on those many AI-friendly tactics that help drive content credibility and visibility.
When you leverage systems and tools to increase and monitor your brand’s share of voice, you graduate from practicing passive SEO to active AEO – Answer Engine Optimization.
There’s no cap and gown, but you’ll enjoy a share of voice-shaped diploma.
3. Reinforce Content Governance
It sounds formal and maybe a little intimidating. “I’m supposed to govern my content?” you may ask.
Yes, but it’s a very good thing. Content governance establishes important guidelines around content production to do all of the things I’m advocating for in this article that help with share of voice.
An article in the Content Science Review defines content governance as “the combination of things like policies, roles, standards, workflows, and decision frameworks that keep your content high quality, consistent, reliable, scalable, and effective.”
Good content governance defines elements including:
- Which roles can create, edit, remove, or update content?
- Who are the subject matter experts in each department?
- When should content be reviewed for updating or archiving?
- What are the brand standards for tone, voice, personality, and essence?
- How can different types of content be used across different touchpoints?
- How are governance standards enforced across the company?
- What metrics do we rely on to ensure our content is healthy and compliant?
A Contently article notes that stakeholders sometimes question the need for content governance, citing concerns that it will disrupt workflows or stifle creativity.
However, governance simply ensures your brand is doing the right things across all platforms – because consistency drives trust, and trust is critical to win share of voice.
4. Manage Your Brand At Scale
Share of voice defines how much of the market your brand “owns” compared to your competitors. Just what do you own? The answer depends partially on how you define success, and partially on how the market you’re in defines it.
Owning share of voice can include:
- Your share of paid advertising
- Media mentions or publication reach
- Your share of organic search engine marketing
- Social media engagement
- Content engagement
I would argue share of voice should include any of these categories that are applicable to your brand’s online presence. And managing your brand at scale ensures you continue monitoring and growing these areas through strategic market execution, using the exact principles outlined in this article.
Scalable brand management relies on:
- A consistent presence across multiple channels
- Continuously optimizing your content for consistency, accuracy, and quality
- Content improvements to increase AI search preference
- Leveraging paid advertising and closely tracking marketing engagement and sales follow-through
- Partnerships with industry experts, publications, or influencers
- Regular monitoring of share of voice among your competition and in the broader market
Make Your Brand Look Good – Because It’s Showing Up Without You
The best approach to winning share of voice is to have a brand strategy that connects strategic alignment, systems and tools, content governance, and scalable brand management with the goal of protecting your brand’s message across the internet.
While the SERPs of yore only populated results tied to a brand’s website or marketing channels, AI search can plunk a brand’s information right in a summary to be interpreted as truth.
A poor or nonexistent brand strategy can result in:
- AI citations of outdated, incorrect, or irrelevant information tied to your brand
- Multiple versions of your brand appearing in searches can cause distrust or confusion
- A fracturing of your brand message into different iterations, creating multiple versions of the truth, and devaluing your brand’s reputation
- An undermining of your brand’s authority as clearer content from your competitors is elevated ahead of you
- Loss of control over how your brand is appearing across platforms; today’s zero-click environment means your brand’s touchpoints are out of your control, and the control you do have starts at the brand level.
When your content is being moderated by machines, a brand strategy is essential to win share of voice through a consistent brand message.
Fishnet’s team of brand strategists knows how to help brands win and keep share of voice in the AI era. Get in touch with the Fishnet team today to map out your next steps.
