For years, marketers and communications professionals have been taught to control the brand narrative. Define the message. Build the campaign. Push it out. Measure the response.
But that model no longer reflects how reputation is built or trust is earned.
Today, a brand’s reputation is shaped by employees, customers, creators, and online communities and forums like LinkedIn and Reddit. The conversations happening within these channels directly shape what people think about your brand, and feed people the information AI tools tell them about it.
The challenge is that trust and reputation are increasingly built by people and in places you don’t control.
My recommendation is simple: Convene and guide, don’t control.
Show up where people are already talking, make the conversation more useful, equip the voices shaping it with credible information, and make your own story clear enough to travel.
If your brand is a party, you make the guest list. You also send the invitations and create a menu, and then set the table. But you don’t script the dinner conversation.
3 THINGS CONVENING REQUIRES
Over the past 25 years, I’ve led advertising agencies, communications firms, and now marketing at a nonprofit serving the neurodivergent community[DK1] . I’ve found that it comes down to giving people something true to say, then trusting them to say it their way. Here are three ways to do that.
1. Participate in communities rather than just advertising to them.
Some of the most influential conversations happen in spaces no brand owns: Reddit, Facebook groups, LinkedIn, and other forums. Too many marketers either ignore these spaces or treat them as channels to advertise on.
The better approach is to recognize that these communities, not brands, drive the conversation. So, how can you be part of it? Before you show up, ask: Do you have a reason to be there? Not permission—a reason. Can you answer a question the community is asking? Can you offer expertise that makes the conversation more useful? If the honest answer is that you want visibility, that’s not a reason to participate. It’s a reason to buy an ad, and everyone in that community will know the difference.
Our experts go where the questions are being asked, hosting “Ask Me Anything” sessions in ADHD communities on Reddit and participating in Facebook groups. The experts’ goal is to be useful in that moment instead of trying to redirect people to our website.
That’s the difference between controlling a narrative and convening one. You try to earn a place in the conversation by making it more useful.
2. Equip the voices shaping your reputation.
Influencers and their communities have real power. And in today’s social ecosystem, that power isn’t determined by follower count. A claim can travel whether it comes from a creator with 10,000 followers or a million.
That’s a risk in any industry. It’s a serious one in ours. We’ve watched misinformation about ADHD, autism, and dyslexia move faster than evidence-based information. In some cases, it’s influencing decisions people make about their health. Research suggests that on TikTok, 41% of videos about autism and 52% of videos about ADHD are misleading.
We learned that publishing accurate information on our website wasn’t enough. When creators are part of your strategy, trust the voice but equip the message. Make sure the people speaking on your behalf have accurate, evidence-based information to work with. Give them facts, not scripts, and let them tell the story in their own words.
Harvard’s TH Chan School of Public Health partnered with 105 mental health creators on TikTok, reaching roughly 17 million people. Some were licensed clinicians. Others drew on their own lived experience with mental health. And many brought both perspectives. Harvard provided evidence-based toolkits and training, then left the storytelling to the creators. The study found that the approach increased the amount of evidence-based mental health content the creators produced, helping bring credible information to audiences the institution could not have reached on its own.
Organizations should continue telling their own stories. Also, they shouldn’t assume they’re the only or the best voice to tell every story. Give trusted people the facts and context they need, then let their expertise, authenticity, and audience relationship do what your brand alone cannot.
3. Work with AI rather than against it.
AI is becoming another participant in the conversation about your brand, pulling information both from sources you control and sources you don’t—earned media and LinkedIn posts from your employees to online communities.
While you’re not writing only for AI, there’s a useful overlap. The same principles that make information easier for people to understand also make it easier for large language models to interpret and cite. When you communicate your brand story, do it in ways that are easy to follow, not just clever to read. Skip the jargon. Lead with the point. Use clear headlines and bullet points where they improve comprehension.
And even when you do control the message—on your website, in a press release, or in a campaign—don’t make people or AI work to understand it. The clearer the information, the more likely it will be understood, shared, and accurately represented.
REPUTATION IS EARNED DAILY
Every customer experience, employee conversation, partnership, and response to the news shapes how people perceive your brand. Campaigns are a moment in time, but reputation is earned every day.
The business case is simple: Trust builds reputation, and reputation builds loyalty.
You still need to tell your story clearly, invest in paid media, pursue earned coverage, and respond when the moment calls for it.
But you also have to recognize that the most credible version of your story may be better coming from someone else.
Nathan Friedman is copresident and CMO at Understood.org.