Platforms like LinkedIn provide measurable metrics for success, giving teams something tangible to point to like impressions, engagement, follower growth, and reach. In a world obsessed with dashboards, that kind of feedback feels reassuring.

The quiet risk in today’s marketing ecosystem is that brands have allowed social media to crowd out other tools that build trust more deeply and often more effectively.

On a recent episode of Cracking the Comms Code, Dustin Siggins (Proven Media Solutions) sat down with Will Greenblatt, a public speaking and storytelling coach who helps founders command rooms, and Renée Lynn Frojo, a former journalist turned content strategist who advises service-based leaders on trust-driven growth.

No one disputed whether social media works. (It does.) The question was whether we’ve accidentally treated it as the whole answer — when for many organizations, it’s only part of the equation.

Optimizing for applause instead of authority 

Scroll through any feed, and you’ll see polished posts, clever hooks, and hot takes engineered for engagement. Marketing teams celebrate impressions. Executives snap screenshots of follower growth, and their agencies report on reach as if it were revenue.

Meanwhile, the pipeline stalls. Sales cycles lengthen, and trust erodes.

In 2026, social platforms still dominate mindshare, and the visibility they enable creates a dangerous assumption: If a campaign is loud, it must be effective. If everyone is on a platform, it must be the best place to build a brand.

The truth is that however good a tool social media (or, frankly, AI) might be, it can’t be the whole strategy. And for many organizations, it’s dramatically overvalued relative to other channels that build deeper, more durable trust.

The traffic trap: when visibility distracts from value

Renée framed the core mistake with precision: most leaders confuse a traffic business with a relationship business.

If you sell a commodity, a low-ticket offer, or something impulse-driven, traffic is oxygen. You need scale, volume, and constant visibility. Social media is structurally designed to serve that model.

But if you sell expertise, advisory services, high-ticket consulting, enterprise solutions, or anything involving long buying cycles, the dynamic changes. You don’t need 10,000 anonymous impressions. You need 20 highly qualified decision-makers who trust you enough to bet on you.

That will turn the focus fast from volume to credibility.

The problem is that social media metrics are seductive. They’re public and immediate, creating the illusion of momentum. But impressions are not influence, and engagement is not endorsement. You can “win” the algorithm and still lose the deal.

For communicators advising complex organizations, this distinction is critical. You must ask: are we optimizing for reach, or are we optimizing for relevance? Those two goals rarely align perfectly.

In-person events: compressed trust in a distracted world

There is something almost unfashionable about saying this in 2026, but it remains true: in-person events work. Not because digital failed, but because human attention functions differently in a physical space.

A social post competes with dozens of other posts. A keynote competes with nothing except the speaker’s own ability.

When a leader stands in front of a room and delivers insight with clarity, confidence, and coherence, the audience assigns authority in real time. There is no scroll. The algorithm has no power. 

During the podcast, Will made a point that deserves to be repeated. A few hundred impressions online are not equivalent to a few hundred people listening to you speak. Being on stage confers legitimacy. It signals that someone, somewhere, believed you were worth hearing.

That shift matters. It accelerates trust and shortens sales cycles.

For communicators, this means that investing in the skill of speaking is effectively building strategic infrastructure. A CEO who can hold a room, field tough questions, and articulate a clear narrative will outperform a CEO who only posts.

Like any other skill, getting there takes work. It requires reps. Panels. Industry events. Roundtables. Even local meetups. The best seed bed to compound authority is exposure.

Earned media: credibility you can’t manufacture yourself

Earned media remains one of the most misunderstood — and under-leveraged — branding tools available.

A social post says, “We believe this.” An earned placement says, “Someone else believes we’re worth publishing.” That distinction is enormous in markets, particularly where trust is fragile.

Renée, drawing from her journalism background, emphasized that earned media works best when it is genuinely audience-driven. The strongest placements aren’t self-promotional. They provide clarity, context, or expertise that the outlet’s readers actually need.

For smaller brands, this is especially powerful. You may not have brand recognition or a massive following, but a well placed byline in a respected trade publication or a substantive appearance on a relevant podcast can reposition you overnight in the eyes of the right audience.

And unlike a social post, earned media becomes a durable asset, supporting search presence, fortifying sales conversations, and showing that you’re serious.

Partnerships: distribution without desperation

Strategic partnerships allow you to borrow trust rather than manufacture it alone. When two organizations serve the same audience from complementary angles, collaboration becomes a multiplier.

This can take many forms: co-authored articles, joint webinars, referral agreements, bundled offers, shared event appearances. The mechanics matter less than the principle of aligning with someone your audience already trusts.

That alignment reduces friction. It will also expand reach without diluting your position, turning distribution into a relationship enterprise rather than the bland fruit of an algorithm.

For communicators, partnerships require discipline. They demand clarity about your audience and humility about your own reach. But executed well, they outperform isolated content strategies every time.

Social media is a storefront, not the machine room

None of this is an argument to abandon social media. In many industries, it functions as the new front door. Prospects will check your profile. They will scan how you think to decide whether you appear credible or incoherent.

Yes, social matters. But it should reinforce a broader system, not replace it.

The brands that will win in 2026 are not those posting the most. They are the ones building trust in multiple environments, including

• physical rooms, where attention is undivided;
• respected publications, where credibility can grow;
• through partnerships that expand reach intelligently; and
• in conversations that get down to brass tacks.

Social media is loud. It is immediate and addictive. Trust is a slower burn, and it’s harder to measure, but it builds the loyalty that drives revenue. 

Communicators who recognize the difference — and have the courage to rebalance accordingly — will outpace those still chasing applause.

Then they go home, close their laptops, and leave their own LinkedIn profiles untouched for four months.

That contradiction was at the center of a recent episode of Cracking the Comms Code, where Proven Media Solutions founder Dustin Siggins sat down with Brendan Watts, Director of PR and Communications at Storyblok; Jacqueline Martinez, President and Chief Communications Officer at Digital HQ; and Noah Greenberg, CEO of Stacker. 

The topic was how PR professionals can build their personal brands and the uncomfortable finding was that most aren’t doing it.

The skills transfer perfectly

Jacqueline said it directly: “You already know what to do. You’ve just always done it for everybody else.”

Think about what a strong LinkedIn presence actually requires. A clear point of view. Consistent messaging. An understanding of your audience and what they want to hear. The ability to turn an insight or an experience into something worth reading. The discipline to show up regularly. PR professionals develop all of these skills on behalf of clients. Why not apply the same skills to their own career?

Dustin made a similar point from his own experience. When he transitioned from political journalism to running his own company, he had no idea what to post about. His father’s advice was simple: write things down throughout the day as they come to you, then once a week, sit down and pull out the best ones. That’s a content strategy. It’s also exactly what communicators do when they’re building a messaging calendar for a client.

What “building your brand” actually means

One point the panel was quick to correct: personal branding on LinkedIn is not self-promotion. 

Brendan’s most-engaged posts have nothing to do with his employer. They’re about how he thinks about his work – the process behind a campaign, an observation about the industry, a lesson from something that went sideways. “People sense they don’t want you to sell them,” he said. “But if I talk about how we planned a campaign rather than promoting it, it pops off.” Noah’s top-performing post of all time was a breakdown of how he’d approach getting a product’s first hundred customers – actionable, generous, no pitch attached.

PR professionals constantly write thought leadership for clients. They ghostwrite op-eds, develop executive voices, and shape how a CEO comes across in an interview. The same instincts apply on LinkedIn – the only difference is whose name goes on it.

Jacqueline’s framing was useful here. A client of hers in the public sector had built a consistent LinkedIn presence around his work and his thinking. When he walked into the governor’s office to meet the chief of staff for the first time, that chief of staff pulled out a book the client had recommended on LinkedIn weeks earlier. The client came back to Jacqueline, saying he was walking into rooms where his reputation preceded him. “We are warming these rooms for our clients,” she said. “Why wouldn’t we be warming these rooms for ourselves?”

The mechanics are the same, too

The tactical elements of LinkedIn success map almost exactly onto what communications professionals already practice.

The hook – the first two or three lines before someone hits “read more” – is a lede. Noah said it deserves as much attention as the rest of the post combined, because it determines whether 100 people see the content or 1,000. Any PR professional who has written a pitch email or a press release knows how to write a lede.

Commenting on other people’s posts is relationship-building and source cultivation. Jacqueline makes 10 to 15 substantive comments a day, not to drive traffic back to her own profile, but to stay connected, add value, and keep relationships warm. That’s account management. Noah noted that a thoughtful comment shows up in connections’ feeds – it’s essentially a post with lower stakes, and it’s a natural starting point for anyone not yet comfortable publishing original content.

Content planning is already in the toolkit. Brendan keeps a running text document – currently over 560 items – of observations, one-liners, and passing thoughts that he draws from when it’s time to post. It’s a source list. PR professionals maintain those for clients all the time.

Even the question of what to post answers itself through a PR lens. Dustin described a lobbyist whose organization had just secured a White House meeting on a low-profile bill. The instinct was to announce it. The better post, as Dustin reframed it, was: “Here are five things we did to get a White House meeting that had nothing to do with Venezuela, immigration, or government shutdowns.” Don’t just report the win. Explain the strategy behind it. That’s the difference between a press release and a story – and PR professionals know how to tell stories.

Why it matters now

The stakes are real and getting higher. Brendan is about to hire two PR professionals. Before he opens a job description, he’s already on LinkedIn. What he’s finding is that 95% of candidates have profiles that are effectively empty – recycled company posts, a CV-style about section, nothing that shows how they think. He said: “You’re being hired to do this for your execs and your company and immediately I have a bad taste in my mouth.”

Noah told us that for every hiring manager doing this consciously, there are probably a hundred doing it without realizing it. People posting regularly have built familiarity and credibility before the first conversation happens. The people who aren’t posting start at a disadvantage that they may not even know exists.

PR professionals have spent careers making other people visible, credible, and worth listening to. The tools are the same. The platform is the same. The only thing that needs to change is realizing who the client is: themselves. 

Catch the full conversation in the video below.

And if there’s a second thing we all know, it’s that we have to fight for every dime in the budget, because comms always seems to get the “nice to have” budget.

Let’s change that in 2026 by showcasing not what we do as communicators – but rather what value we bring to the bottom line. 

4 ways to make the business case for PR budget 

In life, the key to success is not what you say, but how people interpret it. This is also true in business, which is why the best communications leaders understand what executives need to hear as well as the nuts and bolts of what we do. They present placements not as the celebratory outcome, but as part of the communications journey for stakeholders. They brag not about open rates, but rather who opened – and why – and what it means for sales. 

In other words: they speak C-Suite by ditching communications jargon, uncovering leaders’ pain points, and developing solutions customized both to the organization you want to serve and the allies who will get you across the finish line.

Here are four ways to do that:

• Don’t assume you know the answer to questions and concerns. Genuinely seek to understand where management and prospects are coming from, where they want to go, and how communications can be the right solution for their specific challenge(s). Only once you uncover pain points can you provide customized solutions.
• Solutions also include processes. Make sure you help them see that working with you is the right solution for all of the outcomes they have in mind. This means not just hitting the KPIs, but also creating a stress-free experience. Leaders’ most valuable commodity, after all, is time – and you want to waste none of it.
• Say no. A lot. “No” to champagne needs and beer budgets. “No” to services that don’t belong under the communications umbrella. “No” to bad strategy and worse tactics. 

Lots of “No” will get you to…

•  Lots of “yes” to more respect, bigger budgets, and better outcomes. Being, to take from Ashley Dennison in a recent panel conversation, “available but selective” means everyone will know where to find you, but you will be driving the train.

The social media obsession

Perhaps the most frustrating example of earned media not being valued is when it’s compared to social media. Start-up tech founders often say they can reach their target audience just by hitting “post,” and many corporate executives make major announcements on LinkedIn instead of through a press release.

And no wonder. Social media has gained enormous traction and power while the news media has disintegrated. Why ask to borrow someone else’s space when you can simply create and launch your own content exactly as you want?

PR professionals know that the ease of entry to social media is its greatest strength and its most gaping weakness. Every niche in every vertical is saturated, making it almost impossible to make an impact. And when you have a truly insightful post, the algorithms seem to especially punish you for not hitting the right keywords at some magical right moment.

Earned media, meanwhile, can elevate brands instantly by landing their best ideas in trusted media. That’s because: 

• Social media is flooded with bots, ads, and self-promotion. Earned media stands out because it comes from trusted third parties — giving brands instant legitimacy with buyers, investors, and partners. There are also many forms of earned media, creating customized placement options for spokespeople across the company.
• Decision-makers may ignore their LinkedIn inboxes, but they consume the trade publications, newsletters, and podcasts they respect. Effective public relations means not having to pay to be top of mind with key stakeholders.
• Algorithms can make social media posts disappear. But high-quality content in trusted media outlets lives forever – especially when their logos are posted on your website and repurposed across any number of other marketing, sales, and business development assets.

The difference is clear: Social media attention must be earned over time through constant posting, precise timing, and algorithmic luck – and then the attention disappears almost as quickly as it appears. Conversely, earned media compounds, and the companies featured in them borrow that credibility every time they share the link.

Learning to speak C-Suite

Communications professionals often say we add more value than leaders and clients realize. So the question isn’t “why don’t they get it?” The question is – why aren’t we doing a better job of proving our value?”

If you’re struggling to put together the plan that will show how communications is a bottom-line investment into growth and profit, watch our two recent LinkedIn Live panel conversations. 

First, the case for earned media over social media, with The PR Accelerator’s Tracy Schmidt:

How to master business fundamentals to make your case, with consultant all-stars Ashley Dennison of CommsConsultants and Sources of Sources’ Peter Shankman:

If you’re struggling to find the right method to get through the madness, start simple — create a blog.

Blogs bring big benefits

Short, high-quality blog posts on your website are a great tool to drive branding. They:

• Improve search engine optimization (SEO).
• Reach and influence your target markets through stories, keywords, and successes
• Drive traffic to your website from social media and newsletters.
• Set a strong foundation for long-form written material, video content, and speeches.

Unlike op-eds and press releases, blogs are stylistically flexible. They can be written objectively like a news article or in a personal fashion. You can provide thought leadership on a key industry, highlight employee contributions or company goings-on, or showcase client case studies.

Blog posts can even be done as videos. This is an expensive but often compelling way to reach and influence target markets.

Whatever style you choose, the most important consideration is whether a blog accomplishes your organization’s strategic goals. If it does, dedicate the time to make it a success. You may also want to consider investing in digital advertising to increase web traffic and brand recognition.

Bonus benefit: Boost your blog

One potentially effective tactic to boost your blog is to allow republishing by outside entities. This is most often done in four ways:

• At-will republishing by anyone
• Limited republishing by anyone
• At-will republishing by specific partners
• Limited republishing by specific partners

While republishing agreements can be financially profitable, this is unlikely to be successful unless you offer proprietary information, industry-leading analysis, or something else which is unique. You are likely best served by finding strategic partners who see value in republishing your work at no cost.

What’s the right blog for you?

Blogging brings great results for brands small and large. Gary Vaynerchuk famously posts videos and written content. One of our clients saw their site visits triple after we began creating five posts per week for them. Business consultant and Proven Media Solutions friend Susan Trivers’ blog creates excellent content for her weekly newsletter. And one federal contractor recently told us that it is considering basing its entire marketing program on thrice-weekly posts.

We urge everyone to consider creating a blog. If you aren’t sure how to get started, contact us today. We’ll help you determine if a blog will accomplish your goals. If it does, we’ll help you create the right content to reach and influence your target markets.

There were four major takeaways from the episode:

• Social media’s is often perceived as a “must have” for many small businesses. However, it may not be the right tool for your company. Consider your target market before investing in it.
• Not all social media posts and profiles are created equal. Knowing best practices and your target market will lead to better strategy.
• Posting third-party material is common; posting your own company’s collateral is better. This drives traffic to your site, builds greater credibility, and drives greater interest in what you and your company do.
• Successful organizations use branding to become fireproof before the fire. The Internet is forever, and the whole world can see it — will you let someone use that fact to hurt you, or will you use it to your advantage?

Listen to the full podcast, which includes insights on building your network. And thanks to MSD Advisors CEO Mary Sue Dahill for introducing us to Elizabeth!