In the GEO Era, Make 'Being Mentioned' Your Growth Strategy

AI KPIs Playbook | LLM Era · 2025

In the GEO Era, Make “Being Mentioned” Your Growth Strategy

A Quick Note

LLMs (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity) are transforming “first touch” from blue links to “direct answers.” Whether your brand gets mentioned or ignored now determines your position in the buying journey. My take: “Being mentioned” is the new “click.”

Four core AI KPIs: Mentions, Sentiment, Share of Voice, Sources. This article breaks down how to measure them, interpret them, and reverse-engineer your strategy.

AI Era Visibility: Four Gauges — Mentions, Sentiment, Share, Sources

Mentions: The “Oxygen” of Visibility

LLMs don’t serve link lists — they serve answer paragraphs. Whether you’re mentioned determines if you exist in the conversation. Absent from “top tools” and “best platforms” queries means deleted.

Mention = Ticket to Enter the Candidate Pool

How to Use: Break down by query type: educational (what/how), trends, comparisons, purchase decisions. See where you’re absent. Missing from early education = add thought leadership content; missing from decision scenarios = sharpen differentiation. Get mentioned first, then shape the narrative.

Sentiment: The Market’s Echo

Being mentioned isn’t enough — adjectives are the real anchors: “fast / trusted / expensive / hard to use.” These adjectives come from narratives the model absorbed.

Sentiment Labels Determine Your “Personality” Tag

How to Use: Track positive/neutral/negative distribution, record high-frequency labels. If branded “expensive,” add ROI calculators or value-story pages with comparisons; if branded “complex,” share implementation stories and getting-started guides. If branded “trusted,” amplify trust narratives (case studies, analysts, customer voices). Sentiment monitoring = real-time perception thermometer.

Mentions/sentiment only matter in competitive context. You at 30% mentions vs. competitor at 70% = disadvantage; similar mentions but competitor’s sentiment is brighter = your narrative is suppressed.

See Who Dominates Which Queries, Whose Sentiment Shines Brighter

How to Use: Break down by type: which questions does the competitor often win? What labels are they tagged with? Build a battle map accordingly: defend your strong scenarios, attack competitor’s key queries, add differentiation and evidence. Share of Voice = offense/defense guide.

Sources: Who Does AI Trust

Who gets cited in AI answers represents “who’s telling the story.” If competitor whitepapers/media get cited instead of your content, you’re not the authority yet.

Make Your Content the Cited “Source”

How to Use: Audit cited domains/documents: Mostly industry media? Competitor research? Missing your own? Publish citable content: FAQ structures, data reports, clearly attributed expert opinions. Goal: upgrade from “being mentioned” to “being the cited evidence.”

From Signals to Strategy:

Mentions → Fill gaps: Where you’re absent, add content and presence.
Sentiment → Reshape narrative: Counter negative labels with evidence, amplify and reuse positive labels.
Share of Voice → Attack/defense map: Defend strengths, attack competitor strongholds, widen differentiation.
Sources → Grab citations: Produce structured, citable content, claim the “trusted” position.

These four KPIs combine into a compass: pointing toward content investment, narrative adjustment, positioning defense/offense, and authority building.

Why Act Now

Tools aren’t standardized yet, no one-click dashboard exists, but early movers are like doing SEO in the 2000s: first to claim territory owns long-term visibility dividends. When tools mature, competitors will have set baselines — you’ll only be playing catch-up.

A lightweight process is enough: run a set of prompts, record responses, track mentions/sentiment/share/sources as time series — immediately guides content and distribution decisions.

Conclusion: Mentions = Strategy

Clicks/impressions/backlinks still matter, but “visibility” is being redefined by AI. Before buyers reach your website, AI is already telling your story. Mentioned = New click; Cited = Real control.

My action plan: Use AI KPI signals to make decisions — fill gaps, reshape narratives, outcompete rivals, grab citations. The earlier you start, the more you can turn “what AI says” into “what you want it to say.”

Got cases to break down together? Let’s chat.