How to get ChatGPT to mention your brand in their answers
Brands that can get in front of customers via AI are positioned to win in 2025.
Note: Credit to Rand Fishkin for sharing this valuable information on LinkedIn first!
Buckle up, buttercup. Because while this creative marketer doesn’t know much about the intricacies of language learning models, we’re about to plunge into the research that other (much more knowledgeable) computer scientists and break down what it means for us — the average marketer looking to build awareness of our brand.
It’s no secret that brands that are mentioned by AI are definitely positioned to win in 2025. Who wouldn’t want to be mentioned by a technology that can potentially drive lots of clicks, website interactions, and ultimately — business.
Let’s start with Stephen Wolfram’s “How ChatGPT works” article, talking about how ChatGPT produces the results that it spits out to users. (This article is highly credible, fyi.)
Here’s how Fishkin interprets how ChatGPT produces answers.
ChatGPT decides whether to recommend your brand or not, based on what is written about it across the web — and most importantly, HOW IT’S WORDED across the web.
For instance, if you want ChatGPT to recommend your brand to those asking for a recommendation for a Custom Printed T-Shirt Shop, the LLM will look for which brands are written about across the web, with the phrase ‘custom printed t-shirt shop’ next to it. Basically, the more your brand name appears in the web next to the key phrase ‘custom printed t-shirt shop’, the better chances it has of being picked up by the LLMs.
So here’s what a good example vs. what a bad example looks like.
“blah, blah, blah, Karen’s Ink Shop, a custom printed t-shirt shop in NYC” = GOOD BRAND MENTION
“blah, blah, blah, Karen’s Ink Shop, a t-shirt shop in NYC that let’s you print your own design” = BAD BRAND MENTION
In this case, the ‘Good’ brand mention is more likely to cause ChatGPT to recommend my print shop to users on ChatGPT — because it has the exact wording for ‘custom printed t-shirt shop’.
So how do you even drive brand mentions on the internet? By running digital PR-like campaigns, and getting the word out about your brand on other websites (with the exact wording that will get it mentioned on ChatGPT).
Note: This is still very much experimental, and our understanding of how LLMs surface brand recommendations is evolving as new information comes in. But here’s what we know so far: get your brand mentioned online with the exact phrasing you want associated with it.
This is where smart, intentional digital PR comes into play. Pitch stories to journalists, get featured in round-up lists, and encourage partnerships that explicitly describe your business the way you want AI to reference it.
If ChatGPT is going to become a major driver of brand discovery, you don’t want to be left out of the conversation. You want to be the recommendation. And now you have a better idea of how to make that happen.
Quote of the Day:
Humans get overwhelmed when there’s too many choices. There was a shoe salesman who used to use the 2 not 3 method. Every time someone wanted to try a 3rd pair, he would ask them which of the original 2 would they want removed. By reducing your options to 2, not 3, it’s easier for you to make a choice. — Simon Sinek