Earnfluencing: Making earned trust visible

Matt McQueeny is our North American peer group leader who coined Earnfluencing as a term a few years ago

Organisations are producing more content than ever, yet much of what makes them credible remains difficult to find.

This is becoming a bigger challenge as AI changes how organisations are discovered and evaluated. Marketing teams can optimise content for search engines and AI-generated answers, but they cannot manufacture the independent credibility that makes an organisation worth recommending.

Matt McQueeny, our North American peer group leader, calls his approach Earnfluencing. It brings together earned media, storytelling and influencing, with an emphasis on building trust rather than buying attention.

Matt first introduced the idea in an article in late 2023 (Earnfluencing: Bridging the Gap Between Earned Media and Influencing) and presented it at our CMS Kickoff conference in 2024. Nearly three years later, thanks to AI, this original thinking is even more relevant.

During a recent member call, we revisited the concept together, exploring how Matt's thinking has developed and what it means for organisations trying to build credibility today.

AI reflects authority rather than creating it

One of Matt's central arguments is that organisations are concentrating on being found when they should pay more attention to being worth finding.

"Everyone is optimizing to be found. The real work is building what's worth finding."

AI-generated answers draw on company websites, but also on independent publications, reviews, partners and expert commentary. Matt cited an AirOps benchmark suggesting that 85% of top-of-funnel brand visibility in AI search came from domains the brands did not own. The figure is specific to that study, but illustrates how much visibility can depend on what others say about you.

Matt used the established PESO model, covering paid, earned, shared and owned media, to explain the different roles these channels play. Organisations need to maintain their own sources of information while recognising that independent validation cannot simply be produced internally.

This has implications for how marketing teams work. AI visibility cannot be left entirely to SEO specialists or whoever manages the corporate website. It also depends on communications, partnerships, subject-matter experts and the relationships an organisation maintains beyond its own channels.

Trust accumulates outside the sales pipeline

One of the most useful ideas from Matt's presentation was his description of a reservoir of goodwill.

Organisations spend considerable time managing sales pipelines, tracking opportunities and measuring conversion. These activities are necessary, but they capture only a small part of how professional relationships develop.

Matt shared a revealing comment from an enterprise buyer:

"I can feel when I've been put into a pipeline."

Most potential customers are not actively buying at any given moment. They are learning, comparing experiences, solving problems and building relationships. A useful introduction, a thoughtful answer or an honest recommendation can contribute to trust long before a commercial opportunity exists.

Matt captured this with another memorable observation:

"Your reservoir of goodwill is not your sales pipeline."

This resonates with my experience of running professional communities. Some of the most valuable relationships develop over years, often without any immediate transaction in sight. People help one another because they share interests, challenges and professional respect.

These contributions rarely appear in a CRM dashboard, yet they often lay the groundwork for future business.

Communities create credibility through participation

There is an important distinction between publishing content about expertise and demonstrating that expertise in the company of others.

At our conferences and peer group meetings, people share experiences, challenge assumptions and discuss work that may still be unfinished. Trust develops through repeated encounters and through seeing how others respond when conversations move beyond prepared messages.

As Matt put it:

"AI can summarize a reputation. It can't replace a room full of people who know you."

The value also travels beyond the room. A conversation can lead to an article, an introduction, a recommendation or an independent account of what was discussed. Those references may eventually become part of the information available to AI systems.

There is a temptation to treat gatherings primarily as opportunities to generate content. From my perspective, that gets the relationship backwards. The conversation needs to be worthwhile in its own right. Any resulting visibility should be a consequence of participation rather than its primary purpose.

The shortage is not content, but credible perspective

Matt encouraged professionals to approach their industries more like journalists: listening carefully, learning from others and documenting what is happening rather than continually inventing material to publish.

The distinction matters when AI makes producing plausible content increasingly inexpensive. Organisations can publish more frequently without necessarily contributing anything new to the conversation.

During our member discussion, our long-tme Australian member Nick Condon emphasised the importance of authentic human storytelling as an alternative to generic AI-generated material. Our fellow US group leader and moderator Matt Garrepy also highlighted the continuing role of product evangelism and live conversations in establishing meaningful connections.

There is also a responsibility attached to being an industry observer. Much of what people share in trusted conversations is not intended for publication. Knowing what to share, what to attribute and what should remain confidential is part of earning the trust that makes those conversations possible.

Earning trust and earning revenue follow different timelines

Since establishing Earnfluencing as a company in August 2026, Matt has held more than 40 conversations with agency leaders, platform vendors, enterprise buyers and partners.

Those conversations have highlighted some familiar challenges. Agencies and technology platforms struggle to build productive partnerships when neither side can consistently generate opportunities. Companies are developing AI products without always having a clear proposition for customers. Meanwhile, enterprise buyers are looking for independent guidance as technology choices become increasingly complicated.

Matt is exploring how his experience with conversations, media and professional relationships can help bridge some of these gaps.

He was also open about the commercial challenges of building the business. Recognition and relationships take time to develop, while revenue needs to arrive much sooner. AI technology may change in seconds, but business development still operates over months and quarters.

Building a reputation takes time, but many organisations still measure the people responsible for it against short-term targets.

The challenge is to develop commercial models that recognise the value of relationships without reducing every conversation to a potential transaction.

Earnfluencing is finding a wider audience

Since 2023, Earnfluencing has moved from an idea Matt shared with our community to a topic attracting attention beyond marketing and communications. He has even been invited to discuss it in higher education circles, where questions about expertise, credibility and public trust are equally relevant.

AI was already part of the conversation when Matt introduced Earnfluencing. What has changed is the widespread adoption of AI search and the emergence of Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO). Organisations are increasingly concerned not just with where they rank in search results, but with whether AI systems mention, reference or recommend them.

Having spent more than 20 years bringing people together, I've seen how valuable knowledge often travels through conversations, introductions and recommendations long before anyone thinks to publish it.

The opportunity is to help that knowledge reach further without compromising the trust that made people willing to share it in the first place.

The conversation continues

If you'd like to explore these questions further, there are several ways to get involved in our community. We bring people together to compare experiences, learn from one another and explore how ideas work in practice.

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However you choose to engage, we’re glad you’re here and part of the journey.