Jimi Gibson Explains AI Search, Reviews, and Brand Visibility

Jimi Gibson (00:00)
Yeah, I would say that happens a lot because the impressions, likes and comments tend to be vanity metrics makes us feel good. It’s better to have a smaller audience that takes action. so, you know, I think Gary Vaynerchuk many years ago, wrote a book called Jab, Jab, Jab Punch. And so for every three feel good posts that you make, ask for a call to action.

Dylan Silver (01:58)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today we’re joined by Jimi Gibson, Vice President of Brand Communication at Thrive Agency, where he focuses on helping businesses grow through strategic messaging, positioning, and digital marketing. Jimi works with business owners and real estate professionals to refine their brand, attract attention, and convert that attention into real opportunities. With a strong focus on communication and execution, he helps clients stand out in crowded markets and build systems that drive consistent growth. Welcome to the show, Jimi.

Jimi Gibson (02:27)
Hey, Dylan, glad to be here looking forward to our chat.

Dylan Silver (02:30)
Great to have you on here. Now, when we talk about the current status of digital marketing, it feels like it’s changing almost weekly, does it not?

Jimi Gibson (02:41)
Yeah, it’s been a crazy ride over the last 18 months or so and we’ve got our seatbelt on but ⁓ we’re trying to keep up with all the changes that are happening.

Dylan Silver (02:51)
How important currently, we’re talking on March 30th, it could honestly be different a month from now, but how important currently are the different AI tools that people have access to?

Jimi Gibson (03:03)
Yeah, I would say, you know, if we were talking two years ago, would be chat GPT. Right now it’s expanded into Claude Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Grok, and each one has their own personality and each one has their own audience and understanding ⁓ sort of the usage of that platform to your ideal client is important. And then understanding how each one functions, functions related to visibility for a brand.

is also important. So you’ve either got to keep up with the latest news or have someone who is a trusted partner that you can rely on to feed you that information if you don’t have a lot of time to keep up with all that. But I would say, as you said, it’s changing weekly. yeah, there have been a lot of algorithm shifts in where these large language models, as they’re called, get their information and how they ⁓ classify various brands and people.

as important to identify to bring those to the results that they provide, which is a little different than a Google search that we’re used to.

Dylan Silver (04:09)
was just going to say that, Jimi, know, people for however long decades at this point have been turning to Google for their first source of discovery when searching anything. But now that may be shifting. And while that is shifting, I think one of the things that hasn’t changed is the importance of Google reviews. Right. And it almost feels like that’s where some real estate operators can scale a business, but it’s also where things can kind of die on the vine.

How important right now is a Google business profile and being highly reviewed on a Google business profile?

Jimi Gibson (04:47)
Yeah. So Dilla, I’m going to rewind the clock to about 2016, and then we’re going to fast forward quickly. And then I think it’ll get to the answer to your question, because there’s a couple of things going on with that. In 2016, Google had an acronym, EAT,

that they expanded in early 2020s to EEAT. And that is an acronym for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. And so when you talk about Google reviews or ⁓

what Google deems as a check mark for any one of those in that ⁓ acronym, then obviously trustworthiness can be related to reviews. The other thing that happened is these large language models that we mentioned earlier are picking up on those exact same cues because they want to provide the brand or the person who is the most trustworthy and the most authoritative and has that expertise.

And so I would say if you’ve sort of been twiddling your thumbs related to reviews, it’s probably not too late, but it is a major focus of how the algorithms ⁓ rank you for the sentiment related to your brand. And so that sentiment can be positive or negative. And it’s actually picking up on the words in those Google reviews. Now, yeah, if you’re a

If you’re a business that has a local presence, you want to make sure that you also have optimized your Google business profile. ⁓ That’s changed a lot. used to be Google My Business, ⁓ but the acronym is GBP. ⁓ And so that is also a factor related and that also links up to your reviews. But if there are certain review platforms that are specific to your industry, then you want to make sure you have those reviews in multiple places or at least

you know, not copy and paste, but are asking people to review specifically to a platform that is specific. So if it’s transactional, obviously a Google review, and that can also be for service or products. And then again, if there’s industry specific things that would trigger another thumbs up from these large language models and Google, that’s a big plus. And another thing that’s factoring in, and this is kind of crazy, and maybe the audience has heard of this stat before,

But as we sit here today, about 60 % of searches don’t end up in a click. We call that the zero-click phenomenon that’s going on. And so what’s happening? When somebody punches something into Google, you have all of these overviews and answer engines that are giving some information on that results page. It may be AI mode overview. It may be related to sentiment or reviews. And people are getting that information.

without actually clicking through to your website. So you need all of these other visibility factors that are showing up ⁓ that are offsite.

Dylan Silver (08:36)
You know, I think when you talk about just the nature of search and you said it right there, if people aren’t clicking, what’s happening, right? And I’ve now seen, and I’m not an expert in this at all, but I’ve now seen there’s like an AI mode within Google, which will break things down. And so people can start to formulate their opinions on wherever they’re at. If they’re, you know, someone who’s lived in the same place for a very long period of time, or if they’re vacationing and in a new spot.

their opinions can be shifted by what shows up in that AI query. Pivoting a bit here, when folks are trying to increase the searchability and get more reviews, should they first start with their existing clientele and reaching back out to them and saying, hey, I need to boost my ranking in Google or something along the lines of this, would you mind writing me a review? Or is that…

maybe not the best strategy because you might get some potentially negative reviews on there. You don’t know.

Jimi Gibson (09:38)
Yeah, I think it goes back to that customer relationship and understanding. Like if you have a big database of customers, yeah, you want to think through, have you had good experiences where there’s some transition in the organization that may trigger bad reviews? Was there a change in ownership? Was there a change in leadership? And maybe figure out that best window of opportunity to get the right folks. So that would be one thing. The other thing is,

And so I would say, yes, that is a possibility to go back through your database. And if it’s large, you may not have the time to do that. But again, filter that through some of the things that I just mentioned. The other thing is to try to understand at what point are they happy. And so if it’s a real estate deal, if it’s an investment deal, if it’s a property management deal, whatever the case may be, when

is the satisfaction the highest and then make sure you bake in some process that would solicit that review at the point where you believe you’re gonna get the best review. ⁓ know, a couple of months, years down the line, they probably have forgotten how that transaction went. Sometimes you might have to remind them. So if you can layer in some information about when that transaction occurs, maybe who they dealt with during that process, that can also improve.

You know, if somebody’s name is mentioned in a review, that’s another signal that there’s a real person behind that. And so again, if you can see that review ⁓ conversation with that customer, that’s always a good thing to do because ⁓ Google and these large language models love to see that. Again, going to that positive sentiment. ⁓ And there are a variety of platforms out there. I mean, we have one. There are many that are. ⁓

not very expensive that can automate these things for you. And yeah, I would recommend going down that path to get that in a consistent workflow.

Dylan Silver (12:10)
Okay, so people have their Google business profile together and they’re growing that and they’re thinking, okay, well, where else can I build my brand here? And let’s say they may be active on Facebook, right? But they don’t have a targeted message. If you were at that stage and you’re scaling your brand, are there foundational things that people should be doing to start building their brand in 2026?

Jimi Gibson (12:36)
Yeah, and this is going to go back to some current information. I think it’s going to shift depending on the month and the year, but I’ll give you an explanation as to why some of these platforms are important. So right now, ⁓ the top five areas where these large language models are getting information from is Reddit. There are a lot of real estate related threads on Reddit. And so I would say engage in some of those conversations.

Believe it or not, LinkedIn is the number two at this point. And so if you have not polished up that LinkedIn profile for your business or for your personal profile, I would say do that and begin to post. ⁓ Search Engine Journal did a report back at the end of 2025 that said, if an executive posts 10 times a year, not a month, a year on LinkedIn, their deal size will increase and their referral rate will increase by 30%. And so why are they scraping

LinkedIn because you can connect a person, their history, their job history, ⁓ who they’re linked to as a company. And I would say articles have come back in vogue on LinkedIn because they stick around longer. ⁓ Wikipedia is also a huge, it’s pretty hard to get a Wikipedia page. So ⁓ Medium is also a place where you could publish ⁓ an article. ⁓ And a lot of these places are free. And then I would say number five is YouTube.

And last year, video was the highest consumed content on the internet because I’m sure we can all think through. Of course, we love video. And so I would say video is not so popular on LinkedIn, but if you have an Instagram page doing reels, ⁓ if you’re so inclined, would say start a YouTube page, do some long form. It doesn’t have to be perfect. You can film with your phone.

And it’s gonna scrape those transcripts, right? And then you can chop that up and put that on Instagram as shorts or reels, shorts on YouTube. And here’s the key thing that I think folks have to remember. You may go, well, my customer isn’t on LinkedIn, my customer isn’t on YouTube. It doesn’t matter because these large language models will pick that information up. And when somebody searches for you, either in Google, on AI mode, on one of these large language models,

Dylan Silver (14:43)
Hmm.

Jimi Gibson (14:54)
it’s gonna look across the areas that it likes to pull, and it’s gonna understand your credibility

and present you in that answer to the question that you’ve asked in one of these large language models without them ever going to one of these platforms. And so I would say it’s the architecture underneath your personal brand or your business brand that’s important. And I think it’s kind of a blind spot for people. think, ⁓

the people are gonna go to Reddit and read that no, it’s gonna actually, you’re gonna score points for having visibility across all of these because these AI models are looking for clarity, coherence, and consistency. And so don’t do it just once, don’t bite off more than you can chew, but if you have some sort of process to be able to post on one or more of these platforms or engage on these platforms ⁓ weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, then you’re gonna be in a much better place.

Dylan Silver (16:31)
Now, if folks are looking to stand out in their local market and whether they’re a realtor, know, whether they’re a real estate attorney, investor, and they’re competing with others on a Google page on social media, right? And they’re thinking, well, what’s the timeline that I have to put in? How many weeks, how many months, how many posts a day? I heard for a while, it was three posts a day, post three times a day, certain times of the day have consistent messaging.

Right now, is that changing?

Jimi Gibson (17:03)
⁓ So great question. Nobody has to be an influencer. Nobody has to be a content machine. ⁓ When I gave that stat about Search Engine Journal, that was 10 posts a year. So that’s less than one a month. I would say you want to be consistent. You don’t want to talk about 100 things. You want to talk about four or five things at most, three to five things.

and then talk about those in multiple places. Make sure that your name appears the same way every time. Make sure your brand appears the same way every time. And then I would say you need to understand what is Google and what are these AI engines, what do they deem as important? Well, certainly post on your own page are fine, but third party recommendations are better. And now I’m gonna say go old school.

⁓ Your local newspaper, your local radio station, your local TV station is desperate for experts. Go introduce yourself and be the resource when there’s volatility in the real estate market. Be the expert that they go to. Join your chamber of commerce, get listed on their website. Go to a ribbon cutting ⁓ for another business. ⁓ Go to a business and sit in their lobby and do a video or do a partnership with another business.

And these are the things that increase your visibility and these third party triggers that all of, you know, all the areas that we’ve mentioned before will give you a thumbs up for. So I would say don’t overthink it, but be consistent. And it’s just gonna be the way things are. You just have to put it into your workflow.

Dylan Silver (18:40)
Bonus question here, I’m a realtor licensed in Texas and I think there’s a lot of, especially newer realtors who are seeing this, that there’s a lot of people who are very active online but may not actually be producing very much. And part of this is that, you know, it can be appealing to build an audience, but people sometimes can build the audience without building the book of business.

Where do you think they’re missing that connection if they’ve got that large following and lots of interaction but aren’t transactional?

Jimi Gibson (19:13)
Yeah, I would say that happens a lot because the impressions, likes and comments tend to be vanity metrics makes us feel good. It’s better to have a smaller audience that takes action. so, you know, I think Gary Vaynerchuk many years ago, wrote a book called Jab, Jab, Jab Punch. And so for every three feel good posts that you make, ask for a call to action.

so that may be a download that may be

you know, schedule an appointment for us to chat. That may be some sort of specific commerce related action that you’re asking for. And when people do that, then you know who’s gonna take their money out of their wallet or pocketbook to pay or engage at that level. And so one of the things that these algorithms are liking now is they don’t care how many followers you have. They don’t care how many people liked your post.

they want to know, you saying something that demonstrates your experience, expertise, authoritativeness or trustworthiness? And then ⁓ you know the measure of that personally to know if your business is increasing. And so I would say gone are the days of sunsets with, you know, inspiring quotes. ⁓ Educational content is typically the thing that drives people to a deeper relationship.

Dylan Silver (20:40)
We are coming up on time here, Jimi. Any new projects that you’re working on and then what’s the best way for folks to reach out to your team?

Jimi Gibson (20:48)
Yeah, thanks, Dylan. ⁓ I’m actually ⁓ releasing a research study that was conducted last year, and then we’ll do it quarterly. So if folks want to learn more about that, it’s all about AI visibility for the company and for ⁓ subject matter experts, owners, founders, ⁓ you know, folks within the executive team, or even people in your organization that want to step out and be a voice. So I think that would be very interesting to folks. I’m on LinkedIn.

every day for all the reasons that we’ve talked about before, posting some sort of educational piece. And so would love for people to connect with me and DM me there if they have any other questions. And then our website for Thrive Internet Marketing Agency is pretty simple. It’s just thriveagency.com. And again, we’ve got lots of resources on there. You don’t have to be a customer to read the resources, but if anybody needs any help with this and AI visibility, would love to have a chat.