Why there is so much more to growth than visibility & yapping.
Visibility. Visibility. Visibility.
The hottest request in my inbox and intro calls in 2026. And everywhere I scrolled over summer, people were talking- sorry, yapping about it. I was fairly certain not everyone could have been doing the To Be Magnetic ‘Being Seen’ challenge, but then I also saw the astrology tracks right now, thanks to the mega Lucy Porter, so I’ve been thinking about why we’re all set on visibility and a metric over what’s actually meaningful—being remembered.
REMEMBER ME. HOW LOSS REWIRED MY BRAIN
A few years ago, my dad died. Dramatic segue, I know, but it totally rewired meaning in my brain, creating a massive intolerance for the stuff that doesn’t really matter in its wake. I don’t remember my Dad because of the number of times I saw him, his capacity for ‘showing up’ could have made that a questionable feat. So why do we think about our work in such linear ways?
There’s an intimacy to being remembered that can’t always be met on feeds. It’s in studios and spaces, inboxes and headphones, and on crumpled pages on laps. After years of prioritising social as the hard and fast way to grow, brands are very interestingly heading back to PR (yay for us), because visibility without connection is just more noisy noise.
PR was never just about visibility. Being remembered in the non-dead-Dad sense takes relevance, relatability, positioning, and audience alignment. It’s taking what you do and creating conversations that connect you with people in the spaces you want to be in. Building your culture (ok, or lore). What you want to be known for. Remembered for. Recommended for. That all has a lot more to do with intimacy than trial reels and trending audio. And thank goodness!
We know screen-based interactions have lower recall (I’ve talked about that here before). But thinking about it more recently, there are practitioners and brands whose posts I could go months without seeing, maybe even years (I probably have, thanks Zuck), and I still remember you. I still think about you, recommend you, and buy from you when I can, because of something you made me feel and everything that went into me being able to connect with you in whatever moment we met.
🕯️ INTIMATE SPACES
Where we are most present and open to connection is changing, and what that means for 'growth'.
📱 LOW VIBE: Just passing through: The social, monkey-brain dopamine scroll. Distraction, filling a gap, overstimulated, entertainment. (DMs and actual relationships built through social aren’t included here, hi friends 👋)
🔎 STILL A VIBEY MID-POINT: Desperately seeking you: a Google or AI search, clicking through to articles and sites. They know what they want, and they’re searching for answers.
😍 HIGH AF: All up in your world: leisure reads and listens. Substacks, newsletters (and the features you’re linked out to in them), podcasts, old school media, IRL events, personal recommendations and conversations.
🌀 RESHAPING CONNECTION BEYOND THE SCROLL
We still need to be where our audiences are, but I think we'll be increasingly re-evaluating what we’re prioritising. Our relationship with social platforms is changing. We’re buying Bricks to block them (ILY Brick), and AI is changing how people find things, reshaping trust in the process with an ever-growing existential ick.
Getting known beyond the scroll and into places where connection runs higher feels pretty exciting (and I say that from the luteal phase). Because being remembered isn’t something you can take, like reach. People give it to you when they’re open, and when what you share meets a real part of them 🤍
