social listening - Spin Sucks

TL;DR

Communicators are already doing strategic work; we just haven’t been owning it. As communications and marketing continue to merge, waiting for permission no longer works. Strategy isn’t a title or a separate deliverable; it’s baked into how we plan, prioritize, measure, and adapt our work. With the right mindset and an operating system like the PESO Model®, communicators can stop talking in activities and start leading with outcomes. 2026 needs to be the year we stop asking for permission and start owning our role as strategic leaders.

Key Insights:

The lines between communications and marketing have disappeared. Communicators have to operate as strategic partners across the full PESO Model®.
Strategic thinking isn’t about a job title or a seat at the table. It’s about how you show up, connect your work to outcomes, and speak the language of the business.
Most communicators are already doing strategic work; they just haven’t been framing it that way.
The PESO Model provides the structure and shared language to lead integrated efforts that are measurable, scalable, and aligned with business goals.
Strategy means knowing what to measure and why it matters, along with using that data to make smarter decisions.
2026 needs to be the year communicators stop waiting to be seen as strategic and start owning the role outright.

Leading with Strategy Doesn’t Require Permission

You’re in a meeting, someone from marketing starts talking about customer journey mapping, attribution modeling, or some other previously-owned-by-marketing term, and the room turns to you for media coverage, news releases, and the occasional crisis plan.

This probably sounds scarily familiar to so many of you.

You know there’s more you could offer, but somewhere along the way, you were conditioned to wait for permission and simply respond to the question that was asked. Maybe you’ve stayed in your earned media lane, or you’ve crushed social but never crossed into strategy. Or perhaps you’re still stuck chasing “awareness” while the marketers talk about revenue.

Here’s the thing—nobody is stopping you from contributing more and being strategic. We’ve been playing in our “communications roles” for so long that we’ve forgotten what it feels like to take up space outside of boasting about media interviews.

As part of how we operate, communicators have been trained to live in the gray space between PR and marketing, brand and reputation, and storytelling and strategy. We’ve accepted our place on the edges of decision-making, when in reality we belong right in the middle of it.

We’ve talked before about the communicator’s evolving role as a Visibility Engineer, connecting content, channels, and outcomes. This is the mindset we need to bring into every room, and it starts with dropping the habit of asking for permission.

The fact is, we’re already operating in a world that requires us to think and act like strategists. We have been for a long time. Now, we need to stop asking for permission to do it.

Communications and Marketing Share the Same Arena

The old divisions between marketing and communications no longer exist. Period.

The consumer experience isn’t linear, and it certainly isn’t siloed. Think about your own experiences—do you only look at one channel for information? Certainly not.

The moment a potential customer sees your brand, whether it’s in a news article, an influencer video, a LinkedIn post, or a paid social ad, that experience is judged as one brand story. That means paid, earned, shared, and owned media all belong to the same audience stream. If those streams aren’t aligned, the audience feels it.

Consumers don’t care which department “owns” the channel or touchpoint. They probably aren’t looking to see if everything is consistent, credible, and clear. But believe me, they notice when it’s not.

Unfortunately, in many organizations, the organizational chart still treats communications and marketing like different planets. But in the real world, we’ve been on the same planet for decades, reaching the same people for the same reasons.

You’re Already Doing Strategy

We’re working side-by-side, all the time, and that makes it impossible to draw a clean line between what’s communications and what’s marketing.

If you’re not convinced, let’s look at the work. Content strategy, influencer engagement, social listening, and even SEO or generative search. These aren’t someone else’s responsibilities; they’re part of what communicators do every day, even if we’re not always labeling it that way.

Whether we’re creating blog content, pitching stories that generate backlinks, building executive visibility on LinkedIn, or managing communities on our shared media channels, we’re not just telling stories; we’re shaping brand perception, influencing buyer behavior, and supporting conversion paths.

To be clear, this isn’t about taking over someone else’s job. Communications and marketing still hold very important but separate roles within an organization. This is about recognizing that we already share the same strategic space. Communicators often don’t claim their full authority within it.

That’s where the PESO Model® comes in. Not as a new set of tactics, but as the framework for making this shared space integrated, strategic, measurable, and functional.

Strategy Speaks the Language of Business Outcomes

Unfortunately, we’re still talking like we’re on the sidelines, only focused on garnering media hits, impressions, and headlines. And while those have made us feel good for decades, and they’ve given us big numbers to show the executive team, none of that tells the business what actually happened.

The CEO may like to brag about how many people saw your announcement, but they are giving the funding (and a seat at the executive table) to the team that shows they moved the needle on business objectives.

This is something marketing teams have been doing for a long time. They take that engagement report and show that those efforts shortened the path to conversion or strengthened the brand’s market position.

If we want to stop asking for permission and start owning strategy, we have to learn to speak in outcomes, not outputs. Global measurement standards for our industry have been pushing this shift for years, with PESO on the front lines, encouraging communicators to move beyond impressions and activity reporting and toward measurable business results.

That means moving beyond vanity metrics and into what really matters, like:

How earned media influenced search rankings—on both Google and in AI answers.
How owned media contributed to lead nurturing.
How shared media performance correlates with audience trust or shifts in sentiment.
How paid media amplified all of that great work to land people in the buying process.
How authority, not just awareness, drives long-term relevance.

The data isn’t just about proving your worth after the fact; it’s about making better decisions with the data you have and connecting that to results that drive the business.

I understand that this is the part where a lot of communicators suddenly say, “I didn’t go into PR to do math.” In fact, that line has come out of my mouth more than once throughout the years. The good news is that you don’t have to be a data scientist; you just have to know what to measure and why it matters.

The PESO Model is your Strategic Operating System

I’m a firm believer that most communicators out there don’t lack strategic thinking. What they often lack is the structure to turn that thinking into something measurable, repeatable, and scalable.

And that’s exactly where the PESO Model can give you the structure you need. Because we still see a lot of people treat PESO like a content bucket list, let’s clear something up. PESO is not a checklist of tactics, but an operating system for integrated marketing and communications.

Activity alone doesn’t drive results. The real power of the PESO Model lies in its ability to align teams around shared goals, audiences, and success metrics. It breaks down channel silos and gives communicators a way to operate with intention.

Let’s look at where communicators already operate with earned and shared media. PESO doesn’t replace those efforts, but instead, it elevates them. It turns earned media into a source of authority that supports SEO, provides the credibility LLMs like to cite, and builds trust with both humans and AI. And as the Edelman Trust Barometer continues to show, trust is one of the strongest predictors of long-term brand resilience.

And the best part is that it’s not theoretical. PESO gives you a language to use with other teams, a map for where content should go, and a way to tie every piece of your work to performance, right alongside the marketing team.

Stop Asking, Start Owning

Communicators need to break the habit of waiting for permission. The strategist’s seat isn’t assigned, it’s claimed.

No one is coming to tap you on the shoulder and say, “You’re in charge of strategy now.” That’s not how any of this works. You earn it by how you show up, how you connect the work to results, and how you speak in business terms, align with cross-functional goals, and lead conversations with confidence and clarity.

You already have the tools. You know how to translate complexity, how to build trust, and how to see patterns others miss. It’s what you do every single day.

Many of us have just spent too long waiting for someone else to frame that as leadership. And too often, we don’t take the extra step to connect all that work to what it means for the business.

2026 needs to be the year you stop waiting. Stop waiting to be invited into strategy, to be handed data, and to be seen as essential.

The truth is you already are. This is the year to shift your perspective, reposition your work, and take ownership of the strategic space you’ve always belonged in.

With the right mindset and the right framework, like the PESO Model, you don’t need permission. You just need to start.

Let’s make this the year you stop asking and start leading.