Brand mentions aren’t a new concept, but answer engine optimization (AEO) is giving them a different weight. Brand mentions are any online references to your brand, product, spokesperson, or company name. Right now, they’re happening in more places than most teams can track. Beyond social posts and news articles, your brand is being named in Reddit threads, podcast episodes, review sites, and increasingly inside AI-generated answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. If you’re investing in brand awareness but not monitoring where and how your name actually shows up, you’re flying blind on the metrics that matter most: reputation, SEO value, and revenue attribution.…