You may have heard the line that every company is a media company and filed it away as a slogan. If your work comes from referrals, it can sound like it is meant for someone else. The short answer, in our view: the line is older and better grounded than it sounds, and it is not about hiring a marketing team; it is about running media as work your business does each week, like invoicing.
By the end you'll have where the idea really comes from, five rules that make media part of how your business runs, and the numbers on where buyers look now.
Treat media as an operation, not a department: five rules
Each rule below is work someone in your business does every week, not a campaign you buy. Use them in order: the first two give media a home, the last three decide what it makes, how you judge it and what you keep.
Give media one owner by name
Do this. Write one person's name next to media on the list of jobs in your business, the same way a name already sits next to invoicing or payroll.
It worked when three people on your team, asked who owns publishing, all give the same name.
Why. In our view, a job nobody owns gets done only when someone has spare time, and a busy week has none. The owner of the job does not have to be the face on camera: the face does the talking, while the work around it (posting, scheduling, replying) is a job someone owns. A business needs a face, but in our view that face does not have to be you.
Example. One owner put it this way: "I run a small art business and my social media presence is really important to the growth of it." The same owner described her husband, who runs a B2B business with more than 50 employees: "He had a flipping content studio at work and a growth manager to film him!!" We read that as media run as part of a business: the work around the face has people assigned to it.
Put media on the weekly operating agenda
Do this. Add one standing line to your weekly operations meeting: what we published, who made it, and which buyer question it answered.
It worked when the line has been filled in at twelve meetings in a row, with the same owner reporting.
Why. Our rule of thumb is that media which waits for a free afternoon does not get made, and a fixed slot in the week turns it into someone's work. Reviewing it next to sales and delivery treats it as an operation, not a side project.
Example. Werner Brell, then managing director of Red Bull Media House, said in 2014: "We create more than 600 pieces of content every year" 1. According to Brell, putting a web show about athletes on YouTube at a consistent day and time "immediately tripled the duration of viewing and engagement" 1. We read that as a sign that a fixed rhythm can matter as much as any single piece.
Let the people who answer buyers' questions make it
Do this. Collect the questions buyers asked your team this month, and have the person who answered each one answer it again in public, as a post, a page or a short video.
It worked when each piece you publish can be traced to a question a real buyer asked.
Why. In our view, the people who already know the work are the content team: a small business does not need a department to publish, it needs the people who answer buyers' questions to answer them in public. In our view, recurring formats help: the same setting, the same voice and the same kind of opening make each piece read as an episode of something your business makes.
Example. HubSpot says its founders, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, noticed in 2004 that buyers "didn't want to be interrupted by ads, they wanted helpful information" 2. HubSpot says the two founded the company in 2006 to help companies use that shift with inbound marketing 2. We read their bet as the same one: help that answers a buyer's question can do work an ad can't.
Judge media by buyers over a full buying cycle
Do this. Ask every new customer where they first heard of you, write the answer down, and review the count each quarter instead of after each post.
It worked when you can name the customers from the last quarter whose first contact with you was something your business published.
Why. LinkedIn's B2B Institute says its research on the 95-5 rule shows that "95% of your potential buyers aren't ready to buy today" 3. In joint research with the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, the B2B Institute reports that 75% of companies buy computers once every four years and 80% change banking services once every five years 3. We read that as a reason to measure media over months, because a buyer who sees your work today may not buy for years.
Example. In a B2B Institute study of B2B marketers on LinkedIn, 96% expected to see the main effect of their ad campaigns within two weeks 3. In our view, a two-week verdict sets media up to fail; judge it by the buyers it brings, because views and buyers are different signals. Where you can, put a tracked link under each piece and ask for one action inside it, so you can tell which pieces brought money.
Keep what you publish as something the business owns
Do this. Store every piece in one library the business controls, and invite the people who follow you onto an email list or channel you own.
It worked when if a platform closed your account tomorrow, you would still have every piece and a way to reach the people who followed it.
Why. In our view, followers on a platform are rented, and a business that treats media as an asset moves its audience somewhere it owns.
Example. John Deere first published The Furrow in 1895 as "A Journal for the American Farmer" 4. John Deere says the magazine's goal remains "to tell stories that people enjoy reading and provide them with knowledge that they can apply in their operations" 4. We read that as media a business has kept and built on for well over a century.
This piece covers why media belongs in your operations and what changes when it does. For how to build the publishing itself, from picking the face to the daily routine, read Founder-Led Content: How to Build a Media Engine Without a Marketing Team.
In our view, a marketing hire can't replace media the business runs itself
Start with the business in the title. One owner who has run a service business alone since 2005 put it this way: "I have very happy and loyal clients. I get all of my clients from referrals. But I work 7 days a week long hours to survive in this economy." In our view, loyal clients are a real asset; the risk is a business with no second way in when referrals slow.
One fix is to hand media to someone. Starting a thread on business goals for the year, one person listed their own: "mine: - new branding and packaging -3 pop ups - 5 new employees - hire a marketing team". We read that last item as the belief this article argues against: media as a hire. One person who works at a service business that has been around for about 50 years put it this way: "Historically, most of our work has come from word of mouth, repeat customers, and long-time relationships. That’s great, but we’ve been pretty stagnant and I’m trying to help build a more consistent sales and marketing system." The same person, who also helps with production work, added: "So I need something realistic and consistent, not a giant marketing plan that only works if I have 40 hours a week to spend on it." In our view, that is media handed to one person on top of other work, with no slot of its own. One clinic owner who already pays for ads and for someone to run social media put it this way: "Our patient retention is strong, the quality of care is high, and we receive consistent word-of-mouth referrals. However, I’m struggling to attract new organic patients from the general public." In our view, paying for ads and a social media manager is not the same as running media as part of the business.
In our view, the case against marketing as one desk is not new. Shikhar Sarin and Jakki Mohr summarise Peter Drucker's 1954 view that organizations have only two basic functions, marketing and innovation 5. We read that as an argument, older than the internet, that marketing belongs to the whole business rather than to one department.
Marketing is a department or a hire. It runs campaigns and is judged within weeks.
Media is an operation with a named owner, a weekly slot and a library the business keeps. It is judged by the buyers it brings over the buying cycle.
Trust points the same way. In Nielsen's 2015 survey of more than 30,000 online respondents in 60 countries and regions, 83% said they completely or somewhat trust friends' and family's recommendations 6. In the same survey, branded websites were the second-most trusted advertising format, trusted completely or somewhat by 70% of respondents 6. Those figures are from 2015; we use them only to show that people trust people and a business's own channels, not as current data.
Where buyers spend their time has moved too. In Pew Research Center's 2026 survey of 5,511 U.S. adults, 84% said they ever use YouTube, and Pew names YouTube and Facebook as the most widely used social media platforms in the United States 7. In the same survey, 95% of U.S. adults aged 18 to 29 and 65% of those 65 and older said they ever use YouTube 7. Nielsen reported that YouTube captured a platform-record 15.8% of U.S. TV viewing in August 2026, keeping it in the lead in Nielsen's Media Distributor Gauge 8. Nielsen said YouTube's August 2026 gain was helped by a 9% increase in viewing among adults 50 and older 8. We read that as a sign that video now reaches many older buyers too, not just young ones.
Search is changing under your feet. In Pew Research Center's study of 900 U.S. adults' browsing in March 2025, users who saw a Google AI summary clicked a traditional search result in 8% of visits, against 15% for users who saw no summary 9. Pew found that users clicked a link inside the AI summary itself in just 1% of visits to pages with a summary 9. Pew found that Wikipedia, YouTube and Reddit were the most frequently cited sources in both Google's AI summaries and its standard search results 9. In a Pew Research Center survey from early 2025, 34% of U.S. adults said they had ever used ChatGPT, including 58% of adults under 30 10. SparkToro's 2024 zero-click study, based on Datos clickstream data, found that just under 60% of U.S. mobile web and desktop Google searches in the panel ended without a click on any result 11. In our view, when fewer people click through, being the source an answer draws on, or the video that shows up, matters more than ranking a link.
If you sell to other businesses, look at who decides. The 2025 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report draws on nearly 2,000 global professionals, including both visible and hidden decision-makers 12. Citing other research, the report's page states that "more than 40% of B2B deals stall due to internal misalignment within buying groups" 12. The report's page says that at the moment of the final decision, strong content can inspire hidden buyers "to advocate for less familiar vendors" 12. We read that as a reason media matters even when you sell to other businesses: part of the decision can sit with people your sales calls never reach.
This article covers the first move on that ladder: from a business buyers can find only through referrals to one that promotes itself now and then and treats publishing as work it does.
Companies ran their own media long before social media, and the idea has a traceable history
The slogan has a written trail. Tom Foremski left the Financial Times in 2004 to write the blog Silicon Valley Watcher, according to his ZDNET author note 13. In June 2005, Tom Foremski wrote that "any large corporation can be viewed as a media company in that it constantly seeks to publish content" 14. In the same 2005 post, Foremski described news@cisco, Cisco's online magazine, as "run with the same journalistic standards as any computer trade magazine" 14. Foremski wrote in 2005 that in four years news@cisco had built an online readership larger than that of Investor's Business Daily and of the top computer trade newspapers and magazines 14.
In June 2009, Foremski wrote that he had been writing about the idea that "every company is now a media company" ever since he visited Dan Scheinman, then head of mergers and acquisitions at Cisco Systems, in March 2005 15. Looking back in August 2009, Foremski wrote: "It doesn't matter if it makes network gear or diapers, every company needs to publish to its various communities, its customers, its staff, it's neighbors" 16. In 2012 Foremski wrote that "It was Cisco that was the inspiration for my 'every company is a media company' credo" 17. In our view, the record shows Foremski has written about the idea since 2005 and credits Cisco for it, not that he invented it.
Foremski quoted Cisco's John Earnhardt in 2012: "Even if just one person finds our content compelling and important, that's success for us". Earnhardt explained: "if that person is a key decision maker and controls a large budget, we've done our job" 17. We read that as the case for business-to-business media in one line: the audience can be small if it is the right audience.
A tyre company did it a century earlier. Michelin says André and Édouard Michelin created the MICHELIN Guide in 1900 as a practical guide for motorists, distributed free of charge 18. In 1900, France had only 2,897 cars officially declared to the tax office, according to the French car magazine L'argus, which calls the free Michelin guide partly an advertising tool for the firm's products 19. The first, free edition had a print run of 35,000 copies, according to L'argus and the French history magazine Hérodote 1920. Michelin says the guide became a paid publication in 1920 18. Michelin's guide began awarding stars to restaurants in 1926, according to the French history magazine Hérodote 20. In our view, the guide was media that partly advertised the firm's products, and it grew into an asset people later paid for.
Red Bull Media House describes itself as "an award-winning, globally distributed multi-platform media company" 21. MediaShift reported in 2014 that Red Bull Media House had been created six years earlier as a separate arm of the company 1. Brell said Red Bull were the "creators, producers and distributors" of Felix Baumgartner's record-breaking leap from outer space to Earth, which MediaShift reported got 9 million concurrent views on YouTube 1.
The LEGO Group reported revenue growth of 15% in 2014, excluding foreign exchange effects 22. The LEGO Group named THE LEGO MOVIE product line, launched with the feature film in early 2014, as a significant contributor to that growth 22. In our view, that is media paying its way through the products behind it, which is the model a small business can copy: no platform has to pay you, because your customers do.
Media as an operation can fail, and the fear of change deserves an answer
The first way it fails is treating one good result as a system. One owner of a small drinks shop put it this way: "I’m not great at marketing but one video went viral on TikTok and it helped my business immensely. But now that it’s died down I have very few customers now." Foremski wrote in 2009 that doing it well "means you need fresh content daily" 15. Foremski also wrote that "being a media company is not a three-month marketing campaign. It's a lifetime commitment" 15. We read the gap between that owner's experience and Foremski's line as the campaign trap: one piece that lands is not a rhythm.
The second is media that never earns its keep. Brell also said that what Red Bull's media arm does "always has to come with some form of paycheck, whether advertising, licensing or a coproduction deal" 1. Our rule of thumb for a small business adapts that test: if your media does not bring customers within a full buying cycle, change what you publish or who makes it. Daily is Foremski's bar for doing it well; start at a rhythm your named owner can keep, and raise it later.
The third is the fear itself. One member of a family that owns a paving business described it this way: "There is 0 marketing, zero paid ads, 15 google reviews in the last 10 years,no visibility. Our family has deep roots in our county and everything is word of mouth." The same person on the owners, family members in their 60s: "The truth is they are TERRIFIED of change and cant wrap their heads around how doing any of this will drive any growth." Our answer to that fear is to make the first step small and reversible: one named owner, one line in the weekly meeting, twelve weeks, then decide. Nothing here replaces referrals; in our view, it adds a second way in beside them.
Within seven days, find out where your last twenty customers first saw you
Within seven days, list your last twenty new customers and write next to each the first thing of yours they saw: a referral, an ad, a post, a video, a search result or a talk. Next to that, write who in your business made it. If more than half say referral and nobody made anything, add the standing media line from rule two to your weekly operations meeting for the next twelve weeks, and give it one owner by name. The test is a list of twenty customers with first touch and maker, and twelve sets of meeting notes with the media line filled in.
Your first-touch list
You now have the history, the rules and the numbers behind the slogan
Back to the opening problem: a business that gets its clients from referrals and wonders whether the media slogan is meant for it. Where the idea really comes from: a journalist's credo inspired by Cisco, written about since 2005, and practised by a farm-equipment maker and a tyre company long before that. The five rules that make media part of how your business runs: one owner by name, a line on the weekly agenda, the people who answer buyers making it, buyers counted over the buying cycle, and a library the business keeps. The numbers on where buyers look now: YouTube's reach and its share of TV viewing, fewer clicks when AI summaries appear, and buyers who are not ready to buy today. In our view, referrals stay the best customers you have; media is how the business gets found by the ones who have not met you yet.
Read before: running a 2015 business in a 2030 world, and why a better business loses to a louder competitor. Read next: Founder-Led Content: How to Build a Media Engine Without a Marketing Team for how to build the publishing, and How to Run a Weekly Team Meeting That Actually Changes Something for the meeting your media line sits in.
See where your business stands on media: take the Scorecard.
Sources
- When a Brand Becomes a Publisher: Inside Red Bull's Media House · MediaShift (Dorian Benkoil), 10 November 2014
- Our Story · HubSpot, read 1 November 2026
- 95-5 Rule · The B2B Institute, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, undated
- The Furrow · John Deere, read 1 November 2026
- Drucker's Insights on Market Orientation and Innovation · Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (Shikhar Sarin and Jakki Mohr), 2008
- Global Trust in Advertising 2015 · Nielsen, September 2015
- Social Media Fact Sheet · Pew Research Center, 19 October 2026
- TV viewing cools off in Nielsen's August Gauge reports as sports take a breather and school resumes · Nielsen, 22 October 2026
- Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results · Pew Research Center, 22 July 2025
- 34% of U.S. adults have used ChatGPT, about double the share in 2023 · Pew Research Center, 25 June 2025
- 2024 Zero-Click Search Study · SparkToro (Rand Fishkin), 2024
- Invisible Influence: Unlocking the Power of Hidden Buyers · Edelman and LinkedIn, 2025
- Foremski's last word: When every company is a media company · ZDNET (Tom Foremski), 2 May 2022
- The corporation as publisher: Is Cisco's online magazine a sign of further challenges to an already beleagured media establishment? · Silicon Valley Watcher (Tom Foremski), 6 June 2005
- The Pressure Is On When Every Company Is Now A Media Company · Silicon Valley Watcher (Tom Foremski), 29 June 2009
- 5yrs: Lessons And Insights - Meeting Cisco's Dan Scheinman and Realizing Every Company Is Now A Media Company · Silicon Valley Watcher (Tom Foremski), 20 August 2009
- Lessons From Cisco's 'the network' - The Corporation As A Media Company · Silicon Valley Watcher (Tom Foremski), 28 June 2012
- History of the MICHELIN Guide · Michelin, undated
- La saga du guide Michelin · L'argus (Thomas Morales), 7 February 2014
- En route vers les étoiles · Hérodote (Charlotte Chaulin), 2021
- Red Bull Media House · Red Bull Media House, read 1 November 2026
- Global growth ensures strong 2014 result for the LEGO Group · LEGO Group, 2014 annual results
