What does your SEO team need to know about earned media?

0:00Jason Mudd: If you lead search engine optimization, 2027 brings a tough question. Your CMO might ask, what are we doing about AI? Here's my answer. Collaborate with public relations, not instead of SEO, with SEO. Search needs public relations more than ever. Public relations needs search too. Let me show you the data and then I'll show you how to do it right. Welcome to On Top of PR with Jason Mudd.

0:30Jason Mudd: Hi, I'm Jason Mudd with Axia Public Relations. You're listening to On Top of PR. Today, I'm flying solo. This episode is for search engine optimization professionals and the chief marketing officers and business executives who rely on them. Here's why I'm recording it. Last quarter, our biggest source of new revenue came from search engine optimization firms. They hired us to run media relations for their clients. I respect that move. It's smart. It's collaborative. It protects their clients. Before we dig in, I have a quick request. If this episode helps you, please pause and leave a review right here in the app where you're listening or watching.

1:09Jason Mudd: Every review enters you in our monthly drawing for On Top of PR swag. If you prefer, visit ratethispodcast.com slash on top of PR or follow the link in the episode notes. Your review helps more marketing, public relations and communication leaders find our show. Now, that data. Muckrack just released its latest What Is AI Reading report on Wednesday. I'm recording this on October 31st. So it just came out a few days ago. I've been posting about it on LinkedIn. If you don't follow me yet on LinkedIn, take a moment, pause, follow me on LinkedIn. I'm at linkedin.com slash n slash Jason Mudd. Every day I'm posting newest topics, tips, and trends, and insights for the public relations profession.

1:59Jason Mudd: And I think you'll benefit from following me there if you're not already. While you're there, take a moment and follow us at On Top of PR or Axia Public Relations. Your choice. All right. So they just released the latest What is AI reading report. It analyzed more than 40 million AI responses from ChatGPT, Quad, Gemini, and Perplexity. About 84 % of citations come from earned media coverage. About 99 % come from non-paid sources. Meanwhile, paid and advertorial content registers at only 0.3%. Press releases register at about 1%. Your own website accounts for about 15%. Muckrack and other professionals like us call that owned media.

2:52Jason Mudd: That 15 % matters. You can control it. You can improve it this week. It's also one slice of a bigger pie. Now, let me be precise because search engine optimization professionals check the math. You should too. Muckrack defines earned media broadly. It includes journalism. It also includes academic research, government and nonprofit sources, Wikipedia, social platforms, and third-party blogs. Journalism alone makes up about 22 % of citations. That's down from about 27 % in their May report. Other earned sources absorbed the difference. So earned media is bigger than news coverage. Public relations, the profession I'm in, also called media relations when we're talking about earned media, earns those same exact mentions.

3:47Jason Mudd: That's trade articles, expert quotes, podcast appearances, third-party guides that name you, your company, your organization, your experts, your executives, your spokesperson, your thought leaders, your key opinion leaders. Muckrack's Matt Dugan told me he finds this group fair, I mean this grouping fair, meaning the slice that isn't earned is mainly branded content that companies publish on their own sites. That's the territory that you know well, but it accounts for only about 15 % of the overall formula or the overall recipe for generative engine optimization. And I think that's important. Here's the part I want search engine optimization or SEO pros to hear.

4:38Jason Mudd: At best, on-site optimization touches that 15 % of citations from your own website. So technical SEO still matters. Structured data, frequently asked questions, and clean site architecture help AI find and extract your content. They can't create the coverage that earns the citation in the first place. That's where we, public relations, search engine optimization professionals, collaborate. SEO and PR share more than you might think. Here are three similarities. Both start with the audience's question, not the company agenda. Both reward clarity. Facts first, clean headlines, short sentences. both compound.

5:28Jason Mudd: Each takes time to build and it keeps paying off. Now the three differences. One, control. You control your website. Reporters control their stories. We pitch, they decide. Second, audience. You write for a searcher or a human who's searching. We write for the outlet's readers, viewers, or audience. Their audience comes first, not necessarily our client and their agenda, not our keyword or keyword phrases. Third, speed. You can publish today. Earned media takes longer. Those difference make collaboration important and valuable. You build the foundation. We earn the third-party proof. Together, you give all AI platforms more to cite.

6:18Jason Mudd: The MuckWrap reports includes a finding SEO pros will love. The question decides which content gets cited. On how-to questions, practical guides make up 68 % of citations. On best-of questions, buyers' guides and reviews lead at 45%. On industry trend questions, expert analysis reads at 41%. I realize I'm quoting a lot of percentages and stats here. Thank you for staying with me because this is all very important to you, your profession, your employment, and your employer. Because this all creates a clear division of labor for how to type questions that you want to prepare to rank for so that when someone is searching or prompting a how do I question, search engine optimization leads.

7:18Jason Mudd: You build the step-by-step guide on your site. Public relations helps amplify and spread the content of that guide. Now, for what's the best questions, public relations leads. We earn review coverage and placement in buyer's guide. For where is the industry going type questions, public relations leads again. We place original analysis and expert commentary in your company's name, executive names, spokespersons, experts, etc. That last one deserves emphasis. Thought leadership deserves investment. A distinct, informed point of view on where your industry is going gives AI something worth citing.

8:06Jason Mudd: Repeating what everyone else says adds little value. Here's my take on away for CMOs. Bring your communication and content teams together around these questions. Develop a unique point of view. Support it with evidence. Give journalists and customers something worth reading. One more finding supports collaboration. No single placement reaches the four major platforms. Let me clarify. One, no one single earned media placement is cited by all four major platforms. Only 212 websites appeared across all of them. So in other words, Ask Chat GPT the same question twice and only 41 % of its cited sources repeat it.

8:58Jason Mudd: Perplexity repeats 94 of the time. Forbes is the only news outlet in the top 10 across all four platforms. That's notable. It also shows how different the platforms are. Twelve major publishers nearly vanished from ChatGPT's citation for a period of time this year. Some have returned. So when you're doing public relations, media relations for earned media coverage, build a portfolio. national outlets, trade outlets, regional outlets, local outlets, useful content, and then useful content on your own website. Claude, Gemini, Perplexity cite much smaller outlets than chat GPT does. Claude in particular likes small trade and local and regional news outlets.

9:55Jason Mudd: Many PR pros miss or overlook that opportunity. Now, how do we go about earning that coverage? First of all, subscribe to On Top of PR. We cover this topic frequently, but let me start off with a warning. Some teams hear AI reads press releases and they start issuing them more than ever. Some even use AI agents to write releases for AI agents to read. I understand the instinct. The data points the other way. Press releases account for about one of AI citations. You should be writing for journalists, not for AI agents. Give them a story worth covering, facts they can use, and context that explains why it matters.

10:40Jason Mudd: Distributing an announcement for machines is a weak strategy. Earning a journalist's coverage is a much stronger one. I'm known for saying this, you can't slap the words press release on a blog post posted on a commercial newswire like PR Newswire, Business Wire, Globe Newswire, and expect coverage. Syndication can create default pickups, but it rarely earns a reporter's attention unless you're Nike, Tesla, Ford, Coca-Cola, etc. Here's the better path. Four steps. Start with the news, not the blog post. Ask who cares and why should they care? If the honest answer is just us, keep it on your blog.

11:25Jason Mudd: Rewrite it as news. Use the inverted pyramid. Put the most important facts first. Follow AP Stylebook style. Skip your company name in the headline. Yep, that's right. Lead with the finding. Publish real numbers. Give your executive a quote with a sharp opinion, not hype. And write it for the outlet and more importantly for the outlet's audience, not your C-suite, not your leadership team, not your shareholders. Then borrow your search engine optimization instincts. Add three to five short FAQs inside the release. Yes, inside the release. That's now acceptable. They help reporters. They also help AI extract the facts.

12:07Jason Mudd: Remember, a news release is a baby step. It supports a pitch. It doesn't replace one. Pitch it first. Don't post it on your blog yet. Reporters want first divs. It's called news because it's new. If it's already on your blog post, they're not going to be interested. They're unlikely to cover a story you already published. Blog after they cover it. Link inside that blog post to the coverage. Then expand your commentary beyond what the story itself included. That post strengthens your own slice with fresh third-party proof, a.k.a. earned media coverage from a credible news outlet. If the story doesn't prove newsworthy, then publish it as a blog post and move on.

12:53Jason Mudd: You've lost nothing but a little bit of time. You went to the market to try to raise your visibility and credibility. Here's the mindset behind those four steps. Stop asking reporters to promote your company. start giving them a reason to include you in their news stories. I'm going to say this again. It's so important. Stop asking reporters to promote your company. Start giving them a reason to include you in their news stories. All right, let's set expectations for your SEO team and your chief marketing officer. I'll give you three. One, time. Coverage takes months to build. Reporters need to know you and trust you.

13:37Jason Mudd: Nearly half of cited journalism covers breaking or recent news. Fresh, steady coverage helps. One big placement a year won't carry you. One big placement a year won't work. Plan for steady coverage in the outlet's AI platforms read. Number two, control. Reporters choose their sources. We rarely see the final lineup of who they're going to quote, source, and interview for a story. Good journalism typically cites at least three sources. Your executive might share the story with others. That's healthy. Audiences trust stories with several voices. If anyone guarantees coverage, you're buying advertising or something else, and I think it's going to be unethical and you'll be disappointed in the results.

14:25Jason Mudd: Third, measurement. Don't judge success by one prompt on one platform. Use a stable prompt set. Run each prompt more than once. Report by platform. Track ranges over time. Record model changes. Count citations and answer mentions separately. You already know how to measure, apply that skill to citation. You might wonder, where do your media relationships fit into this conversation? Do they matter? Is it the most important part? I have a strong opinion and I'll save the full debate for a future episode. For now, here's my short answer. I'd rather pitch a great story than rely on being a reporter's best friend.

15:05Jason Mudd: A relationship always helps. A relationship helps open the door. But the story itself decides whether the reporter decides to walk through the door or to engage in that story. I've seen this happen time and time again. On a regular basis, my team and I will reach out to a journalist we have a relationship with. They'll take our call. They'll answer our texts. They'll respond to our email. But they won't always cover the story if it's not good enough. But if we have a great story, that's a great way to begin and build a relationship with a complete stranger because it matters. Y 'all, everything I'm talking about here, we tested this ourself.

15:42Jason Mudd: In late July, we earned the kind of coverage we earned for clients. We've been shoemakers kids focusing on our clients, not taking care of ourself, not building enough visibility and earned media coverage for ourselves. I decided in Q2 that we needed to raise up the number of leads we were getting and we needed to practice what we preach. So in late July, we earned the kind of coverage we earned for clients. Interviews and placements ran in Fox News, the New York Post, OK Magazine, and business journals across the U.S. August brought, after just doing it for one month for ourselves, treating us like a client, August brought us 51 new leads.

16:19Jason Mudd: August last year, we had 33 leads. That's 54 % increase right after the coverage ran. Now, I won't claim full attribution. Correlation isn't proof. But earned media and lead volume move together in parallel according to our own numbers. That's why a growing share of our new business is coming from search engine optimization firms. They're seeing the same data I'm sharing with you today. They realize that they need to add media relations to their SEO strategy and SEO services. So here's your 2027 plan in three moves. One, ask your chief marketing officer who leads media relations. Pitch one newsworthy story this month.

17:04Jason Mudd: Pitch first, blog about it second. If you have not yet listened to our episode with Laura Reese called The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR, I would highly encourage you to check that out. We talk about how it's important to lead with PR first, exhaust the newsworthiness of each of your announcements, then start to put it in your paid own and shared channels. But give news and newsrooms first dibs. One last reminder, if this episode helped you, please leave a review on your favorite podcast platform or at rate this podcast dot com slash on top of PR. Each review enters you and our monthly drawing for on top of PR swag.

17:49Jason Mudd: And remember, reporters don't promote companies. They tell stories. Give them good reason to include you in their next one. If you lead search and optimization, let's collaborate. Find more resources at axiapr.com slash resources or book a consultation with me and my team. We'd be happy to talk through this with you. I'm Jason Mudd with Axia Public Relations. I'll see you next time as we help you stay on top of PR. This has been On Top of PR with Jason Mudd presented by ReviewMaxer. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. and check out past shows at ontopofpr.com.

18:56Bye.