Why PR is more important than ever in an AI world
How Automated & AI Suggestions Make Earned Media So Valuable
This week, you may have started to notice a new feature in Google Search, showing “popular” products from “across the web” when you type in a “best of” query - meaning search for “best ski resorts,” and you’re greeted with a Google-curated list, coming in above organic search results. Showing up in these algorithmic or AI-generated results on Google, or any other platform is becoming more important than ever as we witness the proliferation of AI and the evolution of web search. Where do these recommendations come from? Trusted sources like the media. And how do you show up in these types of articles? PR.
Key Points:
AI uses sources like media articles to create trustworthy product recommendations
A new Google search feature curates top picks from various results and places them above organic results
PR & earned media hits put your brand in a good position to be crawled by and recommended by both Google and AI
How AI Suggests Products & Where PR Fits In
AI-driven recommendation systems use various data sources and algorithms to suggest products to users. Public Relations (PR) and earned media play a significant role in these recommendations by providing valuable information about the popularity, trustworthiness, and quality of products. In this context, PR and earned media can influence product perception, build trust, amplify reach, generate user-generated content, and enhance data inputs.
Positive PR and earned media coverage, such as press releases, articles, and reviews, can influence the perception of a product. By analyzing this information, AI systems can understand the public sentiment around the product and factor it into the recommendation process. Trust is essential for successful recommendations, and when a product receives positive PR and earned media, it often leads to increased credibility and trust. AI systems can consider this trust factor while recommending products to users.
Bottom Line:
AI uses sourcing like media articles to provide recommendations. Getting included in these articles through PR can help get your product recommended.
New Google Search Feature - “Popular From Across the Web”
While other AI developments have overshadowed Google’s, for now, we see similar concepts playing out in search, highlighted by this new search results feature. In the way that AI scours the web and learns from trustworthy sources like the media, so does the Google search algorithm. The articles showing up in the recommendations of this new feature look to closely mirror the organic search results below. By aggregating results into the new “Popular From Across the Web,” Google is taking recommendations from various news sources and elevating them above organic results.
This means that it’s not only important to rank highly, or be in high-ranking articles, but to be well represented across all articles in a space. Ensuring this kind of broad coverage is the goal of our search-focused PR strategy, which you can read more about here. While we have not seen this trickle down into outdoor products and categories quite yet, it is a look into Google’s strategy and priorities for search going forwards.
Bottom Line:
Google is similarly aggregating content from many sources and displaying it above organic results. To show up brands or websites will need good coverage across top articles and outlets.
Takeaways:
The information and product discovery process is changing quickly thanks to an evolving organic search landscape and AI. Getting brand and product mentions in the sources these technologies use will be paramount to driving visibility for your products. While media landscapes may be experiencing volatility and consolidation, they will continue to be hugely impactful in their traditional capacity but also in this new role as trustworthy sources for automated recommendations. This means that a robust PR and earned media strategy is more important than ever in driving brand and product visibility.