Using Public Relations To Support Your GEO Strategy
Andrea Aker is CEO of Aker Ink PR & Marketing, a full-service agency that helps companies increase awareness, thought leadership and leads.
The marketing and communication worlds are transforming rapidly as artificial intelligence (AI) continues to penetrate the mainstream. The most common tactics and strategies for increasing awareness, thought leadership and leads are shifting, as it’s now crucial for organizations to gain traction within generative AI engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity to reach their target audiences.
But how?
Traditional and digital public relations strategies may hold the key.
PR’s Time-Tested Tools Of Influence
Businesses have long engaged in multifaceted public relations strategies to gain visibility and credibility.
When most leaders think of PR, they associate it with “earned media”—getting press coverage in media outlets that reaches their target markets. Yet PR also includes other earned tactics, such as awards, rankings and speaking engagements.
In essence, PR is focused on leveraging influential third parties to build a reputation and validate products or services. It’s a top-of-funnel effort that can directly and indirectly fuel business development. Consider this: Muck Rack analyzed over one million links cited by ChatGPT and found that 89% of citations originated from earned media.
How PR Connects To AI Visibility
Companies proactively engaged in PR efforts are reaping a new advantage: visibility within generative AI engines. The trust signals that AI uses to assess authority and influence are essentially PR outcomes.
AI visibility has become paramount for virtually any business as the world’s information-gathering practices shift. People are increasingly turning to generative AI platforms for guidance with pretty much everything, including problem-solving, purchasing choices and brand discovery.
ChatGPT is the Google of the AI world right now—it’s the dominant generative AI engine, which reaches over 800 million users a week now, nearly double the usage from just one year prior. Brand citations within ChatGPT have become a marketer’s holy grail. The process of getting there is called generative engine optimization (GEO).
GEO has many similarities to its cousin, search engine optimization (SEO), which is focused on gaining visibility in search engine platforms like Google. They both reward brands for being cited by credible third parties, they value high-quality and consistent content and they require continual updates as algorithms evolve. Unlike SEO, GEO isn’t primarily driven by keywords, backlinks and technical optimizations (though those signals still contribute indirectly). AI models can assess credibility, authority and semantic context, immediately distilling mass amounts of information for the user. It focuses on third-party validation, which is the core goal of any PR campaign.
PR Tactics For Amplifying GEO
To truly build credibility and awareness, businesses must engage in PR for the long haul. PR isn’t a single act—like distributing a press release—but a multifaceted process that compounds with consistency. Widespread influence isn’t established in one fell swoop. Human audiences reward steady visibility, and so do AI engines. It seems that generative engine platforms favor the most recent trust signals. That article published last month could lose traction over time as more recent articles take its place.
So, where to start?
• Earned Media Coverage: Seek out interviews, profiles and contributed articles in media outlets—especially those with high domain authority and/or are specific to the company’s target industries—to build exposure and visibility.
• Newswire Press Releases: Distribute press releases through services such as Business Wire and PRNewswire to enhance online discoverability with a controlled message. Releases containing new data or original insights are even better.
• Speaking Engagements: Speaking opportunities at conferences and industry events strengthen thought leadership. Mentions, bios and event coverage are crawlable signals of authority in the AI landscape.
• Awards, Rankings & Industry Recognitions: These represent third-party validation at its finest. Earned awards (unlike “pay-for-play” placements) showcase a company’s value and innovation to AI and human audiences.
• Owned Content: Blogs, articles, white papers and case studies reinforce awareness and thought leadership. When promoted through PR, owned content amplifies visibility among media, influencers and search engines.
PR’s essential role in sustaining a business isn’t new, but it has expanded. Companies that strategically integrate traditional PR into their digital marketing foundations are positioned to reap the most visibility. Consistency, authority and trustworthiness through third-party validation are imperative to GEO.
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