AI Search Will Fatten PR Budgets, Gartner Predicts

Earned media can also generate significant engagement and interaction to reach a wider audience. Earned media is commonly labeled as “earned content” or “free media.” On the surface, earned media can resemble owned or paid media, particularly on social media. Earned media can also increase reach and visibility as it can expose your brand to new audiences. Learn more about earned media, including why it matters, types of earned media, and its pros and cons.

This, in turn, encourages them to share more, resulting in a greater amount of earned media for your brand. It proves invaluable in generating additional earned media. Being online gives brands a new range of ways to engage with their customers, yet it's still — after all these years — undervalued. From discounts for an online review to competitions run on your social media, these perks can convince people to share their ideas and talk about your brand. During earned media planning, analyze what stories can be enriched with gathered social proof.

• Traditional SEO is giving way to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), which aims to improve brands’ visibility in the responses AI generates for user queries.
• Holiday-themed hashtags performed well for Travel brands on Twitter, especially all things #ValentinesDay.
• Earned and paid media are essential to any comprehensive marketing strategy.

Ultimately, the value of earned media lies not just in raw numbers but in trust, influence, and long-term impact. It’s not just about being mentioned, it’s about how you’re being talked about. Backlinks from other websites to your content are a top form of earned media, especially for SEO. How often are people tagging, mentioning, or sharing your brand organically? If someone discovers your site through a blog post, review, or press article, that’s earned media in action. One of the biggest challenges marketers face is quantifying earned media value.

By understanding search intent, you can tailor your content to address their specific needs and queries. Keyword research unveils the specific search terms and phrases that your target audience utilizes to find information related to your industry. By meticulously dissecting your competitors’ SEO tactics, including keyword targets, content themes, and backlink profiles, you glean invaluable insights to propel your own strategy forward. Even the most informative and engaging content can’t be ranked well if search engine bots can’t find and understand it.

Traceable, defensible insights

The evidence produces several strategic implications that are now empirically grounded rather than speculative. Zhang et al.'s arXiv study found that 37% of AI-cited domains are entirely absent from traditional search results. From the citation perspective, that channel is overwhelmingly populated by earned media, not brand-owned content. The survey also found that 50% of consumers now intentionally seek out AI-powered search engines, with a majority of users naming it their top digital source for buying decisions. They found that on-page quality signals are necessary but insufficient.

In a nutshell, earned media is all about the power of others spreading the word about your brand! What sets it apart is that it comes from independent sources, giving it some special advantages. PR earned media is all about the reputation you build, the word-of-mouth buzz you generate. Additionally, it differs from owned media, which includes channels you have full control over, like your website and blog. Start tracking your earned media—monitor sentiment, brand mentions, and keywords across every major channel for free. In this article, we delve into earned media meaning, the concept of earned media, how to get earned media, and explore its distinct benefits.

Heather Locklear says she lives 'far away' from Hollywood and stays out of the social scene

Offer something worth talking about and make it easy for people to share. These earned media examples highlight how third-party validation can boost your brand without spending a cent on ads. When other websites link to your content or pages without being asked or paid to, it’s a strong signal of value. Reviews on platforms like Google, Trustpilot, Yelp, or even Facebook are powerful forms of earned media. Getting featured in online publications, newspapers, TV shows, or podcasts is a high-impact form of earned media.

Journalists have no access to data or premium tools—that’s an advantage. Third, we’d find the podcast hosts’ email and reach out to see if they’re willing to interview us. In 2019, our Chief Marketing Officer, Tim Soulo, set a goal to appear on more than 20 podcasts. If you’re a subject matter expert, HARO isn’t the only way for you to gain earned media. As these journalists will likely get plenty of responses from other people, how do you stand out and make sure your answer gets selected? Just because you cannot control earned media doesn’t mean that you cannot influence it.

Global, structured content

As you develop your earned media strategy, remember that it works best when integrated with robust owned channels that have demonstrable owned media value. Examples of earned media include an Instagram mention when someone visits your shop, an unsolicited Yelp review and even a reshare of your blog post. So, just because you can’t completely control the earned media you receive from audiences, you also can’t just sit earned media back and get it without effort.

As previously mentioned, calculating earned media value does not look the same for everyone. Additionally, with Sprout Social’s reporting, you will find a repertoire of invaluable data tracking and visualization to present your social media ROI to stakeholders. Under Sprout Social’s Premium Analytics, Sprout seamlessly integrates reporting across various social media platforms for you. Ultimately, using EMV as a tool together with other metrics can still help guide you in guaging the effectiveness of your social media strategy. This will help you to get a more comprehensive understanding of your social media success.

Successful earned media campaign examples

Photo posts stood out for Food & Beverage brands on Facebook this year hoping to entice followers to connect IRL with mouthwatering snaps of their offerings. Notable brands in this year’s report include French’s, Guayaki Yerba Mate, Halo Top, Jennie-O, RXBar, and Wonderful Pistachios. Food & Beverage brands saw the highest engagement rates on video-focused Instagram and TikTok while struggling a bit on other channels.

Website traffic from social media

“Hailey’s vision and innate understanding of what consumers want in a product, coupled with our incredible team and innovative marketing approach, has enabled our exponential growth. “An era before brands figured out how to game Google through keyword stuffing and structured data tricks and when getting the word out required genuine storytelling and creative outreach,” she told TechNewsWorld. AI search is freeing up money previously spent elsewhere, contended Adam Landis, head of strategic growth at Branch, a mobile analytics software company in Redwood City, Calif. “That means brands can no longer rely solely on paid placements to get in front of audiences,” she continued. “As organizations adapt to new audience search behaviors, PR and earned media budgets must increase to ensure optimal AI search visibility,” it maintained. In a report titled “Top Predictions to Inform 2026 Comms Strategies,” Gartner noted public LLMs will replace traditional search as audiences become more comfortable using tools like ChatGPT.

Alcohol brands have relied on photo posts year after year for their epic engagement oomph, and this year is no exception. Notable brands in this year’s report include Beatbox Beverages, Blue Chair Bay Rum, Dogfish Head Brewery, North Coast Brewing Company, One Hope Wine, and Presidente Brandy. Alcohol brands earned above-median engagement rates everywhere but TikTok this year, where age restricted-content continued to keep them down. Twitter posting took the sharpest dive at 15%, suggesting people aren’t as invested in X as they once were. Media brands seriously invested in this channel, posting nearly twice as often as they did in the previous period.

AI Search Will Fatten PR Budgets, Gartner Predicts

Earned media can also generate significant engagement and interaction to reach a wider audience. Earned media is commonly labeled as “earned content” or “free media.” On the surface, earned media can resemble owned or paid media, particularly on social media. Earned media can also increase reach and visibility as it can expose your brand to new audiences. Learn more about earned media, including why it matters, types of earned media, and its pros and cons.

This, in turn, encourages them to share more, resulting in a greater amount of earned media for your brand. It proves invaluable in generating additional earned media. Being online gives brands a new range of ways to engage with their customers, yet it's still — after all these years — undervalued. From discounts for an online review to competitions run on your social media, these perks can convince people to share their ideas and talk about your brand. During earned media planning, analyze what stories can be enriched with gathered social proof.

• Traditional SEO is giving way to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), which aims to improve brands’ visibility in the responses AI generates for user queries.
• Holiday-themed hashtags performed well for Travel brands on Twitter, especially all things #ValentinesDay.
• Earned and paid media are essential to any comprehensive marketing strategy.

Ultimately, the value of earned media lies not just in raw numbers but in trust, influence, and long-term impact. It’s not just about being mentioned, it’s about how you’re being talked about. Backlinks from other websites to your content are a top form of earned media, especially for SEO. How often are people tagging, mentioning, or sharing your brand organically? If someone discovers your site through a blog post, review, or press article, that’s earned media in action. One of the biggest challenges marketers face is quantifying earned media value.

By understanding search intent, you can tailor your content to address their specific needs and queries. Keyword research unveils the specific search terms and phrases that your target audience utilizes to find information related to your industry. By meticulously dissecting your competitors’ SEO tactics, including keyword targets, content themes, and backlink profiles, you glean invaluable insights to propel your own strategy forward. Even the most informative and engaging content can’t be ranked well if search engine bots can’t find and understand it.

Traceable, defensible insights

The evidence produces several strategic implications that are now empirically grounded rather than speculative. Zhang et al.'s arXiv study found that 37% of AI-cited domains are entirely absent from traditional search results. From the citation perspective, that channel is overwhelmingly populated by earned media, not brand-owned content. The survey also found that 50% of consumers now intentionally seek out AI-powered search engines, with a majority of users naming it their top digital source for buying decisions. They found that on-page quality signals are necessary but insufficient.

In a nutshell, earned media is all about the power of others spreading the word about your brand! What sets it apart is that it comes from independent sources, giving it some special advantages. PR earned media is all about the reputation you build, the word-of-mouth buzz you generate. Additionally, it differs from owned media, which includes channels you have full control over, like your website and blog. Start tracking your earned media—monitor sentiment, brand mentions, and keywords across every major channel for free. In this article, we delve into earned media meaning, the concept of earned media, how to get earned media, and explore its distinct benefits.

Heather Locklear says she lives 'far away' from Hollywood and stays out of the social scene

Offer something worth talking about and make it easy for people to share. These earned media examples highlight how third-party validation can boost your brand without spending a cent on ads. When other websites link to your content or pages without being asked or paid to, it’s a strong signal of value. Reviews on platforms like Google, Trustpilot, Yelp, or even Facebook are powerful forms of earned media. Getting featured in online publications, newspapers, TV shows, or podcasts is a high-impact form of earned media.

Journalists have no access to data or premium tools—that’s an advantage. Third, we’d find the podcast hosts’ email and reach out to see if they’re willing to interview us. In 2019, our Chief Marketing Officer, Tim Soulo, set a goal to appear on more than 20 podcasts. If you’re a subject matter expert, HARO isn’t the only way for you to gain earned media. As these journalists will likely get plenty of responses from other people, how do you stand out and make sure your answer gets selected? Just because you cannot control earned media doesn’t mean that you cannot influence it.

Global, structured content

As you develop your earned media strategy, remember that it works best when integrated with robust owned channels that have demonstrable owned media value. Examples of earned media include an Instagram mention when someone visits your shop, an unsolicited Yelp review and even a reshare of your blog post. So, just because you can’t completely control the earned media you receive from audiences, you also can’t just sit earned media back and get it without effort.

As previously mentioned, calculating earned media value does not look the same for everyone. Additionally, with Sprout Social’s reporting, you will find a repertoire of invaluable data tracking and visualization to present your social media ROI to stakeholders. Under Sprout Social’s Premium Analytics, Sprout seamlessly integrates reporting across various social media platforms for you. Ultimately, using EMV as a tool together with other metrics can still help guide you in guaging the effectiveness of your social media strategy. This will help you to get a more comprehensive understanding of your social media success.

Successful earned media campaign examples

Photo posts stood out for Food & Beverage brands on Facebook this year hoping to entice followers to connect IRL with mouthwatering snaps of their offerings. Notable brands in this year’s report include French’s, Guayaki Yerba Mate, Halo Top, Jennie-O, RXBar, and Wonderful Pistachios. Food & Beverage brands saw the highest engagement rates on video-focused Instagram and TikTok while struggling a bit on other channels.

Website traffic from social media

“Hailey’s vision and innate understanding of what consumers want in a product, coupled with our incredible team and innovative marketing approach, has enabled our exponential growth. “An era before brands figured out how to game Google through keyword stuffing and structured data tricks and when getting the word out required genuine storytelling and creative outreach,” she told TechNewsWorld. AI search is freeing up money previously spent elsewhere, contended Adam Landis, head of strategic growth at Branch, a mobile analytics software company in Redwood City, Calif. “That means brands can no longer rely solely on paid placements to get in front of audiences,” she continued. “As organizations adapt to new audience search behaviors, PR and earned media budgets must increase to ensure optimal AI search visibility,” it maintained. In a report titled “Top Predictions to Inform 2026 Comms Strategies,” Gartner noted public LLMs will replace traditional search as audiences become more comfortable using tools like ChatGPT.

Alcohol brands have relied on photo posts year after year for their epic engagement oomph, and this year is no exception. Notable brands in this year’s report include Beatbox Beverages, Blue Chair Bay Rum, Dogfish Head Brewery, North Coast Brewing Company, One Hope Wine, and Presidente Brandy. Alcohol brands earned above-median engagement rates everywhere but TikTok this year, where age restricted-content continued to keep them down. Twitter posting took the sharpest dive at 15%, suggesting people aren’t as invested in X as they once were. Media brands seriously invested in this channel, posting nearly twice as often as they did in the previous period.