Oh, to be seen! Visibility is every marketer’s goal, yet AI-assisted search is really tanking those SERPs. That’s why everyone is racing to understand terms like LLM visibility, generative engine optimization (GEO), and AI search optimization.
AI search tools like ChatGPT and Google AI summaries are making a dent in the traditional website traffic flow. Industry research plus a look at your own Google Analytics make it clear people aren’t moving beyond summaries to click on search results.
SEO still matters, but brands increasingly need a strategy to raise their visibility within the AI summaries. One approach is to build credibility with well-known and trusted sources. More than one-quarter (27%) of links cited by AI are journalistic, according to recent research by Muck Rack.
This finding makes a strong case to amplify your thought leadership – that unique point of view and industry expertise that drives trust in your brand. The most effective way to build credibility is to bring together the unique strengths of both your PR and content marketing teams.
Why Do PR and Content Marketing Work So Well Together?
The short answer? Both teams view thought leadership from two different, but complementary, angles.
The outside-in view. PR pros are in constant conversation with journalists. That means they bring a clear, objective view of broader market dynamics and trends to the discussion. They’ll know who the current thought leaders in your industry are – and what they’re saying.
This allows them to make the connection between newsworthy topics and innovative ideas. For this reason, they’re uniquely qualified to understand exactly how the brand fits into the wider discourse.
The inside-out view. Content marketers are focused on the problems their buyers want to solve and how their brand’s products and services can help. They’re experts at making the connection between a buyer’s need to learn and the solutions required to solve those problems.
They work closely with subject matter experts across the organization, helping them to clearly communicate their vision and explain the benefits of their innovative ideas.
How To Integrate PR and Content Marketing
Until now, PR and content marketing have traveled in different circles, and their work has been mostly complementary. As more people rely on AI-assisted search, the need to integrate their efforts is growing.
Here are four steps to align your teams.
1. Carve out your unique POV.
Everyone has their own definition of thought leadership, but here’s mine based on decades of experience working with the C-suite and their organization’s top seers:
Thought leaders have a unique view of emerging trends that is shaped by three factors: in-depth knowledge, extensive experience, and imagination. The very best prognosticators weave together these threads and are able to visualize the future. Making connections in this way is a uniquely human skill.
You can’t get to true thought leadership without knowing who the visionaries are in your organization. Every successful organization I’ve ever worked for has had at least half a dozen. Your thought leader doesn’t have to be the CEO or even the CTO.
In my experience, some of the most visionary people sit at that middle management level – the link between the C-suite and the development teams. They’re the ones who get most excited about new customer behaviors, who can see and explain what’s around the corner. They’re the subject matter experts and the ones advising the C-suite.
Get your PR and content marketing teams in the same room and have them compare notes. What are your SMEs seeing that others aren’t?
2. Lean into “how we built this.”
Brands love to talk about themselves, but content marketers know buyers only want to hear about solutions to their problems (i.e. benefits!). Meanwhile, PR pros know journalists love data, customer stories, and compelling origin narratives.
Building credibility and thought leadership means explaining why and how you built a business that helps your customers. Steer clear of corporate myth-making. Instead, PR and content marketing should work together to tell a story about what sparked an idea and how their company used data and research to envision a new future. That story includes turning that vision into products and services that customers love so much they’re willing to share their experiences with the media.
3. Hook into national conversation.
It’s crucial to align content marketing goals (which searches the brand wants to appear in) with PR goals (getting journalists to write about your brand). Don’t be surprised if your stories don’t immediately sync up.
PR teams are all about the hook – that is, what gets the media interested in your story. With a strong understanding of what’s newsworthy and most likely to pique an editor’s or journalist’s interest, they can help focus your story on the elements most likely to pop.
4. Coordinate the post and the pitch.
At this point, PR and content marketing could go their separate ways – PR off to pitch a list of journalists and content marketing to publish whenever fits their calendars.
It’s better to be intentional.
The content marketing team should develop content that supports the pitch. These posts or downloadable assets can be more overtly promotional than usual. One example: a post that previews upcoming product launches. This content should be published first.
Then, the PR team can pitch the thought leadership topic as an exclusive to the journalists showing up in AI summaries.
By coordinating the post and the pitch in this way, journalists can reference the brand’s website to learn more about what the company is doing.
The Perfect Match: PR and Content Marketing
Leaning on the strengths of both PR and content marketing will help you fine-tune your thought-leadership story and make it more relevant to journalists and buyers. Relevancy builds trust and credibility, which in turn, increases your visibility in AI-assisted search.
Power couple, indeed.
