The Digital PR Newsletter #57

Why brand mentions aren’t enough

Hello Digital PR lovers, this newsletter is supposed to be monthly, but I had something to share that you might find useful. So you're get two newsletters this month (lucky you).

Let's get to it shall we?
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The good news for anyone that works in PR is that LLMs often cite sources from publications we’re used to getting our clients' coverage in.
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A recent study by Katy Powell from Bottled Imagination claims that 99% of LLM answers used earned media as a source.
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While a study by Darryl Sparey (Chart.PR, FPRCA, FCIPR) from Hard Numbers has that number at 72%.
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And in a recent podcast with Louise Parker & Stephen Baker, SEO veteran Rand Fishkin said SEO is all about brand mentions and links don’t matter so much anymore (side note, I still think it’s helpful to get a link if you can).
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People seem to be quite bullish, even excited about PR, and it genuinely feels like PR is having a moment (yay).
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Which is fantastic, but I think brand mentions alone aren’t enough (sorry).
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The future of SEO and AI SEO (I refuse to call it GEO) isn’t about whether your brand gets mentioned.
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It’s about whether your brand gets understood.
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Because LLMs don’t just pick up names, they interpret meaning. They summarise what things are, not just what they’re called.
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So if you want your brand to appear in AI-generated answers, you can’t just drop in the brand name and hope for the best. You need to bake in relevance.
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That means pushing for context-rich brand mentions, the kind that help machines (and humans) understand what the brand actually does.
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Here’s what that looks like in practice
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👎 “A study by GoCompare found”​
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👍 “A study by GoCompare, the car insurance comparison site, found…”​
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👎 “...said [Name] from Flash Pack.”​
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👍 “...said [Name], [Job Title] at Flash Pack, a travel company specialising in solo adventures”​
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👎 “Dr. Jane Smith from SkinLab said…”​
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👍 “Dr. Jane Smith, dermatologist at SkinLab, a clinic specialising in acne treatments, said…”​
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So yes, brand mentions are good, but context-rich brand mentions are better, that extra line of context and could be the difference between being surfaced in LLMs or not.
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So this might be something you want to incorporate if you aren't already doing so, and you may even want to mix up the context you add from time to time too. For instance, with GoCompare, I might change the context I mention to a 'pet insurance comparison site' if I put out a pet related story/campaign.
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That's all for this time, thanks for reading! For all previous newsletters, see below.

— Mark

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