Originally published by the Forbes Communications Council, this article was written by Jeremy Fields, vice president of corporate development at Newsmatics, which owns EIN Presswire.

​In my previous article on generative engine optimization (GEO), I explored how brands can structure content to get cited by large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude. The takeaway was simple: visibility is no longer just about ranking on search engines; it’s about being referenced in AI-generated answers.

But as I’ve continued to study how AI systems surface and synthesize information, another concept has become increasingly important: share of model.

If share of voice defined the media landscape of the past, I believe share of model will quickly become the defining metric of the AI era.​

Share Of Voice: The Legacy Visibility Metric

For decades, share of voice (SOV) has been a foundational KPI in marketing and public relations. It measures how much attention your brand commands compared to competitors across channels such as:

• Search visibility

• Social media

• Earned media

• Paid media

The underlying idea is straightforward: The more people hear about you, the more likely they are to trust, remember and ultimately choose your brand. This is why companies invest heavily in campaigns, press coverage and content distribution. Visibility drives familiarity, and familiarity drives demand.

And to be clear, share of voice still matters. In fact, consistent publishing, especially through structured formats like press releases, remains one of the most effective ways to build authority and distribution at scale. But I’ve noticed a shift in the industry. Humans are no longer the only audience that matters. Feed the LLMs!​

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Share Of Model: Visibility Inside AI Systems

Share of model (SOM) refers to how often and how accurately your brand appears in AI-generated outputs.

Instead of asking, “How often are people seeing our content?” we must now ask:

• Is our brand included in AI-generated recommendations?

• How are we described when LLMs summarize our category?

• Are we cited, quoted or omitted entirely?

This is a fundamentally different layer of visibility and brand narrative control. LLMs act as intermediaries between your content and your audience. They ingest vast amounts of information and then compress it into a handful of synthesized answers. If your brand isn’t part of that compressed knowledge, you’re effectively invisible in that interaction.

In other words, SOM determines whether you’re part of the answer or left out entirely.​

Why This Shift Matters

The move from search engines to “ask engines” is changing how discovery works. Traditionally, users would search, scan results and click through multiple links. Today, they increasingly rely on AI-generated summaries that present a small set of options or a single synthesized answer.

This creates three major implications:

1. Fewer Opportunities To Compete: AI responses often highlight only a handful of brands. There’s no second page of results.

2. Compressed Brand Narratives: Your positioning is distilled into a sentence or two. That makes consistency and clarity critical.

3. Linkless Influence: As I noted in my first GEO article, being referenced is the new ranking. Traffic is no longer the only goal.​

How Share Of Voice Feeds Share Of Model

While share of voice and share of model are distinct, they are deeply connected.

Strong SOV can contribute to SOM, but only if the content is:

• Structured and easy to parse

• Published across credible, authoritative sources

• Consistent in messaging and terminology

For example, distributing press releases across trusted networks doesn’t just generate immediate exposure. It creates a persistent digital footprint that AI systems can ingest, index and reuse over time.

Similarly, publishing clear, question/answer driven content increases the likelihood that LLMs will reuse your language when answering user prompts. All of this said, not all visibility translates equally. Noise doesn’t become knowledge. Structured, repeatable narratives do.​

Practical Ways To Improve Share Of Model

If GEO is about feeding the LLMs, then improving share of model is about feeding LLMs the right signals consistently.

Here are a few strategies I’ve found effective:

1. Prioritize Clarity And Structure: LLMs favor content that is easy to understand and self-contained. Use clear headings, concise explanations and logical formatting.

2. Reinforce Core Narratives Across Channels: Your brand description, positioning and key messages should be consistent everywhere, from your website and press releases to third-party coverage.

3. Publish In High-Authority Environments: Content that appears in trusted media outlets, industry publications and widely syndicated platforms is more likely to influence model outputs.

4. Think In Questions And Answers: As covered in my GEO article linked above, formats like FAQs, how-to guides and summaries align closely with how users interact with AI systems.

5. Monitor AI Outputs Regularly: Search your category in AI tools. See which brands are mentioned, how they are positioned and where you stand.​

Expanding Your GEO Strategy

If you’re already investing in generative engine optimization, this is the natural next step. GEO helps ensure your content is structured, credible and discoverable by AI systems. Share of model measures whether those efforts are actually working.

Together, they form a feedback loop. To start, publish structured, authoritative content. Then, distribute it across trusted channels and reinforce consistent narratives. From there, monitor how AI systems respond.

Then, repeat, repeat, repeat.​​

You can also find the article on Forbes.

AI search is already changing how people discover brands, and this piece explains why showing up in AI‑generated answers is becoming critical for shaping and protecting brand narratives. It also breaks down why waiting to adapt is costly for brands. This is the second part of a series that will explore AEO, GEO, and why visibility in AI search matters more than ever.

If you read Part 1 of this series, you know the basics: AI search optimization is the practice of making your brand visible inside AI-generated answers, not just search engine results pages. It’s a different system with different rules.

Now let’s talk about why it matters — and why the “we’ll figure it out later” approach is more expensive than most brands realize.

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From Rankings to Recommendations

For years, the goal of content marketing and PR was clear: Get ranked, get on page one, and get the click.

That mental model still works for traditional search, but it breaks down in AI-powered environments.

When someone asks ChatGPT which enterprise content platform to use, or queries Perplexity for the best B2B PR agency in a specific vertical, or reads a Google AI Overview summarizing the key players in a market, they get a synthesized, confident answer that either includes your brand or doesn’t, not a list of links.

There is no page two in that environment. There’s the answer, and there’s everything that didn’t make it in. And that changes what visibility actually means.

What’s Actually at Stake

Here’s what happens when a brand is absent from AI-generated answers:

Buyers form impressions without you. A growing share of buyers use AI tools as research assistants — especially at the early stages of vendor evaluation. If your brand isn’t mentioned when a prospect asks about solutions in your space, competitors who are mentioned establish credibility before you’ve had a chance to speak.

Narrative control disappears. AI engines learn by synthesizing information across sources. If those engines are learning about your industry from aggregators, competitors, and third-party publications — but not from your owned content and earned media — your brand’s narrative is being written by everyone except you. A single press release distributed across credible syndication points can surface in AI-generated answers within hours. The inverse is also true: a brand with no third-party presence is essentially invisible to a system that weights corroboration over self-reported authority.

The gap compounds over time. AI engines don’t start from scratch every time someone asks a question. They return to the sources and signals they’ve already indexed, weighted, and learned to trust. Brands that are consistently cited build authority iteratively. Those that are absent fall further behind with every retrieval cycle that passes without them.

Why “We’ll Adapt Later” Is a Risky Bet

Every few years, there’s a major shift in how people find information online. And almost every time, the brands that waited to adapt faced the same problem: by the time they moved, the costs were higher, and the window was narrower.

AI search is that kind of shift. And there’s a specific reason catching up is harder here than it was with earlier SEO changes.

AI engines form associations through co-occurrence — the more a brand’s name appears alongside specific topics, use cases, and audience segments across independent, credible sources, the more clearly an AI system understands what that brand stands for and who it serves.

That pattern builds slowly. It’s not a single page or a single campaign. And it doesn’t reset between queries — systems like ChatGPT and Perplexity are continuously learning which brands belong in which conversations.

That means brands that start now are building something cumulative. Brands that wait are starting from zero in a system that has already started drawing conclusions.

The “adapt later” bet assumes the cost of waiting is low. For AI search visibility, it’s not. Reconstruction is always slower, more expensive, and harder than building correctly from the start.

What This Means for PR and Communications Professionals

AI visibility isn’t primarily a technical problem. It’s a content, brand, and credibility problem. If your job is to build and protect a brand’s reputation, this shift is directly in your lane — maybe more than you think.

The frameworks that make press releases effective — clear sourcing, consistent boilerplate language, third-party syndication, earned placements in credible outlets — are the same signals that build AI visibility. The work you’re already doing has more value in an AI-driven environment than most communications teams realize.

The brands winning in AI search right now aren’t doing anything entirely new — they’re applying the fundamentals with greater intention and consistency than their competitors. Which means the window to build that advantage is open, but it won’t stay open indefinitely.

In Part 3 of this series, we’ll dig into how press releases affect AI search visibility specifically — and why they’re one of the most underused tools for building the kind of entity authority that AI engines recognize and reward.

Cassie Clark is a fractional content strategist and AI search optimization expert. She helps brands build content programs designed for visibility in both traditional and AI-driven search.

• Pick 5 platforms and stay consistent. Trying to be everywhere is how you burn out.

• Write for a 5th grader, not an algorithm. Simple, clear, conversational content wins with humans and AI.

• Repurpose everything. One long-form video becomes a dozen clips.

  Watch the full conversation, then subscribe for the next one. New episodes each month!

Many companies and brands are eager to appear on Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia that can amplify visibility and, for some, carry a sense of prestige.

But a common question is how to get a Wikipedia page.

And as artificial intelligence reshapes communications strategies, with generative engine optimization (GEO) at the forefront, people also want to know: Are Wikipedia pages reliable sources for the large language models used by AI search tools and chatbots?

Josh Greene, who has more than 20 years of digital marketing experience, has addressed many of those questions throughout his career as search and communications have evolved.

Specifically, he has focused on helping brands and organizations navigate Wikipedia, online visibility and reputation management.

One thing is certain, Greene said: media coverage from “reputable news outlets, industry publications, books, and other independent sources” helps people gain a Wikipedia presence.

Amid the AI era, Greene noted that Wikipedia is “one of the most trusted and frequently referenced sources” for AI tools.

Press releases are another effective source AI systems may use or cite. They can support GEO strategies by publishing structured, factual information that may show up in AI-generated answers. Social media is also a source of information for AI tools.

At the same time, Lane Becker, president of Wikimedia LLC, told IBM Think that “Wikipedia content is so valuable” and is “used in every LLM.”

In fact, an analysis of 680 million citations from August 2024 through June 2025 found that within ChatGPT’s top 10 most-cited sources, Wikipedia accounts for nearly half (47.9%) of citations, according to a report from Profound.

That’s what makes Greene’s work at The Mather Group, an agency he founded about a decade ago, relevant to organizations looking to establish a Wikipedia presence to increase online visibility. He serves as CEO of the digital marketing agency.

In an exclusive interview with EIN Presswire, Greene said a major misconception is that because Wikipedia allows anyone to edit most articles, it is an unreliable source.

However, the online platform has safeguards designed to help maintain the accuracy of information published on Wikipedia.

Every edit is publicly logged, articles are monitored by experienced editors, and changes that violate Wikipedia’s guidelines can be challenged or reversed, according to Greene. And many high-profile pages have additional protections that restrict who can edit them.

Those safeguards, he said, help ensure articles are backed by reliable information rather than unsupported claims.

“What makes Wikipedia relatively trustworthy isn’t that every edit is perfect, it’s that content is expected to be supported by reliable, independent sources,” Greene said. “Editors are required to cite those sources, and unsupported or promotional content is often removed.”

“Like any information source, Wikipedia isn’t infallible, and important facts should still be verified,” Greene said. “But the combination of transparent editing, community review, and source-based standards is why Wikipedia has become one of the most widely used reference resources in the world.”

Today, Greene frequently speaks at industry events and conferences, including the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and other PR summits.

In the interview, Greene answers a range of questions about Wikipedia and discusses important Wikipedia tools PR practitioners should learn more about.

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Q: Tell us about your career and how you got started.

A: I’ve spent more than 20 years working in digital strategy and online reputation management. Before founding The Mather Group in 2015, I managed online programs for major brands including Discovery Channel and Time Warner Cable, where I developed a deep understanding of digital marketing, search, and brand visibility.

I started The Mather Group to help organizations cut through the noise and take control of their online presence. Today, we work with Fortune 1000 companies, leading nonprofits, and other organizations to improve and protect their reputations through SEO, AI optimization, search reputation management, and Wikipedia strategy.

Throughout my career, I’ve been passionate about helping brands tell their stories accurately online and adapt to the changing digital landscape. That passion continues to drive both my work with clients and my efforts to educate marketing and communications professionals through industry conferences and speaking engagements.

Q: Is Wikipedia a trusted source that AI tools pull from when generating AI search results?

A: Wikipedia is one of the most trusted and frequently referenced sources used by many AI systems when generating answers and search results.

While every AI platform uses a different combination of training data, search indexes, and real-time sources, Wikipedia’s structured information, extensive citations, and broad topic coverage make it a valuable resource. In addition to being used directly, Wikipedia’s content is often connected to Wikidata, which serves as a structured knowledge graph that helps AI systems understand entities such as people, companies, products, and organizations.

That said, AI tools don’t rely on Wikipedia alone. They also pull information from news outlets, company websites, databases, academic sources, and other trusted web content. However, because Wikipedia is often one of the first places journalists, search engines, and AI systems look to understand a topic, Wikipedia can influence how an organization is represented across the broader digital ecosystem.

That’s why organizations should pay attention to their Wikipedia presence because it can play an important role in shaping how both people and AI systems understand their brand.

Q: Is there anything you’ve learned about Wikipedia over the years that will surprise most PR and marketing professionals when they hear it?

A: One thing that surprises many PR and marketing professionals is that Wikipedia isn’t really about what a company says about itself, it’s about what independent, reliable sources say about that company.

Many organizations assume they can create or update a Wikipedia article using information from their website, press releases, or marketing materials. In reality, Wikipedia places much more weight on third-party coverage from reputable news outlets, industry publications, books, and other independent sources.

Another surprise, although many people are now becoming aware of it, is just how influential Wikipedia has become beyond the encyclopedia itself. Wikipedia and its related data sources, such as Wikidata, are used by search engines, voice assistants, knowledge panels, and many AI tools to help understand and verify information about people, companies, and organizations.

As a result, Wikipedia has evolved from being simply a reference website into a foundational layer of the internet’s information ecosystem. For PR and marketing professionals, that means the quality and accuracy of information can have an impact far beyond Wikipedia itself.

Q: Tell us more about the three Wikipedia tools PR professionals should know about.

A: There are three Wikipedia tools that can provide valuable insight into how an article is performing and how actively it’s being managed by the community.

Page Information – Provides a snapshot of an article’s technical details, including page watchers, protection status, edit history, categories, and connected Wikidata information. This helps PR professionals understand how closely a page is monitored and whether there are any editing restrictions.

Revision History Statistics – Shows the editorial activity behind an article, including total edits, number of contributors, key authors, and redirects. This helps identify how active an article is.

Page View Analysis – Tracks how many people are viewing an article over time, with options to analyze trends and download data. This is useful for measuring visibility and public interest.

Together, these tools can help PR professionals understand a Wikipedia article before making or requesting changes.

Q: For journalists who reference or pull information from online platforms in their reporting, is Wikipedia considered a credible source?

A: Wikipedia can be a useful starting point for journalists, but it generally isn’t considered a source that should be cited directly in professional reporting.

Most journalists use Wikipedia as a research tool to quickly understand a topic, and, perhaps most importantly, find the sources cited within an article. The real value often lies in the references, which can lead reporters to the original articles, books, studies, and other reliable sources that support the information.

That said, many journalists do reference Wikipedia during their research process because it provides a broad overview of a subject and is often updated quickly. For well-maintained articles, the information can be quite accurate. However, because Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, reporters are expected to verify information through independent sources before including it in their coverage.

In practice, Wikipedia is often a starting point for research, not the final source of record. The most credible reporting still relies on primary sources and independently verified information.

Q: One criticism of Wikipedia is that supposedly anyone can edit its pages. Is that true? If so, what safeguards are in place to help ensure the information on the platform is accurate?

A: It’s true that most Wikipedia articles can be edited by anyone. However, the idea that “anyone can edit” doesn’t mean that anyone can permanently publish whatever they want.

Wikipedia has a number of safeguards designed to maintain accuracy and quality. Every edit is publicly recorded, making it easy for editors to review changes and compare revisions over time. Thousands of volunteer editors actively monitor articles, and many pages are watched closely by experienced contributors who can quickly identify and remove problematic edits.

Wikipedia also has strict content policies. Information is expected to be supported by reliable, independent sources, and material that is unsourced, promotional, or biased can be challenged or removed. For high-profile or frequently edited articles, Wikipedia may apply page protections that limit editing to more established users.

Perhaps most importantly, Wikipedia’s transparency sets it apart from many other online platforms. Readers can review an article’s edit history, see discussions among editors, and examine the sources used to support the content. While no system is perfect, these layers help make Wikipedia one of the most trusted collaborative information resources on the internet.

Hello 👋

Time really does fly. Hard to believe it’s already been a year since our debut edition of EIN Essentials.

Fast forward, and we now have launched the EIN Presswire blog on our website, where you can find our Substack content including exclusive interviews with industry leaders, informative articles and more.

And a quick reminder that our June special on popular press release packages at EIN Presswire ends today. Hurry fast to take advantage of this deal on sending press releases, which can help get your brand noticed by both media outlets and AI tools. Click here for more details.

Speaking of AI, the June edition features an early pioneer of AI in modern newsrooms, who told us how he helped major outlets like The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press adopt AI tools for certain tasks. We also sat down with a PR leader from Australia who shares tips for gaining earned media, and we’ve launched a new series with a marketing expert who breaks down why AI search strategies are becoming essential for brand awareness.

If you haven’t already, subscribe now to our Substack to stay updated on articles and content about the evolving PR industry.

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Inside this issue:

1. AI Newsroom Pioneer Francesco Marconi on Machine Consumption

2. Comms Leader Lindsay Bennett on the Storytelling Advantage

3. Video Interview with Newsmatics Exec About Getting Picked Up By LLMs

4. Why AI Search Optimization Has Become Important to PR Professionals

5. AGP Spotlight: MarCom Europe

AI Newsroom Pioneer Francesco Marconi on Machine Consumption 🤖

The AI shift is real, and just about every industry has adopted some form of AI tools.

In the news business, Francesco Marconi, an early AI newsroom pioneer, explains how artificial intelligence is transforming journalism and PR. He also breaks down why communicators need to structure content for AI systems that now read and rank information before humans ever get to it.

Read his full interview here.

Comms Leader Lindsay Bennett on the Storytelling Advantage ✏️

Today, earned media stretches far beyond traditional outlets and now includes LinkedIn, podcasts, influencer content and even AI-powered search tools.

Breaking through the media landscape with company announcements and product launches is something Lindsay Bennett does exceptionally well, and she told EIN Presswire that the newsroom instincts behind her strongest media wins are the same ones that make journalists standout communications leaders.

She’s also the first comms leader at market research platform Ideally.

Find out more here.

Video Interview with Newsmatics Exec About Getting Picked Up By LLMs 📹

Did you know Newsmatics, parent company of EIN Presswire, has a video gallery dedicated to EIN Presswire content? It’s filled with short explainers that cover important topics, including how press releases support modern search strategies.

In this month’s featured video, VP of Corporate Development Jeremy Fields explains how EIN Presswire press releases can be picked up by large language models. He shows how EIN Presswire’s distribution network pushes content to thousands of outlets, increasing the chances your brand is referenced by AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude.

Watch the video here.

Why AI Search Optimization Has Become Important to PR Professionals 🤔

As you may know, people are increasingly discovering brands through AI search.

In the first installment of our new series, we’re taking a step back to define the key terminology that keeps coming up in every conversation about visibility in AI-generated answers.

Our guest author, marketing strategist Cassie Wilson Clark, breaks down her FSA model and explains why these signals determine who gets cited when someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini, or Google’s AI Overviews a question.

Read part 1 here.

AGP Spotlight: MarCom Europe 📰

Did you know Newsmatics operates a network of more than 3,900 moderated online publications? We’ve been highlighting an Affinity Group Publishing (AGP) publication each month.

MarCom Europe covers marketing, communications and business news across the continent, pulling in reporting from global, national and local sources. Recent headlines include Chinese brands using mobile roadshow trailers to accelerate expansion across Europe, Germany preparing to tighten sustainability and employer‑seal rules, and CAI Software naming Gretchen Keefner to lead its Graphic Communications division.

You can even sign up to receive daily news briefings from an AGP publication, delivered straight to your inbox. All you have to do is subscribe by entering your email.

Craving more PR insights, tips or exclusive content?

Subscribe now to the EIN Presswire Substack to stay updated on the latest in the evolving PR industry. Follow us on our socials: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.

A press release isn’t meant to live only on your website. It also serves as a tool designed to get your news in front of the right audience.

Making press release distribution part of your overall public relations strategy is a smart way to increase visibility and improve the chances of media pickups and earned media coverage.

Press release distribution services provide access to hundreds, sometimes thousands, of news sites, journalists, and content platforms where your story can be published or syndicated.

Think of it this way: instead of relying solely on cold emails or calls to reporters individually, you are distributing your news through a network that already connects with media outlets and publishers.

What are media pickups?

Media pickups generally refer to when a press release is republished or covered by journalists, news websites, blogs, or other media outlets.

This can also include syndication through wire networks, meaning the press release is shared and reposted across other online outlets. It may also be placed on partner news sites via distribution platforms like EIN Presswire, Cision, and Business Wire.

There are several ways media pickups happen:

• Verbatim publication: A press release is republished on news sites or partner platforms exactly as written. While it isn’t original reporting, it still adds to your overall presence online because it can appear on multiple sites and may show up in search results.

• Earned media coverage: Journalists use the release as a source and write their own story based on the news.

• Mentions and interviews: A company spokesperson may be quoted, interviewed, or referenced in a reporter’s coverage.

• Syndication: The press release is distributed through news networks and can be republished on other websites that regularly run wire content.

In many cases, a single press release can lead to a mix of these outcomes, depending on how widely it spreads and who picks it up.

By using a distribution platform, brands give their news the opportunity to reach a broad network of journalists, publishers, and platforms, while much of the outreach and syndication is handled for them.

The value comes from building brand awareness over time, positioning a brand so its information can surface in search engines and AI systems, and appearing on credible news platforms that help reinforce trust.

Example of media pickups from a press release

Let’s say, for instance, a local band is announcing an upcoming performance at a major event on a national stage or opening for a well-known artist or group.

The process starts with crafting a strong press release that includes a clear, SEO-driven headline and a lead paragraph that highlights the most important details right away.

As part of the band’s PR strategy, the news release is then distributed through a distribution service such as EIN Presswire, Cision, or similar platforms.

Because the announcement is tied to the music industry, distribution would typically target entertainment publications, music blogs, and local media outlets in both the event location and the group’s hometown.

Once distributed, the news release enters syndication. In other words, it is republished and shared across a network of news sites and platforms through the wire or news distribution service.

How press releases can create a ripple effect of media pickups

In the example about the band, news about their performance could appear on multiple online platforms, niche music blogs, local news sites, or even trade publications.

In some cases, it can also be published on industry-specific pages like the Music Industry Newswire, where content is grouped by topic and updated regularly.

Some distribution networks, such as EIN Presswire, also include potential placements on outlets within the USA Today Network.

While not guaranteed, this can open the door for more local exposure. For example, if the band is based in Tallahassee, FL, the release could potentially be picked up by a local publication such as the Tallahassee Democrat, which is part of the USA TODAY Network.

An added bonus is that the same news release, if republished verbatim, can sometimes influence a reporter to develop a separate original story, including interviews with the band members. That’s earned media coverage.

In some cases, that visibility can lead to additional earned media, such as a radio or podcast interview.

Using press release distribution platforms, the band’s news is likely to gain broader visibility, surfacing in Google News results or on national news sites like The Associated Press.

Not every news release reaches that level of exposure, but broader and more targeted distribution can improve the chances.

What results look like from press release distribution

Today, press release distribution results are twofold, helping brands gain both media exposure and visibility across search engines and AI-driven platforms.

These efforts can lead to online publication, media coverage, and a stronger presence in search results. Press releases can also help inform AI-powered search tools, which increasingly rely on published content to surface accurate information about brands and companies.

From a PR standpoint, whether working with an agency or using a distribution platform directly, the goal is to generate measurable outcomes such as media pickups, increased website traffic, and overall brand awareness.

Benefits of press release distribution for SEO

Sending press releases can support SEO, or how content appears in search engine results on platforms such as Google. Without proper visibility, even strong content can get buried deep in search results.

When press releases are published on credible websites, they can help increase exposure, drive referral traffic, and create backlinks, all of which can support a brand’s broader SEO efforts over time.

They also help to increase published content about a brand, which can help search engines and AI-driven tools surface more accurate information.

Industry research points to the value of search visibility. One study from Sitecentre found that organic search accounts for a majority of website traffic, with optimized content playing a key role in attracting visitors.

Press releases can contribute to that by adding keyword-rich content and increasing the chances of being referenced or linked to by other sites.

How follow‑ups can help press releases gain traction

Even after a press release is published through a newswire service, it’s still a good opportunity to follow up with the media. A follow‑up can help a reporter develop a new angle, or sometimes decide to publish the release as is.

Organizations, brands and companies often send follow‑up pitches by email, with the press release in the body of the email or attached. Journalists may also get personalized social media messages or occasional phone calls about news they might want to cover.

With many journalists receiving several pitches a day, it’s easy for a reporter or producer to miss a press release in their inbox or a phone call. That’s why having a plan to reach back out to the media can make a difference.

A good rule of thumb: journalists typically prefer emails. Start with an email, then decide whether a call is necessary based on the contact information available in the journalist’s or publication’s profile. Some reporters list their phone numbers specifically to encourage calls or texts.

This doesn’t mean calling or emailing every hour to check on the status of a press release. A reasonable window is five to seven business days. For time‑sensitive stories, it’s appropriate to follow up within two to three days.

Ultimately, following up on a press release can help you connect with journalists about potential coverage or prompt them to do more research on the organization or brand. Publishing the release through a PR distribution service also helps ensure it appears in AI search results and search engines, making it easier for journalists to find when they look for background information.

Maximizing media pickups

Maximizing media pickups is a core goal in public relations. Simply distributing a press release is not always enough. Relevance and timing play a major role in whether a story gains traction. Consistent posting on social media about brand or organization news can also help support visibility and engagement.

A more targeted approach focuses on reaching the right audience rather than just volume.

The best plan for many small or midsize businesses, as well as PR firms, is to have a mix of distribution services in their arsenal rather than just one.

When it comes to improving media pickups, several key strategies matter:

• Reaching the right journalists and outlets based on industry or location

• Aligning your press release with relevant beats, such as entertainment, business, or local news

• Distributing across multiple channels, including news sites, trade publications, and search platforms

• Tracking performance, including where the release is published and how it spreads

A targeted distribution strategy gives a press release a better shot at catching reporters’ attention, driving follow‑up coverage, and strengthening search visibility. With the right PR tools and networks, a single press release can reach the masses, generate meaningful media pickups, and build long‑term awareness.

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Lindsay Bennett knows a thing or two about storytelling.

What’s difficult for some people in communications, she has figured out how to do: turn company announcements and product launches into compelling stories that lead to media coverage.

Like Bennett, most public relations leaders and communicators view earned media as a major win for their clients or the organizations they serve.

Bennett, who began her career in journalism in Australia before becoming the first communications leader at market research platform Ideally, told EIN Presswire that her ability to build consistent media coverage comes from the storytelling instincts she developed early on as a journalist.

Today, PR experts say earned media has expanded beyond traditional publications and TV news to include visibility on LinkedIn and other social platforms, in AI-powered search tools, on podcasts, through influencer content and more.

But the core idea hasn’t changed. Earned media is still nonpaid, organic exposure through media and other platforms that help build credibility and visibility.

It is a media landscape Bennett has watched unfold firsthand while adapting her approach to storytelling and communications strategies overall.

The Australian communications executive went from serving as digital editor for AdNews to leading global comms teams at major agencies like DDB and GALE in New York.

It is no surprise that Ideally, a fast-growing AI-powered platform, tapped Bennett as its head of content and communications in 2025 to help drive its international expansion.

She said in her exclusive interview with EIN Presswire that Ideally has secured dozens of earned media placements in business and trade outlets in less than a year since she stepped into the role.

That’s why journalists often become the strongest communications leaders, she added.

As for AI-driven communications strategies, Bennett opined that communicators should keep a human voice at the center of their writing while strategically using AI tools to support high-volume, repetitive tasks.

She has been an active voice in the PR industry, sparking conversations on LinkedIn about how brands are discovered by Large Language Models (LLMs) in AI search and why communicators should not lose their human tone in writing, a topic she covered in another LinkedIn post.

“I’ve made a rule that I’ll always write my own first draft, so I keep my writing edge,” she said during her interview with EIN Presswire. “AI is in my workflow all day, ideating, editing, surfacing trends, scanning the news cycle, but the first draft stays mine.”

“I’ve embraced AI to handle the basics so we can spend our time on the work that moves the business,” Bennett added.

She is also known for helping propel GALE in New York to become one of the most awarded agencies in the United States while serving in a comms leadership role.

In her interview, Bennett discusses her journey from the newsroom to leading communications teams, why she believes journalists have an advantage in the field and how earned media is helping shape AI visibility.

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Q: Tell us more about your journey into communications, and how you got started.

A: My passion for storytelling sparked as early as four, when I started crafting mini picture books for my family. It was further fuelled by an obsession with reading that has continued to this day. By the time I finished school I knew I wanted to be a journalist and study communications.

I cut my teeth at a business publication called AdNews, covering the media, marketing and advertising industry. I grew from cadet to digital editor, before being poached by DDB, one of the agencies I’d been covering. At DDB, I built a comms function from scratch and had enough success turning earned media into business growth that I was promoted to lead the global comms team out of New York. After a few years there, I joined GALE to do it again, growing the comms team from zero to ten people in under two years.

Now I’m at Ideally, leading communications and content at one of the country’s fastest-growing AI startups, and learning a whole new world of technology in the process.

My passion for storytelling rings as true as ever.

Q: How has your journalism background shaped the way you build brand stories today?

A: It might be biased, but I truly believe journalists make the best communications leaders. Journalists put the story first. They think in headlines, they know what reporters want (and more importantly, what they don’t), and they thrive under the pressure of a deadline. Early in my career I was told to never stop thinking like a reporter, because that’s the edge I bring to the job. It still shapes the way I build brand stories today.

Q: What has it been like stepping in as the first comms person at Ideally and helping shape how people understand the platform?

A: It’s been a whirlwind six-plus months. The team has doubled since I joined, and announcing our Series A was the milestone moment, a clear proof point of what earned media can do for business growth.

We knew the raise had to be more than a flash in the pan. The job was to use the moment to drive sustained visibility across our home markets, signal momentum into the US, and convert attention into commercial pipelines. That meant a coordinated multi-market push across AU, NZ and US press, executive and employee activation on LinkedIn, and a product launch timed to give the story a second beat.

Tier-one trade and business press across all three markets ran the story over a sustained two-week window. Founders, employees, advisors and supporters flooded LinkedIn for the launch. Every channel reinforced the same key messaging, so coverage compounded rather than fragmented. We kept it alive with fresh angles, bringing customers into the story for a secondary wave of pitching that pushed the news cycle well past the initial drop.

The result: more than 45 pieces of coverage, a huge lift in website traffic and LinkedIn followers, and an onslaught of leads. We even got a shirtless Robert Irwin into the business pages of The Australian.

Q: It’s no secret that AI has transformed how communicators work, from research to content creation. Has it influenced the way you approach communications for a market research platform like Ideally?

A: Good comms has never mattered more, ironically because of all the AI slop. The companies cutting through right now are the ones whose content still feels inherently human, so that’s what we’ve focused on at Ideally.

AI agents scan the news cycle daily to surface what we should weigh in on and ideas for leadership content, with Claude projects trained on each leader’s tone of voice. The repeatable work that used to swallow the week now takes hours instead of days. Briefing docs for journalist interviews used to take a day; they now take thirty minutes. Case studies that used to need a week and multiple interviews now take a day and one conversation, thanks to a Claude project connected to three years of Fathom transcripts.

The AI brain drain is real. The best comms people of the next few years will be the ones who kept their writing muscle.

Q: What advice would you give communicators and PR professionals who are trying to stand out today, especially as the industry keeps changing fast?

A: Understand how PR drives AI visibility. Earned media is now one of the biggest inputs into how brands show up in LLMs. Roughly 94% of links cited by AI come from non-paid media. The comms people who understand how to land coverage that LLMs surface will be ahead of the curve.

Learn to use AI as more than an editor. The real unlock is treating it as an assistant that surfaces trends, scans the news cycle and handles the repeatable basics, so you can spend your time on the work that actually moves the business.

Read more, write more. The AI brain drain is real, and the people who keep their writing muscle are the ones who’ll stand out. The best writers are the best readers, and it’s the single most underrated investment a comms person can make in their craft.

Get on LinkedIn. It’s the single best tool for building your personal brand, and a great place to keep your writing muscle sharp.

Q: Anything else you’d like to share about the industry or helpful tips?

A: PR is having its moment in the sun. As AI slop takes over, quality writing matters more than ever, paired with the stats coming out about earned media driving LLM visibility:

• 94% of links cited by AI tools are non-paid media

• 82% come specifically from earned media

• Gartner predicts PR budgets will double by 2027

GEO is the new battleground, and earned media is the weapon.

It all adds up to the humble comms role getting more attention than it’s had in years. We should seize the moment to ask for the investment, headcount, titles and salaries our teams deserve.

AI search is already changing how people discover brands, and this piece breaks down why Cassie Clark’s Freshness, Structure, and Authority model now determines who gets cited in AI‑generated answers. This is the first part of a series that will explore AEO, GEO, and why visibility in AI search matters more than ever.

You’ve spent years perfecting the art of getting a message in front of the right people. You know how to write a headline that lands, distribute a press release that travels, and build the kind of media presence that shapes a brand’s reputation.

But here’s what’s changing: the people you’re trying to reach are no longer starting their research on Google the way they used to.

More and more, they’re asking ChatGPT. They’re querying Gemini. They’re getting a single, synthesized answer from Google’s AI Overviews before they ever see a list of links.

In fact, in a recent survey by Searcherries, over 58% of respondents admitted that AI search has replaced their use of traditional search, with nearly 28% of them never opening the links provided inside an AI-generated answer.

And if your brand isn’t part of that answer? It doesn’t exist in that moment.

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What AI Search Optimization Actually Is

AI search optimization—sometimes called Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) or Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)—is the practice of making your content and brand presence visible in AI-generated answers.

It is not a replacement for SEO. Think of it as the next layer: SEO helps you get indexed, AI search optimization helps you get chosen.

The mechanics behind AI engines are completely different than traditional search, which retrieves and ranks pages. AI engines do something else entirely: they synthesize. They parse content across dozens of sources, extract what’s most useful, and generate a single confident answer for the user.

That means a page can rank on page one of Google and still be completely absent from an AI-generated response. Visibility in one system no longer guarantees visibility in the other.

How AI Engines Actually Surface Answers

When someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini a question, these engines don’t return a list of links. They produce a summarized, sourced response that reflects what they’ve learned from crawling and processing content across the web.

What gets chosen comes down to a few consistent signals:

• Content that is recently updated signals an active, credible source.

• Content that is cleanly structured — with clear headings, defined terms, and logical flow — is easier for AI systems to extract and reference.

• Content from brands with a strong presence across multiple platforms and third-party sources signals authority that AI engines can verify.

This is the foundation of my FSA Framework: Freshness, Structure, Authority. I developed it after running controlled tests across the major AI engines and observing the same pattern repeatedly. These three signals determine who gets cited and who gets skipped.

Why This Is Different From Traditional SEO

Traditional SEO rewards links, domain authority, and keyword density. AI search rewards something harder to game and more meaningful to build: genuine entity authority.

An entity is simply how AI engines understand your brand—what it stands for, who it’s associated with, and how consistently those signals appear across the web. The more often your brand is mentioned, referenced, and cited across diverse, credible sources, the stronger your entity becomes.

For communications professionals, this is a significant shift and also a significant opportunity. The distribution work you already do—press releases, media placements, expert commentary, and podcast appearances—contributes directly to AI visibility when done with intent.

Every third-party mention is a signal. Every syndicated news release is a data point. And every expert quote is an authority marker.

You’re already in the business of building presence across channels. AI search optimization is about making sure that presence is legible to the systems your audience is increasingly relying on.

Someone Is Getting Cited. Make Sure It’s You.

AI search isn’t a future concern. It’s a current one. Buyers, journalists, and decision-makers are already using these tools to research brands, evaluate vendors, and form first impressions, often before they ever visit a website.

Getting visible inside AI engines isn’t about cracking a new algorithm. Instead, the focus is on building the kind of credible, consistent, cross-platform presence that AI systems are designed to recognize and reward.

You’re already doing the work. Make sure it counts.

In Part 2, we’ll explore why the brands building AI visibility right now are the ones that will be impossible to ignore in 12 months.

Cassie Clark is a fractional content strategist and AI search optimization expert. She helps brands build content programs designed for visibility in both traditional and AI-driven search.

The industry is shifting fast, and communicators and marketing professionals are eyeing a slew of national conferences in 2026 designed to help them stay ahead of the paradigm shift.

Many of these gatherings are doubling down on common themes shaping modern comms strategy, with AI, brand storytelling, digital PR, search and media strategy taking center stage nationwide.

If you’re hoping to refine your skills, make new connections or hear directly from leaders shaping the future of PR, these conferences may be worth adding to your calendar.

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PR & Comms Summit

Marketing and public relations professionals will gather in Orlando for a summit focused on real‑world strategies and conversations about what’s actually working in the industry right now.

Expect sessions on AI search, earned media, crisis communications and how to identify the metrics that matter.

“You’ll leave with ideas you can put into action right away,” according to the event page hosted by the Florida Public Relations Association. Attendees will hear insights from major brands like Virgin Music Group, MSG Entertainment, MGM Resorts International and The Poynter Institute.

You’re also expected to walk away with practical strategies tied to AI, automation and stronger content development, all while connecting with peers and executives. And yes, six meals are included with your ticket purchase.

When: August 9-12, 2026

Where: Orlando, FL

Fierce Pharma PR and Communications Summit

For anyone working in pharma or biotech, Fierce Pharma Week is known to host major annual events.

This year brings several programs together, giving attendees a chance to compare strategies, hear what senior leaders are prioritizing and get a clearer understanding of where the industry is heading.

The Fierce Pharma PR and Communications Summit also expands into two separate events this year, with Fierce Pharma Week serving as the broader gathering for professionals across marketing, sales, scientific communications and PR. It’s built for people who want to network, collaborate and walk away with practical ideas they can actually use.

When: September 14-17, 2026

Where: Philadelphia, PA

Mid-Atlantic MarCom Summit

Last year’s conference in the DMV featured fireside chats on the evolving industry, engaging sessions led by reps from major brands and organizations, and, honestly, some pretty good food.

This year’s Mid‑Atlantic MarCom Summit is expected to bring even more. It’s the region’s largest annual gathering of marketing and public relations professionals, drawing people who want to learn, network and compare notes on where the industry is heading.

Attendees will meet at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library Conference Center in Washington, D.C., where they’ll hear keynote presentations, panel discussions and conversations on forward‑leaning topics shaping the field.

According to Capitol Communicator, the event is built for collaboration and business growth, bringing together more than 400 professionals from leading brands, associations, government agencies, tech companies and emerging organizations. It’s considered a key forum for exploring the trends, technologies and challenges influencing the future of marketing and PR.

When: October 14, 2026

Where: Washington, D.C.

PRSA ICON Conference

PRSA’s flagship annual conference is returning to Orlando, and the organization is calling it “the largest and most iconic PR & Comms event of the year.”

It’s considered one of the broadest gatherings for communications professionals, bringing together people who want to sharpen their leadership skills, stay ahead of media trends and grow in their careers.

Attendees can expect inspiring keynotes from nationally recognized leaders, along with a wide range of breakout sessions designed to elevate skills across strategy, ethics, AI, media and strategic communication. The conference also builds in plenty of time for networking through dedicated events and informal meet‑ups with peers, mentors and partners.

You get a chance to connect with some of the most engaged PR and communications practitioners in the country.

When: October 18-20, 2026

Where: Orlando, FL

Future of Communications Conference

Ragan is behind another big event on this list, the Future of Communications Conference, which serves as the main event of CommsWeek.

The week brings together professionals working in PR, marketing, corporate affairs and internal communications for conversations about reputation, culture, trust and the strategies shaping them.

The conference is the flagship gathering where communicators look at emerging trends, talk through disruption and get a clearer sense of what the future of the profession might look like. Sessions focus on innovation, strategy, leadership and the tools teams need to stay ahead in a fast‑moving field.

If you lead communications or want a sharper view of where the industry is going, you might want to be in the room where direction and momentum take shape. The organization describes it as a forward‑looking event built for people who want trend insights and practical takeaways they can put to work.

When: November 11-13, 2026 (part of CommsWeek Nov 9-13)

Where: Austin, TX

Comment if you’re attending any of these conferences!

Francesco Marconi, an early AI newsroom pioneer, explains how artificial intelligence is transforming journalism and PR. He also outlines why communicators must structure content for AI systems that now read and rank information before humans.

Newsrooms are increasingly embracing large language models (LLMs) to streamline production, support reporting, and reshape how journalists work.

One pioneer who worked at major news outlets led early efforts to integrate artificial intelligence into editorial workflows, helping lay the foundation for how generative AI is used in modern journalism.

Francesco Marconi, a computational journalist who founded AppliedXL, helped The Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal bring AI into their editorial processes before these tools went mainstream.

So has AI use in the newsroom become the norm?

Recent global surveys show that a strong majority of news organizations have already experimented with generative AI tools for tasks such as transcription, summarization, data handling and drafting.

About 73% of those news organizations said AI platforms such as ChatGPT present new opportunities in the journalism industry.

But AI is not only being used as a tool in newsrooms. It is also reading content and deciding what gets surfaced online.

In fact, humans are often second in line when it comes to reading online content like press releases, Marconi said in an exclusive interview with EIN Presswire.

That’s why Marconi says communicators should structure content with the most helpful information at the top — for what he describes as the first reader: AI systems. He expands on that subject later in the interview.

Speaking at events and on podcasts, Marconi continues to share how he has helped spearhead AI-driven newsroom tools.

Some of those innovations include automated systems that generate routine, data-based stories such as earnings updates and sports results, and machine-learning models that identify trends in large datasets.

He’s also known for leading early experiments in AI‑assisted reporting.

Still, Marconi maintains that AI should augment journalists, not replace them, by handling routine tasks so reporters can focus on deeper, more investigative work.

Today he leads AppliedXL, a company built on the idea that early signals in public data can be detected long before they become news. Its clients include Bloomberg, Dow Jones, Washington Post Intelligence and more.

His career — spanning newsroom R&D labs, MIT Media Lab research, and books on AI in journalism — has made him one of the most influential voices on AI in modern journalism.

EIN Presswire caught up with Marconi to further explore how AI is reshaping the news industry, why machines are now reading content before humans, and how communicators can “survive machine consumption” by writing structured content.

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Q: How did your time at The Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press shape your views on AI and the future of news?

A: At the AP, we were generating thousands of earnings stories a month from structured data before most newsrooms had a coherent AI strategy. Not as an experiment, as production infrastructure.

At the Journal, we took a step further to build data mining and event detection tools that monitored massive troves of data from regulatory fillings, transcripts and press releases to find signals and break stories against the competition.

What that work made clear is that the constraint in journalism has never been writing. It’s knowing what to look for, in which data, at what moment. The harder problem is encoding that judgment, the investigative instinct, the research discipline, the sourcing logic, into systems that can apply it at scale. That’s what we do at AppliedXL. We turn the insight of journalists and domain experts into AI that can run those same steps across millions of data points continuously. The outcome is detection. Signals that would take a team of researchers weeks to surface, found in seconds, before they become headlines. We’ve benchmarked this directly against the leading general-purpose AI systems. General-purpose models produce complete responses. They do not produce high-signal ones. That’s the difference between a system trained on everything and a system built to know one domain deeply.

Q: You recently wrote that AI agents are becoming the primary consumers of news. What does that mean?

A: Most news is still produced as if a human will read it first. Increasingly, that’s not true. For every human a bot sends to a publisher, that bot has already read the publisher’s work up to 70,000 times. The machine isn’t a distribution channel. It’s the primary audience. And it reads differently. A 2,000-word article is less accurate than a 200-word list of facts if the audience is an AI. Agents don’t read. They retrieve fragments and discard the rest. Every sentence that isn’t a clean, extractable claim is noise the machine uses to mis-rank and mis-summarize the source. Narrative flow is exactly what breaks the pipeline. Organizations that understand this early have a structural advantage. The ones that don’t will find their content readable but not usable.

Q: You’ve introduced the concept of “pre-news.” How would you explain that idea to communications professionals in simple terms?

A: Before a story runs, there’s a data trail. A clinical trial registry update. A regulatory filing. A carbon credit issuance. These are public records, just not yet news, because no journalist has connected them to a narrative. The gap between when that signal appears and when it becomes a headline can be hours, days, sometimes weeks.

And it goes beyond detection. We build risk scores and prediction models on top of those signals. Our clinical trial prediction model calls trial outcomes with 88% directional accuracy, higher than any peer-reviewed model in the literature. That’s what happens when you encode genuine domain expertise into the system rather than applying a general-purpose tool to specialized data.

Q: Your company works heavily with public data and signal detection. How can that help communications teams or agencies today?

A: Some of the most sophisticated investors and hedge funds have been doing this for years. Mining regulatory filings, tracking activity patterns in job postings, running linguistic analysis on public disclosures to find risk signals and decode what companies are actually doing versus what they’re saying. That infrastructure exists. It’s being used on your clients right now.

Between 50 and 70 percent of S&P 500 companies in healthcare, energy, utilities and other regulated sectors have material signals sitting in public data right now that their own IR and communications teams aren’t seeing. Not because the data doesn’t exist, but because accessing it requires the right infrastructure. Hedge funds built that infrastructure years ago. Most corporate communications teams are still working without it. We give them access to the same types of signals, the same patterns sophisticated market participants are already reading, so they can walk into any conversation knowing what the data already says about them.

Q: As AI systems increasingly scan press releases, filings and online content before humans do, how should communicators adapt?

A: Structure matters more than prose now. A material fact buried in paragraph six may never get weighted correctly by an automated system. Putting the most important signal at the top, with precision and not marketing language, has always been good practice. Now it has operational consequences.

The deeper shift is about what information needs to become. To survive machine consumption, content needs to be atomic, structured, and retrievable. Not just the facts, but the context that tells the machine what the facts mean. Ontologies. Structured claims. Instructions an agent can follow without distorting the source. Almost none of what gets published today is built that way. The communicators who figure it out first will have a significant advantage over those still optimizing for human readers who may no longer be first in line.

Q: You’ve said the “signal before the story” may become more valuable than the story itself. What does that mean for journalism and media companies?

A: Every era of media gets defined by what it monetizes. Print monetized distribution. Digital monetized data. Social monetized attention. The next era will monetize truth, because demand for it is about to outstrip supply by orders of magnitude.

AI-generated content went from roughly 7 percent of new web articles in 2022 to over 50 percent today. At the same time, US newsrooms have lost roughly half their journalists since 2008. The investigative desks, the regulatory beat reporters, the people whose job was to say “this is true and here is why” have been cut, consolidated, or eliminated. The supply of things to verify has exploded in three years. The workforce capable of verifying them has been shrinking for fifteen.

That asymmetry has a price. A market trading on unverified information misprices risk. A court admitting it as evidence reaches the wrong outcome. A clinical decision shaped by it harms a patient. No hiring wave closes that gap. The math doesn’t work.

Meanwhile, Google is already deciding which information surfaces. OpenAI is deciding what counts as a credible source. None of them have editors. None of them issue corrections. What’s true is becoming an engineering decision. A century of journalism built the infrastructure to verify truth. Nobody has figured out how to sell it at the speed it’s now needed. That’s the market that’s opening up.

Q: What skills do you believe journalists, PR professionals and communicators will need most in an AI-driven industry?

A: Data literacy, not programming, but the ability to read a database, parse a filing, know where primary sources live before they enter the news cycle. Domain depth, because generalist skills are being commoditized faster than specialist knowledge. A communications professional who genuinely understands pharmaceutical regulation or carbon markets is not interchangeable with a general-purpose tool.

It also helps to understand which kind of journalism you’re in. There are two. The first is utility journalism: information whose job is to inform decisions. For that kind, the article is increasingly the wrong container. The machine retrieves fragments and discards narrative. Structure is everything. The second is community journalism, news you feel, identity, belonging, storytelling as the product rather than the packaging. That one doesn’t need to change. The professionals who struggle most in the next few years will be the ones who haven’t figured out which of those two they’re actually doing.

In today’s information age, news is everywhere, from social media to websites, giving journalists countless story ideas and sources to draw from. They can quickly find breaking developments, trends, or quotes to include in their stories.

Still, one tool that has stood the test of time and that many news organizations continue to rely on is the press release.

These news releases often arrive as email pitches sent directly to editors, reporters and producers, or through specialized tools such as press release distribution platforms used by businesses, PR and marketing agencies, entrepreneurs and other organizations. Common tools include EIN Presswire, Cision, GlobeNewswire, and more.

But in what has become a crowded digital media funnel, editors, reporters and other newsroom associates can receive dozens, sometimes hundreds, of press releases daily in their inboxes.

Because of strict deadlines and a constant flow of news, many journalists skim releases to quickly assess what is timely, relevant and credible before deciding whether to read further, follow up, or move on.

For PR professionals, businesses, and brands, that reality raises an important question: What actually makes a press release stand out to the individuals in the media who decide what gets covered or cited?

Earned media and AI visibility

A press release serves many purposes. It formally announces news and gives journalists, AI systems and stakeholders something concrete to reference.

Which brings us to the elephant in the room: When a press release is sent, another major goal is earned media.

That earned coverage can take many forms — a reporter incorporating information from the release into a larger story, requesting an interview, or quoting a source. It might also include a podcast appearance, a broadcast segment, or print placement in a newspaper or magazine.

Still, the good news is that even if a press release does not generate earned media, using PR distribution services can provide other lasting benefits.

For one, news releases are often published online on multiple news platforms through distribution services that have wide-ranging media networks, such as EIN Presswire, Cision and others. These published clips significantly help increase visibility for a company, organization, or a brand.

And now, as AI-powered search tools become increasingly common, news releases can be picked up by systems such as Google’s AI Overviews and referenced in AI-generated summaries or answers, including those produced by ChatGPT.

What editors and reporters look for in a news release

Meanwhile, a quick Google search on how to grab the media’s attention results in plenty of general advice. But perspectives tend to be more useful when they come directly from people who have worked in newsrooms and made those decisions firsthand.

So to find out, we asked veteran editors and reporters who have covered different beats for various media outlets to share the specific elements they look for when reviewing press releases and deciding what to cover or reference.

Their perspectives, many of whom shared that press releases remain sources they rely on, help bridge the gap between the media and communicators.

Several themes emerged in their responses: begin with a strong lead (opening sentences), keep the story relevant, include compelling quotes or data, and do research on journalists and outlets that pitches or releases are sent to. They also flagged common missteps that can cause otherwise newsworthy announcements to be overlooked.

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1. Local News Still Drives Coverage

Community editors, whose small team of reporters often focus on what’s happening in the communities they serve, look for press release content that genuinely adds something to the local outlet, especially when it ties directly to local readers.

Cheri Martin, a former community newspaper editor at The Wakulla News and the Gadsden County Times in Florida with decades of journalism experience, said she always scanned for “press release content that truly enhanced the paper with an eye toward local connections first.”

She pointed to the difference between pushing something that feels like self promotion or advertorial content and offering real news or feature value, saying the latter is what her newspaper preferred.

Her newsroom relied on a mix of outside content, including news releases, to fill gaps in coverage, from gardening tips to home organizing advice to features on regional attractions. “All these basically saved me from paying for extra syndicated content,” she said, adding that one popular feature that “readers appreciated” was the Ringling Museum in Sarasota.

Martin said many of the features she used started as press releases about new books, including several she remembered coming through press release distribution platform EIN Presswire. Most “regional press release content” that made it into her paper came from government agencies or was tied to festivals, cultural events or business announcements with clear relevance.

But she was blunt about the limits. “It’s harder at the weekly community newspaper level unless it’s pertaining to a local event,” she said. “Resources are scarce. Even legitimate community newspaper stories were sometimes relegated to photos and information submitted by community contributors.”

As for general advice for sending news, Martin said tight writing helps, and follow up matters. A quick phone call can surface the missing angle that gets a release published. She recalled a PR rep who wanted coverage of a church’s disaster response efforts. “I said we needed a drop dead local connection and he found it for me and resubmitted.”

One more practical tip: many legitimate releases never reach editors at all. “A lot of legit press releases automatically ended in my spam filter,” she said. That’s another reason to follow up. And once an editor uses your content, Martin said it’s worth asking them to add your organization as a trusted sender.

2. Know the Newsroom You’re Pitching To

One misstep that communicators sometimes make is they don’t do research before pitching a story to a particular newsroom. Joshua Wilson, executive editor of The Macon Melody who serves in a leadership role for the Georgia Trust for Local News, stressed the importance of this.

Wilson, who has spent two decades in community journalism, advises PR professionals to take a moment to understand what his newsroom covers and the geographic area it serves. He had a clear message for PR folks: learn the newsroom before you pitch.

“Local matters,” Wilson emphasized. “I’d venture to guess that about 75 percent of press releases or pitches I get have absolutely no relevance to what we’re doing.”

Taking time to learn the newsroom shows editors that you care about the topic and aren’t just “shopping it around for the widest distribution net possible,” said Wilson, who helped launch the Roy Howard Community Journalism Center at the University of Southern Mississippi and has taught journalism and media literacy courses.

Wilson noted his newsroom looks for pitches that align with their mission to provide original community or “solutions-oriented journalism.”

“If your pitch can’t translate into something that’s useful for our readers, and you can’t quickly make me understand how it could, I won’t spend a lot of time on it,” he said.

When asked whether press releases have been a good source for developing stories, Wilson said they definitely can be.

“A lot of our PR friends write beautiful copy and send a lot of assets that we can easily pick up and share online or in print,” he said. “That’s very helpful, but we strive for original reporting, which is why I value thoughtful pitches — those that are clearly oriented to our mission and coverage area — more than press releases.”

He added that personal touches in pitches “go a long way.”

Wilson said: “If it’s obvious that I’m just one peg in your press distribution machine…give us some exclusivity and pitches tailored to us, and I’m all in. You’ll have a friend for life, and that friendship will be mutually beneficial.”

3. Details Matter: Give Reporters the Pertinent Information

Because of the constant flow of news, press releases can get buried in journalists’ and editors’ inboxes and in the newswires at times. Still, there are key details communicators can include to help their releases stand out.

“There are many avenues of news bombarding media outlets,” some fake or AI generated, said Tammy Joyner, whose four‑decade career in journalism spans a wide range of publications, including a rare experience chatting with former President Jimmy Carter.

Often referred to as the inverted pyramid style, press releases should include the basics at the top: who, what, when, where and why, as well as how about the main subject. “A good press release includes experts who would provide both sides of the argument about the topic being promoted,” Joyner said.

Joyner, a former editor and reporter whose work has appeared in top publications such as The New York Times, said a release that grabs attention “is properly vetted,” with evidence, background and data “that help differentiate the topic being introduced.”

“I want to know how this information is different, what would the audience want to know, how would it impact their lives or more importantly, make their lives better (or worse, if the topic involves harmful issues),” she added.

She also pointed to practical details that can make or break follow‑up. A clear point of contact with a direct phone number can determine whether a newsroom reaches out for more information.

“One of my pet peeves is news releases, websites, organizations and other entities that do not provide a contact person and phone number,” Joyner said. “To me, that is a total disregard for people’s ability to have access to someone to gain more information.”

4. The Story Matters — and So Does Where You Send It

You and your PR team may think the story you’re pitching is a no-brainer for grabbing a journalist’s attention, and often it is. But you still have to make the case in a way that shows it’s newsworthy and aimed at the right outlet.

There are two top elements that help a press release get picked up, one of which is making it about a truly interesting story, something actually newsy and relevant, according to Laura Cassels, a veteran Florida journalist who specializes in state politics, science and economics.

Including access to “source experts” can make a release stand out even more among the masses, she added.

“It should have data and expert quotes to demonstrate what I think of as ‘probable cause’ that the item you pitch might pan out and be worth the writer’s time,” Cassels said.

She also doubled down on an earlier point about targeting the right audience: “The other No. 1 thing is to pitch it to the right outlets. Do the work to know that the writer, editor, or outlet you’re pitching to is the kind that will care about the story you’re pitching. Otherwise, you’re wasting your time and theirs.”

Cassels has spent time on both the PR and journalism sides of the business, handling media relations for Florida’s tourism marketing organization earlier in her career. On the journalism side, she receives numerous press releases as a veteran reporter whose work can be found in the Florida Trident, Florida Phoenix and Florida Trend.

Building relationships with the media can be rewarding, especially when you can offer “pitches that are appropriate for them, with information they can use, if not this time then maybe next time,” Cassels said.

That’s why it’s important to read a writer’s work or watch a reporter’s coverage. “Comment on it in your communications,” she said, noting that referencing their work when you email a pitch can signal you’ve done your homework.

“If you have a good story to tell, if you pitch it to the right outlet, and you offer to assist further, you might see it published in an outlet where the right readers will see it,” she said. “Offer photography and infographics.”

Cassels said a press release should make its purpose clear at a glance, with the core information up top and clean details, including “anchors so the reader can jump to the parts he or she is curious about.” She urged communicators to skip “flowery language” and focus on clarity.

She also warned against assuming that getting a release published in many places means it had a real impact. Some outlets will publish a release almost word for word, Cassels said, but that doesn’t mean it’s reaching the right audience. “Those outlets often publish anything from anybody, so yours may just be lost in the noise,” Cassels said.

5. Keep It Relevant to the Beat

Politics is one of the busiest areas of coverage for many reporters, and press releases often help them track developments, spot trends, or build out larger stories.

That’s especially true when a release touches on hot‑button topics within politics, said Mitch Perry, a veteran reporter covering politics who has worked in both TV and print, including Bay News 9.

“I’m a political reporter, so I like pitches that relate to public policy issues and stories about politics and/or elections,” said Perry, now a senior reporter for the Florida Phoenix. He noted that he also covers gun policy, the environment and other statewide issues, so releases tied to those subjects are far more likely to get his attention than something outside his beat.

Perry, who has covered politics and government in Florida for more than two decades, said the topic is the first thing he looks for — a release should connect “with something I’m familiar with.”

He added that strong quotes and a clear email subject line help a reporter quickly assess whether a pitch is worth opening. “Sometimes a reporter can be so busy that it’s great to have some quotes available right then and there,” he said.

Perry also appreciates when PR teams show they’ve done their homework. “I do get pitches by PR agents who have noticed that I have written on a particular subject, and reference that as a way to raise my interest,” Perry said.

What he doesn’t appreciate are mass‑forwarded emails blasted to every reporter in a newsroom. “I swear there are a certain number of folks who just blanket send messages to every reporter they know — regardless of what the reporter actually covers,” he said.

Still, Perry emphasized that press releases remain useful tools for political journalists. “Press releases have helped me write stories I wasn’t even thinking of, or can enhance a project I’m already working on,” Perry said. “So they are not a waste of time by any measure.”

6. Give Reporters What They Need to Do Their Jobs

John Pacenti, an Emmy‑winning investigative journalist who has covered South Florida for more than three decades, said the relationship between a PR representative and a reporter works best when both sides understand what the reporter needs: facts and access.

That expectation starts with the press release. “If I receive a press release that is missing critical information or doesn’t include contact details, I am suspicious of the release, the agency behind it, and the subject matter in general,” said Pacenti, who is president of First Way Communications.

A release should serve as the reporter’s “elevator pitch” — self‑contained, with all essential information and canned quotes — while still leaving room for follow‑up interviews and additional reporting.

Pacenti pointed to two similar condominium developments in Delray Beach to show how this plays out. One project provided a thorough release, responded quickly, granted a tour, and made business owners available for interviews. The other offered poor contact information, conflicting details, and no returned calls. “To this day, I still have not received any information,” he said.

The difference shaped his perception of each project. The first development “went out of their way to provide information.” The second “acted like the reporter was a bother,” which raised red flags.

“As a reporter, it makes me highly suspicious that there is something wrong with the complex,” Pacenti said. “And it all started with the news release.”

Hello!

We hope you were able to flood media outlets with your news in May!

The team at EIN Presswire appreciates you choosing us as a trusted tool for news distribution that results in both media coverage and AI visibility.

To show our appreciation, we’ve got special savings on press releases coming in June. Keep an eye out for a limited-time promotion on some of our most popular press release packages. We’ll share more details on our socials in early June, including how to claim your offer and lock in your savings.

In the May edition of EIN Essentials, young PR leaders weigh in on how Gen Z is using artificial intelligence in their work, and a marketing expert shares her journey from working in corporate America handling social media and branding to building her own firm that now helps thousands of creatives. There’s more, so keep scrolling!

If you haven’t already, subscribe now to our Substack to stay updated on articles and content about the evolving PR industry.

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Inside this issue:

1. White Paper: What Veteran Journalists Actually Look for in Press Releases in 2026

2. Panel Discussion: How Gen Z Communicators Are Using AI

3. Heard on the Streets: Shelby Leigh on Creativity and Building a Brand

4. Newsmatics Launches ‘Journalists Wanted’ Initiative

5. AGP Spotlight: Health Reporter of Georgia

White Paper: What Veteran Journalists Actually Look for in Press Releases in 2026 📖

Press releases remain a key way to reach people in the media, but how do journalists actually view them when they land in their inbox?

EIN Presswire spoke with veteran reporters and editors to find out what gets a release noticed, published or ignored.

The conversations were turned into a new white paper for communicators, businesses and brands looking to improve outreach.

Inside, journalists stress the basics still matter, such as researching outlets, tailoring pitches and following key fundamentals of press release writing.

Download the white paper now.

Panel Discussion: How Gen Z Communicators Are Using AI 🤖

Is AI best for content creation? Or does it work better as a tool for brainstorming PR campaigns and ideas?

Four early career professionals and PR students tackled those questions and more as they shared how they use AI across a variety of communications tasks. The young professionals panel explored how artificial intelligence is reshaping the industry as Gen Z enters the workforce.

Watch the video here.

Heard on the Streets: Shelby Leigh on Creativity and Building a Brand 🙌

Successful author and marketing strategist Shelby Leigh knows a thing or two about building an audience.

After selling more than 60,000 books and helping thousands of creatives grow their brands, Leigh sat down with EIN Presswire to share lessons on storytelling, authenticity and why creators should stop waiting for “perfection” before putting themselves out there.

Read more.

Newsmatics Launches ‘Journalists Wanted’ Initiative 📍

Have you seen our parent company in the news lately?

Newsmatics, which owns EIN Presswire, just launched “Journalists Wanted,” a new initiative aimed at helping credible journalism reach wider audiences through a trusted publishing platform.

Independent journalists and news organizations are invited to submit original reporting and stories for editorial review. Approved stories can be featured across the global Affinity Group Publishing network while allowing journalists to maintain ownership and control of their work.

AGP boasts more than 3,900 moderated digital publications, so journalists have no shortage of platforms to share their stories on.

Find out more.

AGP Spotlight: Health Reporter of Georgia 📰

Did you know Newsmatics operates a network of more than 3,900 moderated online publications? We’re highlighting one of those publications from Affinity Group Publishing (AGP).

Health Reporter of Georgia is a publication focused on news in the state of Georgia. Top headlines this week include a sushi restaurant in Duluth failing a health inspection, Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms outlining her health care priorities, and Atlanta Public Schools hosting its annual expo for parents.

You can even sign up to receive daily news briefings from an AGP publication, delivered straight to your inbox. All you have to do is subscribe by entering your email.

Craving more PR insights, tips or exclusive content?

Subscribe now to the EIN Presswire Substack to stay updated on the latest in the evolving PR industry. Follow us on our socials: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.

The newsroom is shrinking. Since 2005, the newspaper industry has lost nearly two-thirds of its journalists.

Nearly 15,000 media jobs were eliminated in 2024 alone. The reporters who remain are stretched thin, covering more ground with fewer resources.

For organizations that have built their communications strategies around media access, this is a structural shift, and most have yet to reckon with what it actually means.

The instinct has been to pitch harder. More press releases. More follow-ups. More targets on the list. But the average journalist response rate sits at just 3.43%, with lack of relevance as the top reason for rejection. Effort alone does not move the needle.

The deeper problem is trust. Shrinking newsrooms have created a vacuum that audiences are filling with skepticism. They are more fragmented, less anchored to legacy media, and increasingly indifferent to organizations that only show up when they want coverage.

The unit of value in communications is no longer the placement. It is the perception, and perception is shaped long before any journalist picks up the phone.

That is where influence enters. In his landmark work Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini identified seven principles that govern how people form judgements and make decisions. Two of them cut closest to the problem at hand.

Authority explains why audiences defer to sources with demonstrated expertise over time. Social Proof explains why credibility compounds: the more an organization is seen, cited and referenced by others, the more its voice carries weight.

Together they describe something that no pitch can manufacture. Influence of this kind is accumulated. It is the product of consistent positioning, not a single well-timed statement.

The organizations that understand this show up differently. They invest in original research. They build executives into credible public voices before a crisis arrives. Journalists rank original research and exclusives among the content they value most from communications professionals.

That is not a media relations tactic. It is an influence strategy dressed in media relations clothing.

Artificial intelligence is already flooding the information ecosystem, lowering the cost of content production while driving the noise level up. Narratives can be generated, adapted and redistributed at a pace that outstrips traditional response cycles.

As content becomes easier to produce, credibility becomes harder to sustain. The role of media relations shifts under this pressure, away from generating outputs and towards maintaining narrative discipline. The question is no longer how to secure attention, but how to ensure attention leads to the intended interpretation.

None of this works in isolation. Media relations needs to sit alongside policy communication, digital strategy and stakeholder engagement. A consistent and credible narrative does not emerge from a press release.

It is built across every channel where audiences form opinions. People trust sources they feel they know. AI can replicate tone and mimic structure, but it cannot build genuine familiarity. The human advantage in communications is not speed. It is the capacity to be known, trusted, and believed by the people who still decide what gets told.

Institutions that treat communications as a reactive function will find the ground shifting under them. Influence does not wait for a campaign budget to be approved.

Coverage was always a proxy. The real prize was always trust.

David Olajide, a communications professional with nearly a decade of experience, is the senior marketing and communications manager at Curzon PR in London. He also runs the firm’s blog, PR Insider.

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These days, the media environment is changing and moving at lightning speed. That’s why it’s important for anyone sending news to journalists to understand the inner workings of newsrooms.

One thing still stands: press releases remain a valuable tool to reach the media. But have you ever wondered how people working inside the newsroom actually perceive press releases?

EIN Presswire, the world’s leading press release distribution platform, spoke with veteran reporters and editors to get their insights on the factors that determine whether a news release is pursued, published or ignored.

You may remember our “Inside the Newsroom” Substack series, where each journalist shared their takeaways.

This time, we turned the full set of interviews into a new white paper designed to give communicators, businesses and brands a practical toolkit for building an effective media outreach strategy that captures the attention of journalists.

Inside the paper, you’ll find core findings from the interviewees, including the importance of researching a news outlet before sending a news release, and tailoring pitches to the reporter’s beat or coverage area.

And the journalists also point out that writing a news release following key guidelines for structure and content can really help improve your chances of a successful pitch.

Download the white paper here.

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To accelerate awareness and participation, Newsmatics is supporting the initiative with a targeted industry marketing campaign in partnership with Editor & Publisher Magazine, reaching tens of thousands of news publishing executives through digital, print and webinar channels.

As the media landscape continues to evolve, “Journalists Wanted” represents a new approach to distribution, one that prioritizes discovery, attribution and the preservation of journalistic integrity.

Journalists and local news organizations interested in participating can submit their work at JournalistsWanted.com for editorial review through the program’s online portal.

Check out a press release and article to learn more.

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How is AI affecting creativity, and how important is it to maintain originality while using AI platforms for PR‑related work? Hear what they have to say in EIN Presswire’s young professional panel discussion.

The panel — made up of emerging PR professionals, PRSSA leaders, and students — included A’Mya Kendrick (Eastern Kentucky University), Kiley Fenn (University of Tennessee), Courteney Sykes (Clark Atlanta University and Florida State University), and Lilibet Kirwan (marketing intern at Newsmatics, parent company of EIN Presswire).

Check out the full panel discussion, which will be posted soon on YouTube. Subscribe below for more Heard on the Streets episodes, exclusive interviews, and additional content.

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One major shift these budding PR graduates and early‑career professionals are navigating is artificial intelligence. To explore their thought process, our intern Lilibet Kirwan hosted a panel discussion for Heard on the Streets, discussing how AI is reshaping the PR landscape for Gen Z.

How is it affecting creativity, and how important is it to maintain originality while using AI platforms for PR‑related work? Hear what they have to say in part 1 of EIN Presswire’s young professional panel.

If you’ve been following our panel discussions from last year, you’ll recognize a familiar face: A’Mya Kendrick, a former intern and PR guru who led a similar conversation during her internship. In the clip, Kendrick shares what she considers “good taste” in comms in the age of AI.

In the full video coming soon, you’ll also see a new face and another familiar one in our latest panel discussion as they share their insights on AI, agency experience, and internships.

The panel — made up of emerging PR professionals, PRSSA leaders, and students — includes A’Mya Kendrick (Eastern Kentucky University), Kiley Fenn (University of Tennessee), Courteney Sykes (Clark Atlanta University and Florida State University), and Lilibet Kirwan (marketing intern at Newsmatics, parent company of EIN Presswire).

The full episode drops soon on YouTube, so stay tuned. Subscribe below for more Heard on the Streets episodes, exclusive interviews, and additional content.

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When Shelby Leigh began sharing her work online nine years ago, she hoped to learn how to market her products and connect with others in her space. What she may not have expected is that she’d go on to inspire hundreds of creatives and sell more than 60,000 books.

That experience led her to launch Marketing by Shelby, a platform that makes her marketing expertise accessible to artists, authors, entrepreneurs, and other creators.

But one thing that sets Leigh apart from many creatives in the marketing space is her advocacy for mental health. She has used social media to reach millions through her poetry, which explores topics such as anxiety, self-love and healing.

The bestselling author has also integrated mental health awareness into Marketing by Shelby, where she helps creatives navigate the impact of social media on their well-being.

Today, Leigh has written four successful books and worked with more than 9,000 students.

With over a decade of experience helping shape brands and a following of hundreds of thousands, she has become a trusted resource for many creatives.

Leigh has built her business around a simple philosophy: “Marketing isn’t a chore, but an extension of your creativity.”

In a conversation with EIN Presswire, Leigh shared how she got started in her career, her perspective on building brands and strategic communications, as well as insights for creatives.

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Q: Tell us a bit about your path. What were you doing early on, and how did that lead to what you’re building today?

A: I studied Communications and PR in college, so marketing was always part of my world. After graduating, I worked in corporate social media and branding while also writing and self-publishing poetry books on the side. I was a marketing professional by day, soaking up everything I could about marketing, branding, PR and social media, and at night, I was an author trying to figure out how to sell books and pursue a passion I’d had since I was a young kid.

From there, I was applying what I knew about branding and social media to my own books, and it was working. Other authors started asking me how I was doing it, and I realized there was a real gap: creatives who were talented but had no idea how to market themselves without feeling like they were selling out. I started Marketing by Shelby shortly after leaving my corporate job to pursue my writing passion, and it just grew from there.

Q: Was there a moment when things started to gain momentum for your brand? Any milestones that stand out?

A: For a long time, it was more like a bunch of small wins that started adding up. As an author, hitting 500K followers was a cool milestone, but what actually felt meaningful was selling over 60,000 books, because I remembered selling two copies the very first week I self-published and spent many months wondering if anyone would ever care.

On the business side, one of my favorite milestones was when I launched my membership, The Creative’s Content Club. I had over 300 creatives join during launch week, which was beyond my wildest dreams. (My goal was 100 members!) I’ve now had over 9,000 students be a part of my programs. That’s a lot of creatives who decided to bet on themselves, and I don’t take that lightly.

Q: Looking ahead, what shifts in media, marketing, or audience behavior are you paying closest attention to right now?

A: A few things, honestly. I’m watching how tired people are getting of content that feels manufactured. Audiences are really good at detecting inauthenticity now, and I think that’s actually great news for creatives who are willing to just be real and show up. A lot of the creatives I work with are hesitant at first. They like to be behind-the-scenes and not be on camera, which I completely understand because I’ve been there. But with the rise of AI content, we need to show up as ourselves to stand out.

I’m also paying close attention to email. Everyone keeps counting it out and it keeps proving people wrong. For the people I work with, owning your list versus renting space on a platform is a conversation I’m having constantly. I love email marketing and I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon.

Q: From your perspective, what do creatives often get wrong when trying to build an audience or make their brand visible?

A: The biggest one is waiting too long to start. They want everything to be perfect before they put themselves out there, and that costs them so much time.

The other thing I see constantly is creatives trying to copy what big brands or influencers are doing instead of leaning into what actually makes them different. Your story, your voice, your specific way of seeing things is what builds a real audience. People don’t follow logos; they follow people. There’s a reason why big brands are now leaning into personal brands. And as small businesses, we have that personal edge that big brands don’t!

The other thing creatives get wrong is overdoing it, thinking they need to be everywhere, doing everything, all the time. They don’t. They need one clear message shared consistently to the right people. Being strong on 1-2 platforms is more impactful than trying to be on 5 platforms at once with a weak strategy.

Q: What’s one approach, habit, or strategy that’s been consistently effective for you as the industry evolves?

A: Storytelling, without question. Before I create anything — a caption, an email, a course lesson — I ask myself what the human moment is behind it. That’s what makes content actually connect, and it’s the one thing that doesn’t change no matter what the algorithm is doing.

Platforms shift, trends come and go, but people always want to feel understood. If your marketing is built around that, you’re going to be fine.

Q: What advice would you give to someone looking to build their audience?

A: Start before you feel ready, and be more honest than you think you’re supposed to be. The content that has actually moved the needle for me was never the most polished or perfect — it was the most honest or vulnerable. Like I said before, humans want to connect with other humans.

And think about your audience as actual people, not a number. Don’t ask, “How do I get more followers?” Ask, “How do I genuinely help the person already reading this? How can I make sure my ideal audience feels understood, inspired, or empowered by our brand?”

Also, and this is the one that a lot of people have a hard time hearing: give it more time than feels comfortable. Slow growth is still growth.

Hello! We’re a little too late for our own April Fools’ prank, so here’s a quick throwback to one of history’s most famous media hoaxes.

In 1957, BBC aired a segment known as the “Spaghetti-tree hoax,” showing Swiss farmers harvesting spaghetti from trees. Thousands of viewers reportedly believed it and even called in asking how to grow their own.

Jokes aside, here’s what’s in April’s edition of EIN Essentials. EIN Presswire sat down with a former CNN journalist who covered crime and now runs her own media company focused on an entirely different beat, and also discussed ethical AI use with a London-based PR leader.

We also wrapped up our Substack series on how the media really thinks about press releases, plus a few more updates worth your time.

If you haven’t already, subscribe now to our Substack to stay updated on articles and content about the evolving PR industry.

Subscribe now

Inside this issue:

1. Inside the Newsroom: What Journalists Really Look for in Press Releases

2. Heard on the Streets: From CNN to UnchainedTV and AI in PR

3. Case Study: How Press Releases Drove Media Pickups and More

4. AGP Spotlight: Greenland Political Report

Inside the Newsroom: What Journalists Really Look for in Press Releases 🧐

If you’ve been following along on the EIN Presswire Substack, you’ve probably seen several posts from our “Inside the Newsroom” series, where veteran editors and reporters break down how they view press releases today. This is the final installment.

Across six interviews representing decades of newsroom experience, these journalists provided several common themes:

• A press release should be relevant to the newsroom’s geographic or subject focus

• Researching a news outlet before pitching significantly improves outcomes

• Press releases with clear leads, data-driven content, and expert quotes can spark the interest of reporters

• Complete contact information is essential

If you missed earlier editions, no problem. We’ll be publishing the full series soon on Substack. There’s also a white paper in the works that can help you develop a media outreach strategy based on journalists’ takeaways.

Read the latest.

Heard on the Streets: From CNN to UnchainedTV and AI in PR 🎙️

Have you checked out what’s buzzing in our Heard on the Streets section?

You might recognize a familiar face from the news world. Jane Velez-Mitchell, who once hosted a primetime crime show on CNN, moved into the entrepreneurial space several years ago. She now leads UnchainedTV, an award-winning vegan news and animal rights network. Some of its nonprofit programming has even earned Taste Awards, including the cooking show Kale Krew. Check out her profile story.

Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is becoming part of everyday work in public relations. David Olajide, who leads the marketing division at Curzon PR, says communicators need to think carefully about how they use it. He also touches on reputation management, a service his firm offers that’s gaining traction with clients. What does ethical AI use mean?

Find out in our latest podcast.

Case Study: How Press Releases Drove Media Pickups and More 📈

What happens when a regional economic development group in North Dakota looks beyond local media for press release distribution?

In our new case study, Marketing and Communications Manager Mark Maliskey of the Grand Forks Region Economic Development Corporation shares how their strategy evolved. He said their news releases were once sent only to local outlets, where coverage wasn’t always guaranteed.

But after using EIN Presswire’s distribution network, the EDC secured media pickups, along with broader online placements, and built backlinks. Using distribution platforms, Maliskey said, also helped increase website traffic and support search visibility over time.

Read the full case study.

AGP Spotlight: Greenland Political Report 📰

Did you know our parent company operates a network of more than 3,900 moderated online publications?

This month, we’re highlighting one of those publications from Affinity Group Publishing (AGP), a product of Newsmatics (parent company of EIN Presswire).

Greenland Political Report is a news site covering Greenland politics and broader developments. This week’s coverage includes Greenland mining updates, infrastructure developments, and geopolitical headlines tied to shifting global dynamics.

A key feature of AGP publications is that your press releases can be placed directly within specific digital publications, helping you reach targeted audiences more effectively. Another standout tool tied to AGP is Perspectify, which labels stories for political bias and lets you filter content based on your preferences.

Craving more PR insights, tips or exclusive content?

Subscribe now to the EIN Presswire Substack to stay updated on the latest in the evolving PR industry. Follow us on our socials: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Industry: Nonprofit/economic development

The Challenge

The EDC works to expand economic opportunity and grow the workforce in Grand Forks in eastern North Dakota by marketing the region for business investment and relocation, and by meeting regularly with business leaders to identify ways to support their expansion. Before using press release distribution platforms, the EDC shared its releases only with local news outlets — and not every story made it into print or online. So Mark Maliskey, the organization’s marketing and communications manager, began looking for a distribution service that could amplify their message. He wanted to use a wire service for guaranteed placement and to boost visibility across internet search platforms.

The Solution

After choosing to use a press release distribution platform, the EDC saw clear benefits in reach, credibility, SEO and media placements. That success prompted the organization to look for more affordable options, which led them to EIN Presswire. Affordability has been a major factor in the EDC’s continued use of the service. The team sends press releases five to 10 times a year, depending on major project announcements or accomplishments they want to share.

Client Testimonial

“I would describe the value for the cost of the release on EIN Presswire as very valuable. As a mid-size nonprofit, we have a limited budget. We have a large audience as well, targeting business decision-makers around the country.”

—Mark Maliskey, Marketing & Communications Manager of EDC

Measurable Gains

Within a series of press releases sent through EIN Presswire, EDC achieved several measurable gains:

✅Building backlinks

The organization built multiple backlinks to its website, helping increase domain authority and improve search rankings related to the Grand Forks community. Some releases also triggered additional media coverage from economic development news agencies and newsletters.

✅Website traffic and visibility increase

EDC saw improvements in visibility, website traffic, media pickup and search performance. For example, when searching for “Agristo US,” a major business expansion project announced in the Grand Forks region, the EDC website ranks No. 4 — directly below the company’s own site. That story was also shared across EIN Presswire, contributing to stronger domain priority.

✅Measurable outcomes

The organization reported that from February 2023 to February 2024, it received 11,500 direct, organic and referral visits to its website. After beginning to use EIN Presswire, traffic increased to 16,200 from February 2024 to February 2025.

In conclusion, by leveraging an affordable and effective press release distribution strategy through EIN Presswire, the EDC successfully enhanced its visibility, strengthened its online presence, and reached a broader audience, ultimately supporting its mission to attract business investment and drive economic growth in the Grand Forks region.

Ready to expand your reach and see measurable results? Discover how EIN Presswire can amplify your message and connect you with the right audience today.

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