GEO, PR, SEO and the emperor's new clothes

Thank you for joining us today. Our guest is here to discuss a topic that is fundamentally changing the role of a PR professional. She’s the chief strategy officer at Golin and the driving force behind its research looking at the intersection of LLMs, GEO and earned media.

She's going to talk about Golin’s Modern Communications Effectiveness Study and is here to tell us that some of PRs old approaches simply don't hold up. She'll be talking about why GEO is more important tis so important in PR right now and how we need to rethink what the activation of a public relations campaign looks like in a post GEO world

Please give a very warm welcome to Kat Arnoll.

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Here’s a summary of what PRmoment founder Ben Smith and Kat discussed on the show:

3 mins Golin's New Earned Framework for the Post-AI Era focuses on a world where LLMs are a primary content source. Kat elaborates on the most significant shifts she’s observed in a PR professional's job from a pre GEO to a post GEO PR world? What has this change meant in a media relations reality?

9 mins So media relations is back in fashion? Does this impact the type of people PR firms are hiring?

12 mins Does Kat worry about the current over reliance on Reddit when it comes to LLM results?

18 mins Does anyone know what happens next? It’s fairly clear to anyone who takes the time to test it that LLM results are currently OK, but subject to bias and hallucinations and in some cases black hat manipulation…

28 mins How is Kat measuring the impact of PR on LLM results?

33 mins The irony that big tech has developed something in LLMs that potentially destroys the very thing that LLMs rely upon is deliciously ironic. It’s not so much biting the hand that feeds you, as eating it. Beyond a few partnerships with publishers where big tech throws a bit of relative change into the begging bowl of publishers, no one’s really come up with a long term plan to create balance and value in this publisher/LLM ecosystem have they?

34 mins Do you think publishers might bite back? No one’s really admitted it yet but all of a sudden big tech, through its LLMs, need publishers more than publishers need search engines. The game, in theory, might be about to change. Granted digital publishers need to create a membership body and move as one, which they almost certainly won’t get organised to do….