The value of healthy editorial is booming. The reason is AI.

Martin Palin

Modern PR agencies are lots of things. They are story tellers, content developers, problem solvers and managers of issues among others.

What they all have in common, though, is their focus on earned media, such as news stories, feature stories, first person reports from people with lived experience, media interviews, podcasts, guest articles and opinion pieces.

At Palin Communications, we adopt an “earned first” approach to the briefs we tackle. Which means our focus is always on using our news sense and understanding of how news packages work to generate valuable, credible, independent, on-message editorial.

Positive editorial attention has always been regarded as valuable. It can shape community attitudes to the funding of health services, help raise awareness of diseases and take the heat out of medical crises.  It’s the reason good health PR agencies exist and prosper.

But the value of positive editorial is booming. And the reason is AI.

AI bots use editorial references and backlinks to assess content for authority, relevance, independence and credibility. It’s no longer just counting all the backlinks like a Google search does. It’s analysing and rating the quality of the news story or editorial reference. This is why people are referring to positive editorial as the “Secret weapon for AI success” because 80%-90% of the citations in AI searches come from earned media.

We’re in the “zero click” search phase now, where more than 60% of searches end without a click. All the information people need is right there in the first few pars of the AI search.

Companies in the health sector want to show up in AI searches for a range of reasons - to reinforce their reputation among stakeholders, attract the most talented employees, trigger investor enquiries, uncover new business partners and a range of other reasons depending on business priorities.

If new prospects are asking AI “Which three companies should we short-list as potential new partners for our health-related business expansion?”, then coming 4^th is like coming last.

Companies want their health brands and products to show up in generative searches about diseases, treatment options, health products and symptoms. It's no longer about being on the first page of a Google search - it's about being referenced directly in the AI report or summary.  It’s earned media success and close relationships with key health stakeholders (who are prepared to reference you in their editorial content) that will make that happen in the health sector.

Over the years I’ve heard people disparage PR agencies by saying “Oh you guys just do earned media right?” Well no, we do more than that.

But yes, we sure do earned media. And it’s just as well we do. Because if our clients don’t get editorial references for their health-related company, brands, products and issues, then I just can’t work out how people are going to find them, assess them and form a view when they’re using AI to do all the heavy lifting.

If you’re not doing PR well, you’ll be invisible to people using generative AI to compile information and make decisions about their health or their company.

Which pretty soon will be just about everyone.