Whoopi Goldberg defends Trump attending Knicks NBA Finals Game 3

Earned media builds trust faster than advertising because people trust third parties more than brands. When brands lack credible earned media, they are increasingly invisible in AI answers and discovery experiences. Unlike paid or owned media, earned media cannot be bought or published directly.

For brand discovery questions — when users ask who leads a category rather than specific facts about a brand they already know — AI models rely more on earned media and journalism than on owned content. Marketers have the tools to influence some (not all) conversations about their brands. So, while earned media isn't always a direct result of owned media, owned media can help you get more attention from third parties.

The team at Zen feel like a true extension of our in-house team and we are grateful for the work we’ve done together thus far, and are excited for future opportunities. Every activity and interaction with Zen accelerated positive outcomes and a return on our investment – a testament to their expertise, creativity and quality of work. The team at Zen had a strong track record, a deep understanding of our space and a shared passion for our mission. Finally, as brands integrate more AI into their communications workflows, the question shifts from “how powerful is our AI? By monitoring those conversations through tools such as Meltwater’s GenAI Lens, communicators can see how their brand or industry is represented inside major AI platforms, helping them catch inaccuracies or bias before they spread. Swope points to early reports from OpenAI and Anthropic that reveal what people ask large language models, and how the models respond.

It’s a core part of knowing who your audience is and how to stay relevant and in front of them. Monitoring earned media gives you a real-time view of your brand’s reputation. In many cases, it’s what potential customers trust the most. Earned media is what other people are saying about your brand to other people. I’d recommend working with them to founders or executives seeking to defne their own brand, drive the conversation in their industry and, ultimately, set their company apart from the pack.

Knowing the differences between earned and paid media can help you find new ways to reach your target audience and increase sales. Sometimes the fastest way to reach larger audiences is through tastemakers — people who have a major influence on trends or what’s considered fashionable. In this way, earned media is similar to influencer marketing — it allows brands to capitalize on the trust and goodwill publications have with their audiences.

Looking for a B2B Marketing and PR Agency that can give your B2B a competitive edge?

Multiple studies from 2025 and 2026 find that earned media accounts for 82–95% of AI citations. The timeline of how earned media compounds into AI citation advantage is documented in how earned media citation authority accumulates over time. AI engines prefer earned media because earned media is what they were trained to recognize as credible. (Aggarwal et al., SIGKDD 2024) Structure matters, but it is insufficient without earned authority. Pages with proper metadata, semantic HTML structure, and answer-first organization are cited more than those without. AI visibility is not a future concern for B2B brands.

Benefits of earned media

A rise in mentions after or during an influencer campaign can expand your brand’s reach, indicating genuine engagement among your audience. Audience growth is worth tracking, but it should be viewed alongside engagement quality. The #PartyNeverStops campaign generated £3.68M in sales, an 18x return on ad spend, 91M video views and reached 11.9M unique users in the UK. Choosing the right metrics for influencer marketing begins with setting specific, measurable and time-bound goals aligned with your broader social media marketing strategy.

The deal will comprise $800 million in cash and stock, as well as an earn-out consideration of $200 million based on future brand growth over a three-year timeframe. “The ones waiting for the dust to settle are losing ground they don’t yet realize they’re losing. “The companies investing in earned media and AI authority right now will pull ahead IMHO,” she said. Molly McKinley, founder of Redtail Creative, a marketing and strategic communications consultancy in Raleigh, N.C., pointed out that predictions like Gartner’s tend to treat AI adoption as inevitable and uniform. “Employees who report high information overload are 52% less likely to report high intent to continue working at the organization and 30% less likely to report high strategic alignment,” Gartner reported. “That said, earned media and PR can do double-duty, building visibility and refining a brand’s positioning and identity to give clear signals to the LLMs.”

Answer The Public

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• And the happier your customers, the more positive earned media you'll get the next time they're chatting with someone who's looking to buy a product like yours.
• Fashion brands earned less than half the median on every channel we studied this year, proving social media is a crowded and competitive space for these brands.
• A multi-touch attribution model works best here, especially in PR and marketing campaigns where earned media builds awareness at the top of the funnel.
• TrendKey DataTimelineVoice search24% of AI interactions voice-powered; 67% YoY smart speaker growth; 89% wearable growthBy 2026Multimodal AI40%+ citations will include video; infographics gaining weightEnd 2026AI agents35% of BI queries powered by AI agentsBy 2026Personalization78% offering real-time personalization; 65% federated learningBy 2026
• Financial Services brands sat at or below the median on all four channels we studied this year, despite increasing post frequency across the board.

A growing audience signals that people are regularly interested in what you have to share, amplifying your brand’s reach and awareness. Meltwater's social listening analytics provides a wide array of valuable insights to help teams understand brand perception, audience sentiment, and emerging trends. We can show impressions, reach, view-through rates, and which audiences we’re actually talking to — it’s all at our fingertips” Sprout Social helps you understand and reach your audience, engage your community and measure performance with the only all-in-one social media management platform built for connection. When reporting to stakeholders about your social media impact, it’s valuable to include a high-level overview of your earned media value.

Our strategists pinpoint what you want to say as a leader and how to have the greatest impact on your target audience. By placing articles earned media in respected industry and business publications, company leaders can get their message in front of high-value audiences, including decision-makers, investors and officials. Earned media has the potential to reach influential segments of the market that traditional marketing efforts overlook.

Earned media, a powerful and influential aspect of public relations, is often misunderstood despite its profound impact on brand reputation and reach. Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Therefore, you’re going to want to reach consumers.

Sharing insights as an expert voice enables smart leaders to punch above their weight and earn outsize PR for their companies. However, here’s where business thought leaders can leverage a significant strategic advantage. But access to earned media is challenging, with countless companies competing for limited space in business press and other media channels.

We increase offsite brand signals via digital PR and guest placements, then monitor AI referral traffic from tools like ChatGPT or Gemini to optimize for generative search results. This ensures search engines and users retain access, protecting ranking and traffic during structural changes. We implement template optimization, enabling best-practice SEO elements—like titles, headings, and meta descriptions—to be automatically applied across extensive page sets. The strategy and partnership we have built provided a success framework that we can use in other areas of the business for continued growth.” “NPD delivered actionable advice on both technical and on-page SEO which has been transformative for our site. Search engines may struggle to find your content with a new structure, broken links can frustrate users, and backlinks you’ve built up over time could be lost.