A creator can deliver every asset on the brief, smash performance benchmarks, spark lively comment threads, and still leave your PR team holding an empty hand.

That doesn’t mean the engagement was a bust. It simply means earned media was treated as a hopeful afterthought rather than built into the foundation of the work. We have all sat in that planning room where someone invariably asks right before wrap-up: “Can we get some press out of this?”

That question needs to be in the room on day one.

If earned media is truly part of the remit, an influencer strategy cannot begin and end with message delivery. It has to focus on narrative substance. That means looking for voices who can help uncover an untold story, bring genuine lived experience to an issue, or frame a conversation so compellingly that editors actually want to dig in. The goal is never just paying an influential voice to champion a logo. It is crafting something that holds its own weight long after the sponsored post scrolls off the screen.

Start with the Story, Not the Shortlist

Before anyone opens a spreadsheet of follower counts or starts horse-trading over deliverable tiers, pause and ask a fundamental question: What makes this interesting to someone who has never heard of the brand and does not follow the creator?

A splashy partnership announcement might occasionally make the rounds, but staking an earned media plan on a signature on a contract is a gamble at best.

A far sturdier foundation is an authentic audience friction point, an unexpected industry shift, or a tangible cultural insight that warrants a closer look. The creator’s role is to sharpen that narrative, not serve as a proxy for the lack of one.

Look at the editorial landscape. In Cision’s survey of more than 3,000 journalists globally, 86% noted they instantly pass on pitches that do not directly serve their beat or readership. A verified handle does not magically create relevance.

Here is a simple test before locking the brief: write the dream headline without using “partners with,” “teams up with,” or “taps creator.”

Strip those away. What is left?

If the story collapses without the transaction, you have an ad, not an editorial hook. That distinction separates what a brand wants to announce from what an audience will voluntarily read.

Choose Someone Who Adds Substance, Not Just Footprint

When earned coverage is on the table, vetting creators solely by reach is an easy trap. The real calculation is what they bring to the table as a subject-matter voice.

Can they break down a nuanced operational headache? Do they possess deep, credible roots in the discipline? Could an editor interview them about the broader industry landscape without them constantly glancing down at brand-approved talking points?

This is where public relations and creator strategy need to align. Organizations like PRSA have consistently pointed out that creators bring the most enduring communications value when treated as long-form storytellers, subject sources, and dynamic event speakers. Their contribution does not need to expire after a 24-hour story cycle.

Consider the contrast between paying someone to say a piece of software saved their workday versus partnering with a seasoned operator who can articulate the systemic inefficiencies plaguing their trade. The former provides an endorsement. The latter gives a reporter a credible source, a compelling human case study, and an actual reason to investigate.

That changes how we vet. Brand affinity and safety screenings are non-negotiable baselines, but we also have to evaluate whether a partner’s background withstands scrutiny. Being charismatic on camera does not make someone an authority. Credibility requires expertise, an intuitive feel for audience dynamics, and the poise to handle nuanced conversations.

Build Something an Editor Can Actually Use

Consider a B2B platform partnering with a creator who owns and runs an independent neighborhood restaurant.

A standard marketing brief asks for a slick walkthrough showing the owner balancing books on an iPad before dinner service. That is fine for a paid social campaign.

An earned-media brief pushes deeper: What does this person’s day-to-day reveal about the invisible labor required to keep a local establishment solvent?

Imagine the restaurateur chronicles the administrative grind that starts after the kitchen lights go down at midnight. The brand commissions a robust, methodologically sound study surveying independent operators on that exact administrative burden. The creator provides the tangible, human perspective; the research establishes the broader macro trend.

Suddenly, an editor has a legitimate story about the unvarnished realities of the small-business economy, backed by credible data, an articulate interview subject, and compelling visuals.

The brand has an authentic, defensible place in the conversation, but it does not need to force its way into every paragraph to make the effort worthwhile.

A word of caution on rigor: a handful of passionate comments on a sponsored post do not constitute an empirical trend. Anecdotes spark curiosity, but they are not representative data. Methodologies and funding must be transparent, and findings should never be massaged to fit a talking point.

Furthermore, the mechanics must be buttoned up before pitching begins. That means confirmed interview availability, clear photo assets, and transparent commercial disclosures. An editor’s interest evaporates fast if basic access requires a week of approvals. Make the story frictionless to report, not just easy to share.

And let’s be unequivocal about labels: a paid partnership does not transform into earned media simply because the aesthetic feels candid. Earned media is coverage an editor chooses to assign on editorial merit. Full stop. A creator can serve as an articulate expert, but they cannot be positioned as an unattached bystander, and regulatory guidelines on commercial disclosures must be ironclad. The integrity of the program relies on total transparency.

Measure the Outcomes Beyond the Feed

When earned visibility is an explicit campaign goal, evaluating the work requires distinct scorecards for creator metrics and PR outcomes.

Engagement rates, reach, and video completion rates assess content resonance. For earned outcomes, the lens must shift to where the story landed, who read it, and whether the strategic context was preserved.

Returning to the restaurant example: the benchmark for earned success is not the creator’s view count. It is whether coverage in a respected industry trade reached actual operators, prompted meaningful site traffic, or sparked conversations around the core business challenge. A passing mention in an advertising trade about a “creative activation” is a vastly different and far less durable outcome than an in-depth feature in a business publication examining the problem you set out to solve.

Look at the downstream impact: Did the piece bring qualified traffic? Did it drive informed inbound interest? Did it shift the way prospective clients understand the operational challenge?

This mindset mirrors AMEC’s framework for outcome-based measurement. The objective is to understand whether the narrative moved the needle on a real priority, rather than cataloging vanity metrics and declaring victory.

Give the Work Room to Travel

Earned media can never be promised as a guaranteed rider on an influencer agreement. But what we can do as strategists is build the work so thoughtfully that the story commands attention on its own terms.

Bring communications into the room early. Choose partners who contribute hard-earned perspective. Back claims with research that holds up to scrutiny. Give reporters unfettered access to articulate voices without trying to dictate the resulting column inches.

The sponsored post is simply the asset you bought. The earned media is the enduring narrative you built around it. When designed with intention, a partnership doesn’t have to choose between driving immediate brand visibility and contributing something substantive to the broader industry dialogue. It can easily do both.

By Catherine Bormann

How brands show up online has fundamentally changed. For years, brand visibility strategies were built around traditional search engines and keyword rankings.

Today, discovery is increasingly happening through AI-powered platforms such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other large language models that generate answers rather than lists of links. These systems synthesize information from what they deem trusted sources to shape brand narratives in real time and influence how audiences understand companies, products and expertise before they ever visit a website – if they click through to a website at all.

This shift has major implications for brand visibility, reputation, and growth, and the data clearly shows the direction of change:

  • Consumer behavior is shifting. According to McKinsey, 50% of consumers already use AI-powered search, and the shift could influence $750 billion in revenue by 2028.
  • Public Relations investment is growing. Research from Gartner predicts the mass adoption of AI search will drive a 2x increase in PR and earned media budgets by 2027 as organizations adapt to how information is surfaced.
  • Visibility is being reshaped. New data from Muck Rack shows that more than 89% of links cited in AI-generated answers come from earned media sources, not brand websites or paid content.

Together, these signals point to a new reality: visibility is no longer driven primarily by keywords or paid placement but by authority. This shift is closely tied to changing user behavior. People of all ages are rapidly changing how they discover brands, turning to AI platforms (if they know it or not in the case of Google’s AI search)  for recommendations on what to buy and who to trust. 

As a result, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is emerging to address how brands are represented in AI-generated responses and which authoritative sources shape those answers. Because these systems pull from multiple trusted sources, visibility now depends on consistent presence across a broad content ecosystem.

As we’ve discussed previously, Why a Surround-Sound Strategy Is Essential for Brand Visibility, brands must build consistent presence across multiple channels to influence perception and discovery. That approach is now even more critical as AI systems pull from a broad ecosystem of trusted sources.

So how can brands understand how they show up in AI-driven search?

We recommend organizations conduct what we call a Generative Visibility Audit, a new type of assessment that evaluates how a brand appears across AI platforms and answer engines. A growing number of free tools provide a strong starting point, offering visibility snapshots that reveal how brands are represented, which sources are cited, and where gaps or inconsistencies exist. This helps communications teams assess accuracy, authority, and narrative control in generative search environments.

Once brands understand how they appear in AI-driven search, the next step is optimizing how they show up.

Keyword strategy still matters, but its role has evolved. Instead of focusing solely on search rankings, PR and marketing teams must understand the questions audiences are asking and how those questions shape AI-generated responses. Tools such as AnswerThePublic and PageAudit, along with other AI visibility and monitoring platforms, provide insight into emerging queries, conversation themes and how brands appear across generative search environments. These tools help organizations align messaging with real audience intent and identify opportunities to strengthen visibility and authority.

With this shift in mind, brands must rethink how they build visibility and authority. A strong content ecosystem is no longer optional – this is what creates the “surround sound” effect. Owned channels such as blogs, newsletters, and websites must work alongside earned media to create credible signals that AI platforms trust. Within earned media, trade and industry coverage plays an especially important role. While it is often seen as less glamorous than mainstream press, it carries stronger authority signals and heavily influences how brands appear in AI-generated results.

If you want to understand how your brand shows up in AI-driven search and learn more about our Generative Visibility Audit, contact the Double Forte team to get started.