SAID DIFFERENTLY Ep.8: Earned Media's Outsized Role in the AEO/GEO Era
Earned media and PR strategy must be given strong consideration and strategy to help drive visibility in AI-based answer engines. PR leader Evan Boyer talks game planning.
Earned Media Is Back—And Messaging Is the Difference
A conversation with Evan Boyer, Founder of Leaders PR, on Said Differently
On a recent episode of Said Differently, host Jennifer Sikora sat down with Evan Boyer, founder of Leaders PR, to unpack why earned media is having a resurgence— and why messaging discipline is a deciding factor in getting coverage.
With experience spanning both agency life and in-house PR roles across B2B and B2C, Evan launched Leaders PR in 2025 to give challenger brands, startups, and founders more focused support “to help capture some of the attention and coverage that’s available.”
But as the conversation quickly made clear, attention isn’t the hard part. Coherent storytelling is.
PR Starts With Structure, Not Pitches
As Evan explained, many companies approach PR the wrong way, treating it like another sales channel instead of a distinct storytelling motion. “There’s a real need to help businesses develop a structure for their storytelling.”
That structure, he emphasized, must be built for journalists, not buyers. “It can’t be about you... it’s not a sales pitch.”
Jennifer reinforced this distinction, particularly for founders accustomed to telling their story in sales or investor contexts. “That founder’s story has to be told in a different way to get earned media... executing that message to journalists vs. in a sales conversation," she said. "Journalists don’t care about your features.”
The First 90 Days: From Discovery to Narrative Framework
When asked how he sets clients up for success, Evan described a deliberate onboarding process. The first 90 days include a focus on background and discovery: understanding the company, its go-to-market motion, and the broader trends shaping its category. From there, the work shifts toward building a narrative framework that connects the company’s story to what the market already cares about.
Just as important is alignment. Evan cautioned against letting PR narratives drift too far from core GTM messaging. (Something that Troupe helps with!)
To keep teams honest, he uses a scorecard to track key messages that are flagged as goals and how frequently they come up in coverage.
Execution matters as much as strategy. Evan regularly incorporates media training and coaching so spokespeople can deliver key messages while still engaging journalists authentically.
PR, he noted, should also be goal-driven. Those goals might include educating the market, sharing customer success, raising a company’s profile for fundraising or M&A, increasing awareness with a target persona, repairing reputation, or even shortening sales cycles by building brand trust.
Earned Media’s Role in AEO and GEO
A major theme of the episode was the growing importance of earned media in AI-driven discovery. As Evan said: “If you want to be a leader, you’re going to need to crack GEO strategy. So much of that has to do with earned media these days.”
Jennifer observed the broader shift in trust dynamics. “I feel like earned media is having a big comeback moment... it’s like the snow globe got shaken up again, said differently. People are trusting third-party content more than your own generated content.”
Evan pointed to recent data from Muck Rack’s Generative Pulse Report, noting that 49% of links cited by AI are categorized as journalism. For companies aiming to show up in AEO and GEO results, earned media isn’t optional.
His advice: diversify content formats, understand where competitors are appearing, and invest in original data and research that answer engines can cite.
As Evan put it plainly: “If you’re a business that’s looking to grow and gain more market share, you’ve got to have [PR].”