Category: Blog

AI search is reshaping PR – Here’s what communications professionals need to know

Posted on by Jennie Holland

Search is changing, and so is the way audiences discover brands, so it’s important we keep track of how this is working.

During a recent Cision AI webinar, one message stood out above all others – AI-powered search isn’t a future trend, it’s already influencing how people find, evaluate and trust organisations.

For PR professionals, that presents both a challenge and a significant opportunity, with AI becoming the new front door to information.

Large Language Models (LLMs) are rapidly changing online behaviour and ChatGPT is reaching around 700 million weekly users. AI-powered search is becoming an increasingly important way for people to research brands, products and services and it needs to be taken seriously.

Industry forecasts suggest that by 2028, AI could become a primary destination for information discovery, with AI-driven search continuing to grow significantly over the next few years. For communications teams, this means if your brand isn’t visible in AI-generated responses, you’re missing an emerging audience.

One of the biggest misconceptions is that AI models simply search the internet in the same way as traditional search engines, but AI-generated responses are heavily influenced by trusted, authoritative sources. Coverage in high-quality news publications plays a particularly important role in this, alongside credible online content and conversations taking place across social media.

This reinforces that earned media matters more than ever and its impact extends beyond reputation and SEO, it also helps shape how AI understands and recommends brands.

The webinar highlighted that AI visibility shouldn’t be viewed in isolation and brands need to understand how traditional media, online publications, owned content and social conversations work together to influence AI-generated responses.

Rather than focusing on one channel, communications strategies should consider the complete digital footprint that AI systems are likely to reference, and this creates a valuable opportunity for PR teams to strengthen their role within the wider marketing strategy by demonstrating how earned media contributes to discoverability in AI search.

Understanding the prompts that matter was another key takeaway and these generally fall into ‘branded prompts’, where users search specifically for your organisation or products, and ‘unbranded prompts’, where users ask broader questions such as ‘Which companies specialise in crisis communications?’

Understanding where your brand appears and doesn’t appear provides valuable insight into your visibility and competitive position. The fundamentals of good PR haven’t changed and building strong relationships with journalists, securing coverage in trusted publications and creating authoritative content remain essential. The difference is that these activities are now influencing not only human audiences, but also the AI systems increasingly shaping how information is discovered.

If you’re looking for support with reaching your audiences in the right places, please get in touch.

ENDS

From expertise to influence: Why every communications strategy needs thought leadership

Posted on by Jennie Holland

When we talk to our clients, we remind them that reputation is built on more than project portfolios alone. Stakeholders, clients, investors, policymakers and industry peers increasingly want to hear from the people behind the businesses. Whether it’s those shaping the conversations, solving challenges or reacting to legislation updates, those voices influence the future of the industry and are invaluable.

At its core, thought leadership is about sharing expertise with purpose, as it positions spokespeople as credible, knowledgeable voices on the issues that matter most. In the built environment this can be topics ranging from sustainability and planning reform to skills and materials shortages, innovation and changing market trends.

Rather than waiting for opportunities to arise, a strategic communications programme creates and identifies the moments that will matter for thought leadership.

For PR specialists, it’s about far more than securing media coverage, and we are consistently building a platform for clients to share informed perspectives across multiple channels. This could include podcast interviews, expert Q&As, detailed features, regular by-lined articles, keynote speaking opportunities, panel discussions, proactive opinion pieces or reactive commentary that responds quickly to breaking or evolving industry news.

A well-executed thought leadership strategy delivers long-term value for clients through regular visibility, which reinforces credibility and strengthens relationships with key stakeholders.

It also supports commercial objectives by enhancing brand perception, creating opportunities to engage new audiences and helping attract both clients and talent. The most effective thought leadership is authentic and reflects genuine expertise, rather than pushing promotional messaging – offering insight to inform, educate and when necessary, challenge conventional thinking.

By identifying the right topics, aligning them with business priorities and maintaining a steady pipeline of opportunities, communications teams can ensure their clients remain relevant.

The value of having your story told properly

Posted on by Jennie Holland

For many growing businesses, marketing is often focused on immediate results – lead generation, sales, social media performance, and advertising campaigns. But alongside these activities, PR plays an important role in shaping how a brand is seen, trusted and talked about.

Many companies reach a point where they realise they have a strong story to tell, but not enough time or expertise internally to communicate it consistently, and it’s at that point when businesses begin their search for PR support.

PR is not just about securing media coverage, a strong PR strategy helps businesses build credibility, strengthen brand awareness and position themselves as experts within their industry. Whether it’s sharing company milestones, content capture support at events, commenting on industry trends and legislations, launching new services and products or thought leadership in top tier media, PR helps businesses stay part of the conversation.

For marketing teams, external PR support can also provide valuable strategic input and an experienced PR partner brings fresh ideas, media relationships and an outside perspective that can help identify opportunities a business may otherwise overlook.

Another reason businesses invest in PR support is consistency – when communications are handled reactively or squeezed in around other priorities, opportunities can easily be missed. Having dedicated PR support ensures messaging remains aligned, proactive and connected to wider business goals.

The media and digital landscape as we know, is always evolving, and audiences expect brands to communicate with clarity and authority. Businesses that invest in PR are often better positioned to build trust and improve their reputation over time.
Ultimately, PR is about more than publicity, it’s about helping businesses tell the right story to the right audience – making sure that story continues to grow alongside the business itself.

Why authentic storytelling is the most powerful tool for people and brands

Posted on by Jennie Holland

With audiences more informed, connected and sceptical than ever before, traditional promotional tactics can fall flat when it comes to capturing attention and building trust.

Carefully crafted statements and polished campaigns can go as far as dominating media spaces, but audiences don’t just want to hear from brands, they want to have a real understanding of them.

Authentic storytelling shifts the focus from what you sell to why you exist and reveals the human side of a business – its values, purpose, challenges overcome and most importantly, the people behind it all.

Sharing real journeys, including setbacks and lessons learned, signals credibility and shows that you’re human, not just presenting an image. It creates emotional connections that traditional advertising can’t replicate, alongside trust, at a time when consumers are quick to question anything that feels overly rehearsed or insincere.

Every brand claims to be innovative, customer-focused, and forward-thinking but these phrases have become so common that they’ve lost impact with many brands struggling to obtain differentiation in a crowded market.

Opening a window into your reality by sharing authentic stories ensures the origin of a brand and its perspective are unique, and can help set your company apart from competitor.

As a PR partner we can help you step away from polished narratives and embrace vulnerability through authentic storytelling, to move people and help engagement with your brand.

Whether it’s the journey of the founder, a client success story or showing more of the behind-the-scenes activity in your organisation – we help to capture and champion the moments that inspire and connect with others.

Get in touch to find out how we can help you.

How we should be changing our PR strategies for generative search in 2026

Posted on by Jennie Holland

We’ve seen our industry adapt to plenty of shifts from the rise of digital-first media to the growing importance of ESG narratives.

One of the most significant changes we’re navigating right now is the emergence of generative engine optimisation (GEO) and how content is discovered, interpreted and surfaced by AI- tools such as large language models and generative search platforms. While it’s still evolving, it’s already shaping how we think and put together PR strategies and it’s important for us to consider at all times.

For those of us working with developers, consultants, architects and contractors, this matters more than it might first appear, because traditionally, PR has focused on media relationships, coverage quality and visibility in the right titles.

While this hasn’t changed, the way our stories are being found and reused has, because increasingly AI tools are pulling from trusted, authoritative sources. Enquiries for our clients in the built environment may be around planning policy, sustainability, housing delivery, infrastructure and net zero for example, and the most important thing for us is placing our clients at the heart of those conversations, so they don’t risk being invisible when it comes to AI search.

GEO is encouraging us to think more carefully about clarity, credibility and consistency in media, which means curating messages that are not only newsworthy, but useful. Vague statements or overly promotional language don’t work well, but being clear on expertise and messaging can ensure client content lands well.

In practical terms, we’re paying closer attention to how thought leadership is structured, how spokespeople explain themselves, and how often our clients’ insights appear in top tier, relevant media. Trade media, technical commentary and long-form expert opinion is valued and ensuring this is part of all PR strategies is becoming even more important as a signal of authority.

For us, the opportunity lies in helping clients position themselves not just as newsmakers, but as trusted voices. GEO reinforces the value of PR done well – thoughtful, informed and rooted in expertise.

While the landscape will continue to change, we are here to talk to our clients about what they should be doing and when. If you’re looking at your 2026 strategy, get in touch with us for a chat on how we can help you.

ENDS

Where our audiences really are – how we can rethink pr for the future

Posted on by Jennie Holland

The media landscape is shifting faster than ever, and social media has now overtaken traditional channels as the main way people consume news. During Cision’s Deep Dive Episode 2: Rethinking PR in a social-first world, insight specialists, Nadin Vernon and Barnaby Barron, explored how this shift is reshaping audience behaviour, platform dynamics and the role of PR.

One of the clearest changes today is who uses social media and how. Compared with 2019, today’s social audience is older, more male-skewed and far more reliant on social feeds to discover news, with only a small minority now visiting news websites directly.

This means PR content must be built to land where its online audiences are and bringing it to life for social and audio and visual multi-channel content is even more important. Across platforms – TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, which dominate daily life, Cision looked at which channels captured certain sentiments.

The research showed that audiences view certain platforms as more joyful or positive, meaning that where a piece of content appears will influence how audiences interpret it.

At the same time, journalists are using social differently and many remain highly active on X and LinkedIn, even though audiences increasingly spend their time on TikTok and YouTube. This creates parallel ecosystems – one where media professionals find stories, and another where the public engages with them.

The lines between PR and social continue to blur, and the alignment of these specialisms is vital to ensure brand reputation remains streamlined and authentic. Reputation is now shaped through a mix of traditional coverage, social listening, influencer engagement and paid amplification, and all of these channels need to work together. Even the boundaries between owned, earned and paid are less clear than before, especially with influencers who may sit somewhere in between.

Rather than dividing budgets by discipline, Cision encourages brands to think in terms of outcomes and the role each channel plays in strategies. Measuring success requires looking at the combined impact of editorial, social conversation and content performance, rather than attributing results to a single post or article.

Overall, the shift towards a social-first world demands a more integrated, channel-aware approach to PR. Content must be tailored to the emotional context of each platform, aligned with brand reputation and designed to travel across multiple formats. The brands that succeed will be those that connect traditional credibility with the immediacy, creativity and influence of social media – meeting audiences wherever they choose to engage.

Need advice on where to find your audiences? Get in touch with us for 2026.

Why hyper-relevant content can be the most powerful part of your comms strategy

Posted on by Jennie Holland

by Rebecca Morris

In an age of constant updates and online activity, every brand wants to be at the forefront of the news conversation. In striving to achieve this we can lose touch with what really matters – reality and credibility.

Writing for every industry is totally different, but in the case of clients in the built environment sector, which is one industry we specialise in, there are so many exciting opportunities to talk about real-world progress, building, and community-centric activity – as our clients constantly expand their portfolios and progress with schemes that have pivotal roles in shaping the future of society.

Hyper-relevant content isn’t about reacting to every single trend or news story out there, it’s about understanding your target and niche audiences in their own worlds – from sustainability journeys to policy changes, industry challenges and community activity – and communicating clearly and authentically within that mediascape.

Every brand has an ambition and a vision of the future it’s building, and that’s incredibly important, but the most successful brands balance ambition and reality, and communicate their journeys in a transparent and helpful way to both their industries and audiences, which is what credibility is all about.

For example, it’s one thing to talk about achieving net zero, it’s another to show what’s already being done on that journey – the pilot project, the partnerships that are making a difference for the world and moving the dial. The most effective PR doesn’t gloss over the gap between vision and progress, it narrates it clearly, communicating momentum and not perfection. If possible, helping others along the way with expert advice and thought leadership.

At Jennie Holland PR, we often remind clients that people don’t expect you to have finished the job, they just want to see that the work is real. As experts in communication, we’re here to advise on the stories you should tell and what will work.

Reputation isn’t built on how loudly a brand speaks, but how consistently it acts, and hyper-relevant content should reflect the same principles as a well-run project or scheme – clear foundations, robust materials and strong care and attention to detail.

That means aligning communications with operations – making sure what’s said in the press release matches what’s happening on-site and behind the scenes. It also means empowering people on the ground to tell the story, as the human perspective will always resonate more impactfully.

For any advice on how to improve your communications and storytelling as we approach the new year, please get in touch the team for a chat.

Strategic PR planning for 2026

Posted on by Jennie Holland

Well, it’s November, so that means marketing teams are well into 2026 planning – or should be!

Before we make plans for 2026, it’s worth looking at the market we delivered in this year. 2025 brought global uncertainty and a shifting media landscape. It’s been a challenging year for many, however, we have the fresh sheet of paper moment to come in only eight weeks – a new page for a new chapter full of opportunity.

So let’s talk PR plans for 2026. Cision, our media outreach and monitoring partner, have put together some straight forward but thought-provoking suggestions to get your 2026 PR plan on the move based on a strategic approach to growth. Hope it’s helpful.

1. Measure what matters

Don’t just report on PR metrics that have nothing to do with your campaigns. Tie your KPIs back to the core business objectives and prove your impact for the business as a whole.

2. Turn Credibility into a long-term strategy

Credibility is not something you tick off your goals list – it should be an ongoing effort. Your goal is to become a trusted voice in your industry’s conversation, not just a source that gets quoted once.

3. Turn data into action

Data is not just about numbers; it’s about what they mean for your brand. When measured effectively, PR metrics can help you readjust your strategies and make more informed decisions.

4. Define the wins

Focus on clarity and consistency. Be adaptable across platforms but keep your core message the same to build trust and recognition.

In summary, success in PR in 2026 means staying focused, consistent, adaptable, and data-driven.

Need some help getting your plan together for 2026 and then the execution? Jennie Holland PR can bring real change to your business.

The rise of micro-media

Posted on by Jennie Holland

In today’s crowded media landscape, choosing the right platform can mean the difference between your story being seen, or completely overlooked, which is why the rise of micro-media outlets, (independent blogs, specialist newsletters, podcasts, and niche community platforms presents) present regional digital PR agencies, like ours, with exciting but most importantly impactful opportunities for our clients.

For nearly a decade, JHPR has been rooted in the Midlands, working across a wide range of sectors. While national media coverage can bring prestige and impressive numbers, the reality for many of our clients’ businesses is that growth happens closer to home, through local and meaningful connections. And that’s where micro-media comes in. It’s a natural extension of our approach to help brands build authentic, targeted relationships with the people and platforms that genuinely matter to their audience.

Micro-media outlets thrive on specificity, whether that’s geographic or industry focused. Consider a Nottingham-based food Instagram account, a Midlands-wide sustainability podcast, or a niche property investment newsletter reaching specific professionals nationwide. The common thread is an engaged audience that cares deeply about the topic or the community that they follow.

For regional PR agencies, this level of focus is invaluable. It allows us to connect brands with like-minded audiences who are genuinely interested in what they have to say. Instead of relying solely on often unobtainable broad national coverage, micro-media enables targeted, meaningful engagement that drives recognition and trust. For regional businesses, it strengthens local networks. For nationwide companies in niche industries, it reaches the decision-makers and enthusiasts who matter most.

Regional PR is all about relationships, and micro-media platforms tend to be run by people with a real passion for their subject matter, so collaborating with them allows PR agencies to combine genuine connections with well-planned messaging for their clients. Whether through thought-leadership, interviews, or co-creating content, these connections help brands align themselves with community voices.

Here are some of our practical tips for tapping into micro media…

  • Map your niche: Identify local social platforms, blogs, podcasts, and newsletters relevant to your sector. Property, food, culture, and tech are rich areas for micro-media.
  • Engage genuinely: Treat micro-media creators as collaborators, not just as a distribution channel. Comment, share, and contribute ideas.
  • Offer value: Provide tailored content such as expert insights, exclusive stories, or community initiatives that resonate with their audience.
  • Think long-term and build ongoing relationships: Micro-media thrives on consistency and loyalty, much like regional communities themselves.

As audiences become more selective in the content they consume, micro-media and niche platforms will continue to grow. For regional PR agencies, this presents a unique advantage as we already operate within tight-knit networks where authenticity and personal relationships are key.

At the same time, for nationwide brands in specialist industries, these platforms unlock direct access to the type of people they want to reach. It’s targeted, cost-effective, and builds meaningful engagement that mass media alone cannot deliver.

At JHPR, we believe great PR is about connecting in the right places with the right people. We identify your audience, create the relevant content and then map that content to those audiences. Micro-media gives brands, local or national, a powerful new way to do just that.

How to build long-term client relationships that thrive

Posted on by Jennie Holland

by Account Director, Rebecca Morris

Our clients are the heart of our business, and they make coming to work everyday worth it.

The team can agree that we are blessed with the most wonderful clients – clients who we can laugh and create with, who can reminisce about old successes, challenges and events, and look to the future to say, ‘what’s next’?

In PR and communications, success and value hinges on strong relationships and while delivering results is crucial for us – it’s the human connection, trust, collaboration and empathy that sustains partnerships over time.

Put basically, there are things we swear by in terms of fostering and maintaining optimal relationships, and here they are:

  1. Clear, human-centered communication

Communication should feel consistent, helpful and personal. Take time to ask about and understand communication preferences and get to understand the personalities, passions and pressures. Do clients prefer certain times to talk? Are they better on WhatsApp, a phone call or a regular Teams in the diary? A thoughtful follow-up, quick check-in and consistency can go a long way to fostering genuine connections and relationships.

  1. Be proactive and personable

Offering forward-thinking strategies shows professionalism, but this can only go so far in building relationships. Empathy and understanding are what will really help when building trust, and that is one of the most valuable things you can have with your client. Whether anticipating challenges or suggesting new ideas, ensure your approach is rooted in your client’s real-world context and the more you learn about them, the better that understanding will be.

  1. Energise

While clients expect deliverables, they also rely on you to support and energise ideas to ensure you collaborate for a positive outcome – it could be a new campaign idea, reactive comment or event session – you are there to bring deliverables to life and it’s this positive energy and interaction that makes you stand out from the rest in the world of communications.

  1. Build relationships beyond the brief

Building wider relationships is the most fulfilling part of being client-facing and there is nothing more satisfying than celebrating wins together, seeing progress happen and celebrating Christmas together. Ask how clients are, remember the small touches matter and it will make all the difference to everyone involved.

  1. Navigate challenges with empathy

Tough conversations are part and parcel of communications so it’s best to approach with honesty, emotional intelligence and most importantly – empathy. Alongside focusing on solutions, taking ownership of issues while listening and showing understanding is going to help work through a choppy situation, turning a difficult decision into a defining one.

It’s important that we never underestimate the power of showing up as a person first, and a professional second in communications and we believe this is the key to cultivating a thriving partnership. If you’re looking to discuss your PR and communications strategy, let us know – we’d love to get to know you.

ENDS