How PR Influences What AI Says About Your Healthcare Brand

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Welcome to the Healthcare Success Podcast. Today, I get to interview another friend that I've had for quite a while, Kelsey Kloss. Kelsey is a PR expert, and she is going to talk to us today. She's actually the founder and, I think CEO, right, of Kloss Creatives PR, and she's been working in healthcare PR for a long time, and we were talking the other day about the importance of PR on AI, and we thought this would be just a great podcast. So welcome, Kelsey.

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR): Great, thank you for the great interest. We're really excited to be here talking with you about this topic today. It's an exciting time.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, I bet, for PR, for sure. So, just a little context for our listeners, PR has always been an important part of the marketing mix, and Kelsey, I don't know if I've shared this with you, but when I'm meeting with new healthcare or prospective clients, we often talk about 6 ways to market any healthcare organization, and so I'm gonna throw those out right now.

Number one would be the brand, right? The whole thing, everything about the brand. Number two would be, digital marketing, which is where, you know, we do a lot of work in all these areas here, but digital marketing is another category that you would expect a lot of people are interested today. Number three is traditional media.

And so, most people would expect agencies that are integrated to do those three things, but we also think about the other three things. So, the fourth category would be HCP marketing, like, how do we get referrals, or recommendations, or prescriptions, or whatever, depending on the type of business we're working with. Number 5 would be the patient experience, and internal marketing to those patients that you've already got.

And number 6 is PR. So, and we've usually… we've been building marketing plans for many years, thinking about around those 6 categories. And PR… actually, I'll let you answer this question, because a lot of people really get confused about PR, and what does that mean, so I'd love you to just do a quick definition of the kinds of things that PR typically includes. Just more… we'll talk about AI in a minute, but just more traditionally.

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR):  Absolutely. When most people think about PR, they think about big headlines, maybe in legacy media outlets, the New York Times, broadcast, even podcasts, digital media, of course, as well.

Usually when people think PR, they think media coverage, which is what it traditionally has been. But the perspective that we take is that it can never be about just the headlines. If you're generating headlines just for the sake of generating headlines that's not going to get you too far. PR really has to act as a tool, not just for that initial visibility and the eyeballs on those articles, but to drive your other marketing channels, whether that is SEO, AI, increasingly, as we see, feeding content into your social media channels, there really has to be that end intention and end goal for PR to have the greatest effect.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Very good. And a lot of times, you know, this is funny, people that are not big marketers will confuse… they'll throw these terms around altogether, like, well, we're gonna get some PR, or they really mean advertising, or we're gonna do marketing, or whatever. But to help you, if you're new to this category, the simple definition I always use is, if you pay for it, it's advertising. If the media covers you for free, it's PR. There's no other way of looking at it. It's a very simple bifurcation. And PR, actually can include a lot of other things, too, like, particularly, like, crisis management, which would be, I guess, a subset of getting press, trying to get less press, or control press, you know, corporate communications, oftentimes, community events, but for the day, we're going to talk about which, you know, the term I like to use is publicity. Getting press, is, you know, the biggest component and the most important for today.

So, I mentioned a minute ago that, AI is changing everything, and I'm gonna set this up a little bit for Kelsey, and then, we'll talk about it. So when we're teaching about… people ask us every day, how do I show up on AI? And we talk… again, I have an easy context. Again, coincidentally, 6 things. So, we talk about, okay, well, what matters… has always mattered, would be your technical SEO and your content. That mattered before, it matters today just as much, but in different ways. Local SEO and reputation, if you're a provider, local, and either way, reputation, that's… those other two things are big, broad categories.

And then finally, brand, is a super important category. And, then finally, PR, and digital PR. So we're going to focus on PR today, but it's one of the six really important drivers. And so, Kelsey, I'm going to jump in on more of that, but tell me, like, what are your thoughts, and what are you seeing today?

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR):  Absolutely. Well, when we're thinking about PR and the scope of AI, you know, PR has already always had a purpose and an impact on your overall marketing ecosystem. But today, it has greater impact and greater importance than ever. Some industry reports are showing that up to 90% of links cited in AI come from earned media, which is another word for PR, press coverage. Like news articles, blog posts, thought leadership content. And when a user asks about the latest information on a certain topic, about 50% of those AI-cited links are true journalism.

So what we're seeing is that AI really, really likes journalism, it really likes that objective earned media, because it sees it as authoritative, credible, objective. That said, there is also a place for things like press releases, which come directly from a company, which are also seen as authoritative and can play a role in that, that AI sales funnel. So, you know, that's where we're seeing the importance of PR in this new world of AI, and there's a lot that we can talk about, too, when it comes to how journalists are using it in the newsroom, and what that means for healthcare brands investing in PR.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, absolutely. And so, I think what you just said there was the part I was going to double down on, is that AI is looking for trust at the end of the day. I had a really interesting… I'm an A devotee, I'm like, I spend a lot of time with AI, and we at our company use it in many, many ways, and we actually have something we call AI and Innovation Club every month, and a lot of our people are leading the way. And in any organization of humans, some people are going to be more you know, innovative and forward-thinking than others, and our company tends to have a few more, a higher percentage, maybe a little, but definitely we've embraced it. And the thing is that AI is really looking for, and this is the key factor, and this is becoming more common, for people to understand, Google would show up a bunch of options with blue links, but AI is making recommendations. It's very different. They're not saying, oh, well, here's about 10,000 or 100,000 people you could choose from. It's saying, these are the top 2 or 3. And so that's very different.

And it's funny, because, like, our own agency, for example, has been really a beneficiary of this. We've been getting many, many more inquiries as a result of AI. You're nodding your head. You have a comment on that?

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR):  Yes, oh, we've seen absolutely the same thing.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah. So, AI is choosing, so they're looking for signals, and just like you said, Kelsey, they… you can toot your own horn all day, but if other people are talking about you, then it must be true. And that really goes back to, you know, Kelsey, like, in the early days of Google. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, they figured out this idea that links are, you know, third party. And that's really kind of an extension of that, and that, of course, was game. That's a long story off-topic today, but really, again, it is, like, not just what you say about yourself, but what others say about yourself.

So, another comment before I pivot here?

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR):  You know, what I'll say about that is this concept of being chosen by AI is so important, in one perspective, you know, it gives us such opportunity to guide that conversation through PR.

On the other hand, I do think that there's also a bigger risk to being left out of that conversation, because with Google, you can keep scrolling, you can keep looking for more and more options, or more and more results. But with AI, if you're being fed 5 results, you really want to make sure that your company is in those 5 results. Just for the opportunity of being discovered.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, and it's funny, because the other thing that I've noticed with our clients and with ourselves, when people call off of AI, the conversation is different. Have you seen the same thing?

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR):  You know, I have. Those conversations seem to be very focused, very intentional, and they know what they're looking for.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, that's exactly the same thing. It's… the people that are “I'm so excited to talk to you! I spent an hour with the bots, and it keeps coming back to you, so I feel like you must know something,” so… and I bet you're seeing the same thing.

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR): Yes, it really is that extra layer of social proof. You can get that from the media, and then when AI also recommends you, it's like being recommended by one other very trusted entity. So, it goes a long way.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, it's a little, I don't know, a little weird when you say trusted entity. I know my bot so well now, and I told it, by the way, to remember me, Kelsey, because I don't want to start my conversation over and over again, and you can do that with the paid subscriptions. And, it's like, so it is kind of like a trusted friend in a weird sort of way.

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR):  Right, it knows you.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, for sure. Well, let's go back to something you raised a minute ago. So, how are journalists integrating AI into the newsroom? I'd love to get our… one of the things people that listen to our podcast and read our stuff, love getting, like, a bird's eye view, looking over the shoulder of what's it like to be, you know, us in many instances, but in this case, I want to look over Kelsey's shoulder and see what's happening in your world and in the world of journalists. So let's start in the journalist world. How are… why are they using AI?

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR):  Right, right. Of course this is such a big topic, because nobody wants to see AI replace original thought, original, you know, writing and tone and expression, but it's actually being used in really beneficial ways in the newsroom. At this very moment, you know, we're seeing AI tools being integrated into newsroom workflows for those more practical tasks.

But also to brainstorm story angles and headlines, you know, simplify some of those more repetitive tasks. And also, importantly, when it comes to the health space, compile relevant studies.

Journalists are under a great deal of expectations to source very high-quality studies from the past 5 years, usually, that have a certain number of participants, that are, published in a, you know, certain caliber journal. And AI can help them discover the right fit studies for whatever topic that they're looking for.

So an editor may start by doing an initial outline with AI, send that to the journalist. The journalist may then use AI to source appropriate studies, maybe better understand some of these studies as well. Of course, we sometimes see a lot of medical terms or jargon in studies, you know.

How do they put that into plain language? It's important for the journalists to double-check that always, of course, because AI can make mistakes.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): No.

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR): So, any, any response? We'll triple check that. And by the way, I say this from the POV of someone who works in the PR space, but I'm also a journalist myself. That's my bread and butter. I've always been a health reporter and still contribute to health outlets to this day. So that's what I'm seeing from my own personal experience as well.

These AI tools, they're not perfect. They do require a human eye for review, so it's not as though journalists are creating articles with AI and putting it out there and publishing it, especially at reputable outlets and organizations. They really need to shield against liability, and they also need to maintain a publication's tone.

But when used wisely, AI can really substantially boost productivity for these journalists and editors. But they're also being taught how to write content that shows up in AI results.

So that may involve having really clear takeaway at the top of the article. Editors want to see journalists answering the question that a headline poses at the very top of the article. They don't want it buried under context. They want it clear, easy to understand, and that's what AI engines like as well.

You might see more Q&As in articles, very straightforward questions being answered by research and expert sources.

And then finally, journalists are looking to avoid AI-generated quotes. And we'll talk about AI experts shortly, I'm sure, but one risk in this space is that if journalists receive quotes via email, which is a very common practice in the industry, more and more experts are using AI to shape those quotes. But you, of course, want an original voice, and original expertise, from an expert. And this is a great learning, too, for any, you know, healthcare companies that may be putting experts out in the public eye or contributing to publications.

A lot of these journalists do have software that will flag if a quote is AI-generated, and if that quote is submitted through a platform like Quotit, where journalists are actively using it to source experts, those experts will very quickly be flagged to everyone if they do use AI in their quotes and responses.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Wow, very interesting. There's a lot to unpack there. I want to actually, before we go deeper into some of the questions we talked about before, several things.

One of the things that I love about using AI as we're thinking about, for our own writing, or for clients, or just doing research, especially just to talk about doing research, is to get context for what's going on. So, for example, I can imagine a journalist, they've quoted seven… they're looking at 7 different sources and trying to figure out what are the common threads? Is that a common use, Kelsey? Because it can be mind-numbing if you're trying to figure out what… what does this actually mean?

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR):  Definitely, at finding the common thread, and then also in the healthcare space, we often see research, data, even expert quotes that may contradict each other. And there's a certain nuance there where you have to understand why is this contradictory? In what case is you know, lesson A true, and in what case is Lesson B true? So, I think that having an extra source to understand that and parse that out can be very helpful for health journalists.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, it's really funny, especially if you have multiple sources, right? Because, you know, they could all… there's usually a common theme, and there's… even if you look a little deeper, they may not be contradicting each other, and so it's tricky because the bots can be wrong, dead wrong. And this happens a lot, like, even, you know, with, it's got… it's improving constantly. And there are times when it's really simple questions like that can't possibly be true. Go back and think. And it's like, oh, you're right!

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR):  100%. And, you know, the other thing, too, is that because, you know, AI is trained to have personality, to be helpful, it very quickly adds its own context to, to research or to studies. So if you're asking it, hey, tell me what this study says, it very quickly adds takeaways or information that may not be coming directly from that study, so that's an area where these reporters need to be careful as well.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): So the other thing you said that I thought was really intriguing, and, you know, we work with, very senior writers and, you know, professional writers, always, and even the most senior writer once in a while needs to be like, look at this, like, where's the lead? It's like, that's a class… isn't it a classic thing in journalism, too? Like, where's the lead?

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR):  Don’t bury the lead.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, that's probably the first thing you learn, right? When you're taking a journalism classes, don't bury the lead. And so, it's so important to get those, especially with AI, and so just for our listeners' sake. They are so often just trying to answer a question, and if you cannot beat around the bush, you never could.

Good journalism, good writing says it at the very top. It's not like build to a big crescendo 3 paragraphs down, you've lost them, right? I'd love to expand upon that. It's basic, but it's so important to the bots and humans.

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR):  Absolutely. You know, every media outlet is a little different, but I think, you know, 10, 20 years ago, we were seeing a lot more, personality, kind of fun quips, little anecdotes be injected into writing.

These days, editors and readers, they want to get to the meat of the story right away, and so do AI engines, of course. So, what we're seeing is, less appetite for that, kind of bouncy, fun writing that felt very conversational. It needs to be direct now. It needs to answer questions right away. There shouldn't be a long intro at the beginning of an article, because you want to answer the, again, what the headline is posing or asking from the get-go.

And then, likewise, in each section that follows, if you have headers throughout this article, each subsection should answer its own subheader’s question right away. And that really keeps it clear and concise. I think we all can learn a lot from how AI does, you know, write things in a very digestible, easy-to-understand way, and that's increasingly becoming the expectation for human writing as well.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): I love that, insight, because, you know, it's funny, as you're talking about these things, I've been writing direct response copy for many, many years.

And it's exactly the same thing. Whenever I would tell a writer, because direct response is its own thing, but, you know, I would always use the subheads to tell the story, and basically, if you just read the headline and the subs, you get the whole point. It's building an argument in a very concise, logical way, and if you don't do that, the reader's just adrift in a pile of words, and I think that's really intriguing.

The idea to make sure your headlines are answering questions for the AI as well. And, so that's a great insight there. So…

So, let's go back to the journalists. So, I took you off track a little bit, but I'm just… this is so much fun, I'm going, as I often do, to other directions. But going back to what we were talking about, so the journalists use it, the way they're using the AI in newsrooms, what does that mean for brands investing in PR?

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR): Definitely. Well, it's great news for these brands, because they're truly able to get ahead of that curve and win that visibility race by investing in PR.

You know, media outlets are investing in getting their content to show up in AI. So that stat that I shared before, you know, already we're seeing such a huge majority of AI-cited links coming from the media, and now media is further optimizing their articles and their content so that it shows up more and more in AI.

So it's a great opportunity for brands to shape that conversation, and in different ways. So, you know, I can share a little bit about some data that we learned from working with, a supplement brand that was very aggressively investing in PR for AI, and one method, of that strategy, one piece of that strategy, was publishing a monthly press release.

And what we saw after a few months of monthly press releases is, you know, we compared what was driving citations at the category level. So let's say, what's the best brand supplement for heart disease, or the best brand supplement of turmeric?

The category-level responses, what you might think of as top of funnel, are being informed by best-of lists. So, that's where you really want to land in the media, the best supplements for X, Y, and Z. Those are truly what's driving almost all of those answers.

Then, once you get to that mid-funnel stage, so consideration, someone's vetting your brand. So maybe they're saying, what are the… is XYZ Supplement Brand a clean brand, or does it create, you know, high-quality supplements?

At that stage, we're seeing press releases, which are owned by the company themselves play a role in informing those answers. And that's really exciting, because a company can distribute a press release and shape that narrative for AI, so it knows exactly what to serve in response to those mid-level consideration-stage queries.

And we typically distribute through PR Newswire, which is considered an authoritative source by AI. So there are multiple opportunities for these brands to use PR to inform those AI responses at every stage of the funnel. And I mention the funnel because it's not just about discoverability. A lot of people talk about AI discoverability, but there are different stages of the, you know, sales customer journey within AI as well.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Great. What else would you say about, like, the media coverage, then, is informing the AI response? So you've got the press releases, how does the media coverage inform it as well? Is that… they sort of work together, but I'm curious.

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR):  Definitely. So the press releases are great, again, for when someone's truly trying to vet a brand. The best of lists, the best you know, bone broth brands, the best supplement brands, those are the ones you really want to get on, and you really want to catch those journalists' attention to win at a category level. So when someone doesn't know what brand they want yet, AI is really going to turn to those lists.

But it can go beyond best of lists, too. You know, it can extend to features on a brand, you know, trade outlets, so we're also seeing the very high visibility in AI results. So, you know, it's not just about getting the biggest outlets out there, if you get some great coverage in a trade outlet that's specific to your industry, AI sees that as very authoritative and credible as well.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, for sure. And so, as you're advising clients, is that part of it, when you're thinking through, like, how do you integrate the trade shows, for example?

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR):  Yes, absolutely. So, typically when we're thinking about AI, we're thinking about, let's say, a trade outlet that might be associated with a show, or an industry outlet. There are journalists who go very in-depth with their trade coverage of brands, and those are also great journalists to target if you're launching something new. Usually, you can really win at a trade level for launches, and then the consumer broader coverage comes after that on a more general level.

But that's certainly something that we recommend approaching as part of an overall PR strategy. So, if AI visibility is a key goal for a brand, which I recommend it be for anyone investing in PR, of course, then we really want to look at, alright, we're going to pitch these journalists one-on-one, and tell them about how great your brand is, why it should make it on a best-of list. We're going to target every journalist who has already written a best-of list in the industry, because they're often updating those, and we want to make sure that your brand's included in those updates.

And we're truly going to saturate them so that when a journalist thinks about brands to include, your brand comes top of mind. And that's how we drive that coverage. And then when it comes to the press releases, that's something that can be done on a very regular basis. You know, you can almost always find a moment of news for a company.

We do see that news related to retailers, if we're talking, let's say, a CPG brand, that really tends to resonate both on an SEO and AI level, but it can really be news about anything. It can be news about a new incoming, you know, leader at the company, it can be a stance the company is taking, but having that ongoing stream of company-distributed press releases will really feed into that reference layer for AI as well.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): So, one thing that occurs to me as we're talking about this, because you're approaching this very much the same way we do when we're thinking about our clients. To have a longer-term perspective, like, so that I can see you probably get people when they're reaching out to you, not very experienced in this category, and say, well, I want to do this for, you know, a press release or two, and that's not a strategy, that's a tactic. And that's, you know, it's when we talk about SEO, for example, we're talking about you need a long-term vision, and if you're not looking at it that way, we're probably not the right fit for you, because it's like, if you're already looking at the exit before we start with SEO, that's gonna be a problem. I'm curious what your thoughts are about that are for PR.

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR): Definitely, PR has always needed to be a long-term strategy, and this is true with AI as well. You know, AI models are constantly evolving. The way that your company shows up in those results will change and will evolve. You know, AI results are probabilistic.

They're not deterministic, like search engines. The outputs are somewhat lottery-style, based on single prompts. So what that means is that you need to increase your chances of being included in those responses as much as possible, and you do that with ongoing and steady levels of press.

Models will continuously evolve with each iteration, and that may mean tactics for AI visibility may evolve as well. You know, different models serve results in different ways, and answers can also be somewhat inconsistent. You know, we see about only 20% of brands show up consistently with the same prompt over and over again. But the more press coverage and more third-party social proof you have out there speaking about your brand, the more you’re increasing your chances of your brand being discoverable over the long term.

So it isn’t something that you can put out one press release and hope that can carry you through the next year of a strategy. It needs to be an ongoing machine that you’re feeding.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, and it’s also long-term benefit. You know, if you’re building thought leadership, that word is important: building. But once you have it, it’s an asset. And that’s something that’s always been important for SEO. But you’re never done.

With our company, we started with SEO in mind when we started our company 20 years ago, and we’re thinking about SEO every day. I mean, it’s just the nature of our business. It’s not something that you can ignore.

So let’s go back to—you’re doing all this work, and you’re doing all this work whether it’s conferences or journalism or whatever. How do you measure the impact of third-party and AI responses and overviews? How are you measuring those responses? It’s kind of a black art sometimes.

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR): It really is. And the software for this is evolving. Every group, every agency may have a different way of measuring those results.

There is AI tracking available, some more sophisticated than others. It is quickly growing, but you can track how many citations a given piece of media coverage is leading to and resulting in.

And many AI tracking tools also allow you to track custom prompts over time, so if there is one prompt, like, what's the best, you know, healthcare company for X, Y, and Z, or in this area, then you can track that prompt and really understand how it's changing over time and how your press efforts and other efforts, like owned content on your website, are feeding into that.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Okay, that totally makes sense. So, do the press releases have the same impact as the actual media? I'm guessing no, but I'm curious what your thoughts are.

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR): Right, yes, you know, it really depends on what type of prompt it is. The press releases are really important for validating your company if someone's searching for information specific to your company. And that's great, because that means that, again, you can control that messaging, you can shape what that narrative is, but have it framed in this third-party, trusted entity way that we talked about.

What's neat about press releases is that you can also optimize them to more readily show up in AI results. So, we saw one study found that by adding statistics or including quotes to content for that factual density that we talk a lot about when it comes to AI, that boosted visibility by 40%.

It can be really anything that validates credibility. So, a term like best-selling author, you know, adding subject matter expertise, you know, by this date, 1 in 5 Americans will be over 65. The more stats and factual density you can add to your press releases, the more you can optimize them for AI and to appear in these results.

So, with press releases, even though they may not win at that top-of-funnel category level, if someone's not sure about a brand quite yet. There is a lot of opportunity to optimize them and to win at that mid-level funnel.

For the category level, you're still better off getting earned media coverage where a journalist is writing about you because they truly love your company, your brand, your product.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): I do want to come back to the comment you just said, though. It's like you're controlling your narrative on your own company. Like, if you don't allow… if you don't have a narrative on your company, somebody else will. And that's a scary thought.

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR): It's exactly true, it's exactly true. And, you know, we always want to see press coverage be positive, but at the end of the day, journalists will take their objective, you know, approach to covering your brand. You know, how you pitch them can make a big difference in those potential outcomes, but we really want to get ahead of that narrative by, you know, creating our own content.

And you know, again, the more factually dense it is, the more validity our own content has as well.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): I have an off the cuff question for you that's, I’m just curious if you have any insight on this. I remember back in the day when I first started dealing with journalists, it was always, like, every time you would say, the sky is blue, they would say, well, let me check that. And it was like, I think they grew up watching Woodward and Bernstein, and they were really excited about almost, you know, taking an investigative reporter approach, and once I actually finally had a consultant that said, I'm a former investigative reporter.

It's like, oh, this is gonna be fun. And he was supposed to be a marketing consultant, but everything was like, immediately going to skepticism and back-checking and wanting to… so I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about. We had a client… actually, I wasn't a client, it was a friend of mine that, they developed this, device that was really effective with eating disorders, but they were Swedish, and they were just shocked that they got, when they would get press they would finally get it, and there'd be an article, like, in the Wall Street Journal, with 7 other competing viewpoints.

Is that still the case today? And is it, especially in our world of polarization, like, how does that work? People aren't surprised that not everybody just believes what you say.

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR): Definitely, you know, with the level of information and data that's available out there, journalists, I think, are under more pressure than ever to really back up absolutely every single thing that they write, and their editors are going to be asking those questions, too.

So they need to be prepared to source, you know, everything that they write in an article.

Many outlets have the expectation that each sentence, truly every sentence in an article, is sourced and cited, and that helps for SEO and for their own credibility, but it also helps to fact-check.

Even if an expert contributes a quote, there is often the expectation that that quote be fact-checked by a source online that is from the past 5 years. That does raise the question of, does that limit new original content? Because, you know, if you're contributing a source, and they have a unique point of view, and that doesn't exist anywhere else, is that the best approach? And I think that's open to debate and to conversation.

But, yes, I will say, because of how those citations affect SEO and the traffic that these media outlets get, and because they want to reduce their own liability, especially in the healthcare space, you were seeing more and more demands be put on journalists to, confirm everything is more than correct.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): It's really funny that you said that. We haven't even… we've gone all this time without even talking about E-E-A-T or Your Money or Your Life.

So, for those, for the uninitiated, EEAT, expertise, experience, authority, and trust, and YMYL, your money or your life, these are topics that are very common if you're thinking about SEO. These are not new terms.

But they matter even more with AI, and it's funny, because, you know, our writing team is always thinking about sourcing and making sure that we get doctors to approve it. I'm seeing this now more on other agencies' work, as well as our own, where it's like, this post was reviewed and approved by Dr. X. to… because that's what they're looking for.

They're looking for authority in this day of incredible misinformation, where everybody has an opinion. Doesn't mean it's right, but everybody has an opinion. I think that they're looking for sources of truth, and that's really intriguing to me. I don't know, like, any additional comments on that before we move on?

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR): Yes, it's… it's so true. You know, I think that the age of misinformation has driven a lot of this as well. There is so much misinformation out there, and that can be very dangerous in the health space in particular, where people are truly turning to this journalism, often to make decisions, about their health… sometimes before consulting a doctor, and you know, of course, that's never recommended. You always want to go straight to the doctor first, but, a lot of people are, turning to these outlets to make some, you know, impactful decisions about their health and well-being.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, for sure. So, what mistakes do people make when they're, or companies make when they're using AI for earned media content? Like, what are some of the mistakes you see in this field?

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR): Yes, you know, one thing that I would want to caution against is going after quick wins. We're starting to see what appears to almost be AI content farms, where there are these, these outlets, that are creating a ton of best-of lists, and they're covering different companies, but they have, you know, zero traffic, a zero authority score, and they're not actual media outlets, but they are showing up in AI results.

So, although this may show up in citation results now, similar to Google Search, I do expect that the ways AI models vet information will continue to evolve and become more and more sophisticated, as they already so quickly are, and those less credible quote-unquote media coverage options, will really quickly become obsolete.

So, I wouldn't take any shortcuts there. Again, we're playing the long game here. We want credibility, we want social proof from meaningful outlets that people actually visit, and that's what's really going to help brands win in the long run when it comes to AI visibility.

We've also seen some unfortunate instances where companies will create made-up AI experts. And this is a big conversation in the journalism community now, because some journalists, you know, they're always looking for experts, so some companies are creating fake photos, fake expertise, and pitching that to journalists. And if a journalist is receiving quotes over email, it can be easy to make that mistake. And then maybe that expert leads to what's really a lead generation site, or something not very authentic as a company.

But of course, that just ends up being a PR nightmare once it's exposed. You're gonna be blacklisted from ever speaking to journalists, and companies and media outlets are really cracking down, both on AI experts and AI responses.

I had a conversation with a health editor recently who, had… had an expert in a piece who was an RDN, a registered dietitian, and that registered dietitian's credentials in a database were listed under a different name, and they were checking that. They wanted to make sure that this was a real expert, and not a made-up expert.

So it's something that journalists are very closely looking at, and it's unfortunate we're seeing that tactic from some companies, but again, they're being exposed quickly, and it's not so great for PR once it does come out.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): I gotta share something that's scary. I have a YouTube Premium subscription, so I'm not watching it on my phone, and I'm watching it on TV, and I don't have any commercials. So, usually when my wife goes to sleep, I don't stop working until late, she goes to sleep, I'll just sort of see what's going on, what's new. And given that I'm in healthcare, I see a lot of healthcare stuff.

And one of the things that really is scary to me, and I shared this with my wife the next day, a bot who's saying she's a doctor, and it's clearly AI, and the, you know, she's talking about her 12 years’ experience as a doctor, and then I'm like, okay, well, if she's in that specialty, I'll go check the specialty directory, and of course she doesn't exist.

The funny thing is that the advice she gave, because I checked it, wasn't bad, but it was a fake doctor. So, like, that's really a funny line, and YouTube obviously did not catch that. I mean, YouTube is not… is not… is just saying, sure, here you go. And I think that'll probably change, but I don't know if you have any other ideas on that, because that's really scary.

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR): Absolutely, and something for us to keep a close eye on in this industry, too. You know, it's one thing, if it happens… we saw this happen with a cleaning company, which, okay, that's one thing if it's about cleaning tips or house upkeep tips, but when it comes to your health and thinking that you're getting advice from a doctor who's not actually real, that can be pretty risky.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): That's really, really scary. I want to talk about another category before we wrap up here, that we're using a lot in digital land, digital PR. Help our listeners understand the difference between digital PR and sort of traditional PR. And I know it's great, but still, help us understand.

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR): There can be some overlap, but digital PR is typically PR that is conducted with the core intention of creating backlinks that benefit your site's SEO and authority score. And those backlinks may come in the form of a founder being, you know, interviewed by an outlet, and then it links to your website.

It may come in the form of your brand being covered in another way, let's say just a feature, but the important thing there is, are these backlinks that will lift the overall SEO profile of your website? When we're looking at PR in general, there can be a lot of different outcomes and a lot of different goals attached to that.

Sometimes it's executive visibility, it's crisis communication, it's… if we're working with CPG brands, it's visibility to increase in-store velocity, so making sure customers know where to find the product in-store. The core outcomes and goals look a lot different, and they can expand beyond the digital ecosystem into retail, or, you know, in-person organizations as well.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Got it. So, today, it's funny, Kelsey, this is… I'm a little bit older than you, but back in the day, when I was in college, I predicted the demise of newspapers. I used to work for a newspaper. And, it's funny, I did that as an extra credit project, and I wish I could find it. I'm sure I've got it somewhere in the files, somewhere in my house, maybe when we move.

But it was, like, a long time ago, and it was… but it was so obvious to me to see in my… I think I got, it was an extra credit paper, but I got the attention of the professor for writing it. And so I turned out to be right. And so the number of news outlets, there's a lot less of them, right? So traditional newspapers is a whole different thing.

The support they had… we knew we were in charitable when they started teaching the New York Times reporters how to use their iPhone for pictures, right? Like, it's a completely different day, and of course radio and TV skew older today, so I'd love to hear your comments about that, and then the rise of other kinds of alternative platforms like bloggers and podcasters and, even influencers, and how does that fit with your digital, or your PR strategy?

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR): Absolutely. You know, I've always thought, I don't care too much or worry too much about how the news or how the content is delivered. Audiences will find a way to get it. So… and how that looks will change over time.

We're seeing Gen Zers, for instance, tend to turn to social media first for news, and there are some social media first publications that share the news, not with articles, but with carousels, or TikToks, or Reels, and they are true journalists covering the news, but they're delivering it in a social-first format.

So, you, for instance, we worked with a therapist who was often interviewed for that type of story, because she could get on video and give tips and weigh in on newsy happenings in that way.

When we're thinking about who to reach, though, we do actually still see a good amount of, relevance when it comes to things, like, let's say, broadcast appearances. If you're trying to reach a specific audience, let's say your audience does skew older, or they do prefer, you know, watching a certain broadcast segment, or they simply follow along with a morning news station that also is very visible on social media and on their website, and that's how some of their other viewers get their news.

We find that that can be helpful still, and then again, it's how you use PR. So it's not just about getting in front of them and being on the segment. Are we then using that segment as a retailer proof point for CPG? Or are we using it to slice and dice it into 10 to 15 different social media videos? Or are we using it to start a conversation with investors?

So, I do think that the end goal and who your target audience is plays a really big role in which channel you target. And then, to your point, influencers are a big piece of the story, too. A lot of people do get their brand recommendations from influencers who they trust.

You know, we work with both macro influencers who have millions of followers, and micro-influencers who maybe just want to experience the brand and are happy to cover it, and create content in that way. And we see, we see brands value those relationships in different ways. The macro influencers can be great for publicity and catching the attention. Again, if you're working with a retailer and you want to show them that a big personality is covering your brand and talking about it, that's great, but there's also a lot of value in micro-influencers and content exchange partnerships and getting that really authentic UGC for volume as well.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, it's funny, because a lot of the uninitiated have no idea how expensive macro influencers are going to be.

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR): Right, exactly. That's right. Exactly.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): You're not gonna save money with this. This is not gonna be something that's cheaper.

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR): No, no, usually I think that sometimes one core macro influencer for that visibility, if it fits into your budget, is great, but then using micro-influencers for volume and UGC is often a great approach.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Yeah, and okay, so we've covered a lot, I wish you could spend all day on this, but I'll finish with one last question. What does the future of PR and AI look like, and how can health brands prepare?

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR): Right, right. You know, PR will continue to play an integral role, and a growing role in AI. Media outlets will continue to optimize their content for AI, so again, it's possible that we're going to see an even greater share of media outlets, show up in AI. And most AI agencies, even those that focus specifically on AI, are telling brands to invest in PR as soon as possible. And coming from also a digital marketing space myself, whether or not I was in this space, I would say that that would be my recommendation, too.

You know, you don't want to be left behind in those responses and in this reference layer, because to your point, when AI chooses you it creates this incredible, like, halo over your brand, but if it doesn't choose you, you're not even on the map like you are with Google. You're just… you're not even in the… in the selection pool.

There's a bit of danger in not being included in AI. And if you do, you know, work with an agency to make that happen, make sure they really understand your industry, because surface-level coverage or a press release that just says something very, general about your brand won't go as far as really detailed, really… Fact-dense, coverage and press releases.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Great. Kelsey, what's, your website?

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR): Yes, we are Klosscreatives.com. And, you know, we… we focus specifically on healthcare and CPG, so this is our… this is our space, and it's the industry we love, and it's just really great to see what brands are doing in this space in connection with AI.

Stewart Gandolf (Healthcare Success): Great. Kelsey, great talking to you, as I knew it would be today. Looking forward to working with you on the next project.

Kelsey Kloss (Kloss Creatives PR): Same to you. Thank you, Stewart. It's a pleasure.