Traditional PR will build trust and impact in 2026
2026 will be a very good year indeed for businesses to build trust and impact through traditional PR.
Use authentic stories backed up by clear data
Building trust and authority through authentic, transparent, well written stories backed up by clear, provable data and delivered through earned channels will make all the difference.
Muck Rack’s analysis
Muck Rack recently analysed more than 1 million links in AI responses from searches made between June and December 2025.
Typically, the interactions people have with their chosen AI systems (Muck Rack analysed searches in Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude) are quite conversational.
The user taps in a prompt, and AI responds and cites the sources for their information.
Sometimes the Muck Rack prompts specifically mentioned companies by name, sometimes they didn’t. Searches covered a range of industries and topics.
Focus on traditional PR to build brand reputation
The results leave me convinced that 2026 will be a very good year indeed for traditional PR.
Here’s why, and what you need to prioritise in 2026:
- Focus your attention on earned media. 94% of the links cited are from non-paid media, with 82% from earned media.
- Only 12% of links come from owned blog content on business websites. That means that blogs and newsletters on your own website are still useful when searchers are looking for specific details about a product or service, but they’re more likely to find your brand through earned media than through your website. That is a big change from the old SEO days.
- Consistent PR is much better than one big PR push, but any PR is better than no PR. 4% of sources cited are from the last seven days, and 50% are from the last 11 months.
- Fresh, good quality content, reliable data, and authentic, human storytelling will bring the best results.
- Offer your good quality stories to journalists across high-authority national, regional and trade media outlets which are trusted to provide fact-checked news.
- Build strong partnerships with influencers, advocates, and customers. Their organic endorsements will be priceless.
- Don’t waste your money on paid content – instead, invest in professional, ethical PR and build authority in key target areas.