Most entrepreneurs are great at building a company but struggle to master public perception and get their unique story heard. In a world flooded with AI-generated content and diminishing returns from traditional advertising, mastering reputation management is no longer a luxury but a core business requirement.
The solution lies in creating earned media opportunities, pivoting from old SEO methods to generative engine optimisation, and understanding what makes a story cut through the noise. Discover the powerful yet simple strategies small businesses can use to build visibility and ultimately grow their customer base.
Host Larissa Feeney welcomes media heavyweight Garrett Harte, founder of Harte Media. Garrett served as the first employee and Editor in Chief at Newstalk for 15 years, helping turn a local startup into a national powerhouse. He now consults for business leaders on mastering storytelling and reputation management.
THINGS WE SPOKE ABOUT
- Guiding principle to beat the competition.
- Three unexpected pieces of business advice.
- AI is fundamentally changing SEO advertising.
- Focus on the desired media headline.
- Why business owners avoid doing press releases.
GUEST DETAILS
Garrett Harte is a highly respected media strategist and the founder of Harte Media, a Dublin-based consultancy specialising in strategic communications and reputation management.
With a career spanning over two decades in the Irish media landscape, Garrett is best known for his 15-year tenure at Newstalk, where he served as Editor-in-Chief and was the station’s very first employee. Under his leadership, Newstalk transitioned from a local Dublin station to a major national broadcaster.
Today, he uses his deep “insider” knowledge of the newsroom to help business leaders craft compelling stories and navigate high-stakes public relations.
- Company Website – www.hartemedia.ie
- Social Media: www.linkedin.com/in/garrettharte
TRANSCRIPTION
For your convenience, we include an automated AI transcription.
Garrett Harte 0:02
You need to find ways to tell your story in that independent third party media, because reputation isn’t about what you say about yourself, it’s what other people say about you.
Voiceover 0:15
No unicorns, no brands, just hardworking people who built their business from the ground up, sharing their experience, so others can learn. Presented by Larissa Feeney from Kinore. This is Real Business Conversations.
Larissa Feeney 0:36
Most entrepreneurs have a great story, but very few know how to get that story heard it’s one thing to build a company, but it’s a completely different challenge to master the insider world of public perception, especially when the stakes are high. Our guest today is a media heavyweight. As the first ever employee at Newstalk, he spent 15 years as Editor in Chief, having to turn a local startup into a national powerhouse, he eventually moved from the newsroom to the boardroom, launching his own consultancy to help leaders master the art of storytelling and reputation management. He’s here to share how we can all cut through the noise and build a brand of that last. It’s a pleasure to welcome the founder of Harte Media, Garrett Harte. Hello, Garrett, and welcome.
Garrett Harte 1:20
Hi, Larissa, thanks for having me on your great podcast.
Larissa Feeney 1:24
Good to see you. It’s great to have you here, Garrett. I’d love to talk all things PR, and we’ll get to that right, because I think there’s lessons today for small business who are listening to this podcast around how to manage PR and what they can do in this AI world, and I love to have a chat to you about that, but before we get there, let’s go back. First ever employee at Newstalk, the startup team there, what was that like? What was the biggest lesson you took from those 15 years?
Garrett Harte 1:58
Well, look, I suppose when I look back, I count myself as being very lucky at the time. You, I suppose, don’t appreciate what you’re doing. A number of years before that, I was involved in the startup of TV three, which really was a great learning environment, because it was the first independent television station. So I signed all day, but RTE and BBC were the only stations, but TV three came along. I joined out, I was 24 and it was a startup. I loved the excitement, I loved the fact that you were doing something different, I loved the fact you were an underdog. So when the opportunity with Newstalk came, as you said, I was the first employee I joined before it had a name, before that studios, before that schedule. One of the original investors was a company called Satanta Sports, that are now Premier Sports, and they had a shareholding, a news talk, and one of their team, a guy, Darragh O Brien, who was went to present an RTE, probably one of the best creative people I’ve ever worked with. He rang me up and said, Are you up for a mad 18 months of a startup with a radio station? We’re launching this talk radio station. It’s going to be great fun, and if you’re up for it. And really, that was it. We had a blank page. We had a very young team, and it was a very lucky period in my life that allowed me to work with some very, very interesting people, very challenging, lots of difficult learnings as a very lucky would have been part of
Larissa Feeney 3:36
- Yeah, but you said yes toinjured that phone call to that opportunity. What made you say it? Were you in TV three at that time, whenever you got that call.
Garrett Harte 3:43
No, I’d left TV three because I wanted to go travelling. I went backpacking around the world, so I was in Dublin, and I got a call from Dara, and he said, “Look, come into when Milane, we’re having a meeting, and he was someone I loved working with. He loved taking risks. I just loved being the underdog. I love the challenge, and we set about hiring staff, and our only one guiding principle was everything we did had to be different to RTE.
Larissa Feeney 4:14
Okay,
Garrett Harte 4:14
like they were our number one competitor, they were our target,
Larissa Feeney 4:19
okay,
Garrett Harte 4:20
and everything, the people we hired, the on-air schedule had to be different to RTE. How we treated stories had to be different to RTE, and not because we viewed RTE as negative, they were doing something that was really good, really strong, had a big audience, you know hundreds of 1000s of listeners, and we were starting off with zero listeners, so for us to grow we had to offer something that was different, and that was the guiding principle all the way through that carried on over the years in terms of how we approach things,
Larissa Feeney 4:57
like the bravery now, whenever you think of it, over. 25 years ago, more going up against the establishment, it was such a risk. Whose idea was it originally?
Garrett Harte 5:06
Look, I’d say Dennis O’Brien. He was a huge influence in my career. I didn’t know him, didn’t you know, have any dealings with him before I joined, but he had such a vision for media. He’d have been involved in 98 FM before that, setting that up, and he loved media. He loved radio. He was hugely driven, tough to work for, demanded results, but he was driven by a vision that we could deliver something for a modern Ireland that RTE couldn’t, because it was public sector, but also that would allow the media landscape to develop beyond what it currently was, so he would have been a driving force. Mickey O’Rourke and Leonard Ryan and Satanta Sport, big investors, would have had that vision.
Larissa Feeney 5:54
And you were there for 15 years, and like, what a roller coaster it would have been. What made you decide to leave with 2019 also that you left there, thereabouts.
Garrett Harte 6:04
Yeah, look, look, I loved it. I still love it. I still miss it. I was at an event during the week. I work with journalism graduates now. We were at a prize giving earlier during the week, and I just love media. I love the buzz of it, but my life was going into the studio at 5am being there for the breakfast show, sitting down with Claire Byrne, who presented the breakfast show, Ivan Yates, Chris Donahue, sitting down with them at 5am 530 to say, right, where are we going today? What’s her angle on the story? What’s our point of difference? Who we’re going to speak to, and I love that you’re in the middle of that production. My difficulty was the breakfast show team would finish at 11 o’clock in the morning and go home or go for a walk, go for a swim, or go for a paint, or whatever. I was still there at six in the evening and I couldn’t untangle myself from that, and then it becomes seven days a week, you’re doing it and you’re doing it again and again, and I probably, at the time, I just ran out of creative thinking, because I’d rescheduled the station a couple of times, people had moved on, different presenters had come in, and I just felt, look, I need a new challenge, and I never wanted to go to RTE, and I began no slide to RTE because I have lots of friends who work there and I think they’re doing a really good job in the rebuild of the station,
Larissa Feeney 7:28
yeah, it would have been very difficult after spending 15 years staying true to the principle of doing everything different to RT, to then go to RT, it would have been very hard,
Garrett Harte 7:36
yeah, and for me it was, I suppose, taking those learnings of startup, and again having a buzz for a startup, whether it was TV three, whether it was news talk, and thinking people had said to me, you should do something yourself. So I just jumped. I actually made the decision pretty quickly. I probably made my mind up maybe six months prior to that, but I didn’t have the strength to pull the handbrake, but I remember ringing Dennis and saying, “I’m done, I need to go, I can’t do anymore, I can’t think anymore. And to be fair, he said, “Look, you’re not going anywhere, where you going? You know, so I stayed on for six months, which was fine, but it was more to build a succession plan and work Patricia Monahan, who was my deputy, who then took over for me, who’s now the head of Radio RTE, came in, and you know that was brilliant, because she was a great person to take on the reins, but no, I just felt that, you know, having been in that editor’s chair for 15 years, you know, being on the receiving end of hundreds and 1000s of pitches from companies and PR companies and press releases that I knew what would make the cut on the breakfast short, I knew what would make the cut on an editor’s desk, and that that had to have a point of difference that would allow me to create a communications agency that really was giving me the opportunity to take what I knew worked in media and bringing it to the other side to help companies tell their story in media and help them develop their own brands,
Larissa Feeney 9:19
still very brave though, Gart, you know, before we move on to what it is you’re doing now. The first brave step was, well, obviously you were TV three before that, but I mean, going to Newstalk in your 20s was brave. You didn’t know what was going to happen, and obviously you were young, and as I said, you probably very little to lose. Fast forward 15 years, and it’s a different story. You know, you’re going from a very senior position within a successful company that you’ve built up a regular paycheck and a family as well to support it was a difficult decision. It was a very brave decision.
Garrett Harte 9:52
I think anybody who sets up their own business, Larissa, and look, you are an example. There are lots of people listening who set up their own. Business, but look, I remember chatting you years ago, where you’re the classic. I set up my own bedroom with a laptop, you know, because that’s where you go right when you set up your own business. You don’t have an office day one, or you don’t have staff, or you don’t have a website, and I needed to get out. I got out, then it becomes difficult, as you
Larissa Feeney 10:17
said, to find the work.
Garrett Harte 10:18
Yeah, people say, well, obviously you’re going to work for Dennis on some other project, are you going to work for I was like, no, no,
Speaker 1 10:23
yeah, you’re on your own,
Garrett Harte 10:25
he owned kids, and
Larissa Feeney 10:26
yeah,
Garrett Harte 10:27
yeah, I was like, oh yeah, yeah, got up that I was lucky in that I had good people who ended up becoming friends and mentors, one of them in the early days, a big, big help, Purika, who set up Air Aaron, and I didn’t know him that well. I knew of him, but he rang me up out of the blue, maybe a month after I left News Talk, and said I read that you are leaving News Talk, and he said, I thought, if you want to meet for coffee, I thought, great, he offered me a big contract.
Larissa Feeney 10:58
Yeah,
Garrett Harte 10:59
this is it. I met him, and he said, ‘Happy to be a mentor if you want. He said, ‘I just like what you did. I like what you’re trying to do. And he was a great go-to person, and he had three pieces of advice, because when I left News Talk, all big ideas was going to maybe do podcasting, or was going to create other media empowered. Three pieces of advice, which I use and paraphrase with other people now. So, piece of advice, where the idea you have today, Garrett, for your business, it’ll be different in 12 months’ time, so don’t fall in love with
Larissa Feeney 11:36
it, okay?
Garrett Harte 11:36
And don’t be precious about it. And if somebody says that’s not working, that phrase, you got to pivot or you got to change,
Larissa Feeney 11:42
that’s great advice.
Garrett Harte 11:43
That was number one. I’m thinking,
Larissa Feeney 11:45
yeah,
Garrett Harte 11:45
sure, no, the podcast idea is definitely going to work perfect. So,
Larissa Feeney 11:48
yeah,
Garrett Harte 11:49
his second was you need to have the cojones to ring up your bank manager and say, look, things just aren’t going in the straight line, and I may need to take a mortgage holiday,
Larissa Feeney 12:03
yeah.
Garrett Harte 12:03
He says a lot of people can’t do that, right. And then he said, and the third piece of advice is you’re going to have 27 sleepless nights in year one, year five, and year 25 because he said it doesn’t matter if you’re Garrett Hart or you’re Dallas O’Brien,
Larissa Feeney 12:21
yeah,
Garrett Harte 12:21
you all think it’s going to end tomorrow,
Larissa Feeney 12:23
yeah. Oh, absolutely. Oh my god, I can relate to that. Yes,
Garrett Harte 12:28
and each one of those pieces of advice happened. So, when you meet like-minded people and you think of having a really difficult run of it here in terms of cash flow, and for business owners, cash flow, cash is king, and all, but cash flow can sink you chasing cash, but when you have other go-to like-minded people who are setting up their own business, and they say, yeah, that happened to me,
Speaker 1 12:52
yeah,
Garrett Harte 12:53
but here’s how you work it out.
Larissa Feeney 12:54
What a gift that was, you know?
Garrett Harte 12:56
Yeah, those
Larissa Feeney 12:57
three piece advice in the very beginning of the journey,
Garrett Harte 12:59
yeah, he was great. There was another guy again who was a great, great brand that when I left Frank, he rang me up and said I work for the EBRD. I was like, right, EBRD,
Larissa Feeney 13:11
right?
Garrett Harte 13:12
So the European Bank for Reconciliation and Development said, I’m based in Cork. He said we go into different parts of the world, and we offer expertise in different sectors, and he was a business consultant, and he said we are involved in launching a talk radio station in Tunisia. Will you be up for going to Tunis for a year, in and out? It’ll be great crack, and I was like, Frank, I’m your man, I’m gone, let’s go, but he was great again, another mentor, so I suppose for me, and I would say to other people setting up their own business, you’ll find two or three mentors, and you’re not paying them, because if you pay them, that’s different, that’s a commercial relationship. They’ve got to be people who are willing to help you for only one reason, and that is so that they can see you succeed. You know, I’ve sought them out, and likewise I sort of do that now with people that I work with, where I just love helping out and giving back as much they can.
Larissa Feeney 14:18
Such great advice. Like, it takes people years to figure that out, because essentially what he was saying to you was, leave your ego at the door whenever you run a business, because it’s not about you, and don’t think it’s about you. You know, you think you’ve got a great idea, try it out. If it doesn’t work, don’t cling to it, move on.
Garrett Harte 14:32
Yeah,
Larissa Feeney 14:33
you run a consultancy around PR communication storytelling for small business. How does that work? Like, say, for example, we’re all familiar with marketing, what marketing does, and what marketing is, right? What you do is a little bit different to marketing. So, how does PR and what you do benefit a business or a business owner?
Garrett Harte 14:55
Card Media is a full-service strategic. Communications consultancy, Larissa. So, what we do is media relations. So, we would connect clients with journalists and media influencers to help them amplify their message. Reputation management, which is probably more beyond the marketing, which is helping people carve the reputation, but also protect it, and you know that’s probably the learning from the media side of when you’re in the cut and thrust of a media battle, you’re under pressure from the media because of something happening, your organisation, how you manage that reputation, and then the media training and media engagement, so preparing CEOs and business leaders to communicate with confidence, and getting those messages across. So, when we say we do, we help people understand media from the inside. You know, there’s lots of companies, and most organisations have a story worth telling, but very few have the skills, the strategy, the confidence, and the connections to tell it in a way that cuts through. So we would help you do that. And invariably, coming from a startup environment, there has to be a business development aspect to it. So you’re not doing it because it’s a nice to do. You have to get business out of it. So you’ve got to get client leads, you’ve got to grow your customer base, so it’s very much helping you craft that compelling story that builds your business.
Larissa Feeney 16:31
And what can small business owners do, or you know, any business owner do? Not necessarily a small business owner. I’m thinking we hear a lot of noise today about AI, and you know what’s real and what’s not real, and you talked about reputation there, and whenever I was, you know, doing a little bit of research for today, I read an article where you said that reputation can no longer be treated as PR, that it has to be a core business capability. So, what does that mean, say, for me as a business owner, what should I be doing? Like, you’re talking about reputation isn’t something to be managed, as to be built, as to be curated, and the only person that can do that, if you’re the lead person or the face of your business, then you probably have a responsibility to maybe build your reputation before there’s a problem, before there’s a reputation to protect. How do you do that? How do you stand out in a world that is just getting more and more AI generated?
Garrett Harte 17:26
The advancement of AI has opened up a lot of discussion, as you said. We’re all dealing with it, we’re all grappling, we’re all wondering. For my world and communications world, it’s actually opened up a new horizon in terms of business opportunity, and why that is, is because the old world of the search engine optimization at SEO, Google ads that businesses would be familiar with, where you know keywords that you pay do appear on the first, you know, the landing page of Google, and being visible and findable by paying for those ads, that game’s over. Like AI has fundamentally changed that, and there’s lots of research out there, but it’s predicted that that traditional search model, that SEO model, by the end of next year, by the end of 2027 could have lost this market share by over 50% That game is over for companies, so small companies using it, but it’s also over for the Googles, who we all know now are inheriting AI and using AI as part of their function. So, so it’s moved into what’s now called Geo, which is generative engine optimization. So, what does that mean? It means now that you cannot buy your way to the top anymore. So, we’ve all, including myself, spent money on Google Ads to generate that searchability, the AI generated models now there is no pay per click model, so the AI doesn’t look to your ads. What it looks for now is credible, independent third-party sources, and what they say about you, and that’s a fact, right. Where does that leave companies? What that means is that companies, whether it’s, you know, a construction company, a tech company, a charity, they now have got to find ways to create what’s called earned media opportunities, so being interviewed on news talk, being interviewed in the business post, being interviewed on a podcast, because they are editorial independent coverage, they’re no longer paid for ads, and earned media for me is the single most important driver of brand visibility. A in the AA generated responses, so for a company, need to develop your AI optimised earned media strategy, and that’s going to help you grow business, and that’s just going to grow and grow and grow over the next probably year, but the PR now becomes that discovery requirement is no longer nice to have that you’re pictured and interviewed on the business post that actually you need to have this to get found,
Larissa Feeney 20:28
and I suppose the challenge for a small business owner is how to get on news talk or in the business post or in the Irish Times, and that’s where PR expertise can help. Right now, there’s something else as well that I want to ask you about, in terms of helping a founder to be seen. So, you said earlier on that you knew what would make the cut whenever you were in News Talk, so you know what to look for in a press release. How can a founder help themselves before it even gets to that stage? So, before it lands on the Garrett heart of the world, before it lands on that desk, there’s a press release about a new startup company or an SME that’s growing or doing something new. How can a founder stand out before their press release falls on the desk, so that the editor in chief sees it and says, I know that name, or you know what, can they do for themselves, Garrett, before they have to bring you in. The
Garrett Harte 21:33
first thing that I would say to anyone who needs to grow their business through marketing slash PR slash AI search is when you’re putting together your story and what you do and what you sell or what service you provide. What’s the one headline that you would like to see on the front page of Donegal Daily, the front page of Donegal Democrat, the front page of the business post. What would that headline be? So focus in on that first, and the second piece is, what problem are you solving for me as a prospective client, so if I switch it back, you’re an accountancy and financial advisory firm, but there’s lots of them, right? You’ve done lots of thinking on this, Larissa, over time to find your exact unique selling point that is really key to any business, honing in on what is that USP that you can deliver versus the company down the road that’s doing equally the same service,
Larissa Feeney 22:53
and that’s really hard, because, as you say, for us, we’re an accountancy firm, right, and those, you’re right, I mean, many conversations with you and internally around, you know, what is it that we do differently that makes us stand out from the crowd, and it’s a really difficult one for a business to answer. I do think that, apart from, I mean, if there is something that’s really unique, that’s fantastic, and you’re right, there’s a role of the personal brand in this, though, as well. You know, if you have a company and the company founder, CEO, MD has got a really strong brand themselves that helps in this area of making sure that the company is visible. Do you see that a lot, or am I wrong there?
Garrett Harte 23:38
But everyone’s profile has started from zero, right? So no one’s profile has appeared overnight. That’s what I always say to a business owner. Never underestimate the story you have to tell, and just because you’re based in Donegal, or or you’re based in Galway, or you only have 10 employees. Every other successful company or business owner has probably been in that space, has been in that space. Has started out with a small offering, has started out with no profile, that started out with 10 employees, has started out with what actually is our unique selling point. So that’s again learnings over time, where you, you know, the Microsofts of this world, or the Ryanairs of this world, Michael O’Leary didn’t appear overnight, you know, he created ways to gain publicity and profile, but you have to start somewhere, and I would be a big, big advocate of people being proud of the story they have to tell, but never underestimating it. What we do is sitting down with a business owner, understanding what they’re about, and then asking the question, if we’re here in 12 months time, what does success look like? And once you define that, you can work to deliver
Speaker 1 24:56
Larissa Feeney 24:56
Yeah, I think that what you said there is really true. People on. Or estimate the value of the story that they have to tell their own story, and owning that story, whatever it is, is key, because if you can feel comfortable talking about your story, your challenges, your journey, then it’s very easy to talk about the business behind you as well, in time, and in the early days of a business that can be done for free, Garrett. You don’t need to have a big marketing team or any marketing team behind you to do that, because you’ve got social media there, and now you can start marketing your business very, very easily for free. You know, if you don’t count the cost for time, you can do a lot yourself to build a profile that will support your business, which we were never able to do before. Yeah, and that adds to the brand of the business, adds to any PR that the business may get in time.
Garrett Harte 25:52
Yeah, and what I’d also say, there are simple lessons for business owners, like there are platforms like LinkedIn, for example, you know, as a B2B platform, I’m a huge fan of it. It’s avoided the toxicity of Twitter and X, and that disinformation says pit, and it’s really, you know, it’s B2B business to business. Every second day, I read posts from people who should know better, or who have more brains than me, and I’m thinking, what did he actually say in that post? You’ve actually wasted an opportunity to say something impactful, and that’s really down to not thinking about what you want to say, and ultimately not thinking about the audience you want to impact, so you’ve just thrown something down when in fact you’ve missed an opportunity to either engage with a new client or promote your product.
Larissa Feeney 26:51
I think people look on online networking, which LinkedIn is differently to in-person networking, and they shouldn’t, right, because they view LinkedIn as for business, and just like networking in person is for business, it is for business, right? But you don’t go into an in-person networking event, hand somebody your card, say “I am the most amazing accountant in Ireland, and walk out again. You don’t do that. You go in, you say “hello” you introduce yourself, you know where have you come from today? You know, have you come straight from work? You know what’s going on your life, and you build a relationship over time, and then you sell, or you sell because you built your relationship over time, and people think they can go on to LinkedIn and just sell, and it just doesn’t work like that. What I find fascinating is just what you said, and you know these guys come into your DMs and they come up on your feed and it’s just sells that and people won’t engage with it because they don’t know the person behind the post and you need to build a relationship online just like you would have built a relationship in person back in the old days
Garrett Harte 27:58
yeah and also it’s about telling the story on LinkedIn, I think when I go on LinkedIn, and I read another post from somebody who said that they’re delighted to be
Larissa Feeney 28:10
thrilled,
Garrett Harte 28:12
never so many delighted people in the world on any one day, you know, and that’s just that’s a habit, you know, I’m delighted to be attending the, you could just say yesterday I met you, and you start telling a story, and you know there’s simple things that people can do that they just, they don’t do,
Larissa Feeney 28:30
they just don’t do. What’s the most common PR mistake you think businesses make?
Garrett Harte 28:34
Not knowing what they want to say and not knowing who they want to talk to, and that goes back to, you know, my time in Utah, like I would have had maybe I could safely say 100 press releases every day, right? So somebody had sat down at a PR company, created a press release for a client, signed it off, photographed, sent it in, and if in the first two or three lines I don’t see there’s something of value, I’ve just deleted it. Let me even go to second paragraph.
Larissa Feeney 29:12
Okay, you’re just reading the first couple of lines and that’s it, and you’re moving on.
Garrett Harte 29:16
I’m going, yeah, I’m going. Where’s the impact here? And that’s why for anybody listening, or anyone who’s got a launch, or a product, or what’s the headline, what’s the first thing that you want people to read, and once you focus in on that, then you’ve got me hooked in, but lots of time, and I still see it where, like, the headline might be three lines, you know, like, what are they trying to say here? So that’s a big common mistake, not knowing what you want to say, and ultimately, what’s the call to action? So, what do you want me to do? You want me to go to your website? Do you want me to pick up the phone? Do you want me to read a book you’ve written, but if you just have. It as it just happened, then it’s a wasted opportunity, and okay, PR earned media has to be client-generating exercise. You’re doing it because you want to grow your business,
Larissa Feeney 30:13
and for a small business owner, like I always thought, and I still think that in our press release is a document that has to go from professionals to professionals, so you know, PR consultants to media outlets. Can a business owner do their own press release, Garrett, and send it in?
Garrett Harte 30:31
I’m going to say no, and the reason is, you know, journalists don’t do PR, by and large, and there are some media outlets that just view PR and promotion of businesses in a different way, so if you, as a business owner, are going with a press release to a media outlet and you’re saying, can you put this on page three, or can you put this on your website? You’re looking for free ads.
Larissa Feeney 31:07
Yeah,
Garrett Harte 31:08
so you’re not going to get it, but the value of a PR company, or you know, a hard media, or any other PR company, is the relationships that we would have with the editor, or the producer or the researcher or the journalist, that’s a value, so that’s what you pay for. Secondly, it’s to say, look, you can’t send that in because you’re looking for free ad, and they’ll just say that’s a free ad, so they’ll patch you through to the sales department
Larissa Feeney 31:36
to
Garrett Harte 31:37
buy ads, and that’s a different commercial relationship, so a PR agency or communications agency will say, ‘Look, we’ve got to find the news value in this. It has to stand on its own two feet, that there’s job announcements, there is a new piece of technology. Those are skill sets that we have the business owners don’t have.
Larissa Feeney 31:58
No, the business owners don’t have those skills, and they also don’t have the relationships, which is key, because I think what you bring is you have the relationship with the media outlets, but they trust you to only bring quality to them, so you’ve already qualified the material before it gets through, so you act almost in the filter to save them, have having to filter, so you’re actually making their job, easier. Yeah. How do you measure the real success of Pure? This is a typical accountant brain. How do you know when it’s worked?
Garrett Harte 32:28
There’s two aspects of this. The first is that you need to develop brand awareness on what I would call a drumbeat basis, so the things that you want to do is you want to grow your client base, but you may also want to get investors in, or potentially you may want a suitor to come in and say, “Oh, would you fancy being acquired as part of an M and A? And so for businesses you need to find ways to tell your story in that sort of independent third party media, because reputation in your business or anyone’s business isn’t about what you say about yourself, it’s what other people say about you. So that’s when you’ve got a business post article and you’ve got a story in January, you’ve won in March, you’ve won in June. All of a sudden, people are saying, “Oh, who are they? What are they doing? They’re doing something, they’re moving. That brand awareness is important, and has always been important, right? That means that when I go with a story to an editor, that they would say, oh yeah, I read about them a few weeks ago, I heard that interview before, so, so that allows that relationship, but back to what we said about AI, it’s now a mandatory factor that the measurement is going to be based on how you appear on a Chat GPT or a Claude or an AI search because they now are going to scrape the digital world for third party independent verified earned media stories about a company versus paid for ads, and that’s as much to avoid the disinformation and the misinformation companies, or those who play, as I say, in the dark arts, where they can pump billions into a product and push it up, that you know are moving back to the fact that you need a validated, independent third party source for AI to find you, and that’s where a communications and PR strategy a need to have, as opposed to a nice to have.
Larissa Feeney 34:55
That’s so reassuring, though. Tara, like, I hadn’t heard that those stats, you know that. There’s evidence to back that up, because I was thinking that we were in danger of having to fight against disinformation or information from unreliable sources appearing on ChatGPT or Claude results, because I completely agree with you, the SEO, the Google paid ads, all of that has been replaced, but it’s good to hear that AI is pointing to earned media, because apart from given opportunities, you know, to media outlets, it’s there’s a reassurance there that there’s actually humans making decisions on what gets published and what gets seen, what is visible, so that the AI is then picking up reliable information that’s very, very positive.
Garrett Harte 35:43
Yeah, there’s one stat that I use, it’s from the US, from the Edelman Trust Barometer. So they’re a corporation of the states, Edelman, that have this annual trust barometer for companies and have been doing it for the last couple of decades, and they had a stat that 89% of all citations in the AI search results come from earned media, not your website, not your ads, not your social media, independent editorial coverage, and that’s, you know, 89% means the game is over for SEO, and also I think it’s important as well, Larissa, in that if I bring it back to local, it means that you know the Highland Radio is the Donegal dailies of this world, they are crucial in local democracy, they’re crucial in, you know, providing credible, verified information around politics, around communities, but they’re also now going to be real assets in that AI world, because they’re going to be there and independent sources where AI search, so if you’re a restaurant owner or you’re a tourism company, your relationship with those entities becomes stronger because you’ll need them,
Larissa Feeney 37:01
yeah, that’s fascinating. Because I mean, I’m definitely going to take that stat away and reflect on it, because I’m thinking even for those hospitality businesses that you’ve mentioned, like if you think about TripAdvisor, Google reviews, like that’s not earned media, and nor is it verifiable, but yet it seems to be quoted a lot, so I wonder where we see that been moved down as businesses change,
Garrett Harte 37:27
and I think they’ll adopt, like those TripAdvisors will adapt and adopt new methods, but if you look at the 18 year old today, like they use AI search
Larissa Feeney 37:38
for
Garrett Harte 37:40
everything, right? So they use it for exams, they use it for study. Fast forward, you know, two years, and they’re using it to go travelling, and we’ve all probably tried the Chat GPT. I’m going to Lisbon for three days, give me the best restaurant, the best music bar, and those recommendations now are not because somebody paid 1000 euro to Google ads, it’s because the reviews are real reviews.
Larissa Feeney 38:14
Garrett Harte, founder of Harte Media. Thank you for sharing your journey and those brilliant PR insights with us Garrett, thank you.
Garrett Harte 38:21
Thanks, Larissa. Thank you.
Voiceover 38:23
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