In short:

• Earned Media ≠ Earned Visibility: Earned media (press, reviews, mentions) is just one piece of the puzzle; Earned Visibility is the broader strategy ensuring brands are discoverable in AI-driven search and beyond.
• AI Search is Changing Discovery: With more people turning to generative AI tools, brands must optimise technical site signals, citations, and industry contributions – not just media mentions.
• Strategic Next Step: Treat Earned Visibility as a measurable framework, with tools to work out your Earned Visibility, helping brands adapt and thrive in the AI search era.

We find ourselves talking about Earned Visibility a lot at the moment, and for good reason. The new world of AI search is as seismic a shift for marketing, brands, and consumer discoverability as moving into the age of the internet was. For those who haven’t been keeping up, Earned Visibility is our approach to discoverability in the new world of AI.

But what is the difference between Earned Visibility and earned media?

What is Earned visibility?

The world has changed. At the time of writing, 62% of Brits are now using AI-enhanced search to find information over traditional search engines, and this trend is not slowing down.

Gone are the days of customers looking for a brand via traditional search and being presented with ten blue links. Gone are the days of customers reading multiple sources to get an answer.

Now, whether someone is looking for a complex understanding of a personal health issue or where to find the best holiday deals, instead of scouring multiple sites and running multiple searches, people are increasingly turning to AI-powered search.

The result? If your brand is not included in the answers that AI tools are showing users, then your brand is basically invisible.

In response to this tectonic shift, we have been spending a lot of time and effort working with data scientists, experts, and a variety of platforms to get ahead of things and understand exactly what brands need to do today and tomorrow to be discovered by consumers. We call this Earned Visibility.

Earned Visibility covers everything from:

• site technical performance,
• citations in media and review sites,
• to your contribution to industry knowledge.

Basically, it’s a new way of approaching the world of marketing.

The bad news? If you’re not embracing Earned Visibility and you’re not being recommended in AI answers, then your consumers won’t be finding you.

The good news? One of the upshots of this fundamental shift is that doing the right things to be included in the AI answer closely aligns with brand and marketing best practices in general. Marketing is no longer about tactical silos – it’s coalescing around the future of discoverability. This is Earned Visibility.

If you’re interested, you can find out more about this as well as discover your exact EV score here.

What does earned media mean?

Whilst it may sound fairly similar, there is a huge difference between the meaning of earned media and Earned Visibility. Earned media is a term that refers to brand mentions, social media mentions, customer reviews or media coverage in channels that a brand does not own. Not to be confused with paid media or owned media!

For example, if your brand has carried out a proactive press engagement campaign that has resulted in your brand being included in The Times, The Guardian, or others, this is earned media.

Earned media has, and continues to have, inherent value. Customers are more likely to trust content that is presented to them by a known news or media title than content presented directly by a brand.

Think about it: is your opinion more likely to be swayed by an article presented by British Airways saying “we’re the best airline in the world,” or by an article on the BBC website saying BA has just been voted the best airline in the world?

Whilst earned media has a crucial role to play in the new world of AI discoverability, it is fundamentally different to Earned Visibility itself.

But isn’t earned media a key part of how AI makes decisions?

In short, yes! The framework of Earned Visibility includes a range of factors that any forward-thinking brand should be embracing when it comes to getting in front of customers and influencing consumer behaviour.

AI tools absolutely use media coverage as an indicator for brand quality and trust. What’s more, media coverage continues to be incredibly important in terms of influence and consumer behaviour.

In essence, earned media should be a key part of an Earned Visibility strategy.

So what’s more important?

Both are important, but you should start with Earned Visibility.

Earned visibility is an entirely new way of approaching the world of marketing. A considered Earned Visibility strategy, when implemented properly, will mean that you are doing everything you should be to get your brand included in AI answers –  but also everything you should be doing more broadly in terms of reaching and engaging with your customers across the wider marketing mix.

The key here is that activity should no longer be approached in tactical silos, but seen as part of a wider whole.

A great first step is to understand how you are currently performing in terms of your brand’s Earned Visibility score. You can find your own Earned Visibility score here.

Contact the Yours Sincerely team to begin building your Earned Visibility strategy.

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