Welcome back to Koozai Couch, our interview series where we talk to people from across the digital marketing spectrum about the ideas, tools, and changes shaping the industry.
This time we talked to Matt SeabridgeIndependent digital public relations specialist Digital PR Tipsabout why marketers shouldn’t panic about GEO, how data collection tools open up new opportunities for digital PR campaigns, and why PR teams need to develop a stronger understanding of brands.
Matt is an independent digital PR specialist with nearly a decade of experience in SEO and PR roles. He specializes in data-driven digital PR campaigns and supports brands with their wider digital PR strategy.
The interview
For every Koozai Couch, we ask the same five questions to get a quick but useful snapshot of what people are seeing, using and rethinking in digital marketing.
Here’s what Matt had to say.
1. What’s the one thing the industry is getting completely wrong right now?
Right now, I think there’s a lot of overreaction to GEO trends in the industry.
There’s a lot of good advice and research being shared, but there’s also a lot of hot-button advice that makes the changes happening in SEO seem scarier than they should be.
The vast majority of the strategy for gaining strong visibility in ChatGPT, AI Overviews, and similar platforms still goes back to tactics that have been good SEO practice over the past five years, especially for SEO teams that have adopted digital PR as part of their strategy.
When there’s a big shift in an industry, it’s easy to overreact and feel like you need to tear up your current strategy and start over. SEO doesn’t need to do this.
Ignore the “SEO is dead” nonsense. SEO is changing, and a lot of the new tips cover things that digital PR teams have already been doing for years.
2. What tool or resource has recently changed the way you work?
Apify has been a real game-changer for me when producing data-driven PR campaigns.
It’s basically a library of web scraping tools created by people, which makes collecting data from a lot of popular sites much easier without needing programming knowledge or having to create your own data scraping tools.
You have to pay to use them, but you can usually find cost-effective tools that make it easier to collect millions of social posts or user reviews.
It opens up a whole new range of possibilities for data-driven campaigns that PR teams can create.
3. What is something you have changed your mind about in the past 12 months?
I can’t say I’ve completely changed my mind on this, but my opinion has been greatly strengthened. Digital PR teams at agencies need to develop a better understanding of branding principles.
We’ve always talked about the importance of branding for campaigns from a relevancy standpoint, but I think understanding brand positioning, target audience and tone of voice will become increasingly important for agencies promoting digital PR work.
I see more brands embracing digital PR in-house, and one of the main reasons I see mentioned is that internal PR teams can know and understand the brand better when developing campaigns.
It can be difficult for agencies to achieve the same level of knowledge when digital PR budgets aren’t huge and people have to split their time across multiple brands.
I think bringing more brand thinking into digital PR activity is something agency teams need to catch up on. The gap between digital PR and traditional PR is narrowing, which means both sides need to learn from each other and build their skills in those areas.
4. What are you reading, watching or listening to that others in the digital space should know?
Honestly, I think there’s a lot of value in PR reps watching movies and TV shows as they appear to help them spot newsjacking opportunities.
Speed is very important to getting this kind of coverage, so being able to spot pop culture moments when they start to go viral and publications start writing about them can be a really valuable asset to PR teams.
I also recommend Propellernet’s Digital PR Podcast and BuzzStream Podcast to anyone looking to expand their digital PR and SEO knowledge.
5. Where is digital marketing headed in the next 12 months?
I believe, and hope, that we will see more integration between digital PR and other channels when it comes to how we use the campaigns we produce.
Content marketing is at the heart of many marketing channels, whether that’s social media, email, branding, or even out-of-home advertising. We’re all about creating engaging content that reaches the brand’s target audience.
I’ve seen first-hand how beneficial this is for brands. There are also a lot of great campaigns produced by digital PR teams that have brought other marketing channels into their production and execution.
As the SEO industry increasingly recognizes the importance of brand marketing, I think we’ll see more PR campaigns designed that brands can use across their broader marketing activity as well.
Thank you Matt!
Thanks so much to Matt for joining us on the Koozai sofa.
His answers are a helpful reminder that marketers don’t necessarily need to tear apart what already works every time something new arrives. Strong SEO and digital PR principles remain important, even as GEO attracts more attention.
At the same time, there is an opportunity for digital PR teams to think more broadly. A better understanding of the brand and closer collaboration with other marketing channels can help campaigns work harder and reach audiences in more places.
Catch up on previous Koozai Couch interviews
Did you enjoy meeting Matt? There are more perspectives from across the digital marketing industry on Koozai Couch.
Catch Jojo Furnival, Director of Marketing at Sitebulb, as she discusses technical SEO basics, AI workflows, and why brand building should be on marketers’ agendas.
You can also read Koozai Couch’s interview with Sean Barber, SEO Director at Macmillan Cancer Support and host of Search with Sean, to get his thoughts on AI research, SEO basics and where the industry could be headed next.
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