GEO Strategy Starts With Brand Narrative

As generative AI has dramatically changed the marketing function, efficiency gains have led the conversation. These tools have simplified how we research and identify trending topics, outline or revise drafts, and handle administrative tasks that keep us from creating.

Marketers should remember, though, that audiences can access the same tools, and they’re looking for efficiency too. Generative AI has made their lives easier by reducing the effort required to research products or services. 

That’s why Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) has rapidly grown in importance. According to McKinsey, 50% of consumers now purposefully use AI-powered search engines, and a majority say it’s their top digital source when making a purchase decision. And yet, too many marketing teams still view GEO as a downstream digital tactic rather than a strategic narrative question. 

The brands that reframe their storytelling in an AI-friendly way will win before their buyer makes a single click. Here’s why – and how marketers can prepare for this new landscape. 

What GEO means for brands

Most marketers are comfortable with an SEO-driven digital strategy. In years past, they could compete by understanding their key search terms, creating content around them, and seeking ways to build credibility via backlinks. Importantly, they had more control over the narrative customers encountered when researching their product.

While many SEO learnings are still important for GEO, AI now plays a greater role in how the brand’s story gets told (or gets ignored). AI systems gather sources across the internet when determining how to describe a company, summarize its leadership, frame its industry expertise, and contextualize its reputation. That’s a lot of control ceded to a bot.

Because GEO fundamentally reshapes the way brands present themselves, leadership must consider their strategy from several points of view: their technology transformation, executive visibility, brand identity, and reputation management. Failure to fill any narrative gaps sends AI to pull information from other sources – ones that may not have a favorable opinion of the brand – and could result in inaccurate depictions of executive voices. 

Bottom line: marketing needs to get the C-suite on board with a GEO strategy now to ensure positioning is shaped by intent, rather than aggregation.

How to take control of GEO

Addressing GEO can feel daunting because of rapidly changing tactics: the tools, ranking logic, and answer behaviors evolve weekly. However, brands should learn the fundamentals now to compete in a world where AI presents the first narrative a customer sees.

Audit your narrative footprint: The first step is understanding how AI already presents your brand narrative across both traditional search engines and through large language models (LLMs). Pinpoint what’s accurate and what’s being presented inaccurately – whether through owned content or through the lens of an external source – and let course correction drive content development.

New and updated content should focus less on a specific campaign and more on answers first. What do customers, employees, prospects and reporters ask, and how does the answer relate to the brand’s key messages? What information would a model need to respond accurately and confidently? 

Because LLMs are looking to “learn” from content, consider developing articles as Q&As: with short, direct answers first, followed by supporting detail, then proof points and sources. Pose questions the way a user would ask their search engine, helping AI better match brand content with the appropriate response.

Shape and structure your thought leadership: Generative AI tools will create a brand “snapshot” from multiple sources, so if brand messaging is inconsistent across references, the platform will be less confident in its answer – and less likely to feature the brand in its response.

Take time to understand how competitors position differentiators and look for messaging gaps your brand can own. Content should include clear narratives that AI engines can encode, built on repeatable, cohesive messages your communications team can offer when working with external outlets.

Go back to school…in a sense: The reality is, GEO isn’t something marketers can learn once and move on from. It requires ongoing learning and adaptation.

Start with webinars and resources through platforms such as Muck Rack to get a handle on where GEO is today. Then, plan a schedule of ongoing GEO training and check-ups. Do a 30-minute scan of major AI search/answer platform changes monthly to ensure your content remains aligned with best practices. Refresh your brand playbook quarterly with updated FAQs, and continually track what audiences are asking vs. what the brand publishes. 

Finally, keep GEO top of mind by considering its ramifications in any reputation-related conversation, from planning to crisis simulations and brand identity discussions.

The time is now

CMOs understand AI will completely flip the script on their strategies soon – 62% think it will transform their role in the next two years, and 82% of business leaders in general believe their company’s identity will need to significantly change to keep up with AI, according to Gartner. Putting off GEO, or treating it as a tactic rather than a strategy, will significantly hinder brands from winning customers in a generative AI-first environment.

Marketers should start with small steps to understand how AI views their brand narrative today, and then begin to realign both their owned and earned messaging to establish credibility and highlight key differentiators. By restructuring content to meet AI needs and adjusting strategy alongside the changing algorithm, brands can transform generative AI platforms into their unofficial spokespeople.