The SPEC Sheet: “Be Curious.”

More of a mantra than a favorite quote, I prioritize being curious right up there with spending time outdoors. After more than two decades in a career that’s evolved from Bacon’s Media Directorybooks (IYKYK) to AI searches, I’m here to tell you, curiosity is essential.

Curiosity has inspired our team to always question: What’s happening with our industry? What’s next? Why do we do what we do? Tyler has been pressing us for years to look more closely at Reddit. Partly because he’s a power user, and partly because he’s seen the opportunity to engage with this massive community. He might get his chance now that, among other reasons, AI bots prioritize Reddit as one of the top resources for unfiltered information. (If you’re curious about how Reddit is adjusting in the world of AI, it seems they’ve pivoted from lawsuits to multiple adoption and revenue models).

Curiosity is asking how our industry contributes to the greater economy, employment, and people’s lives (spoiler: “... new U.S. data show the value added of the outdoor recreation economy accounted for 2.4 percent ($696.7 billion) of current-dollar gross domestic product (GDP) for the nation in 2024,” according to a March 5 News Release from the Bureau of Economic Analysis). This data can be used to show the strength of our industry, but also, as Spicer put it, “is important context to our why we do what we do: this is a vibrant industry that benefits nearly everyone in the country in very direct ways with jobs, with experiences, and at the very foundational level, with the opportunity to explore nature and reap the benefits therein.”

If you’re curious about what those benefits might be and how they are being quantified, check out Lisa’s note below about a recent University of Michigan study.

To quote Albert Einstein, “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” And at the risk of sounding like I’m comparing myself to him (if you know me, you know better), I can at least relate to half of that statement. So as we move into the next quarter, the next phase of our careers, or the societal shift brought on by advancing AI, I say: Be curious.

Thanks as always for reading.

Van
Founding Partner, SPEC PR
Strategic, Pragmatic, Effective Communications

 

SPEC Insights

The marketing industry has been taking a hard look at Reddit lately in the wake of AI-optimization. For years, the platform has largely been an afterthought for digital marketers compared to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, but now that word is spreading that Reddit has some serious influence over AI and SEO, brands are starting to take interest – if only they can figure it out.

A forum of forums, a community of communities, Reddit sets itself apart from the Meta-driven social media landscape by offering a different social experience. Reddit isn’t built around “following” an account to receive their updates. It’s about joining conversations within communities of shared interests like r/Outdoors and r/Offroad, regardless of who the content is coming from.

Reddit invites its users to share and discuss news on specific topics, and question and learn from more experienced users within its communities. I’ve learned new ways to use software and tools from subreddits like r/ChatGPT and r/Photoshop. I can attribute my pandemic hobby turned personal passion to the lessons I learned on r/Breadit and r/Sourdough. I follow fan discussions on trending pop culture topics like r/ThePittTVShow or r/Pokopia.

Aggregations of news articles with public commentary, Q&As, how-tos, and expert opinions, all neatly organized by topic, make Reddit an SEO powerhouse on Google’s search, but now all that structured data of authentic conversations is also one of the default sources of how AI finds its answers. Reddit has made deals with Google and OpenAI, openly sharing its data to train LLMs, making the conversations on the platform some of the most influential data driving AI responses today.

By making yourself part of the conversation, you might just influence the conversations people are having with their AI chatbots. So why hasn’t Reddit built a following comparable to Meta? The main reason is that it offers little incentive or path to build a personal following. Its users value engaging and authentic conversation, filtering out most blatant promotion and marketing.

However, this doesn’t mean Reddit is against brands. There are endless subreddits dedicated to brands and their industries, from entertainment franchises to consumer products. Companies overseeing those brands have found success within those channels when they join the conversation instead of controlling it. 

This applies to anyone reading this email. If you’re here, you’re a professional in PR, marketing, or journalism. You have a voice, and you’re likely a subject matter expert. There are ways you can engage and add value to Reddit conversations, while also aligning yourself and/or your brand with searchable content. 

It’s not easy, and it does require letting go of more control than many brands are comfortable relinquishing, but those that find success on Reddit are able to tap into a passionate, knowledgeable, and highly targeted audience, with an influence that goes even further with AI.

Tyler
SPEC PR
Strategic, Pragmatic, Effective Communications

 

Something to Consider

Intuitively, we understand that time spent outdoors is good for our health. However, there’s also a growing body of science to support this thesis, as reported in a recent Washington Post feature, from a University of Michigan study finding a 20% improvement in short-term memory after a nature walk, to therapists reporting less burnout and more breakthroughs when they take their sessions outside. The mind-body-nature connection is showing real promise. Check out the article here: https://wapo.st/4b2p8j7

Researchers note that you don't need a scenic vista or even good weather to reap the benefits. A city park, a neighborhood trail, a moment noticing the birdsong on your way to the car — it all counts.

Lisa
Founding Partner, SPEC PR
Strategic, Pragmatic, Effective Communications

 

Something to Read ... or Listen to

Another guy who was perennially curious was Sir David Ogilvy, known as the “Father of Advertising.” No, I’m no ad man, but his books, Ogilvy on Advertising and Confessions of an Advertising Man, are good reading for this genre. If you can’t force yourself to sit through the books, then you can still get a good feel for them from the summaries on the Founders podcast. A great podcast with countless life lessons:

https://www.founderspodcast.com/episodes/306-david-ogilvy-confessions-of-an-advertising-man
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3NwOo3qRcd73zTkxbWgvL9

Van
Founding Partner, SPEC PR
Strategic, Pragmatic, Effective Communications

Client Spotlight

Last month, Yamaha announced that the Ténéré 700 World Raid is coming to the U.S. While we’re happy to shamelessly promote our work, what we felt was most relevant to this audience is a quick case study of the AEO/GEO strategies we discussed back in our first newsletter. To recap, Answer Engine Optimization & Generative Engine Optimization are strategies to optimize PR efforts to influence the results of AI-generated responses — think SEO for AI. It’s still a bit of a new science, there’s no way to definitively measure it, but results like this give us a clear view of how well it actually works.

Back to the World Raid, this bike has been available overseas for years, and with each new version of the model announced or tested, our U.S. media friends perked up. It’s a great bike. . AI has scraped years of content training on the knowledge that the Ténéré 700 World Raid was not available in the U.S. 

It’s one thing to teach AI something new — it’s another thing to reverse years of information it’s already trained on. Our theory was that if we optimized our press release and distributed it over the wire, that we could potentially influence the AI search responses. Hence, the test: 

Step 1: The day before the U.S. announcement, we ran a test across the top used LLM tools, asking Google’s AI search and Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude, “Is the Ténéré 700 World Raid available in the U.S.?” Each of these tools gave us a definitive “NO.”

Step 2: In addition to the typical announcement shared directly to our core media contacts, we also created an AI-optimized version of the press release to ensure the information was structured in a way to train AI on the announcement’s key messages and provide direct answers to questions people may ask AI about the product.

Step 3: As we distributed the press release of the U.S. model, the announcement was also made live on the opening day of Daytona Bike Week on a Friday afternoon, pushing much of the coverage to the following week. We were relying entirely on our wire service to drive our AI strategy. Within minutes of our announcement going out over the wire, Google’s AI Search and Gemini immediately changed their tune. By the end of the hour, ChatGPT and Claude followed suit.

Ultimately, the announcement of this new model captured the attention of motorcycle enthusiasts across the country. It was an exciting announcement for endemic media and ADV fans. 

As a PR agency, we were equally excited to see the AI strategy play out in line with our theory. Without proven tools to measure AEO/GEO, we had the opportunity to test in real time what impact we might have on AI results, and we found the results to be conclusive and even quicker than we’d expected.

Tyler
SPEC PR
Strategic, Pragmatic, Effective Communications

 

PRO Tip

Get a sore back standing around trade shows all day? Take a tip from our buddy, Kelsea at Cardo, who turned us onto this little back zapper (aka muscle stimulator).

We picked one up after the Overland Expo, and it’s our new go-to for long days on the feet.