Digital PR Is How You Get Cited by ChatGPT

So can you explain, Neil, what digital PR is actually, and how does it help with AEO SEO?

Looking like, uh, oh dude, I had to show you something before I go into Huawei because we're talking about iPhones. Huawei.

H-U-A-W-E-I.

Uh, with screen. Uh, okay, check this out. Look at what Huawei's doing. This is cool. They're starting to put screens in the back. I would buy that.

Oh, that's cool.

Yeah, because you can see, well, like when you're in the camera and all that kind of stuff, right?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's because the camera is better on the back than the front.

That's cool. But like, what else would you use it for?

I just don't know. But like, that doesn't— if it didn't increase the dimension of my phone, I think that's a cool feature that I would pay for.

So digital PR, to go back to your digital PR question, sorry for the sidetrack, but I had to show you that because with all the iPhone releases, people are talking about the Chinese phones and how they're already better and ahead of where the iPhone production is.

Well, let's sit on that for a second, right? Because here's the thing, when I showed the ByteDance team how we work inside of Slack with AI, they laughed at me, right? Because they were already doing that like a year or 2 ago, right? Because they have this thing called Lark, And the funny thing is when we show Americans how we use it, mind blown. Oh my God, right? It's so amazing, right? And so they are, I would say like, we don't know a lot of these things, but they're ahead in a lot of cases and they're making do. They might not have as much energy. Well, no, no, they might not have all the AI tech, but they have much more energy than us. So they're making do with whatever that they have. So I'm saying, you know, whether it's the United States or China or any other country, you don't want to underestimate them because look at the phones. They look like they're better than ours.

I remember, I believe it was the All-In interview with Travis, the ex-Uber CEO and founder, he ended up talking about China and he's like, they move so fast, they copy really quickly. And he's like, what's crazy is not only do they copy super fast, but what's interesting is after a while they've copied everything, then they start innovating and producing more than what you're producing. And then you're starting to look at them and be like, wow, we should copy this.

Yeah. And here's the thing. How— we're talking about mindset again, okay? The mindset of that culture, because I'm from that culture, right? I know how it is. You're working all the time, you're studying all the time. It's 996, sometimes 997 in terms of hours, right? 9 AM to 9 PM, 7 days a week. But there's only so many companies that do that. So if they keep compounding that advantage, how do you beat that at a certain point, right?

It's tough. Even with AI, they're still working all those hours with AI to get even more done.

Yep. So I wonder, have you looked into this as a parent, Neil? Have you looked into how we rank with mathematics versus China?

We're terrible. We're probably in the bottom, you know, 10%, 20% bottom.

I don't know.

I know we're not in the top. If I had to guess, I don't even think we're in the top 10% globally for education.

Okay. So let me give you the rankings here. I'm using Google AI mode for this. Okay. So it basically for K-12, okay. Singapore is number 1.

Okay.

Okay, I'm pointing at myself because I'm yellow. Number 1 is Singapore. Number 2 is Macau.

Okay.

Number 3 is China— sorry, number 3 is Taiwan.

Okay.

Number 4 is Hong Kong.

Okay.

I'm half Hong Kong, half Taiwanese, right?

Okay.

Number 5 is Japan. Number 6 is South Korea.

Okay.

Number 34 is the United States.

There you go. Right?

How do you beat that education system? How do you beat that work ethic? Because we get distracted by all these things, right? All these other things in the workplace.

Yes.

We'll just leave it at that. Yeah.

But what people forget about the US US is, it doesn't mean the US is screwed. It means the average is screwed.

The US has amazing mathematic programs, sadly for people who are privileged and have money.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so this is, this is the thing. The rich will get richer. And not only that, the rich will get richer because they have intelligence. Like you have infinite intelligence behind them too.

Dude, the school I go to, my kids go to, I've met some really interesting people. There. It's a great school. Quite a few of the parents are from China. And when I asked them, what made you move? They're like, school. We moved to the US to go to this school here. And I'm like, wait, what? And one of the parents I was talking to, they got one of their kids in. So, one of their kids went here, one of their kids was still in school in China. They would fly back and forth. This is dedication.

Yeah.

The kid now just got into the school That's nearby another amazing school.

They're older.

And then now both their kids here and now they're full-time just living in the US.

Well, you know how it works. Our university system is better, right? But our K through 12—

No, this is for K through 12.

Okay. Well, we just kind of—

But this is for private school. That's what I'm saying, the privilege, right?

Like if you have money, but the competition for these schools, even if you have money, for every— I don't know what the ratio is, but some people joke that it's harder to get into than Harvard because everyone has money. Everyone has letters of recommendation. Like, it's extremely hard. People move from all over the United States.

Supply and demand.

And this is the interesting thing that I found.

A lot of the parents that I've talked to move their primary home, even if they live in Southern California, closer to the school. So in other words, they're changing their life for the school. Yep.

This is interesting. I didn't know this was true, Neil. So, uh, and then we can, we can move on to the, the digital PR thing. But compulsory schooling, do you know what this is? So the US mandates 12 to 13 years of compulsory education. China legally mandates years, primary and lower secondary, with roughly 40% of upper secondary students sorting into specialized vocational tracks, which I believe that should be how education is. Because I do believe at age 9 or 10, for you or me, we probably could have started going into business or marketing because we just hired a 15-year-old, right? And I can tell like, he— it's your brain might not be fully formed yet, you might not be fully developed, but he's already got the capabilities to do it. And I believe we should change to just 12 to 13 years of forced education.

Alpha School already did it. You see their entrepreneur program. He's from Alpha School. Oh, he's from Alpha School. They have an entrepreneur, they have, I think, 3 different versions when you're older. One of the versions is if you don't make $1 million by the time you graduate in revenue for your business, they'll refund your whole tuition.

So when people join the company, you're required to put, there's a photo sharing channel that we have where you share like introductions, right? So he joins and say, hey guys, I'm 15 years old. Here's the computer I built, blah, blah. My goal is to make $1 million by the time I'm 18. I'm like, Fuck yeah, because that gets everyone else to like have to step up as well. I'm like, if he can come in and do it, you better have that motivation as well.

It's really cool to see that.

Yeah, it's great. I mean, but I just, I hope there's gonna be more Alpha Schools and you know more about Alpha School than I do. We should talk about that real quick 'cause I think the marketing behind it is genius. It's like, I know this guy, Nat Eliason, he kind of runs the Million Dollar Program, right? Where he's like, hey, like if you don't make $1 million or whatever, you get your tuition back or something like that, right? I think that's great marketing because it's training kids to lean into their entrepreneurial tendencies. And that's not saying everyone's going to be an entrepreneur, but it's to say that age doesn't matter. And I think that's a great alternative to standard schooling that we have. But did I miss anything there?

No, you nailed it.

What's really interesting on how they do marketing, they pre-market before they go into a city. So let's say Las Vegas. I know Las Vegas well because I used to live there, but my co-founder Mike, Lives there currently and he has 2 kids.

Oh, he has 2 now?

I didn't know that. So Alpha School has it where they start marketing everything that they're doing in their programs and they're creating all this content. They're putting around the web, they're doing podcast interviews to get the brand out there.

Then for them to come to your school, they're looking at demand.

They get the community to help. Oh, you love what we're doing?

You like this? Are you willing to put down a deposit and be one of the founding families? Oh, cool.

Founding families.

Yeah. Can you help us recruit more? Because unless we have X amount of founding families, we won't open up a school in that area. So then you are now marketing Alpha School to all the other parents, because if you have kids, your kids play with other kids.

And you're incentivized because you have money in there.

Yes. So now you are marketing Alpha School for them. You don't get a discount or any— from my understanding, you don't get a discount or people don't care for them. It's not substantial enough where it'd make a difference. You're going out there and doing this. Just so you can have this within your city. It's pretty much creating evangelists before they enter in your city, and this is causing them to create enough of a waitlist and a deposit before they enter. And the moment they enter, they're filled up because they've already done all the marketing ahead of time before they spent the money on the building, the rent, the teachers, and all of that. So now you don't have a business model that's just juicing up tons of cash.

This is high-status marketing. That's what FOMO marketing, high-status marketing, and you'll do anything for your kids.

There's only so many slots. A school isn't like—

A big school.

No.

Yeah.

It's not, it's not like where you can fit 1,000 kids and all these cities have a lot of kids. So you got to get in and it is FOMO because if you're not in there, you're going to miss out. So you better go and help them early on.

And you'll do anything for your kids.

Yes.

How much does it cost a year? $65,000? Is that what it is? All right, so I wanted to take a moment to tell you about my podcast co-host Neil's agency called NP Digital, and they work with a whole host of global companies or a global organization. Also, Neil has SEO tools such as Ubersuggest and AnswerThePublic. All you have to do is go to npdigital.com to learn more, and we'll see you on the other side.

I think here's like either $60, $70. It depends. They base the pricing, not just a blanket pricing. It's based on the city you're in because Rent costs more, let's say in Beverly Hills, they're working on opening one up than it would in East Hollywood. Right. So they base the pricing based on their costs as well.

I think this is interesting because the promise, I believe someone can correct me here, but it's if, if your kid doesn't have a million-dollar-a-year business by the time they're 18, they'll give you all your money back.

Not million-dollar-a-year.

From my understanding—

A million in profit?

No, from my understanding, you have to generate a million in revenue.

By the time they graduate.

Yeah. I don't think I could be off on this.

Oh, so aggregate revenue.

Aggregate.

I see.

That's still good though.

That's still really good. It's not about if they hit a million or not, it's about teaching them the skills and the grit and the grind.

And then they'll be able to do whatever they want.

Yes.

And so I believe whether it's Alpha School or something else, I think this will start to trend upwards more. And do I think it's going to be a privileged thing? Yes, I do. But I think it's good if you can afford it.

So yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Digital PR, Neil. So what is digital PR actually and how does it help with AEO and SEO?

Sure.

So think of, Getting websites. Let's say you're a business that sells, I don't know.

Massage oil.

No, not massage oil. That's a bad example. I know more entrepreneur topics. What do entrepreneurs buy?

Computers.

Sure, computers. Let's say you sell like these AI computers with tons of RAM.

Servers, whatever.

Servers and all that kind of stuff. Your ideal websites to talk about you would be Entrepreneur, Forbes for like the business and the executive types. Also for, it would be CNET.

I don't know too many of the tech sites.

CNET, TechCrunch.

Yep.

Ziff Davis.

Ziff Davis, yep.

Right?

Some of those websites talking about you.

So digital PR is like, all right, how can we get these websites to talk about you, review you, build relationships with the journalists? But it's also going out there and be like, oh, they have a listicle on this, or this webpage breaks down the best servers for running your own instance of some new LLM that's hot. I don't know what the latest hottest LLM is.

Astra, ChatGPT-6. Okay.

No, I'm talking about on your local device and not using—

Oh, Quinn.

Okay, Quinn.

So then if they have an article just for that and they're mentioning some of the servers you can do, you'd be like, hey, these servers aren't actually set up for running Quinn as efficiently.

Because you're talking—

the memory usage is just the bare minimum. So when you're doing X, Y, and Z, you actually need this much. We actually have a computer that solves this. Check this out.

If you can include it in this article, that'll be great.

It's like the new version of link building. If they link, great. If they mention your brand, great. You just want to be included everywhere where people are talking about products or services that are ideal for you and you want to make sure they're mentioning and talking about you in a good way. But it's not like old school link building where it's just like, hey, can you just include a link? You want them to actually talk about your product and service and dive into it and break it down and talk about why it's better than some of the alternatives. Like the more— it's just like a PR person pitching a magazine to get included and do an exclusive or just getting an article or a mention in there. It's kind of similar, but you're doing it online and you're optimizing for the mention. And of course, why not get links at the same time? Because everyone's like, you just need mentions anymore. Well, if you get a mention and a link, that's better than just getting a mention, right?

Yep. So go ahead and finish that up.

So when it's— when you're doing that, relevant sites, very detail-oriented on how they're describing you, getting the mentions, getting the links, all of this stuff really influences LLMs. And the key, and this is the pattern that we're seeing shift, Eric and I have been on this talk track for a long time before everyone's like, spray and pray and just get any website to mention you. Now, people are trying to focus on getting the right type of sites that are industry-related mentioning you and talking about you because everyone knows that it's easy to get Joe Schmo guest posts on whatever random site, get them to mention you. It's not as effective, we believe, in the long run for a good website. And if you're really good at digital PR, you're not just going to be like, let me just get placed anywhere. You're going to be like, what are we trying to get mentioned on the LLMs for? Oh, the best computer for running your own instance of Kimia, or did you say it's Quinn or Kimia or whatever?

Kimia is fine.

Yeah, whatever one you want. And if you know this is booming, you can get a lot of business for it. You're asking these questions to LLM, you're looking at the sources that they're already citing, This exact article and URL, and you're hitting those people up and trying to convince them to include you as well, because that's the quickest way to get mentioned on that list.

So what I would say with all this is that just SEO back in the day was Google, right? There was no LLMs or anything like that. Today you have these ultimate pattern recognizers, whether it's Astra or, you know, ChatGPT, Anthropic, whatever it is exactly. What are they going to look for? You don't think they can get around the fact that you're just spamming a bunch of other websites? Like that might've worked before, but now it's like, okay, they're going to look for patterns, right? It's like, oh, Does the site look relevant? Oh, are other people talking about that website? Oh, can I see what text is surrounding a link coming back to you? Obviously, you would just choose that.

Were the other people included? Because if they're random junk sites, you know that, oh, it doesn't help us much at all.

And so it's just a better, better pattern recognizer than what Google was before. And Google's Gemini is pretty strong on its own. And so you got to think, like, if this is evolving, like, what naturally would they be looking for? And digital PR, you might say, oh, this is nothing new. It's like, It is nothing new, but what's old is new again, right? And this is what works out well. And so even a year or two ago when people were spamming their own websites with a bunch of these like, you know, comparison or listicles, that worked really well because the LLMs didn't catch up yet. Now they're catching up more. I'm not saying that doesn't work, but they're getting smarter and smarter by the day. And I have Astro 6 on my iPad now, so I'm going to go work on this right after we finish.

Dude, one last thing before we finish because I know we're about time and we actually finished really well on time because—

No, wait, we have a couple more. I have one more episode. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we started at '03, but when we started talking about LLMs back in the day, you and I were like, they're much more sophisticated than traditional search.

Yeah.

Yet marketers believe that you can use the same old spammy tactics that used 10 years ago because they're not sophisticated.

So you're like, wait, you think you can use the old school tactics to spam Google? And you know, they stopped working on Google because Google got more sophisticated. These LLMs are more sophisticated than Google and they're evolving at a very rapid rate. You don't think that you're going to go through all those same learnings again, so why not just skip the spammy stuff and just do the right stuff from day one? Because it's going to last long and you're going to do way better in the long run. But yet marketers, for some reason, it doesn't click for a lot of them when they already know LLMs are much smarter.

So we've been doing this podcast for, it's got to be like 11 years now or something like that, right? 11 or 10 years, okay? We've always said this in the beginning, do the black hat stuff in a white hat way, okay? This is the perfect example of that. It takes a little more effort, but it works a lot better than just spamming everything, and yet people still do the same thing over and over.

And I want to clarify what Eric's saying. He's not saying use black hat tactics. He's saying learn from the black hat tactics and do them in legitimate long-term strategies. He's not saying do the black hat tactics on legitimate businesses. He's saying learn from the black hat strategies and do them in legitimate ways, even if it takes more time and money and energy, it's more worth it in the long run because the results will continually compound versus having a short-term effect where you're getting that like dopamine and then it just goes away because it doesn't work anymore.

Yeah. And by the way, a perfect example of this, I've looked at, you know, whether it's Neil or myself, the evolution of our marketing over the years. There'll be some years where like I'm good at YouTube and then some years where I suck. And then there's some years where I'm good at this channel and then the same thing for you. Like it kind of ebbs and flows, right? But the one thing that we've been consistent with is that we've been consistent, right? That's the one advantage. It's just, this is how you outlast other people by just continuing to do. And by the way, when you try doing the black hat stuff, we've like experimented early days. I'm not speaking for Neil, but in the early days I've tried the gray hat stuff. You lose everything for all your efforts. You might as well just do it the right way. It compounds a lot better. And you learn as you go through your career, the 5, 10, 15 years goes by really quickly. And then you see the benefit of compound interest.

Yes.

And even by the way, I'll look at Neil's traffic, right? Neil, people were poo-pooing on Neil for losing his job. Doesn't matter because he's built so much infrastructure around all the other stuff that it doesn't matter, right? And that you're impervious to just one channel going down, whereas everyone else has been on one channel with all the black hat stuff and they lose it all. So that's the lesson. Keep being consistent. That's how you win at marketing.

Yep.

All right.

Goodbye.