by | Aug 3, 2026

Midyear PR audit: 7 data-driven ways to improve your tech PR strategy

By Peter Huleatt, Account Executive

The desire to do a midyear PR audit ranks somewhere between expense reports and time entry. Sadly, it is just as important to add to the to-do list. Six months of work shows which stories, reporters, spokespeople and publications produced results. But the plan approved in January has aged. Reporters changed jobs, the launch moved three times and the AI message is missing some buzzwords that got popular during Q2. 

A good midyear audit makes the plan more selective and forward thinking. It should name the stories worth owning, the reporters and audiences worth the time and the work that produces results. It should also account for where people’s eyes have turned to find information in 2026, including newsletters, video content and AI results.

1. Stop making the CEO answer every question

The most senior spokesperson is not always the most useful one. A CEO does not need to comment on every software vulnerability, regulatory proposal and whatever AI hack happened last Tuesday. Cision found 42% of journalists want more access to experts and interview opportunities, and the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer puts trust in scientists at 76% against 54% for CEOs. 

At a technology company, the strongest voice is often the engineer who built the product, the researcher who ran the data, the CISO who owns the risk or the product leader who talks to customers every week. Those people supply the technical detail, the practical example and the opinion that turns a routine comment into something a reporter can use. 

Review briefing and coverage results by spokesperson. Identify who can speak with authority on which topics, how fast each responds and which opportunities died waiting on approvals. Name a primary and a backup for every priority topic, train them, build a stockpile of approved comments and agree on a fast approval path for reactive comments. A journalist’s deadline will not move because the quote is with legal. 

2. Find out what AI thinks it knows about you

Customers, investors, journalists and job candidates now ask AI platforms what a company does and how it compares with competitors. Communications teams need to know what those platforms say.  

The acronyms keep multiplying. SEO covers traditional search rankings. AEO covers featured snippets and direct answers. GEO covers how companies, products and perspectives appear in ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity. One question sits underneath all of them. How do AI platforms find, interpret and repeat information about your company? 

Muck Rack’s 2026 State of PR report found nearly three-quarters of PR professionals consider GEO at least somewhat important, yet 29% say no one owns it and 39% do not measure it.  

Checking is not complicated and mostly about consistency. You will need to write out the questions a buyer, a reporter or an analyst would actually type. Ask what the company does, how it compares with named competitors and who leads the category. You should then run that same set across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Claude, for the company and its top competitors, and record what comes back and check them form inconsistencies. Give it a set window, roughly 30 days, then run it again. It is important that you keep the prompts, platforms and competitor list identical, or the second read tells you nothing.  

3. Revisit what “Tier 1”actually means

Media tiers should reflect the audience a company needs to influence, not logo recognition on a client call. A national publication is not automatically worth more than the trade outlet a company’s buyers, developers, CISOs and analysts read. A technical article that reaches the right eyes beats a national mention placed right above the newsletter signup. 

Tiers should also move with the story. A routine product announcement rarely interests a top-tier national reporter. A thought leadership campaign built on original data or a genuinely different point of view has a real chance. Adding a national newspaper to the list does not make a product update national news. 

Before adding a stretch target, check that the reporter covers the subject, has written about it recently and reaches an audience that will grasp why it matters. The story needs consequences beyond the company, and the spokesperson needs evidence or a point of view that moves the conversation. A national reporter off the beat is a weaker target than a specialist who reaches your buyers. 

Recent research from Cision found 79% of journalists engage most with pitches relevant to their beat and audience, and Muck Rack found 78% define a relevant pitch as one that directly affects the community their publication serves. Use that as the tier test. Check whether the outlet still covers the market, whether customers and analysts read it and whether past coverage led anywhere. A moonshot should stretch the story, not the reporter’s beat. 

4. Follow the journalist, not just the masthead

Journalists now publish in several places at once, holding a staff job while running a Substack, a beehiiv newsletter, a LinkedIn series, a podcast or a YouTube channel. Muck Rack recently found 37% publish reporting or commentary independently of a traditional outlet, 47% spend more time on LinkedIn and 72% call social media important for promoting their work. Reporters change jobs and keep their audiences. Media databases take longer to catch up. 

Newsletters are now core media. beehiiv’s 2026 State of Newsletters reports publishers sent 28 billion emails to more than 255 million unique readers last year, with open rates above 41%. Acclaimed newsrooms from The Washington Post to Time and Newsweek have launched a creator-led newsletters on beehiiv, while The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, the Financial Times and The New Yorker have been on Substack. 

YouTube deserves the same attention. The Reuters Institute’s 2026 Digital News Report found 77% of people worldwide watch online news video each week, and Meltwater’s June 2026 AI visibility report named YouTube the most cited source across more than 8 million AI citations. One video interview reaches viewers, produces social clips and leaves a transcript AI platforms can cite. 

Check whether priority journalists run newsletters, LinkedIn audiences, podcasts or YouTube channels, and find the independent creators covering your category. Confirm whether each opportunity is earned, sponsored or paid. Substack, beehiiv and YouTube are platforms, not beats, so subscribe, read a few editions and learn whether the person reports news, analyzes trends or publishes commentary before you pitch. 

5. If you cannot defend a target, take them off the list

Wider outreach can look like more effort from afar. In practice, it takes less effort and mostly creates more chances to damage a relationship. Recent research from Muck Rack shows the risk. Fifty percent of journalists are put off by messages that read like mass email and 46% dislike repeated follow-ups after no reply. Before adding a name, be able to say what that reporter covered recently, why the story fits and why the audience will care. You should also shouldn’t show up empty handed, be that new information, credible access or a timely hook. If the reason is that they cover technology, the research needs a couple more minutes. 

The extra names cost something. Send enough irrelevant pitches and a journalist filters, deletes or blocks you. That reputation follows the agency across clients and makes the pitches that do fit harder to land. If you can only defend 10 names on a 40-name list then you have 10 targets and 30 risks. 

6. Put your company story through the “so what?” test

Months of internal message work does not make a message work for those that are unfamiliar. If explaining why an announcement matters takes longer than the announcement, the answer to “so what?” is already clear. A recent Cision report found 53% of journalists reject pitches that feel promotional and 34% reject pitches with no clear news angle.  

Compare core messages against competitor coverage, journalist interests and current industry conversations. Note which positions showed up in first-half coverage and which never got past the pitch. A strong message names a problem readers recognize, carries consequences beyond the company and rests on a view competitors cannot claim as credibly. It should still hold up with the company name removed from the first sentence. 

When every competitor calls itself “AI-powered,” “transformative” or “end-to-end,” none of it differentiates anything. “AI-powered” is just punctuation disguised as marketing now, not a news angle. Pick a small number of specific stories the company can defend with data, customer experience or technical depth, and build the second half around them. 

7. Give journalists something they can actually use

A strong message still needs proof. Cision found 47% of journalists want more original data or research, 45% want embargoed or early access and 42% want access to experts, while only 22% chose press releases and 19% chose prepared spokesperson quotes. Similarly, Muck Rack found 58% want access to relevant sources and 40% value original research. 

Before you send the pitch plan, take inventory of what the company can hand a reporter beyond an announcement, including proprietary data, customer examples, technical experts, demos, strong visuals or early access. Research needs a stated methodology, and experts need to explain findings rather than recite approved marketing language. “Groundbreaking” is a claim. A customer, an analyst, a working demo or a credible dataset are evidence. 

First-half results show where to invest. If original research or customer evidence drew interest, build more campaigns around them. If major announcements stalled, work out whether it lacked consequence or arrived with materials that a journalist could get elsewhere. Build the second-half calendar around the evidence journalists can use, not just the announcements the company wants to make. 

Make the audit lead somewhere 

A midyear audit should end in decisions about where the company needs to show up, which stories can earn attention, which voices reporters want and how earned coverage feeds newsletters, video, search and AI answers. Those answers set where the team spends the second half. 

The goal is not a 46-slide deck everyone calls “really helpful” and never opens. The second-half plan should carry fewer targets, fewer messages and fewer long shots, each with a clear reason for being there. A shorter media list buys stronger relationships and more relevant coverage. 

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