What Is Earned Media

What is Earned Media? So, marketers have many ways in which you can get the word out about their brand. Most of which involve paying to spread the word. While some allow you to promote your brand in places which you have full control or ownership over. Also, some involve getting other people to take notice of your brand and then choose to promote it for you. Those are the three different forms of media (paid, owned, and earned). Still to this day people value earned media above the other two methods.

Paid Media

This is the content which your brand pays for. Some common examples of what paid media is are print ads, commercials, sponsored blog posts, online ads, and sponsored social media posts. However, the trouble with paid media is it being the least trustworthy form of marketing. This is due to the lack of trust in the content which people see online, in videos, through search engines, or on social media.

Owned Media

Put in simple terms, it is marketing through anything you or your brand has ownership over. Examples of owned media are your brand’s website, email newsletters, social media profiles, and catalogs. Through ownership of any of these, you have the capability to advertise and market anything you want. Also, to display it however you’d like. As a result of being the owner, you have full control over how it will work.

Earned Media

What is earned media? Well, it is commonly know as “when the customer becomes your channel”. Simply put, it means people are talking about your product causing it to have a greater reach. Also, this is known as the most trusted form of media. As a result of earned media, your brand also develops trust among customers as you uphold the statement hey made when they passed along the information about your brand.

Types Of Earned Media

When A Blogger Reviews Your Product

When a brand pays a blogger or provides them with free products or services to review them, it is considered to be paid media. However, if the blogger was to love your product or service and decide to write up a review or create a video encouraging others to experience your brand, without compensation, this is earned media. The second that the blogger receives compensation for their review, it stops being earned media.

Social Media Followers Sharing Your Content

Paying for social media influence is also paid media. this is why you must create content through your social media accounts in order for you to gain some earned media. However, any shares, likes, comments, or retweets that posts get are considered to be earned media. Shares and retweets are ideal, since it spreads the reach of your brand. Also, allows your followers to promote to their own friends for you. Hence, earned media.

Press Mentions

To turn back the clock, anytime a reporter or journalist mentions your brand on their news story, magazine article, on TV or on the radio, it is considered to be earned media. This is also one of the more trusted forms of media, and as a result, can spread your brands message.

Organic Search Engine Results

Being ranked high on search engines, such as Google or Bing, is another route to earned media. However, this is only considered to be earned media if you earn the rankings organically. Meaning, you cant pay for the excellent placement on the results page.

Content Creation

Using AI to figure out why other sites are ahead of yours, we analyze their content and create better posts on your website to move up.

Optimization

On-page optimization is one of the most important aspects of a successful SEO campaign. This is how you tell Google what a page is about.

Backlink Creation

Vital for building trust and proving to search engines that you are what searchers are looking for, we build new backlinks every month.

Competitor Analysis

Analyzing your competitors and why they are outranking you is our specialty. We run many complex tools to gather and test every important data point.

Why Your Brand Needs Earned Media

One of the main reasons you want earned media is trust. Most people will trust a recommendation from family and friends. In the age of social media, the definition of “friend” has become extremely flexible, however, people also trust the opinions of others online. Examples are Yelp or any other review/blog site. Also, paid media is known to have around a one percent conversion rate, while earned media typically averages around five percent. Remember, you are not paying for earned media, meaning you also are not paying the cost of the customer acquisition.

The Tricky Side To Earned Media

As we all know, nothing is perfect. This also applies to earned media. However, the big drawback is that it is the one area where your brand has the least amount of control over. When you publish your brand’s content on your website or social media profile, you have complete control over what gets said. But, earned media is like the Wild West. It may be true that some people have great things to say about your brand, but there will always be those people who have nothing nice to say and just need to take their anger out somewhere. So, one way to make sure your company receives positive reviews through you controlling the message you put out through your own channels. For example, making sure your posts or tweets don’t offend anybody is a good start to preventing negative reviews.

How To Get Earned Media

Use SEO

SEO, or search engine optimization, is always evolving. This is due to the way that search engine algorithms are always evolving. So, to ensure that your brand’s organic results are on the top page, you must optimize your SEO. Now, this is a very time consuming method, however, you can hire firms to handle this 24/7 for you. We offer that here at Local SEO Company.

Work With Influencers

Influencer marketing, on its own, is paid media. However, one of the goals of it is to have the people share the content shared by the influencers. Therefore, transforming it into earned media. So, partner with influencers who have high engagement and fit with your brand. Also, engage with those who care about what your company does to help excite your followers.

Create Shareable, Engaging Content

Focus on producing content which others will engage with throughout your channels. You want all the shares, likes, and retweets you can get. This could mean better blog posts, creative videos, or quizzes/polls that offer helpful information which is relevant to your site. All of which are commonly shared content which gain positive results.

Connect With Journalists

Interviews in magazines, online or print, or press stories count as earned media. However, most journalists tend to be rather picky about the stories they do. Not all media is about the quality of the stories these days. So, it is very important to develop a rapport. This means more than just press releases. It also refers to writing very friendly emails and messages that go above and beyond to attract the attention of the journalist.

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What is Earned Media?

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