I admit it, it's happened to me.
That is why in this post I am going to try to shed some light on one of these concepts that will be unknown to many: I am referring specifically to earned media.
What are they?
Can they be useful for your company?
How do they relate to owned and paid media?
How to integrate them into a marketing strategy to take advantage of them?
We will be looking at these and other questions together throughout the post, so… let’s get started!
What is earned media?
Earned media are media or channels that are not part of the company but, thanks to its good work, have come under its influence.
In English, the word “earn” means “to win” or “to obtain” and has connotations of reward, therefore, earned media could be translated as those means that have been obtained as a result of a job well done.
And you might ask yourself, the fruit of any job well done?
No, not just any media, but those made in owned media and paid media.
If you are unfamiliar with these concepts, don't worry; I will soon answer your questions!
As I was saying, although this is not always the case, in general earned media is the result of previous work well carried out in other media.
If you manage to have an impact with your activity, you will soon see how the trickle begins, paraphrasing Salvador Dalí, whether they speak well or badly of you, but they speak.
Obviously, it is desirable that it be in a favorable tone, but since these are media that are outside the company's control, it is difficult for all the references to be positive.
Earned media examples
Product or service reviews
When it appears in the media, whether in the form of a comparison, analysis, etc.
Obviously, the value of this type of publication will depend on the prestige or quality of the website in question.
User comments
In any of its forms, whether through comments on social networks or reviews on product pages on websites like Amazon, this type of earned media can even eclipse reviews in the media.
According to a study by Nielsen , 2 out of 3 Internet users consider product reviews to be a reliable source when deciding on one product or another.
You are undoubtedly aware of the potential that this data implies.
Advantages of earned media
Having a presence in digital media outside the company has several advantages.
Of these, the most notable are:
It provides credibility to the brand or company in question.
It favors organic positioning in the SERPs .
It increases brand visibility and improves its branding .
They're free!
Presence in earned media and ORM
It said it was free, but that was partly misleading.
Just because you don't have to spend anything to have a presence doesn't mean you don't have to spend anything to make it successful.
To conquer "earned media" it is essential to have a good Outreach strategy, the starting point of which must be to carry out an in-depth analysis of the presence of the brand itself and compare it with that of the main competitors.
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In this way, it will be possible to identify those media in which the company has presence and control, those in which it has presence and no control, and finally, those in which it has neither presence nor control (for the moment).
Earned media took a while to be considered by companies as part of their marketing strategy, partly due to the great difficulty in monitoring what was happening in them.
However, there are currently powerful tools that allow us to measure those conversations that affect the company.
Thanks to these tools, some ORM actions can be incorporated into the Outreach strategy.
Thanks to the ORM or Online Reputation Manager, and relying on different tools, companies can control and moderate those conversations in forums, social networks or similar that affect the company.
Depending on the type of conversations, the company can promote opinion flows, take advantage of them, prevent them...
A negative thought pattern could ruin the efforts and investments dedicated to building the brand.
Hence the importance of promoting ORM actions in earned media, to try to cultivate a positive predisposition in users and try, in this way, to ensure that the opinions expressed coincide with the interests of the company.
Differences between earned media, paid media and owned media
The names they are given can help you get an idea of the characteristics of each media group, as well as what differentiates them from each other.
But let's look at each type in more detail:
1.- Earned media
Since we have just talked about them, I do not want to go into much detail, but philippines code number mobile I do want to emphasize three characteristics of these media.
On the one hand, to highlight them and, on the other hand, so that the contrast with paid and owned Media is more evident.
The three main characteristics of earned media are:
They are completely free .
They are outside the company.
Despite being outsiders, the company exercises some degree of power or control over them.
Each of these characteristics are non-negotiable, since if any of them are not met, they would no longer be earned media, but would receive another name.
2.- Paid media
To talk to you about paid media, I am going to continue the thread that I left loose on earned media.
He said that if they do not meet any of those three characteristics they would no longer be earned media, but would receive another name.
For example, if a medium fails to comply with the first of these and the company's presence in it is not at zero cost, it would no longer be earned media.
In this case we would be talking about paid media.