Earned Media

October 31, 2022 2023-01-30 10:51

What is Earned Media?

Earned media is the publicity or exposure for your brand that has been received organically. Brands and marketers can earn attention by asking social media influencers to mention their brand names in their social media posts, online reviews, NEWS articles, blogs, and more.

Earned media is a powerful way to improve your brand awareness and authenticity by controlling as end users and unbiased media groups are generally part of the content creation process.

Types of Earned Media

There are various types of earned media. Here are the top four types of earned media:

  1. Publicity: Publicity generally means getting coverage in the traditional media outlets, such as newspapers, TV, magazines, or Radio. In recent times, bloggers, video creators, and podcast hosts provide the same publicity by providing spotlight stories, interviews, or product reviews.
  2. Word-of-Mouth: Word-of-mouth is essentially the most powerful form of earned media. It occurs when customers or clients talk about your brand or product to their friends, family, or colleagues. This will bring authenticity and credibility for your brand.
  3. Influencer Marketing: As the active users on the social media platforms are rising, Influencer marketing has become a powerful earned media option to select. Majority of the DTC brands use this type of earned media to gain eyeballs for their brands.
  4. Influencer Marketing: As the active users on the social media platforms are rising, Influencer marketing has become a powerful earned media option to select. Majority of the DTC brands use this type of earned media to gain eyeballs for their brands.

Characteristics of Earned Media in detail.

There are several key characteristics of earned media:

  1. Earned media is free: This is one of the most attractive aspects of earned media. Unlike paid media, which requires a company to shell out money for advertising, earned media is essentially free publicity.
  2. Earned media is more credible: Because earned media is not a paid advertisement, it is generally seen as more credible by consumers, as it is generated by consumers.
  3. Earned media is more targeted: Unlike paid media, which is often more general in nature, earned media can be more targeted to specific demographics and interests. Companies often use malpractices to generate results for paid ads, there is less possibility of that in the earned media.
  4. Earned media is more spontaneous: Paid media is often planned and organized in advance, while earned media is more spontaneous and can be generated by word-of-mouth or a company’s actions.
  5. Earned media is more powerful: Because earned media is more credible and targeted, it can be more powerful than paid media in influencing consumer behavior.

Importance of Earned Media

There are several key reasons why earned media is so important:

  1. Credibility: When people see that your brand is being talked about in a positive light by credible sources, it can help to build trust and credibility. Earned media is often produced by the consumers, thus it creates a lot of trust among others.
  2. Reach: Earned media can help to reach new audiences that you may not have been able to reach through paid or owned media channels. For instance, you can skip bots and reach real users with perfect placements.
  3. SEO: Positive mentions of your brand can help to improve your search engine optimization (SEO) and help you to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). Well, earned media is not directly associated with SEO, but it surely helps the marketing team.
  4. SEO: Positive mentions of your brand can help to improve your search engine optimization (SEO) and help you to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). Well, earned media is not directly associated with SEO, but it surely helps the marketing team.
  5. Engagement: People are more likely to engage with content that has been shared by someone they know and trust. Thus, brands would get more positive engagements.
  6. Brand awareness: Earned media can help to raise awareness of your brand and what it has to offer. With more mentions and engagements, brand awareness increases over the period of time.
  7. Customer loyalty: When people have a positive experience with your brand, they are more likely to become loyal customers.