What is earned media?
As the name suggests, earned media is any form of exposure or publicity that a brand gains without its active participation.
If you wish to gain a more in-depth understanding of this concept, check out the FAQ section below:
Question #1: Examples:
Examples of earned media include:
- Features
- Mentions
- Reviews
- Reposts
- Recommendations
Let us take a closer look at each one:
Features refer to any type of content created by an external party that is specifically meant to talk about your brand. Examples of this include:
- Documentaries
- Blog posts
- Commentary videos
Mentions, on the other hand, refer to things such as shout-outs, social media tags, and backlinks, which external parties use to link to your website or social media accounts when they talk about your brand to their own audiences.
Reviews, as you may have already guessed, refer to any form of commentary an external party makes about your brand on an external platform.
Reposts refer to any content of yours that an external party voluntarily shares on an external platform.
Finally, recommendations, as the name suggests, refers to any effort or piece of content an external party makes with the intention of encouraging others to get to know and support your brand.
Question #2: What are the benefits of it?
The benefits of earned media include:
- Increased reach
- Increased brand awareness
- Improved reputation
Let us take a look at each one in more detail:
First, since it involves external parties talking about your brand to their own audiences, it allows you to reach people that are outside your own audience with zero active effort (and spending) on your part.
Second, the more external parties that talk about your brand there are, the more people there are who become aware of your brand—again without any effort or expenditure on your part.
Finally, since testimonials and reviews hold significantly more weight than marketing messages that come from a company trying to sell you something, when external parties rave about your brand, your brand’s reputation improves.
Question #3: What are the downsides to earned media?
The downsides to earned media include:
- Zero control over what is said about your brand
- Zero control over how much of it your brand gets
- No easy way to observe and measure its effects
Let us go over each one:
First, you have absolutely no control over what other people say about your brand and how they say it. Even if you do everything right, there is still nothing stopping someone from saying terrible things about you—and anyone who hears it from believing it.
Second, there is no real way you can control how much earned media your brand gets, so while it can definitely support your marketing efforts, it is not something you can and should rely on.
Finally, since it comes from external parties, there is no straightforward way you can monitor and measure the impact it has on your brand, so there is no real way to tell whether or not it is helping (or doing damage).
Question #4: What is the difference between earned media and owned media?
The main difference between earned media and owned media is their source.
As the name suggests, earned media comes from external sources and, as we have seen earlier, does not involve active participation on your part. In contrast, owned media refers to any form of media that your brand, well, owns.
Examples of this include:
- Your website
- Your Facebook page
- Your YouTube page
Question #5: What is the difference between earned media and paid media?
The main difference between earned media and paid media is that the former is absolutely free while the latter, as the name suggests, involves you paying for publicity and exposure.
Examples of paid media include:
- Ads
- Advertorials
- Paid mentions