What is earned media?

The third of the three types of digital marketing media is Earned media. Check out Bites32 and 33 to learn about the other two.

Earned media can be thought of as media where a marketer’s presence is not determined by what they spend, but by how interesting people think their company and its products are. In the early days of social media for instance , the first measurement of this was down to how many fans or followers you had …BUT thinking has moved on from this AND now looks more at the interactions of those fans with the brand. Sharing is a popular metric for the success of social media communication. Earned media gives you third-party credibility – someone who isn’t paid by your company believes enough in your products, to mention, quote, or promote your brand’s content. In Bite28 I spoke about the role of the influencer in terms of digital marketing. If you can get an influencer to publish your content or talk about your content, that’s earned media.

Your digital marketing strategy should encompass a good mix of owned media, paid media and earned media . Tie them to your overall business goals and make sure to measure and iterate constantly on order to refine the results to your bottom line.