earned media

Earned media is publicity that can't be bought

It can only be acquired organically. Earned media is the equivalent of online word of mouth, driving engagement and sentiment around a brand.

When you create and distribute free content that's relevant to your customer's interests and professional needs, you’re initiating and stimulating the earned media process. If you're successful, you'll be rewarded with "viral" mentions, shares, reposts, reviews and recommendations.

Additionally, the media organizations that cover your industry – including trade publications, blogs, professional online communities, social media influencers and even mainstream newspapers and TV stations – are hungry for content and want to prove themselves useful to their audiences. If they pick up and distribute your message as editorial, that's earned media, too.

Earned media should be part of the marketing mix

Prior to the growth of online media and social networks, public relations agencies held a tight grip on earned-media activities. They cultivated personal relationships with the relatively few editors and reporters covering a given business sector and provided content to them primarily in the form of traditional press releases. For most companies, earned media was of secondary importance to traditional advertising within in their overall marketing plan.

But earned media has evolved into a much broader, far more effective marketing approach. This change has been driven by a host of factors, chief among them: a vast increase in the number of editorial outlets; the fact people are plugged in and actively seeking information; and the shift to online platforms, which allows content to take literally any digital form.

Public relations (PR)

Today, public relations skills, including the ability to form valuable relationships with media gatekeepers, are more important than ever. In our formula, we use these PR across all digital and traditional channels to create integrated earned-media campaigns. Our campaigns are tailored according to client circumstance to leverage the unique opportunities each media format offers as well as the synergies between them.

When a strategic, well-crafted PR plan is combined with exciting Contagious Content, brand awareness spreads naturally and inbound channels swell with meaningful traffic. The result is an increase in backlinks, search rank authority and conversions and, ultimately, achievement of business objectives, both short-term and long-term.