Discover the Difference Between Earned Media, Owned Media & Paid Media in Marketing

If you’ve been privy to the digital world you may have heard these buzzwords tossed around, but what is the difference between ‘earned’, ‘owned’ and ‘paid’ media in marketing and what does it mean for your digital strategy?

Think of earned media, owned media and paid media like a tripod. Each element is an important part of the whole and all contribute to a complete digital marketing strategy. The illustration above outlines each element’s role and how they work together to form a cohesive marketing mix.

Earned, Owned and Paid Media Defined [Examples]

What is Earned Media?

Definition: Earned media is publicity or exposure gained from methods other than paid advertising.

If owned media sites are the destination then earned media is the vehicle that helps people get there. What good is a website or social media site if no one is seeing or interacting with it? That’s where earned media comes in. Earned media is essentially online word of mouth, usually seen in the form of ‘viral’ tendencies, mentions, shares, reposts, reviews, recommendations, or content picked up by 3rd party sites. One of the most effective driving forces of earned media is usually a combination of strong organic rankings on the Search Engines and content distributed by the brand. First-page rankings and good content are typically the biggest drivers of earned media.

Rankings on the first page of the search engines place your owned media sites and content links in a position to receive higher engagement and shares, which is why a good SEO strategy is crucial. When it comes to brand content, interesting, informative content can come in all shapes and sizes. PR and guest posts are common examples of earned media. Whether it be a blog, infographic, video, press release, webinar, or e-book, the bottom line is that the content has to be worthwhile in order to receive the value of earned media; which is why a great content strategy is also important.

What is Owned Media?

Definition: Owned media is any web property that you can control and is unique to your brand.

One of the most common examples of owned media is a website, although blog sites and social media channels are other examples of owned media properties too. Channels like social media and blogs are extensions of your website, and all three are extensions of your brand as a whole. Simply put, owned media encompasses various types of media that you (your company) have control over. The more owned media you have, the more chances you have to extend your brand presence in the digital sphere. (Check out our post on SEO for blogs to earn better rankings!)

What is Paid Media?

Simply put, the definition of paid media is marketing you pay for. Holistically, it is used to promote content in order to drive earned media, as well as direct traffic to owned media properties.

Paying to promote content can help get the ball rolling and create more exposure. Social Media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn offer paid media advertising that could potentially help boost your content as well as your website. Another way to gain more exposure for your content is to pay influencers to rep your products or services, impacting the reach and recognition your pieces receive. Retargeting, Pay Per Click (PPC) and display ads are effective examples of paid media and more direct way to drive searchers to your owned media sites like your website, to help increase traffic and/or conversions.

Key Roles of the Earned, Owned & Paid Media Trifecta

• All three elements, owned media, earned media and paid media play important roles in a digital media strategy. It’s up to you to evaluate these three themes and decide where to allocate your resources to make the most sense for your brand.
• Owned media sites are an extension of your brand and create additional avenues for people to interact with your brand. When it comes to owned media, as long as you can keep up with the maintenance, the more the merrier.
• Earned media is the equivalent of online word of mouth and is the vehicle that drives traffic, engagement and sentiment around a brand. While there are different ways a brand can garner earned media, good SEO and content strategies are the most controlled and effective.
• Paid media is a great way to promote content in order to generate more earned media and can also be used to drive traffic directly to your owned media properties.

While each element has its own role, using Earned, Owned and Paid Media all together in marketing will make your digital media strategy that much more effective. Need help with your digital strategy? Contact us!

Discover How to Pinterest for Business

Despite popular belief, Pinterest is not just for businesses that sell products. Businesses from dealerships to dentists are reaping the benefits from this traffic powerhouse. Get on ‘board’ with Pinterest and drive traffic to your website with these 6 tips.

1. 1. Make Your Pins POP

      Don’t underestimate the power of a great image, especially with this social network. Incorporate clear, captivating and relevant images into any website pages or blog posts that you want to pin in order to help increase click-through rate and drive traffic back to your website.

   2. Use Keyword-Rich Descriptions

      Pin descriptions are prime real estate that are all too often discredited by the unoriginal “cute!” or ‘awesome pic!” description. Utilize your descriptions to include rich keywords that explain your product or service, helping your pins come up in search. Do the same for your board names and descriptions as well.

   3. Spike Curiosity

      While good descriptions are a must, long-winded descriptions are a must not. This can be tough to avoid when you are trying to showcase products or services that are highly technical or require more information. Spike interest around a technical service or product by giving a teaser that will compel users to click. “What does this vacuum have that others don’t? Click here to find out!”

      Don’t leave them wanting! Make sure that if you do use a teaser description, the page on your site you are pinning from has all the information the user would need once they click on the image.

   4. Tell, Don’t Ask

      Don’t make your users wonder, tell them what you want them to do with strong calls to action. Phrases like ‘click here!’ or ‘repin this’ seem petty, but they can make a big difference to your click through rate. Also, try adding a ‘click here’ button to some of your images as an additional call-to-action.

   5. Use Multiple Medias

      Did you know you can pin videos to Pinterest? Pinning videos offers yet another way to showcase your brand and deliver more information on your products or services. And what’s even better, each pinned video has a play arrow on the image which is another small feature that can help increase, you guessed it, click-through rate.

   6. Price Your Pins

      If you are an e-commerce brand, it may pay to put prices on your pins. For some users, Pinterest is their shopping cart. When they see something they like, they want to not only know where they can get it, but how much it costs. Having a price in the description also suggests that when the user clicks the pin, they will be redirected to somewhere where they can purchase the product.

E-commerce and service brands alike should consider adding Pinterest to their marketing mix as a tool for driving traffic. Just remember to use great imagery and taglines that you yourself would feel compelled to click and you’re ready to get pinning! If you have any further questions on Pinterest for business, please contact us today!

Submitted by Erica Machin, Titan Growth

Hosted by leading SEO news hub Search Engine Land, the 1st Annual Landy Awards ceremony showcases the top movers and shakers in the industry. SEO agencies, consultants and savants alike gathered in New York City to see who would take the top spots for best overall SEO and SEM initiative in various categories.

As Search Engine Land advocates and readers ourselves, we were excited to see SEL finally promoting their very own awards ceremony, and were even more ecstatic when we found out we were selected as a finalist! Our efforts to improve organic SEO for our clients helped land us a spot as a finalist for the Best Overall SEO Initiative. A few Titan Growth team members flew to New York City to enjoy the event, and we are already looking forward to the 2nd Annual Landy Awards.