What Is Earned Media, Owned Media & Paid Media?

The Difference Explained

If you work at a marketing agency or for a large corporation, you're certainly familiar with the terms "owned, earned, and purchased media."

Small business proprietors, on the other hand, wear multiple hats. Marketing is most likely one of your many tasks. As a result, concepts like owned, earned, and paid media may be unfamiliar to you. These concepts, regardless of the size of your company, can be critical in developing a marketing strategy with maximum reach. So, let's get started and see what this is all about. We'll also look at how to use owned, earned, and paid media as part of a small business's marketing plan.

This statement is merely a framework for organising and carrying out your marketing:

What is owned media?

This is brand-controlled media. This includes a company's own websites, blogs, mobile apps, and social media accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Brochures and retail storefronts are examples of offline owned media.

When you use owned media, you use a channel that you created and control. This might be your business's blog, YouTube channel, website, or even Facebook page. Even if you don't "own" your YouTube channel or Facebook profile, you do have control over them and aren't required to pay for basic access.

Pros of Owned Media:

• ·         Easy to control
• ·         Easy to scale
• ·         Longevity and assurance(you know where your money goes)
• ·         Allows you to address all stages of the buyer journey

What is earned media?

Traditionally, 

has been used to describe exposure generated by PR efforts aimed at convincing influencers to raise brand recognition. Of course, it's still a financial commitment.

Customers, the press, and the general public share your material, talk about your brand through word of mouth, and otherwise discuss it. To put it another way, the mentions are "earned," which means they are given voluntarily by others.

 Pros of Earned Media

•        Incredibly effective
•       Consumers tend to trust earned media much more than paid and owned media
•       Can have a wide reach
•       Delivers results more quickly than owned media when it works
•      Can be leveraged over and over again as social proof

What is paid media?

Paid or bought media includes search, display ad networks, and affiliate marketing, all of which need an expenditure to pay for visits, reach, or conversions. Offline traditional media such as print and television advertising, as well as direct mail, continue to be vital, accounting for a significant portion of paid media spend. When you pay to use a third-party channel, such as sponsorship or advertising on third-party sites, you're using paid media.

Pros of Paid Media:

•       Extremely detailed targeting
•       Immediate visibility
•     Wide reach
•       Easy to predict the outcome
•      Easy to scale by investing more money
•      Ability to test multiple versions of the same add to optimise

 

Content is at the heart of the concept of owned, earned, and paid media. Small firms, on the other hand, are becoming more adept at creating and curating content. It's critical to have your own channels and content. However, they are insufficient on their own.

Reach and size are two things that many small businesses lack with their own channels. You have a great website with great case studies and tools; however, it could use some additional visitors. Your brand's Instagram account does not yet have a large number of followers or shares of your material. Your company has a blog, but you don't have time to update it on a regular basis. And, with so much content available online today, it might be difficult to attract readers to your site.

Earned and paid media play a role in this. They broaden your horizons. You must magnify and scale your owned media platforms to be successful.

 Recognise that each channel has a cost in terms of time, money, or both. Take, for example, owned media. You still have to commit time, money, or both in order to improve your website, write blog articles for your blog, commission expensive infographics to get people talking, edit films to upload on YouTube, or pay for SEO services to obtain more traffic to your website.

When it comes to earned media, the situation is similar. At any size, developing and leveraging earned media takes time and effort. You must invest time and effort into creating your social media channels if you want your content to spread through social media and for social debates to emerge around your products. Create social media profiles, interact with customers, and curate content. You must also do it on a regular basis, week after week. You must keep going.

If you want to get your new infographic shared by influencers, you may need to contact bloggers or social media personalities by email. To get more people to pay attention to you and your business, you may need to guest write on third-party blogs. You must repeat this process regularly over time. One guest blog post could be beneficial. But it's not nearly enough to make a significant difference.

Consider all of the costs before presuming that advertising is more expensive than the other two forms of media. Consider the worth of your time and that of your staff. Most small business owners undervalue the expense of in-house marketing, in which they commit valuable time.

 

Combination of “owned, earned, paid media

Today's best practice is to combine "owned, earned, and paid media." Use one sort of media to enhance or extend another. They have to work together.

When it comes to small firms, there is one difference in that description. Smaller businesses have long relied heavily on owned and earned media. They have generally had less of a single-minded concentration on paid advertising than their larger enterprise rivals. This is a good thing. It implies that convergence occurs spontaneously. We never became overly reliant on advertising as small business owners. We've gotten into the habit of doing more with owned and earned media.

Examples of Combining Paid, Owned and Earned Media

In a small business environment, here are four examples of how to integrate owned, earned, and purchased media to create more potent marketing:

Make material for your [owned] blog. To make money, share it on Facebook. However, organically reaching a small portion of your fan base is difficult. Make it a Sponsored Post to increase its visibility and reach.

For an eBook on your website [owned], crowdsource some guidance and ideas from your consumers or dedicated community members. Then post it to your company's SlideShare channel. Also, send an email to each community member who submitted a tip to offer them a copy of the eBook. Most people will share the eBook with their social networks since they are proud of what they have done.

Pay influencers to write engaging and shareable material for your company's blog [owned]. Then, to acquire earned mentions, heavily promote it on social media.

Create exclusive Facebook-only [paid] discounts. People must Like your page to take advantage of them. Discounts are a main reason people follow and connect with brands on social media, according to studies. You have their attention when they Like your page. That also indicates you've established a relationship with them.

When you combine owned, earned, and paid media, you may reach a wider audience. You obtain a greater reach than if you just used one channel. As a result, don't think of a single marketing tactic, such as blogging, in isolation. Alternatively, being active on Twitter. Consider how you can combine techniques instead.

What is the difference between paid, owned and earned media?

Paid media is content that you pay to be placed in front of an audience as an advertisement or sponsorship, whereas owned and earned media is free. Owned media refers to content you generate and control, such as your Facebook page or website, whereas earned media refers to content created about you by others, such as reviews or Instagram posts.

Is PR paid, owned or earned?

Public relations (PR) are a type of earned media. You can hire a public relations firm or do it yourself; content such as news releases is owned media. Earned media occurs when people talk about your press releases, products and services, quotes, brand, business, or company.

Are influencers paid, owned or earned?

Influencers can be any of these things. An 'owned media' influencer is a company thought leader who speaks about the company. A fan who is truly passionate about your brand is a 'earned media' influencer. A classic 'paid media' influencer is one who is paid by a brand to collaborate with or talk about it.

Is SEO paid, owned or earned?

Owned media is SEO (search engine optimization). It is, strictly speaking, a technique that you use to advertise material that you control - your website. It includes a variety of free tactics and optimizations that you may use to improve the ranking of your website in search results pages.

Is social media earned or owned?

Paid, owned, and earned media all fall under the umbrella of "Social Media." Your social posts are typically owned marketing content; you produce and publish them for free. You can also use sponsored media to build social ads. Finally, your customers and fans can talk about you on social media, which is called earned media.

To be honest, numerous various digital platforms have shaped our lives. Few people spend all of their online time in one location.

We’re getting quicker at adopting new ones too.

Consider what you may do while looking for a restaurant: you might use Google Maps to find nearby restaurants, Yelp or Facebook for reviews and menus, Instagram for food photos, and so on. A good business uses paid, owned, and earned media possibilities to be present anywhere a customer could seek for them.

If you're starting from scratch, deciding on the best marketing channels for your company might be a lengthy process.