Blog | Maximizing Visibility: What Is Earned Media?

How would you like to have your own customers take over the task of promoting your brand to their friends, family, and other acquaintances?

How much time and effort could you save while increasing sales if there was a way for someone outside of your business to spread word about your products and services for you online?

Well, you don't have to wonder, because earned media exists and brands use it every day (both accidentally and on purpose) to reach audiences that may never have heard of them otherwise.

Let's explore the power of earned media and how it can elevate your brand's visibility without incurring direct advertising costs.

Defining Earned Media in Today's Digital Landscape

According to HubSpot, earned media is "any material written about you or your business that you haven't paid for or created yourself." This can include things like reviews on sites like Yelp!, news articles, YouTube videos, etc.—if you didn't make it or pay for it, it's "earned media."

Your brand's ability to generate earned media is a measure of the health and enthusiasm of your customer base. If your customers are excited about your products and services, they're more likely to create earned media on your behalf.

Remember: unlike traditional advertising, earned media isn't bought or owned; it's the high-five you get from the digital world for creating something buzz-worthy.

Earned media is organic and authentic in a way that brand-made advertisements simply cannot be.  In a world where ad-blockers are the norm, earned media cuts through the noise to deliver your message with the trustworthiness of a friend's recommendation.

The Role of Earned Media in Building Brand Reputation

Earned media can play a pivotal role in amplifying your message and cementing your brand's reputation among your consumers. When your product is featured in a top-tier publication or goes viral on social media, it's not just free publicity; it's a stamp of approval from the court of public opinion.

Earned media helps you build your brand reputation and reach. It spreads word of your brand to new audiences who might otherwise never have interacted with your brand directly. It builds excitement for your brand and can encourage consumers to try your products and services. 

Strategies for Generating Earned Media

Positioning your brand in the limelight of earned media requires a mix of wit and wisdom. Here are some strategies to get the buzz going:

Craft Compelling Content

Be the Shakespeare of your industry by creating content that's too good not to share. Infuse your narratives with emotional hooks that resonate and inspire.

If there's a great story underlying your product or service, your brand evangelists will:

1. Be more likely to exist in the first place; and 
2. Be more likely to share your story with their audiences.

If you don't have something compelling that people find worth sharing, you'll struggle to earn external media mentions.

Leverage Influencer Partnerships

Team up with the big influencers in your industry to get the ball rolling. Find influencers that align with your brand voice/identity and who can amplify your message to their faithful followers.

From there, you'll have a chance for your earned media to snowball as other influencers, content creators, and individuals share or recreate influencer content on their own platforms. This helps grow your brand's reach and recognition.

Engage with Your Community

Don't just put out ads—talk with your audience and address their comments and concerns. Encourage user-generated content and make your brand's online presence a two-way conversation.

This helps make your customers feel more comfortable creating content to fuel your earned media strategy.

Newsjacking with Grace

Keep your ear to the ground for trending topics and inject your brand into the conversation, but always with empathy and relevance.

This can be challenging. Weighing in on the wrong topic at the wrong time can have negative consequences and lead to accusations of being tone-deaf. So, if you're going to engage in newsjacking, it's important to:

• Keep it timely—cover topics when they're most relevant.
• Be sensitive—avoid controversial talking points that may offend your core audience.
• Ensure relevance—if you're covering a topic, verify it's relevant to your business or industry. For example, if you're a manufacturer, the odds are that covering a story about a ballet performance isn't in your wheelhouse (unless you're talking about making the stage props or other items used).

Measuring the Impact of Earned Media on Your Marketing Efforts

The impact of earned media can be tricky to measure accurately. However, it is as measurable as it is significant. Here are the metrics to prove its worth:

• Brand Mentions: Keep tabs on who's talking about your brand and how often. It's like applause at the end of a performance—the more, the better.
• Social Shares: Track the virality of your content. High share counts are digital nods of approval.
• Engagement Rates: Monitor likes, comments, and interactions. These are the digital equivalents of an engaged audience, hanging onto your every word.
• SEO Rankings: Notice how your organic search rankings improve. Earned media is the wind beneath your SEO wings by creating backlinks to your site as influencers and others share links to your original content.

Overcoming Challenges to Maximize Earned Media

While the allure of earned media is strong, the path to securing it is not without its hurdles. Here's a rundown of common challenges and how to leap over them:

• Building Relationships: It's not what you know, but who you know. Cultivate relationships with journalists, bloggers, and influencers like you're growing a prized garden.
• Consistency in Quality: Mediocre content is ignored content. With over 1.13 billion websites in existence, if your content isn't awesome, you won't get any attention. To get earned media, you need to have content that is catchy and worth sharing with others so creators will pick it up and share it!
• Measuring ROI: The fruits of earned media can be hard to quantify. Invest in analytical tools that help you capture the full picture of your efforts' impact.
• Handling Negative Media Mentions: Not all "earned media" is positive. Annoyed or angry consumers can make negative reviews, videos, and other content actively mocking your brand. For this reason, it's important to have a plan to turn PR lemons into PR lemonade. When responding to criticism, address the concern expressed, make tangible steps toward correcting the issue, and be as polite and understanding as possible.
• Accepting a Lack of Control: Earned media is, by default, user-generated content. You do not have control over what people say about your brand and your products/services—nor can you control how they say it. If you're pursuing an earned media strategy, you need to accept a certain lack of control and prepare to address issues that may crop up with content made by users.

Get Help Creating Content That Inspires Earned Media

Need help generating awesome content to create brand evangelists and inspire them to create earned media? Book a meeting with the Bluleadz team to get started!

Our managed services include content generation, Content Hub resources, and other services to help you create inspiring content that your audience will want to share!