Paid, Earned and Owned Media - a response

PAID , EARNED&

OWNED MEDIAa response

presented by:

greg joseph daily.com

http://digitalimagegroup.org

INTRO

I don’t often respond to articles I find onlinesince there are so many written and so few

of value. However, when I read LaurenJohnson’s article Even in a Mobile World,

Retailers Aren’t Convinced Social Media CanSell in Adweek, I thought I should take amoment and offer a modicum of clarity.



DOES SOC IAL MEDIAGENERATE REVENUE?

I say yes and not directly because there areactually two distinct sides to social media, which

are often mixed together by individuals who aren’tactively investing time and money in this space.

Before I explain, I need to discuss a general conceptin the marketing and communications world: Paid,

earned and owned media.



PAID MEDIA

Paid media are the channels where you pay todiscuss and display your brand message. Theseinclude areas like an ad in a newspaper, a radio

spot or Google Adwords.

Paid media is an important strategy because itallows you to tap into the audience that someoneelse owns. CNN has earned their audience. Youpay CNN to run a commercial for your brandbecause you have not earned that audience.



EARNED MEDIA

Earned media are when a brand has done something tocause someone else to talk about them without actually

paying for that exposure. An example of this would be theWall Street Journal running an article about your CEO. You

didn’t pay for that. You earned it.

This is also an important strategy, as the likes of DonaldTrump knows well, because this can generate a huge valuefor your brand without spending any money. It also often

lends credibility to a brand’s efforts when an outsideauthority discuss what the brand is doing.



OWNED MEDIA

Owned media are all of those things that you have built topromote your brand, like a website, signage, fliers and the

like. You own this space and can say whatever you like in it.

These are of course critical because they fuel everything else.

What does this have to do with social media?



Your Facebook page, Instagram feed and Pinterest boards should all betreated as EARNED MEDIA because your company does not own these sites.You might think that you own this space, but you do not. Facebook,Instagram and Pinterest do. They are allowing you room to communicatewith their users, and communication is what you should be focused on here.You should be posting in a fashion that generates conversation andencourages engagement with your brand. When done well, this can have ahuge affect on brand awareness and yes, eventual sales, because the friendsand family of your followers will see your brand and content whenever yourfollowers interact with it, which increases your reach in a way that is akin toreferral marketing.

As I said previously, there are two distinct sides to social media.There is the organic side and the paid advertising side. Each has adifferent function and effect on your brand and marketing efforts,and both have incredible value when executed well.



You should then begin to run targeted PAID ads that drivedirect sales. There are countless studies and white papersshowing how brands like Dollar Shave Club have built a solidbrand directly on the back of social media.

Before I sign off, I want to answer thequestion that Ms. Johnson’s shouldhave asked.

Is social media worth theinvestment of both time

and money?



In my opinion, the answer is YES, because whencompared to traditional forms of marketing, likeradio or television, the baseline CPM on socialmedia is barely a fraction of what those other

channels cost, and on digital we can track metricslike clicks and conversion where we could not on

traditional channels.

Let me know if you disagree.



Paid, Earned and Owned Media - a response

Marketing

Transcript of Paid, Earned and Owned Media - a response