The term ‘earned media’ refers to a brand mention from a journalist, influencer blogger or other third-party sources. This is the traditional goal for public relations campaigns, and it should also be a goal for your content marketing.

A study has suggested that earned media is 80% more effective than content that appears on a business’s own media. There are several reasons for this:

Visibility

If your brand is mentioned by the mainstream media that targets readers in your business sector, then this will dramatically increase the visibility and awareness of your brand.

Social media

Earned media also includes retweets and the sharing of your social media content. This increases brand visibility and can provide a business with quality leads.

Trust

In order to increase sales, your brand needs to be trusted and credible. Targeting your content to your readers’ interests and concerns is one way to generate trust, but being mentioned by influencers who are seen as experts or authorities in their field is a better solution.

Opinions voiced on a business’ own social media may be viewed as biased. If the same opinions about the brand are written by an influencer blogger or media site, they will be trusted more, and this trust will be reflected in how people see your brand.

Know the audience

If your earned media appears on social sites or blogs that allow comments, then it is beneficial to read the comments, as it can give valuable insight into how content is received, and can highlight any problems and issues that need to be addressed.

A successful content marketing strategy should include ways in which earned media can be generated. Earned media can drive new audiences to your brand and this will lead to more people converting to paying customers.

John Murray

John is every inch the wordsmith and loves a game of Scrabble above all else. With experience writing for newspapers, John’s time at university was spent studying Creative Writing – something which comes across in his love of the pun.