How to Successfully Generate and Amplify Earned Media for Your Brand

There are three major categories of media coverage that PR teams use to reach and connect with their target audiences:

Owned Media — Content created and published by your brand.

Paid Media — Any ads or media coverage that you have paid to run.

Earned Media — Any unpaid mentions, coverage or content created and published about your brand by others.

Owned and paid media are vital first steps to getting your brand name on the radar, but an earned media strategy is the key to fast and positive growth for your business.

Earned media is often overlooked by marketers. Some may mistake earned media to be out of their hands and disregard it from marketing plans. Small businesses may also struggle to prioritize earned media simply due to bandwidth. Both situations are understandable but can lead to missed opportunities in connecting with audiences, receiving valuable feedback and can even hinder other efforts to spread brand awareness.

Never underestimate the power of earned media.

To help our #SMTLive Twitter chat community polish up on their earned media skills, we hosted a chat on the topic of “Tracking and Measuring Earned Media (on Social Media).” We brought in a team of experts in the field, Agility PR Solutions, to co-host the chat and offer advice and helpful solutions.

The questions we answered:

• Why invest in your earned media?
• How do you build an earned media strategy?
• How do you amplify earned media on social?
• What tools and resources can you use to support your earned media strategy?

We’ve pulled a few highlights and takeaways from the Twitter chat to share with you here. 

The best way to gain brand awareness is through word-of-mouth. If your product or service is as excellent as you believe it to be, others should pick up on it quickly and will want to recommend it to others. Get your audience talking and others will quickly catch on. 

Earned media is trusted. A recent report showed 83% of consumers say they trust digital word-of-mouth more than content produced by advertisers.

Additionally, you can learn a lot from what people are saying about you. Tracking what others are saying about your brand can help you learn more about brand sentiment, help you make informed brand decisions and adjust your marketing strategy, and generally learn more about your audience. 

Step 1: Set goals.

Step 2: Define value.

In order to track and monitor your efforts, you will need to define the value of earned media for your business.

Step 3: Make a plan.

An important focus for earned media plans should be relationship building. Both the who and how you will connect with organizations or individuals should be considered.

In terms of how to reach people and build relationships, try using multiple of the following methods.

Note: If you have a separate marketing and PR team, this is an initiative that benefits when both teams join forces.

A final thing to keep in mind while planning: make sure your social media presence aligns with your brand and supports your earned media strategy.

By this point, you’ve put a lot of time and effort into planning. It’s time to act and initiate conversations.

Once people start talking about your business, it would be a shame not to lose that momentum. Use your social media platforms to connect with these people and organizations and amplify your earned media.

Socialmediatoday.com

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