Earned media vs Paid media
Knowing how to explain the difference between earned, paid and owned media can be tricky! We’ve explained it in layman’s terms below.
Earned media
In simple terms, earned media is online marketing by word of mouth and sharing, often associated with ‘viral’ content, reposts, recommendations, reviews and content found by 3rd party sites. Earned media drives and encourages engagement and traffic around a brand. This is the best way – that is, having good content strategies and SEO – to acquire your earned media.
Paid Media
Have you ever come across a post on Facebook that states ‘Sponsored’ at the top? This is an example of paid media. If you make a business page on Facebook, you’ll have the option of different budgets to promote your page across Facebook. The budget you select will correspond with the number of people you want to reach (Facebook tells you how much money correlates to how much outreach). Twitter and Linked In also offer similar price plans that function in the the same way.
Owned media
Owned media refers to web platforms that you control and own such as websites, blogs, social media accounts, a YouTube account and pages. The more owned media a business possesses, the better their presence will be in the digital sphere thus attracting more traffic for their business. Owned media sites are the avenues of your brand that allow for people to interact that you.
