Creating content has only increased in necessity for marketers over the past twenty years. Social media has become an extremely valuable tool for businesses to connect with their audiences while simultaneously promoting what they offer. In this blog post, I’m going to discuss both owned and earned media, and how you can widen the reach of the content you produce to turn one into the other.
Owned Media:
Owned media is defined as, “digital marketing channels that a company exercises complete control over”. This includes social media posts, branded websites, blogs, and email newsletters. Owned media is the best way to start with your digital marketing efforts by giving you control over the content produced, targeted reach to your audience, and cost efficiency by having created the content within your business. By creating content that is relevant and engaging to the audience, you can work to turn owned media into earned media.
Earned Media:
Earned media is referred to as the media coverage that a company receives through external sources. These sources include social media shares, word-of mouth recommendations, and press coverage. An example of earned media can be found during the 2013 Super Bowl. After a blackout turned off the power in the stadium the game was being played in, Oreo tweeted a very simple image of a single cookie being illuminated in a dark room with the caption, “You can still dunk in the dark”. This tweet went mega viral, with over 15,000 retweets and widespread press coverage over something that was costless to produce but timed perfectly. This perfectly shows the effect that quality owned media content can have to widen a brand’s visibility and reach.
Owned to Earned:
There are multiple strategies that marketers can use to turn owned media into earned media across their different platforms. The first is producing content that is valuable to the consumer and interesting enough for them to share. By focusing on the needs of your audience and solving their problems or simply entertaining them, theirs a higher chance that they end up sharing your posts with their followers, widening the reach. Another strategy is regularly engaging with your audience on social media. People want their voices to be heard, and by responding to comments, DM’s, and interacting more with your followers, they are likely to also want to interact more with your brand. In my current job, me and a team produced a “What are you Listening to?” video where we went around asking students around campus what they were listening to. We ended the video by having someone listen to the band that was performing on campus that week and putting up the flyer for that concert. We received more engagement on that post than any other post ever made through my department and multiple students messaging us saying how much they loved the content and want more of it. On top of this, attendance for that week’s concert grew immensely from the previous few. By engaging with our audience and creating valuable content, we were able to clearly see the potential of owned media and the positive response it can gain from the audience.