commbasics

 We come now to a discussion of earned media, which we will attack in two parts.  Today were going to look at search results as earned media.  We've touched on this in earlier discussions.  Not all search results are earned media, especially if you've paid for placement, but they can be considered earned if you've put the effort into making your content accessible through proper SEO practices.    One of the main ingredients in proper earned media is effort.  Earned media takes more effort to get than paid or owned media, but is an order of magnitude more valuable than the others because people tend to trust it.  As I've said earlier, the aspects of search that can be paid for (keywords, SEO gaming and outright pay for placement) have lessened the value, but if done right, it can be very beneficial to your communications program.  For now.  A few months ago, Google announced that it was changing the way in approa...

Contributed articles became a very big deal during the Web 1.0 boom.  Suddenly, print and online publications had a huge need for new content.  Not only did publications start running news releases, verbatim, but they started asking companies to write opinion and analysis about their own industries.  Public Relations companies were flying high organizing the rush of opportunities.  Then the boom busted.  Publications started disappearing, mostly print but several online publications as well and both journalists and PR folks started looking for other means of income. That did not, however, stop the demand for contributed articles.  The publishing world found that they could fill a lot of space, especially on line, with opinion, white papers, technical documents and presentations that they didn't have to pay for and could cut their newsroom budgets even more.  When webinars came around, they could actually charge companies to put their crappy ...

Social and earned media content is seen as truer because it is uncontrolled and has the perspective of the third party. Whether it comes from a known journalist or from the comments on a Facebook post, the readers know, in the least, that the author is not on your payroll. That provides a level of objectivity and even integrity that doesn't exist in an advertisement or corporate website.  Last post we looked at "suspect content" that is distributed over owned and paid media.  It's suspect to the audience because it is highly controlled and partisan.  Today we look at the "trustworthy content" that is found in earned media.  Social and earned media content is seen as truer because it is uncontrolled and has the perspective of the third party.  Whether it comes from a known journalist or from the comments on a Facebook post, the readers know, in the least, that the author is not on your payroll.  That provides a level of object...

I've come to realize that, while many companies engage in the various forms of media, very few know they should interrelate and even fewer understand how they interrelate. Let's see if we can fix that for some of you.  Happy New Year and welcome to our first series of the year.  Anyone in marketing knows the three primary buckets of media : paid, owned (or controlled) and earned.  Many in marketing know that social (or shared) media is a hybrid of owned and earned. Over the past year since we launched our inaugural strategic media program, however, I've come to realize that, while many companies engage in the various forms of media, very few know they should interrelate and even fewer understand how they interrelate.  Let's see if we can fix that for some of you.  Footwasher Media approaches media and content on a scale of trustworthy to suspect.  On the trustworthy side of the scale is earned, followed by social.  On the opposite end o...