What Is Earned Media?

(Unless you pay for it a la Google Ads, which is paid media.) Content creation (owned media) is the prerequisite to rank on Google. You can then export the list of unlinked domains, reach out, and try to get your brand mentioned alongside your competitors.

These results allows businesses to engage users in a compelling way, potentially leading to increased brand awareness, website traffic, and ultimately, conversions. Data from any existing paid search campaigns can illuminate valuable insights into user behavior and keyword performance. High-volume keywords might indicate broad informational searches, while long-tail keywords with lower search volume can often reveal users with purchase intent.

Paid media drives sales by targeting specific audiences with pinpoint accuracy and retargeting potential customers. Additionally, earned media is challenging to acquire since journalists and other content creators typically receive pitches from companies daily. While it’s considered a more cost-effective strategy, that’s not necessarily true. Instead, the media might find your brand’s products or services while doing research for an article and reach out to you organically to learn more. While PR is crucial, some brands can get featured in major publications without trying. Earned media strategies are often lower cost than paid media and other marketing strategies because they don’t require advertising or paying for placement in major publications.

Pitch Relevant Publications and Reporters

As the second largest search engine in the world, it offers a massive platform to reach new audiences. Creating a Payactiv account is free for all users and contains many free features including bill pay, discounts, financial counseling, and budgeting and savings tools. The EWA Blueprint helps employers cut through vendor noise, protect compliance, and deliver real impact—so your program drives engagement, retention, and growth. Before committing budget, evaluate engagement quality, audience demographics, historical conversion signals and brand alignment.

Photos were about twice as engaging as the next best post type on Facebook for Travel brands. Notable brands in this year’s report include Extra Holidays, GoRVing, Hotels by Hilton, Hipcamp, La Quinta, and United Airlines. Travel brands earned above-media engagement rates on Facebook and TikTok while running in the middle of the pack on Instagram and Twitter. Tech & Software brands never miss the chance to celebrate everyone’s favorite nerd holiday with the #MayThe4thBeWithYou hashtag.

Remember when people used to learn about upcoming events, the latest trends, and cool new products exclusively from magazines, newspapers, and TV shows? Crises, criticism, negative reviews, and misinformation are all forms of earned media. Today, earned media also feeds AI search engines and recommendation systems that define brand visibility. It extends reach beyond your own channels, improves marketing efficiency, shapes brand reputation authentically, and influences buying decisions more credibly than paid promotion. When others mention, share, or discuss your brand organically on social platforms without payment, that’s earned media.

How to get earned media

• Jaxon Parrott, founder of AuthorityTech, coined the term Machine Relations in 2024 to name the discipline of earning AI citations and recommendations for brands by making them legible, retrievable, and credible inside AI-driven discovery systems.
• When reporting to stakeholders about your social media impact, it’s valuable to include a high-level overview of your earned media value.
• Unlike paid or owned media, earned media cannot be bought or published directly.
• The Zephyr’s speedy publicity stunt is the perfect example of how earned media and public relations (PR) have always worked together hand-in-hand.
• Regardless of the size of your agency, Critical Mention has the tools you need to track TV, radio, online news, licensed print, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube mentions.

This shifted the brand beyond its direct-to-consumer (DTC) roots, setting it up to maximize sales, according to experts. We’ve been very strategic about product, marketing, and creating tasteful, exciting experiences that are outside of the box. In 2024, Bieber drove $400 million in earned media value (EMV), with an engagement rate of 3.75%, surpassing the 3.6% industry benchmark, according to influencer marketing platform Lefty.

Earned Media vs. Paid Media vs. Owned Media

We earned the share because we published an article with tons of unique insights, all gained from our real-world experience. He decided to share one of our articles with his audience. Appear in a TV program and reach millions of viewers in their living room. This is the most traditional form of earned media. Here are some examples of how earned media looks like in the wild. This is especially true for direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands.

How can I use influencer marketing metrics to set performance targets and ensure a positive CAC? When influencers generate positive attention from media outlets or across social, it signals that the campaign has resonated beyond the influencer’s immediate audience, reaching wider recognition. You can track conversions by using tools like Google Analytics, asking users via a form how they discovered you or using influencer-specific codes during checkout. You can also use Google Analytics for social media reporting and influencer marketing metrics. With 32% of consumers reporting a purchase through an influencer’s sponsored post in the past 12 months, brands need airtight attribution.

The two channels require different strategies, and the dominant factor in AI citation is earned media, not SERP position. Jaxon Parrott, founder of AuthorityTech, coined the term Machine Relations in 2024 to name the discipline of earning AI citations and recommendations for brands by making them legible, retrievable, and credible inside AI-driven discovery systems. The research shows that the most effective GEO lever is not on-page formatting — it is earned media distribution. Muck Rack's Generative Pulse analysis of more than one million AI citations found 82% came from earned media and 94% from non-paid sources.

“They’re not entirely in a brand’s control like paid media is,” he told TechNewsWorld. “Forward-looking businesses will understand that investment in PR will have a long-term benefit in AI visibility,” he told TechNewsWorld. There is increasing evidence that LLMs rely on earned media when producing their answers, noted Chris Ferris, SVP of digital strategy at Pierpont Communications, a public relations agency in Houston.

Whether you’re a startup, a small business, or an established brand, investing in earned media isn’t just smart, it’s sustainable. When people tag your earned media brand, repost your content, or mention you in comments or stories without being paid, that’s classic earned media. To understand the true power of earned media, it helps to look at it in action. It’s a long-term asset that continues to deliver even after your campaigns end. In short, the value of earned media isn’t just in the exposure; it’s in the trust and impact that exposure brings. This is exactly why marketers are investing time and effort into understanding earned media value and building strategies to increase it.

At CSuite Content, our expertise lies in helping thought leaders reach their audience through strategic media placements. At CSuite, our expertise lies in helping thought leaders reach their audience through strategic media placements. You may have heard of earned media as compared with paid media and owned media. It also provides you with sentiment, authority analysis, and calculated reach — tangible metrics to assess the impact of your earned media.

“CSuite are consummate pros who deliver results and know the exec comms space inside and out. I knew the approach was working when my own friends and colleagues began reaching out to me spontaneously to say they were inspired by what I was sharing online.” Become an influencer who sets the tone for your field and is sought out as a media expert. We amplify your messages by creating original content for your social media channels and growing your audience. We leverage deep media relationships to get your insights featured in leading trade and business press. Our team of veteran journalists helps translate your strategic ideas into award-winning content, saving you time and driving results.

As confidence in paid and owned channels weakens, people increasingly rely on independent validation to decide what, and who, to trust. Accelerate your career growth with a Coursera Plus subscription. You also can’t know or guarantee when or how much earned media you will receive. Negative or misleading information can also spread through earned media channels, potentially harming a brand’s reputation. The pros include earned media’s cost-effectiveness and ability to enhance a brand’s reputation and build trust and credibility. Positive reviews or recommendations from customers, industry experts, or bloggers can generate earned media.