Alex DittyDo you know how Owned, Earned & Paid Media impact your social media marketing?
To be a successful social media marketer you need to understand the different forms of media that go into smart social strategies and how to best leverage each. The three different types; owned, earned and paid media, all need to be taken into account with your overall social media marketing plans and should be approached in a way that reflects each of their own unique advantages. Here you’ll learn the details of what each of these different forms of media are and how you should leverage them in your social media marketing.
Owned
Owned media is the content that originates from your own social accounts. This includes content that you’re sharing on social networks like Instagram and Twitter as well as content that’s posted to your blog or anywhere you have a presence.
Owned media works because you control the messaging that’s being communicated to people with a stated interest in what you’re sharing. This means that your main owned media efforts should work towards building an audience for these accounts that you can actively share engaging content with.
Your owned media strategy should focus on communicating your brand’s lifestyle to your community while also announcing new programs and product launches. The first piece of your owned media strategy depends on having an audience to share content with. As you work towards building this audience, there are best practices you can follow to learn how to grow followers on Instagram. The second piece comes from sharing engaging content that your community wants to see and will interact with. Build your social content strategy by downloading our guide to using Instagram data and determine the metrics that will teach you about your community and what they’re interacting with on Instagram.
Earned
Earned media is promotion that is gained through third parties like members of your community. Earned media is arguably the hardest form to gain but is also considered the most effective.
Successful earned media strategies revolve around encouraging your community to share and creating opportunities for this user-generated content sharing. Consumers are more likely to trust UGC from people they follow compared to similar posts from brands so driving this content creation is critical. Earned media is a necessary piece of your overall social media strategy because of the authenticity that this UGC drives. It can be difficult building an earned media strategy but you can subscribe to our blog to learn the best practices of facilitating this community sharing.
Create powerful moments for your community that will inspire them to share about your brand. These experiences will drive a successful earned media strategy. Contests and campaigns are among the best ways to drive this earned media as they work to incentivize and build this content creation. You can plan smart ways to drive participation from your community with Instagram contests by downloading this free Instagram campaign planning template.
Paid
Paid media is the content that has been purchased to be promoted on a specific channel. This includes content such as promoted tweets and other ads on social networks as well as content from influencer marketing. Paid media is a great supplement to your other forms of social media marketing to help expand the reach of these initiatives.
Paid media works to build the reach of your other social media marketing efforts. This is a great way to get your brand in front of people that you otherwise wouldn’t have been able to get in front of. The ad platforms on social networks like Instagram and Twitter give you a good opportunity to target these messages to the right people. When used properly, influencers on Instagram and Twitter can be tapped to help with this promotion. If you’re using the right targeted influencers who follow brand guidelines to communicate your brand’s message you can build a great degree of authenticity into these programs as well.
Paid media gives you some of the messaging control that owned media provides as well as some of the viral reach that earned media provides. But ads on the social networks can come with a large price tag. Whether with ads or with targeted influencers like those found in the Snapfluence network, paid media should be used to add to the reach of your other social media marketing strategies. To better understand how you can leverage influencers to grow your content reach download our guide to influencer campaign planning.
There is no one single strategy that will help with effective social media marketing so you shouldn’t be looking for that one silver bullet. All three forms must be taken into account to build a comprehensive social media ecosystem for your brand. Plan for all of these tactics to work together and create a holistic strategy where each complements each other. Your owned media that you control and your paid media that reaches more people will increase your earned media that grows authentic and engaging UGC, which will all lead more people back to your owned media bringing your social strategy full circle.
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