SMART MARKETING SOLUTIONS

Earning Trust with Earned Media

Trust is earned over time. It’s earned through positive experiences, which come from a variety of interactions. For example, a positive experience navigating your website builds trust. Gaining valuable information from a blog post earns trust.

Learning and engaging with earned media earns trust as well. In fact, earned media is a great way to build trust with your audience and prospects. The more earned media exposure you get, the more your business will grow and prosper on all levels.

Remember, earned media is achieved when a third party mentions you online or offline. That third party could be a complete stranger. It could be a customer, a prospect, or an industry influencer. Examples of earned media include:

  *  Sharing your blog post on Facebook or other social media
  *  Reviewing your products or services
  *  Mentioning your company on their blog or website
  *  Mentioning you in a radio, news, or podcast broadcast

What is Earned Media?

Let’s first look at what this tactic is and then we’ll talk about why it grows your business. Earned media is synonymous with free publicity. It means that you get media coverage, publicity, public recognition, and/or press without paying for it. Earned media is publicity that’s owned and created by third parties.

It’s different from paid media, which includes things like advertising and sponsored content on Facebook. It’s also different from owned media, which you write and own. Examples of owned media include your posts, content, and anything you create or have created for you.

Earned media is what others say, think, and feel about you and your business. A customer-review of your company on Yelp is an example of earned media. When a prospect shares your blog post on social media, it qualifies as earned media. Any time someone talks about one of your tips or shared facts, those actions are also considered to be earned media.

It’s much like word of mouth marketing because other people are talking about you and getting the word out about your business.
As you can see, this type of marketing can happen occasionally, without much focused effort.

However, when you create an earned media strategy and implement it, you can benefit from increased traffic, increased engagement, more opt-ins, and ultimately more sales.

Why? Because people trust earned media far more than owned or paid media because it is represents their honest experience, thoughts, and feelings. People put more stock in the advice, shares, and insights of third parties, who do not have a vested interest in saying something good or nice regarding your business. The opinions of others really matters.

Using Earned Media to Grow Your Business

So how do you generate earned media? You can’t. You can only encourage and make it easy for others to do. There are three fundamental ways to encourage earned media recognition. The first is to take advantage of influencer marketing. Build relationships with social media and industry influencers. Get them to notice you by standing out in the crowd. Once they notice one or more of your wonderful qualities, skills, or even your products, they will start talking about your company online.

Publish interesting, helpful, or thought provoking content that people want to talk about. Promote that content and give people the opportunity to share it, like it, and engage with it. Pay attention to content that gets shares, likes, comments, and engagement. Leverage this type of content to gain more earned media. Publish things like case studies, white papers, videos and other content that is commonly shared and engaged with.

Finally, engage your customers, prospects, and brand advocates. When people mention your company online, thank them. When they share, make a comment, or leave a review, respond to their content. Show them that you appreciate their efforts.

Earned media is a terrific, and affordable, way to grow your business. Include earned media marketing tactics to drive prospects, build leads, build your credibility and authority status, as well as sell more products or services. Create your earned media strategy today.