Earned Media Value: How To Calculate it & Use It

Earned media (or free media) is content relating to a person or organization, which is published by a third party without any form of payment to the publisher. She helps businesses improve their marketing by addressing common challenges like distrust, overwhelm, distractions, and lack of clarity. Then an industry expert shares it on LinkedIn and links to it from their site, that’s earned media, and it keeps working long after the ad spend stops.

In today’s digital landscape, the benefits of earned media have multiplied, and it’s easier than ever to leverage it, if you know where to start. Ask your team or your agency to report on LLM citations, branded query lift inside AI products and presence in answer-engine results. Influencer marketing is similar to affiliate marketing in the sense that you also pay someone to create content that will give you access to their audience. Well, it’s probably one of the most effective marketing channels because people tend to trust other people more than brands. In other words, it’s about giving people a reason to talk. Similarly, comedian Matt Rife leveraged social media growth to sell “more than a hundred thousand seats to live shows,” while Mark Rober’s company, CrunchLabs, creates monthly STEM-themed subscription boxes.

Offer something worth talking about and make it easy for people to share. These earned media examples highlight how third-party validation can boost your brand without spending a cent on ads. Photos, videos, or written content created by your customers or followers that highlight your brand. When other websites link to your content or pages without being asked or paid to, it’s a strong signal of value.

Cons of Earned Media: Limited Control and Unpredictable Results

She has also hosted several beauty panel events and talks including Dior Beauty, Elemis, and Gucci Beauty. The days of the high-profile or “celebrity-as-just-a-face” model appear numbered, with Rhode offering a roadmap for longevity rooted in authenticity, influence, and strategic substance. Aside from Bieber’s pull, Rhode’s strategic roadmap includes a streamlined product assortment, calculated expansion into makeup and body care, performance-driven marketing, viral social media execution, and selective retail partnerships, all of which have made it a compelling blueprint for M&A in today’s turbulent and uncertain market. The CEO hopes that Elf Beauty will help maximize the brand’s dollar share, given its 20-year industry expertise and 25 consecutive quarters of growth, as well as expand the brand into new territories (Bieber referenced demand for Rhode in markets such as Brazil). We’ve been very strategic about product, marketing, and creating tasteful, exciting experiences that are outside of the box.

With all those benefits, it’s no surprise everyone seems to be getting in on the earned media game. But it’s still typically more affordable than paid media, which also requires all of those things, plus an up-front advertising investment. It can take an earned media management team and specialized software, not to mention the perfect product placement, to get it right. When you create that authentic connection through earned media, they may be more likely to return again and again – and recommend you to others. Because customers find earned media more trustworthy, they’re willing to give it a second look, even if it’s from a brand they might not normally consider. From your local restaurant using guerrilla marketing to State Street Global Advisors’ sponsorship of the “Fearless Girl” statue on Wall Street, earned media benefits businesses large and small, in every industry.

Tips for a successful earned media strategy

The campaign also collected four Gold Lions and additional Silver and Bronze honors across other categories. KitKat reported $224 million in earned media within 10 days on zero media spend, a 31% share of voice across 93 markets and more than 115 other brands joining in with their own KitKat jokes. The work beat out a category that drew 1,156 entries and awarded 37 Lions in total.

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Honestly, PFF's grades have become an arbitrary joke among people who cover the NFL. But Nix punched his team's ticket to the AFC title game, even though he couldn't be there to lead them to the Super Bowl. Think back to Week 15 when the Green Bay Packers rolled into Mile High as the favorites against a Broncos team, at home, that was riding a 10-game winning streak at the time.

This trend is reshaping strategies for PR, comms, and marketing teams. In other words, AI learns what your brand means from your earned media footprint. This moves earned coverage from earned media output to strategic signal that can influence decision-making. PR teams succeed by combining authentic storytelling with robust forward planning. When brands lack credible earned media, they are increasingly invisible in AI answers and discovery experiences. Earned media no longer influences only people.

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• Compared to advertising metrics, the value that earned media contributes to the organization's profitability and purpose is harder to determine.
• The combination of year-round visibility, local press, and an engaging demo can create an absolute frenzy of traffic.
• You earn this coverage through strong products, compelling stories, and positive reputation rather than paying for placement or publishing it yourself.
• The platform is used by some of the most prestigious universities in the world and by local school districts alike.

It’s not enough to know how consumers engage with reviews, it’s also important to know what they do after reading them. A lot of these are the natural result of community building and an effective press strategy. There are several common types of earned media, and they all take time to build up.

Advertising is about paying media outlets that have access to your audience to display your message near or instead of regular content. Moreover, you can repurpose videos and create “packages”—like a full-blown Academy. Plus, content can reach thousands of people without spending anything on ads. These platforms have such a big audience that it makes sense for many brands to create videos just to be there. One more time for the people in the back – we think these #VWUnwrittenRules are great! Tomorrow is the longest day of the year which means it’s the perfect day to get out there and launch a coordinated 17 hour attack against the sun who’s with me

To us, engagement rate per post is the metric because it controls for post volume and audience size and helps marketers understand how they’re doing in relation to their competitors. “Hailey’s vision and innate understanding of what consumers want in a product, coupled with our incredible team and innovative marketing approach, has enabled our exponential growth. “What gave us the conviction for a billion-dollar deal is Hailey and Rhode’s track record, and what they’ve been able to build and achieve with such a level of conviction and depth with their community and in the market.

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