How to use earned media in your marketing strategy
Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2024 9:10 am
Times are changing, and so are consumers. They are increasingly choosing to interact with brands in a different way. It is almost no longer possible to convince a user to buy with advertising alone; consumers crave connection and want to build authentic relationships with brands. According to Google research, nearly 92% of consumers trust recommendations from other users , and in comparison, only 24% say they fully trust online advertising. Advertising is important, but if it is not complemented by anything else, it may not be effective.
This is precisely the meaning of earned media: it is the media we have had without having to invest, or content produced and shared by our own consumers about us. Leaving our content in the hands of our users can be very beneficial, in fact, again according to Google, between 25% and 40% of all traffic and lead generation comes from earned media.
Brands have long since ceased to be determined by their purchase employment data advertisements; they are now strongly conditioned by what people say about them. And for businesses that focus their efforts on creating more attractive content for their users (whether B2C or B2B), earned media is a key element. So, how can earned media be integrated into a content marketing strategy ? At pinchaaqui.es we have compiled the 3 most important steps to follow to make earned media part of your strategy.
STEP 1: Increase brand assets
One of the biggest struggles brands face is gathering enough ‘brand assets’. What does this mean? It can be time-consuming to constantly create new content, and it drains many brands’ resources and finances.
Gathering earned media means you can grow your content library quickly without having to spend too much time planning and creating original content.
So how can you harness the power of earned media and employ it in your content strategy?
First, we need to give our users a reason to create and share content about our brand .
The results, for example, of using an attractive hashtag, can be good, since our content can spread across multiple channels.
But getting your audience to post content through your hashtag can be a difficult task, so you need to make sure you create a hashtag that encourages engagement.
We need to make sure that the hashtag is relevant and direct – users should immediately know what it is about so they can post quickly. Remember that time is of the essence when it comes to social media, which means that the hashtag should be easy to spell and even easier to remember.
STEP 2: Converting new customers
Once we have our Earned Media content library set up and activated with new content that our users are constantly adding, it’s time to leverage it and repurpose it for our marketing channels.
There are four main places where earned media can be integrated:
On social media
The easiest way to repurpose earned media is to share it through our social channels. By listening to social media , we can keep track of who is using our hashtags, and thus be able to interact with these users and gradually turn them into ambassadors for our brand.
Facebook finds that 90% of consumers would recommend a brand to others if they had interacted with it on social media, so monitoring our users’ conversations and building relationships with them can be incredibly beneficial for the brand.
Paid Ads
According to a study conducted by the company, Rhythmone, 77% of users say that authentic photos of customers, that is, those they themselves share using any service or consuming a product, have a greater impact on the purchasing decisions of other users than photos distributed by companies' marketing teams, therefore, it is a good idea to integrate earned media into our paid ads.
According to the same company, the combination of these two marketing channels can generate up to 4 times more clicks on Facebook ads than if they were run separately.
On our website
By measuring our actions, we can know which of them are more and less successful. When content generated by our clients generates more sales than content created by ourselves, it is time to start integrating it into our sites, especially in the places where conversions occur.
We can show a practical example
The hotel chain 'Marriott Vacation Club' uses what we have just explained on its website: to show the services they offer and what customers can do at their hotels, they created a page dedicated to content shared by previous visitors.
This is precisely the meaning of earned media: it is the media we have had without having to invest, or content produced and shared by our own consumers about us. Leaving our content in the hands of our users can be very beneficial, in fact, again according to Google, between 25% and 40% of all traffic and lead generation comes from earned media.
Brands have long since ceased to be determined by their purchase employment data advertisements; they are now strongly conditioned by what people say about them. And for businesses that focus their efforts on creating more attractive content for their users (whether B2C or B2B), earned media is a key element. So, how can earned media be integrated into a content marketing strategy ? At pinchaaqui.es we have compiled the 3 most important steps to follow to make earned media part of your strategy.
STEP 1: Increase brand assets
One of the biggest struggles brands face is gathering enough ‘brand assets’. What does this mean? It can be time-consuming to constantly create new content, and it drains many brands’ resources and finances.
Gathering earned media means you can grow your content library quickly without having to spend too much time planning and creating original content.
So how can you harness the power of earned media and employ it in your content strategy?
First, we need to give our users a reason to create and share content about our brand .
The results, for example, of using an attractive hashtag, can be good, since our content can spread across multiple channels.
But getting your audience to post content through your hashtag can be a difficult task, so you need to make sure you create a hashtag that encourages engagement.
We need to make sure that the hashtag is relevant and direct – users should immediately know what it is about so they can post quickly. Remember that time is of the essence when it comes to social media, which means that the hashtag should be easy to spell and even easier to remember.
STEP 2: Converting new customers
Once we have our Earned Media content library set up and activated with new content that our users are constantly adding, it’s time to leverage it and repurpose it for our marketing channels.
There are four main places where earned media can be integrated:
On social media
The easiest way to repurpose earned media is to share it through our social channels. By listening to social media , we can keep track of who is using our hashtags, and thus be able to interact with these users and gradually turn them into ambassadors for our brand.
Facebook finds that 90% of consumers would recommend a brand to others if they had interacted with it on social media, so monitoring our users’ conversations and building relationships with them can be incredibly beneficial for the brand.
Paid Ads
According to a study conducted by the company, Rhythmone, 77% of users say that authentic photos of customers, that is, those they themselves share using any service or consuming a product, have a greater impact on the purchasing decisions of other users than photos distributed by companies' marketing teams, therefore, it is a good idea to integrate earned media into our paid ads.
According to the same company, the combination of these two marketing channels can generate up to 4 times more clicks on Facebook ads than if they were run separately.
On our website
By measuring our actions, we can know which of them are more and less successful. When content generated by our clients generates more sales than content created by ourselves, it is time to start integrating it into our sites, especially in the places where conversions occur.
We can show a practical example
The hotel chain 'Marriott Vacation Club' uses what we have just explained on its website: to show the services they offer and what customers can do at their hotels, they created a page dedicated to content shared by previous visitors.