Diane Terman Public Relations Blog Earned Media vs. Paid Media

Advertising and Public Relations are important but very different means of elevating your brand. A full-scale marketing plan needs both aspects to thrive as they both serve imperative purposes to your business and image. While there are a growing number of paid promotional vehicles available, a public relations firm will design and engineer a plan to maximize the wide spectrum of earned media opportunities for its clients. Before we get into earned media. it is important to take into account what (aside from not directly paying for it) makes this form of publicity different from buying ads. Advertising is a controlled form of one’s message where money is exchanged for time, space, links, in-post mentions, product placement (as a few examples) to send the payer’s message out to a mass audience. A good ad placement strategy and excellent content are essential parts to a full brand-building campaign. Still, one may ask, why the need for earned media if we can just pay for exposure? The answer is manifold: Like advertising, there is a vast landscape of earned media opportunities which can be tapped ahead of one’s competition. While one can place an ad on a television or radio show, earned media extends to becoming part of the program. When one can pay for a link or banner on a blog or an ad in a newspaper, a publicist can also help a client become a trusted expert to be a featured commentator for articles and posts in such venues. A...