With the importance that social media and PR have been taken in the last few years, it has put more dynamic and channels have been diversified. As the same time became more difficult for brands to influence people and now they have more control and play a more active role.
From the 3 types of media; owned media, earned media and paid media, this last one is losing territory as credibility is decreasing, getting people attention is harder and with the massive advertising clutter is more difficult to stand out. Earned media is increasing and the audience is displacing the effect of the other 2 types of media.
For instance people often search for reviews, scores and general feedbacks from consumers regarding products as they trust the source so what the seller or brand is saying about their product is losing relevance. For companies it is more important than ever to engage with the audience and to use them as a channel to reach more customers. However it depends on the type of business and the strategy and objectives of each brand. For instance companies such as Ryanair wouldn’t use their customer as a channel in social media as most customers actually don’t like Ryanair, just the prices.
Just a short definition of the 3 types of media:
Owned Media: The brand owns the channel and controls it, such as website, blog, and twitter account. It takes time to be consolidated and company communication is not quite trusted.
Paid media: Brand pay to expose them to the audience thought display ads, paid ads, sponsorship. It has immediate effect and helps to shift owned media and earned media. But it has low credibility and declining response.
Earned Media: When your clients became your channel though voice of mouth, social media, blogs, communities make possible that a campaign go viral. It has very high credibility. However, it is difficult to control, difficult to measure, can be negative.
These channels don’t work totally independent, paid media help to promote owned and earned media and earned is supported at early stages by owned and paid media. They have converged areas, to reach success usually is necessary a well coordinated use of earned, owned and paid media.
