Earned media is an essential tool for PR teams to build consumer trust. This type of media has provided PR professionals with new and innovative ways to interact with and engage their audiences, making it an asset to any public relations skillset.
In today’s market, PR teams must understand how this form of coverage can be used to boost a company’s brand and be willing to invest in a communications strategy that has earned media coverage at its core.
With more people using social media to receive daily content and read the news, the nature of reaching audiences and generating media exposure is changing. So, what is earned media and how can you increase this valuable form of content?
What is Earned Media Coverage?
Earned media coverage is any material written about your company that you haven’t paid for or created yourself. In other words, it is any publicity or press coverage that is gained organically. This can include social shares of your paid media, customer reviews, and social posts, blogs, or news articles that mention your company.
Paid Media vs. Earned Media vs. Owned Media
There are three common forms of media coverage companies can invest in: paid, earned, and owned.
According to Smart Insights, paid media is content that is solely generated by the company, while owned media is content generated by the company in channels that it controls. Each type is an effective way for PR teams to engage their audience.
What sets earned media apart is the fact that it is not directly generated or paid for by the company.
Why is Earned Media Coverage Important?
Earned media coverage is important because it plays a pivotal role in engaging your audience, and it has the potential to reach a much wider audience previously unknown to the brand.
Building an earned media strategy is valuable because of its perceived trustworthiness relative to other forms of media coverage, as people are more likely to purchase or use services based on the advice of sources that are not directly connected to a company. Because it comes from an objective external source, it is more likely to be listened to and trusted by potential customers.
It is also more cost-effective than paid media as it is created by third parties unassociated with the company’s press or communications teams.
An organic earned media strategy is also an effective way for companies to build relationships with journalists, media outlets, social media creators, and influencers.
Not to mention, tracking earned coverage – in combination with other metrics such as social sharing and potential impressions – can be used to evaluate and provide insights into key message campaigns.
Ways to Maximize Earned Media Coverage
In this interconnected and online world, there are many ways for communications and PR teams to gain earned media coverage. While the nature of media has evolved with the rise of online outlets and social media influencers, there are a few trusted methods that can be used to increase your earned media.
Do Something Newsworthy
One of the best ways to attract organic coverage is to do something noteworthy or of interest to the public. This can range from philanthropic donations – which has proven to be a successful PR strategy for many organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic – to advocating for a worthy cause, like diversity and inclusion in the workplace. If your company can do something notable, it will likely attract positive news coverage and social engagement.
Create Content Worth Sharing
Creating ‘shareable’ content will increase the likelihood that you’ll gain social engagement with and positive coverage of your owned media. To create content worth sharing, it is important to understand the topics and formats that will resonate with your audience. The most shareable content is often in the form of video clips, infographics, or commentary on trending industry topics.
Partner with Industry Influencers
Partnering with industry influencers to promote your messaging is a key tactic for gaining positive earned media coverage. Take the time to build relationships with industry professionals and journalists that commonly cover your sector. In addition to gaining insight into the topics that resonate with your audience, you will increase the reach of your messages by taking advantage of influencers’ followings.
Utilize Social Media
Both large and small brands rely on customer reviews and word-of-mouth to build their media exposure. Not only has social media become a primary platform for customer reviews and word-of-mouth coverage, but it also allows you to engage directly with your audience. By building a social media team to promote shareable content and interact with your audience, you can boost your shared coverage and shape conversations about your brand.
Understand Your Target Audience
Understanding your audience requires that your PR team be aware of topics and trends that can be used to engage your audience. PR teams can use sentiment analysis to understand how their audience currently views their company and various industry topics. Once you understand how to reach your audience and how they engage with content, you can create content and campaigns that will generate higher rates of social sharing.
Using Earned Media Coverage as a Part of Your PR Strategy
Earned media coverage is an essential part of a successful public relations strategy. By refining your message, engaging your audience with creative content, and collaborating with industry influencers, you can increase your earned media coverage. Doing so will provide your company with valuable insight into your audience’s perceptions of your company and allow your organization to expand its reach to new realms.
At PublicRelay, we offer clients an accurate in-depth analysis of their media coverage. With media monitoring, we can help you to track all forms of your media coverage and assess the effectiveness of your messaging campaigns. Demonstrate the success of your communications strategy and start tracking your earned media now!
According to Business Matters, a company’s reputation is crucial to its success. When tracked effectively, it can reveal valuable insights into a brand’s current position in public opinion. This understanding provides a foundation for PR teams to make informed decisions about their communications strategy.
What Are Reputational Drivers?
Reputational drivers are the factors that contribute to a company’s overall reputation. Defining and tracking these key metrics will help public relations professionals to understand their company brand and more effectively manage their reputation.
RepTrak outlines seven drivers of reputation that can highlight an organization’s strengths, weaknesses, and areas for growth. As Reptrak points out, these categories can help you pinpoint the different aspects of your organization that are receiving press coverage.
Based on the seven drivers, PublicRelay has developed a framework for determining the essential drivers of corporate reputation that can be tailored to apply to any organization. By using this framework, your PR team can design a media monitoring strategy that effectively tracks the factors comprising your brand.
PublicRelay’s framework consists of:
- Products and Services. What are the individual elements of the products and services you offer?
- Business Strategy. What actions has your company taken to meet its business goals?
- Workplace. What is your company’s workplace culture?
- Leadership. Does your organization have a clear mission, and is there accountability among its executives?
- Corporate Social Responsibility. How does your company give back to the community or try to make the world a better place?
- Financial Performance. What is the state of your company’s financial health?
- Government Relations. Is your company in-line with industry regulations? Is your company involved in any litigation?
Each driver is connected to a specific facet of your company’s operations. Together, they help to paint a picture of the public’s perception of your brand. The final image serves as a vital tool in crafting a strong communications plan.
Why Are Reputational Drivers Important in a Communications Strategy?
Reputational drivers are important in a communications strategy because understanding the nuances of your corporate reputation will enable you to make data-driven decisions.
Reputation may feel like an intangible concept when you begin developing a communications plan. By dividing it into specific drivers, seemingly vague ideas become concrete and measurable parts of your business. Breaking it down across these seven drivers will help you to focus your messaging on the drivers that are most important to your communications objectives.
For instance, perhaps mentions of your company have been more negative than usual over the past week. By examining media content, you could uncover that negative press has largely focused on your products and services. This insight would allow you to work across teams, flagging the criticism to your product and development team for further inquiry. As a PR professional, you now have the opportunity to help shift the narrative in your brand’s favor. Once you have a firm understanding of which aspects of your brand are drawing attention, be it positive or negative, you can go to work crafting compelling content to balance the narrative.
The framework can also strengthen an organization’s external media capabilities. Once you have identified which categories are crucial to your brand’s current messaging, tracking coverage across all seven drivers can reveal further insights. In monitoring your company’s press coverage, you may begin to see which drivers are underperforming over time. Analyzing your coverage for patterns or emerging trends allows you to make intelligent and informed decisions.
Reputational Driver Metrics
It’s clear that drivers of corporate reputation provide invaluable insights for communications teams, but how do you tailor each to your company’s unique objectives?
Whether you decide to monitor your media in-house or use an agency, tailoring your drivers to your company and industry will ensure you are able to capture your metrics accurately.
When building your communications strategy, begin to consider the individual drivers and how each metric applies to your company and desired brand:
Products and Services
Define each aspect of the products and/or services your company offers. The distinction between the two is that products are generally tangible goods (e.g., a cheeseburger), while services are intangible activities performed by people (e.g., table service).
The benefit to tracking the elements of your products and services independently is that if you begin to see negative coverage of this driver, you can pinpoint which facet is perceived negatively.
Let’s say you work for a software company. When it comes to your products and services, you may want to monitor mentions of the various features of your software, product performance, new releases and upgrades, user experience, and customer service.
Business Strategy
Business strategy refers to the actions your company takes to reach your objectives or remain competitive in your industry. This can include partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, ad revenue, or industry innovation.
For example, strategic business partnerships are known to improve companies’ credibility, long-term stability, and access to knowledge and resources, enabling them to expand the scope and quality of their offerings.
Workplace
Workplace culture and employee experience are both important factors in measuring corporate reputation. Monitoring the workplace facet of your brand’s reputation could involve assessing coverage of employee benefits, training and advancement opportunities, and mentions of diversity and inclusion efforts.
Stakeholders often view workplace culture as an insight into the company’s alignment with its core values. If a company claims to value people over profit, but their own employees are struggling to make ends meet, then consumers may start to doubt the company’s integrity.
Leadership
A company with a clear mission and executives that align with those values is perceived as more accountable and trustworthy.
Measuring this reputational driver will likely cover mentions of company executives, spokespeople, and potential insights or thought leadership they may offer. Identify every key member of or role in your company’s leadership structure to effectively track this driver.
CEOs and other leaders are perceived as representatives of company brands. If an executive is involved in a scandal, for instance, it will reflect negatively on the company’s reputation. On the other hand, a company’s reputation can benefit from a CEO with a positive public image.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate social responsibility is a powerful driving force behind a brand’s reputation. CSR encompasses charitable donations, sponsorship of local community events, or environmental initiatives.
CSR programs say more about a company’s values than the quality of its products and services, but they still impact consumer behavior. In a survey of consumers, RepTrak found that “91.4% of respondents would buy from a company with an excellent CSR program.” Another 84.3% would give a company “the benefit of the doubt” during a crisis if it had a strong CSR program.
Financial Performance
Following media coverage of your brand’s financial performance may involve examining analyst projections, quarterly earnings, or share values. Analysis of this coverage furthers your understanding of public opinion of your company’s financial health and stability.
Financial performance contributes to a company’s reputation because it is an indicator of whether the company can deliver on the other drivers. For example, if a company is doing well financially, it is more likely able to expand its product development, hire more employees, and make charitable donations to social causes.
Government Relations
When tracking government relations, consider monitoring any relevant industry legislation or regulation, and your company’s involvement in litigation. For instance, if your company is cited in an ongoing legal discussion concerning privacy standards across platforms, it could impact perceptions of and trust in your brand.
Manage Your Corporate Reputation
The insights PR teams can glean from investigating their company’s reputational drivers are essential to effectively managing corporate reputation. Analysis of these drivers will help you to craft a targeted media strategy to elevate your brand. By understanding where your brand currently stands, you will be better prepared to achieve your brand objectives.
At PublicRelay, we offer bespoke media monitoring programs designed to help your public relations team understand and reach your communications goals. Build your custom media monitoring program now!
Accurate and regularly updated data has become a driving force in the business world. Having in depth knowledge of exactly how everything is performing is no longer a differentiator for your business, it is now a must-have. One effective way of monitoring key data and helping you plan your next move is with a communications dashboard. Communications dashboards display the most important and up to date metrics that a modern business requires.
A good communications dashboard can help a company stay on top of ever-changing news cycles, plan a new PR campaign, monitor an impending crisis or help give a detailed overview of their industry.
Here are three examples of dashboards that have helped PR professionals address their needs, plan strategies and satisfy their curiosity.
Know yourself with an Overview Dashboard
In a world where countless metrics can be tracked, a good business needs to be able to identify what specifically will be the most applicable statistics to track for the goals they are looking to accomplish. The best PR teams need to know how their business is performing, what are its currents strengths and what areas require improvement, so your Overview Dashboard should quickly and easily display the few key data points that answer the question “how are we doing?”.
Whether it’s volume and tone of coverage, social sharing broken down by platform or an-in depth view of key topics, you can gain immediate insights into your principal concerns. By taking the time to tailor this dashboard to your specific needs, you may save valuable time that can be put towards planning how best to use this data to be more agile.
Know your competition with a Competitive Dashboard
A good Competitive Dashboard can be key to gathering a clear and concise overview of just how you stack up to your main competition. Keeping a close eye on one’s peers can help ensure communicators identify areas for improvement as well as points of strength within their own company.
PR and communications teams may require a side by side comparison of themselves and their foremost competitor, or perhaps they need to expand their view and keep track of all their main competition at once. The ability, not only to monitor competitor metrics, but also to accurately compare and contrast their own performance with others, can help teams answer the question “how are we doing in relation to others?”.
Know your path forward with an Issues Matrix
Last week’s hot topic is often this week’s old news. Modern industries have dynamic news cycles and it pays to stay ahead of the curve on matters both big and small. An Issues Matrix Dashboard can help companies monitor key topics within their industry as well as current news trends.
With this dashboard, PR pros can easily determine what aspects of their industry have been trending negatively, which have been trending positively as well as which matters have been the most talked about.
For teams that need to keep abreast of topical industry news, or for those that are interested in how their industry is portrayed in the media, this dashboard can be an invaluable tool. This dynamic dashboard is perfect for an ever-changing industry and can help answer the question “how is our industry doing?”.
The best dashboards are those with the highest engagement levels and teams that take the time to build these dashboards to their specific requirements certainly reap the benefits that these hubs of information can provide. No two companies are the same and those that cater their dashboards to their individual needs stay informed and ahead of the curve.
Many of us have probably heard of SMART goals or goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound. Rather than having a vague notion of what you want to accomplish where success is somewhat subjective, setting SMART goals provides structure to your objectives and maps a clear path to success.
Using SMART goals in PR and communications could look something like, “we’re going to increase positive innovation messaging to the Street by 10% in the next 6 months” or “we’re going to launch an employer brand campaign and earn placements with great place to work messaging in our top 20 outlets that reach millennials in the next 6 months.”
What constitutes success here is clearly spelled out and your progress can be easily tracked. But if you want to set even better goals, make your goals SMART-ER. Global Managing Director of AMEC Johna Burke explained SMART-ER goals in a recent webcast, adding ethical and revolutionary to the facets of great goal setting.
Ethical Goals
Ethical refers to the data used to measure success. Your PR and communications measurement should be consistent, transparent, and valid, meaning where and how you get your data, the criteria for success, and other metrics can easily and confidently explained. The measured results should also be replicable. If you don’t understand exactly how you get your data, you can be sure your executives will ask the same questions you’re asking yourself. Make sure your communications analysis is transparent.
Revolutionary Goals
Are the insights from your measurement program revolutionizing your communications strategies and tactics? Streamlining or changing processes inside and even outside your department? Setting revolutionary goals is all about understanding the impact of your results and using insights to optimize strategies. If you successfully increased positive innovation message penetration to the Street by 10% in the last quarter, what impact did that have on your brand and your organization’s business goals? Maybe you’ll see a correlation between the uplift in positive coverage and an increase in institutional investments. Glean insights from the data and results that not only prove your worth, but show you what to do next.
Learn more about SMARTER goals from AMEC Global Managing Director Johna Burke.
Communicators agree vague potential impressions metrics are quickly becoming irrelevant because they don’t provide business value. But how can PR pros demonstrate their contribution to business goals and become more strategic business partners is the question that naturally follows – especially when their executives are accustomed to seeing potential impressions grow ad infinitum.
One way to correlate PR activities to your organization’s goals is to conduct demographic and psychographic audience analysis of your earned media coverage to ensure you’re reaching your target potential audience, not millions of anonymous people. Leverage demographic and psychographic analysis in the following ways:
Demographic Audience Analysis
Demographic audience analysis segments your audience by data points such as age, gender, income, education, marital status, and political affiliation. Compare your readership on these demographics to see if you’re getting coverage in front of people that you are trying to get to take action.
For example, a non-profit organization benefitting children is trying to increase their millennial donor base. They can understand exactly how much of their earned media is currently reaching not just millennials but those above a certain income threshold with children. Using this information they can determine if they need to adjust their outreach plan.
Psychographic Audience Analysis
Psychographic audience analysis segments your audience by data points such as social and consumer behaviors and future buying intent. This allows you to get extremely granular with your targeting, especially when combined with demographic audience analysis.
Say you work for a utility company and want to get coverage about your organization’s R&D in clean energy in front of a more liberal audience, whereas you want conservative readers to see your message against a certain energy industry regulation. Use psychographic audience analysis to target a specific segment down to the key message.
Benchmark your reach to this segment and improve penetration over time using insights from campaigns as you continually perform demographic and psychographic analysis. It might surprise you what demographics and behaviors drive increased relevant web traffic, report downloads, and other conversions.
Influencer Identification
Use demographic and psychographic audience analysis by outlet to proactively pitch outlets and authors who aren’t covering you or are only covering your competitors, but reach the audience you want to target.
Demonstrating your ability to reach relevant audiences is a business conversation your C-suite will want to have and appreciate your effort to contribute to business goals.
Sometimes it’s difficult to quantify the business impact of a PR crisis. But in the case of Uber’s string of bad publicity in 2017, the business impact of PR is quite clear – and devastating.
A recent Stratechery article (if you don’t already subscribe, I highly recommend) makes a compelling case for the idea that Uber’s PR problems actually saved their biggest competitor, Lyft.
In 2017 Uber dealt with a federal lawsuit over stolen technology, workplace harassment accusations, and a series of high-level executive mishaps that ultimately ended with the resignation of then-CEO Travis Kalanick.
At the same time Uber was fighting these crises, Lyft gained significant market share as seen in the chart below from Lyft’s S-1.
Lyft provided an explanation for these results in their S-1 saying,
“The growth rate in Revenue per Active Rider increased significantly in the first and second quarters of 2017 as our brand and values continued to resonate with riders and they increased their usage of Lyft instead of competing offerings.”
“As our brand and values continued to resonate with riders” is key here. There has been much talk recently about the importance of brand advocacy and values. It’s well-documented that consumers increasingly expect their brands to make a positive impact on society – or at the very least, not make a negative one, as I’d argue Uber did in 2017.
For example, in a recent study from APCO Worldwide, respondents said the single-most important thing a company can do when it comes to being “good to society” is treat their employees well. Amid harassment allegations and high employee turnover, Uber clearly did not live up to this order and paid the price – in market share that they have not been able to win back and eventually the loss of their CEO.
Brand building and public relations was a key differentiator between these two companies in a competitive marketplace where the switching barriers are minimal. If this case study proves one thing, it’s that the strategic and business value of PR cannot be underestimated – Just ask Uber and Lyft.
When a large nonprofit children’s hospital garnered negative publicity around their executive compensation practices, the organization’s issue management team needed to determine if and how to react. The most important questions on their minds were:
- Is this a crisis or not?
- How does this coverage compare to other peers in their industry?
- And will this negative coverage upset our target audiences and donors?
PublicRelay helped the communications team formulate a plan to analyze and handle this looming issue.
Step 1: Determine the severity of the issue and who is producing the coverage
First, the nonprofit’s communications team referred to their historical data to determine the significance of the story. They analyzed where it was coming from by outlet power as well as volume. The team was able to determine the coverage was not being produced by the high power outlets that typically influence the hospital’s donor base. The negative attention was also not significant in volume compared to other brand crises that the hospital had seen in the past. Therefore, the negative press about the brand was unlikely to immediately impact donations.
Step 2: Determine if it is spreading
The communications team paired the information with social sharing data to ensure that the story wasn’t gaining traction. Millennial donors are a key public for the hospital, so the organization was concerned about the reach of this potential issue on specific channels like Twitter and Facebook. After tracking the coverage across social platforms, the team was able to confirm that it was not picking up many social media shares nor growing in traction.
Step 3: Compare the coverage to others in the industry
As a final precaution, the team wanted to compare the issue about its compensation practices with other peers in the nonprofit realm to ensure that they were not getting more attention than their counterparts. The media analysis revealed that out of all the other major research foundations and hospitals of similar size, they had far less negative coverage than their peers during a similar event.
Step 4: Monitor the topic more closely moving forward
Although this instance did not require a response, the communications team now proactively analyzes the topic of executive compensation throughout its industry to ensure that they are not blindsided by any negative stories. Furthermore, they can consistently keep their C-Suite informed about trends in this domain and prove that they are appropriately tailoring their responses to negative stories.
Establishing and acting on a well-defined corporate Purpose was an important trend in 2018 and discussed widely in the communications field. But as former Shell Head of Communications Bjorn Edlund points out in his blog for the Arthur W. Page society called, “Welcome to the Purpose Wars,” some are becoming skeptical of its role in business, dismissing corporate purpose as an empty promise, rather than a source of social good.
As we move into 2019, it’s worth questioning what is the purpose of Purpose and where does it fit into business?
Purpose as a Compass
Edlund advocates Purpose as a leadership mechanism – a tool that guides decision-making and inspires stakeholders. Indeed, employees and consumers increasingly expect their corporations to act on social issues.
In the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer, 73% of respondents agreed companies can take actions that both increase profits and improve the economic and social conditions in which they operate. 76% said CEOs should take the lead on social change rather than waiting for the government to impose it and 67% expect prospective employers to join them in social action.
It’s clear that corporations must have some guiding purpose, mission, or values to live up to these expectations, but how can they ensure they act on their purpose authentically and earn the trust of their stakeholders?
Use Data to Strengthen Purpose
Companies need to develop a system to measure Purpose because as Edlund writes, “you can only manage what you can measure.”
Developing this framework is an important opportunity for communicators as the gatekeepers of brand reputation. If Purpose is a guiding force behind business decisions, communicators have the opportunity to bring valuable data to their CEO and other executive leaders – data that they probably have never seen before.
In order to measure Purpose, break it down into core values or topics and measure the pull-through of these topics in the media. Your values will most likely be nebulous, hard-to-define topics so communicators must make sure their measurement system takes into account the context of an article, not just keywords. This kind of in-depth analysis will yield accurate and actionable insights to be used across the business.
Contextual media analysis will reveal the public perception of your values – which ones you are living up to and perhaps more importantly, which ones you are not. This is valuable information for not only the communications department to focus their efforts, but for leaders across all business units to use when making decisions. Living up to your company’s purpose should be a company-wide goal and the measurement and sharing of data behind Purpose is another way communicators can integrate the business, break down silos, and become strategic partners to the business.