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The Impact of Social on Paid, Earned and Owned

As PR professionals we have always been responsible for ‘earned’ media. Traditional PR has always sold our clients’ stories to media, earning the right to publication. Even when Facebook usage exploded and advertising and marketing agencies began setting up pages for their clients, this was still marketing – owned media.  Earned engagement via Facebook can only come through timely relevant content pushed out through a brands wall – something that PR professionals are best suited to. We understand the nature of our clients’ brands and we understand how to best communicate on their behalf. More importantly, we understand the ebb and flow of conversations and helping our clients find the right moment to intervene.

But this is all about to change and PR agencies need to better adapt their skill set in order to better manage the change. Simply put, social and digital media are reshaping and remoulding the traditional Paid, Earned and Owned model.

Simply put, the lines between ‘Paid’, ‘Earned’ and ‘Owned’ have blurred. PR agencies can’t just drive earned media in a silo, nor can advertising agencies run Paid or web development agencies run Owned in silos. But what this means is that PR agencies will need to be smarter to stay competitive but to also ensure they drive results for their clients by also taking advantage of Paid and Owned media.

At MSL we talk a lot about ‘always on’ conversations – conversations that are not dependent on a brand broadcasting or publishing its content. These are conversations that are driven solely by consumers within social media sites and can take place at any time, night or day – this is ‘Earned’ dialogue.

But ‘Earned’ dialogue doesn’t come for free, especially on Facebook. Whilst we’d like to believe that most consumers are on Facebook actively seeking content to digest and connect with others it’s simply not true.  In order for a brand to drive dialogue it needs to provide its fans with a reason to begin these conversations – so we need to drive ‘Paid’ media in order to get our clients brands in front of potential fans.

And where do we drive them to? Surely a brand page is ‘Owned’ by the client (although Mark Zuckerburg may disagree with that last point).

So here is the quandary.  We can sit here and talk about Paid Earned and Owned and who has the right to drive each bucket but we need to be mindful of one fact – consumers don’t care. Even if they are watching a TV advert and tweeting about it before visiting the brands Facebook page they certainly don’t define their behaviours and media consumption.

So what is really important is that PR and Communications professionals understand the nature of each media type and how they can affect each other. They need to understand how an advert can drive users to a website or Facebook page before looking at ways in which they can support both web and search content with relevant, timely conversation calendars. They also need to understand the importance of websites as an information hub but also the extent in which Facebook can extend the conversation deeper and further.

So whilst the PR industry should pat itself on the back for driving success through earned media, the real success will be driven by the sector that can seamlessly bring together each discipline and make it work to its best affect as part of a much bigger, joined up process.