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Whilst earned media may seem like a complicated topic, in reality it’s quite simple. Earned media is content that is created by a third party, rather than created by the brand itself, which is known as owned media. While content can’t be created by the brand in order for it to be considered ‘earned’, there are still many ways for this content to be leveraged by the brand themselves to gain tangible benefits.
Before we get into those strategies, it’s important to answer two questions:
In this blog post, we’ll help you answer those questions to understand how you can be leveraging earned media in your own eCommerce strategies.
A lot of brands are currently using earned media to increase both engagement with their brand and conversions within their online store – and you can do exactly the same. First things first, let’s clear up any confusion about what earned media actually is.
Media is given the title “earned” because it gives a brand an edge that self-promoted content simply cannot achieve. When someone writes something positive about your brand or validates one of your products by posting a picture of it on Instagram, they are saying that your brand is deserving of their praise. You are earning their trust and, moreover, they are excited enough about your product to confidently give it their stamp of approval for their friends, family, and – with social media in the picture – the world to see. Earned media has essentially become online word-of-mouth, driving traffic, engagement and sentiment surrounding your brand.
This means a whole lot in a world that’s all about curating the perfect online persona. UGC platforms, such as Flowbox, offer an easy-to-use interface that can collect earned media across social media sites and then display it in high-performance widgets on your website. This clear social proof makes customers more likely to trust your brand and products. To put this into perspective, VOX a furniture brand, has increased its eCommerce conversions by 18.76% with the help of earned media.
Most important of all, however, is that earned media does not include any kind of media that you pay for. Paying a publication to write a piece of content featuring your brand, while still a useful strategy, is paid media – not earned media. Paid media can help contribute to earned media, such as producing a video which then goes viral, but that kind of strategy requires a completely different focus and plan of action.
So for now, let’s focus on all of the different kinds of earned media that you can acquire and where you can acquire it.
When thinking about earned media, there are generally two formats that we can consider: written and visual. These days, we have very different spaces for finding both. Let’s start with earned media that is written down.
The most common form of written media is what we find in a newspaper, magazine, podcast, or online publication. When your brand gets featured in a piece of content written by a well-established or famous publication, this can mean a lot in terms of media-buzz and press.
However, it isn’t always easy to get your brand featured in such a publication without a paid execution or a huge story or announcement about your brand. There is still hope, though!
One very useful tool is HARO, or help a reporter. With this tool, you can sign-up to receive lists of journalists who are looking for specific stories. If you’re lucky, one day you’ll find the perfect HARO post to answer that could just get your brand featured in a major publication or podcast.
While you did a little bit of the work, it’s still earned media because it gives the brand that authentic edge that makes this kind of content so powerful.
There are also industry blogs and interviews that will help make a splash in your sector. Some big benefits of getting featured in industry blogs include:
Although social media is undoubtedly a powerhouse for eCommerce brands, don’t underestimate the influence behind blogs. The endless array of Pinterest boards made up of eCommerce round-ups signal why brands should have a presence in the blogosphere. This is especially true for those in the fashion space.
This brings me to our next form of earned media: a content or product round-up.
HARO is also the perfect tool for getting yourself featured on a round-up that makes sense for your brand. Publications are constantly calling for brands to share information for them to feature on their newsletters and round-ups.
The best part is: you’re not bothering people to feature you who you aren’t sure are even looking to feature brands. They are asking specifically for you. So you know you have a high chance of being selected!
When we’re talking about written content about your brand that can be widely published, our minds usually come to customer reviews. They are one of the most important buying features for a lot of people today, and they’re another crucial form of earned media.
Services like Trusted Shops can help give your products the stamp of approval that a lot of consumers look for before making any decision online. While you are giving customers the space to give their input, this would still be considered earned media because you’re not paying for their comments, and it’s extremely authentic.
Even better, use a tool that will verify your reviewers to ensure that shoppers now just how authentic they really are.
Finally, social media can still be a solid place to find written earned media. Especially when you turn to Twitter!
Twitter is an active playground for short form “writers” (meaning your customers) to share thoughts, opinions, and ideas with an engaged audience. So when someone mentions your brand in a positive post, it helps to garner public engagement naturally.
Those are the most popular forms of written earned media, now let’s shift over to the other side of the equation: visual earned media.
Written earned media can be great for a brand, but what if you’re more interested in consumers seeing your products? That’s where visual earned media comes into the picture.
The place to turn for visual earned media is Instagram.
While Instagram influencers are normally paid or given a gift for sponsored posts, there are ways to get earned media from this network. Instagram is a hub for happy customers to share moments of their life – where they also happen to be enjoying your product.
That means normal users sharing authentic content with their friends and family. Not to leverage this kind of earned content would be a disservice to your brand.
Plus, it’s super easy to collect this kind of User Generated Content to integrated into an embedded Instagram feed in your eCommerce. So not only are customers sharing this kind of content for their followers to see on social media, you can also use it to enrich your online shopping journey like this example from fashion brand, Omoda.
When you leverage this kind of earned media, it can also help improve your eCommerce performance. By connecting images to products to make them ‘shoppable,’ brands see a 15% increase of conversion rate on average.
And it’s not just Instagram photos and videos that you can collect. Facebook, the original photo and video sharing space, can also be leveraged in the same way as Instagram.
Similarly, we can turn to YouTube for longer videos that feature your products. While YouTube is generally a space for paid promotions, it’s possible to get users talking about your brand by connecting with them in a more organic way.
Follow their work, let them know that you watch their videos by commenting, liking, and mentioning them on other social media channels. This will also help you a lot when you reach out to them via email or meet them in person.
Once they start mentioning your brand, use this content on your site or on social media to enhance and promote your brand.
Now that we’ve gone through the types of earned media, let’s look at a real life example and how well it worked.
If you play your cards right, you can actually leverage this earned content into increasing both eCommerce conversions and engagement in one fell swoop. If you’re wondering how, let’s look at an example from Polish furniture brand, VOX.
VOX has always been at the top of their game when it comes to eCommerce innovation, so when they wanted to make a few updates – adding more photos to the site and including a customer review feature – they realized they had a big opportunity to do both at the same time.
Since they had already put in the work to get customers interacting with them on social media and posting content featuring the brand’s products, they had an onslaught of earned media that was waiting for them. It was simple to collect it and turn it into visual customer reviews on their website, providing authenticity and social proof for their brand.
Displayed in galleries and carousels across their homepage, product pages and more, the brand is able to demonstrate to shoppers that their products are used and loved by other, paying, customers.
Plus, by attaching products to each image, they actually attribute sales to each piece of earned media that they post.
With this feature in their eCommerce store, they’ve seen an 18.76% conversion rate increase and an 18.18% average order value increase. All thanks for their authentic earned media!
If you want a more in-depth explanation of how they did this, read on here.
That’s everything you need to know about earned media. The final question is: how do you want to leverage it?
My advice: make a plan, then stick to it. The impact of earned media can potentially skyrocket your brand’s engagement and sales if you plan well and commit.
You’re still not sure whether you should integrate UGC into your eCommerce or not? Here are 8 reasons why you should do it!
And if you’re not sure how to plan it, reach out to us at Flowbox, and we can guide your UGC strategy to ensure higher engagement and boosted conversions.
Written by Charlie Brook, Content Marketing Manager. Reach her at [email protected]
