Earned media carries more value in today’s market than ever before. Integrating earned media value into your marketing strategy is crucial for taking your brand’s reputation to the next level without costing extra funding or effort!
Read more about measuring earned media value and how earned media value is calculated to start implementing this innovation asap.
With so many different ways to share a message, be it digital or traditional, it can be difficult to keep track of what media is giving your brand value and integrity with customers. However, you can’t harness the power of earned media value until you see just how much value it can bring to your brand!
What is Earned Media, and How is Earned Media Value Calculated?
What IS Earned Media?
Earned media, simply put, is media about your brand that you didn’t pay for or create on your own. This media was traditionally things like featured stories on local news, newspaper stories, and reviews. Thanks to the internet, earned media now also includes tweets discussing your brand, someone blogging about your product, or, really, any third party that mentions your brand. It would be easy to call earned media “publicity,” but since some PR elements can be sponsored or paid for by brands, the distinction of “earned media” indicates the unsolicited help from outside sources.
Why do I need it?
Because earned media isn’t paid for or created by a brand, the information feels more trustworthy to consumers and helps them see your brand’s impact on others outside of the media you own and create. In a way, think of earned media as customer-relatable proof of your campaign promises.
In fact, nearly 9 out of 10 customers read reviews before deciding to purchase something and 79% of customers trust online reviews like they’d trust recommendations from a friend. If you’re made aware of positive feedback from other out sources, you can leverage this good press to encourage brand trust. On the other hand, if your earned media is negative, you can leverage the insights as ways to improve and show how you’ve built differently as a result of listening to customers.
What is EMV?
EMV is earned media value. Earned media value measures the return on your investment on getting these outside sources to notice your brand, be it an ad campaign or working with influencers to increase brand awareness.
How do I calculate it?
It can be difficult to track what prompts third parties to create your earned media, so sometimes marketers see this as a “vanity metric,” meaning that is simply promotes brand appearance and isn’t actively useful or changeable. However, knowing how others perceive your brand is crucial to hitting any marketing goal and gaining traction with your target audience. Figuring out how earned media value is calculated can make a difference for your brand by determining if your investments are paying off.
Formulas Versus Monitoring Services
The best way to calculate your earned media value is to decide what metrics are most valuable to your business and input your data accordingly. There are services and calculators that can help run these datasets for you to generate the numbers. However, much like an actual calculator, the output data is only as good as the data you put in.
The base of all earned media value calculations can be distilled to this framework:
EMV= Valued action X Cost Per Thousand (or Million)
Valued Action
“Valued action” here means whatever third party action you want to measure, meaning number of likes, shares, reviews, or other engagement actions.
Cost Per…
The Cost Per can be out of thousands or millions, but this figure is what you’d expect to pay for generating that action in a paid ad campaign.
Which Metric Matters Most?
Measuring earned media value most accurately for your business and industry means determining what actions have the most value for your brand’s longevity. Using this earned media value data creatively can help you boost follower counts, likes, shares, or other forms of Facebook earned media or earned media value on Instagram to attract influencers and others to continue creating value. If you use these calculations with data that isn’t relevant to boosting sales and awareness, then yes, earned media value can become a vanity metric (which is still good to be aware of from an audience perspective). Try different sets of data within the equation to find the best stats for your brand.
What Else Can I Do?
Instead of fussing with calculations and generating reports, let the pros at ULS do that heavy lifting so your team can focus on helping customers and creating new products and services. Our social media packages include the option of detailed reports and analytics about your data plus expert advice on how to improve the statistics. Reach out today for a free, personalized consultation to get your questions answered and leverage or create your brand’s earned media value!
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