Modern media has changed!  If you or your brand has not yet learned how you can create and attract media instead of buying it, you haven’t invested your attention in how media has changed and what it means for the way you market.

What is really exciting about these changes are that small business can really maximise their reach through what is known as ‘owned and earned’ media.  These are all marketing and promotions activities that do not include paying or buying your media and in turn your reach.  We are also saying that owned or earned media can integrate with bought media and does not sit in a silo, detached from the entire marketing mix.  Quite the contrary, when owned, earned and bought media are strategically integrated, this is when you are getting real value and reach from your paid-for media.  In effect what you are achieving is an entire socially personal relevant ecosystem around your product or brand with the consumer relationship at the heart of the system.

So what do the terms ‘bought’, ‘owned’ and ‘earned’ media mean?  Bought media is obvious; these are traditional channels of TV, Radio, and Print, outdoor or Public Relations that we typically spend our marketing budgets on.  They are relatively easy to implement with most of targeting and metrics readily available by long established statistical measurements like AMPS, RAMS and the like.  Bought media also includes new media channels:  Online and mobile advertising.  A relatively new practise, with many unclear and complex optimization techniques requiring experienced practitioners to implement.

Owned media is probably the most interesting, vastly under-rated and fairground category of modern media today.  Owned media refers to all the plethora of content in existence as either produced or by-product of a brand/company’s business.  It is the media you control!  An example could be industry knowledge or research within the financial sector, or it could be your brand logo and image, your website and everything in between.  In fact social media expert and author of the book ‘Engage’ Brian Solis says EC=MC:  Every company is a media company.  How does owned media fit into your marketing mix, well its simple really...modern media’s driving forces are dictated by getting the attention of your consumer, providing a context for your product in the consumer’s world, providing objects around which the consumer can dynamically engage and doing so in a ubiquitous channel.  Publishing your media gives you a proportionate impact to that of traditional media companies:  you can now be a magazine, audio channel or TV channel for little to no investment other than time and effort.

Earned media to me can be both driven and/or a result from your activities as a publisher of owned media or that which has been integrated with your bought media.  Basically though this is all the stuff we underestimate the power of i.e.: viral or word of mouth, publicity and social media.  This category offers ubiquitous access and opportunity, but also requires more time resources.  I found this wonderful diagram to illustrate earned media position in the digital marketing ecosystem.

Now that you have a handle on the landscape of modern media what approach will you take?  Are there ways in which your small business can create reach and impact and ultimately sales with the limited financial resources you have?  Can you realign your human capital to more effectively gain in the earned media category without compromising outputs?  How will you integrate your bought media with your earned media strategy to double the effects of each marketing Rand you spend? Can you turn each member of your staff into creators and distributors of your owned media? 

Looking forward to sharing more modern media insights with you.