Dear Digital Marketers, Influencer Marketing Does Not Equal Earned Media

Marketing, communication and media is becoming more and more complicated. Many marketers and business leaders are finding it difficult to learn, embrace and maximize their use of new media. They struggle with understanding the difference, value and how to best use earned media, paid media and owned media.

Many brand and digital marketers are poorly confusing influencer marketing with earned media. Some of these marketers may be making innocent mistakes. However, some very well know the difference but are pretending that they don't. As a result they are negatively impacting their brand perception and damaging relationships with the people who they claim they want to embrace and invite closer to their brand.

Yes, this is the elephant in the room for many brand marketers and the influencers, and industry thought leaders. Brands are reaching out to industry leaders begging for tweets, likes, free blog posts or even days spent at an event on behalf of the brand with zero compensation. These same brand and social, digital marketers make themselves foolishly believe they don't need to compensate the person for their time since they are bucketing the engagement into “earned media.”

I'll put this very simply for you. If you are paying for travel, accommodations, fancy dinners and entertainment it is not earned media.

Earned media is media that you earn. It's not media that you pay for. It's not dependable. It's not something you can wine and dine an influencer for and expect to get measurable results. You get what you pay for. You get what you plan for.

If you were kicking off a new event would you expect the caterer, DJ and venue to provide free service and product? Likely not. They would laugh at you if you asked. So why is it that so many brand marketers think it is alright to ask for days of time from industry leaders for free?

Learning how to integrate earned, paid and owned media is key to success for digital marketers. It is both art and science.

Relationships are everything. If you don't value the time, network, knowledge and community of the person you want to invite to your event for 3 days, why are you inviting them in the first place?

Marketers must learn to plan ahead, budget for the right media, reach and results they want to achieve. Building a digital marketing strategy and plan on the foundation that the approach is to try and get as many tweets, posts and attention as possible by wining and dining the leaders of the industry is a short lived strategy and will soon backfire as these people realize they are nothing more than a tweet and a number to you.

Take a listen to the 139th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for some real talk on why brands must quit confusing earned media with influencer marketing now. I share with you a story of how one of the largest car manufacturers in the world reach out to me asking for 5 days of my time at an event without any compensation and claiming they couldn't compensate for time as it fell into the category of “earned media.” Seriously people, let's get real on this topic. It's time we make the leaders in this industry accountable. They need to walk the walk,not just talk the talk.

This episode is part of a new “in a nutshell” mini-series of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to do a deep dive on the 3 types of media you must understand if you want to be successful in the online world and with digital marketing. I provided a quick overview of paid, earned and owned media in episode 138 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast.

Be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 15 minute podcast you will learn: 

• Difference between earned media and influencer marketing
• Why influencer marketing is not necessarily earned media
• Importance of valuing relationships over reach, followers, Klout scores
• Why brands must value time of influencers and thought leaders they want to work with
• Tips to best use influencer marketing
• The difference between paid, earned and owned media
• How to avoid blurring earned and paid media

Supporting Resources:

• Earned, Owned and Paid Media in a Nutshell (episode 138)
• Top 10 Mistakes Brands Make with Influencer Marketing and How to Fix Them (episode 121)
• Influencer Marketing in a Nutshell (episode 96)
• Influence the Influencer -Co-Created Content in a Nutshell (Episode 97)
• Are You as Influential as You Think? (episode 98)
• How to Develop a Content Marketing Framework and Plan (episode 7)
• Social media and Influencer Marketing Launch Strategies (episode 35)
• 8 Steps to Develop a Social Business Plan (white paper)
• How to Build a Social Business Strategy & Plan (episode 14)
• You Are the Media: 10 Reasons You Need a Blog (episode 111)

Free webinars: We are also launching a series of webinars and training opportunities to dig even deeper. Sign up here-> You are the Media – Building Your Media Foundation

How to Subscribe to Social Zoom Factor Podcast 

•  iTunes
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