Owned media puts you in the driver’s seat

Communications professionals have long recognized the value of traditional paid and earned media in marketing and public relations strategies. Yet, many of us have underestimated the power of owned media.

Owned media is all the content your organization is responsible for creating and maintaining. This primarily includes your website where original content like articles, white papers, employee and customer stories and more are found. In addition, social media accounts, video channels and blogs are also examples of owned media.

With trust in paid advertising decreasing and earned media become increasingly challenging to secure, businesses are focusing more time and energy on their owned media assets to tell their story in the way they want it to be told and drive growth.

During a recent webinar hosted by Onclusive—Owned Media & The Growth PR Playbook—communications experts shared tips for creating a winning owned media strategy. These include:

• Provide something of value. This may seem obvious but, when posting content, we should ask the question, “who does this benefit and how?” Sharing a business update that will improve your customers’ experience, for example, provides real value to your customers.

• Optimize for discovery. When someone searches the internet using specific words or phrases, how likely is your content to appear at the top of the list generated by the search engine? Acronyms, catchphrases and memes can be very effective in pointing to your brand and narrative. Hear the phrase “just do it,” for example, and the Nike swoosh and physical fitness immediately come to mind.

• Enlist internal experts. You likely have a team of people with diverse experiences, talents and perspectives. Owned media offers the perfect platform to showcase your team members and tell your organization’s story through many voices.

• Amplify your message. You have posted a great video on your website…now what? Leverage your other owned assets (social media accounts, YouTube channel, etc.), share with media outlets for earned opportunities and incorporate into your paid strategy to maximize your audience reach.

• Use built-in measurement and optimization capabilities to track readership (by article, by day of the week, etc.) and amplification (sharing by others) to identify what resonates most with your audience. When you have a clear picture of what will generate the most traffic on your site, you can focus on creating the right content that will essentially put you in the driver’s seat of your brand’s narrative.

Ensuring your owned media is the best it can be takes work, but it can be invaluable. The benefit of owned media is that you have complete control of the message you wish to deliver, at virtually no additional cost. AOE can help, reach out today!