The Public Relations Blog

Recently, an overseas company contacted our public relations agency looking for earned media coverage in the United States for its coupon bargain retail website.

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Owned media describes channels you control. It’s the content you create for your website and blog as well as e-books, white papers, presentations, etc. You fully control the content and its distribution. (If you can add, edit, or delete the content, you probably own it.)

Shared media is social media. It’s evolving and continues to build beyond just marketing or the customer service teams using it. Organizations have begun to use it as their main source of communications internally and externally. Shared media includes publishing to social sites, like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.

The term earned media describes news content featuring or sourcing your brand, products, or services. Earned media coverage comes from media relations when an outlet includes your company, product, service, expert, opinion, or ideas in a news story (online, print, radio, TV, podcast, etc.). It’s when a newspaper or industry trade publication (blog, magazine, or website) features your brand or quotes your expert. It’s appearing on a TV morning show or the evening news. It’s what most people think of when they think of PR. Some might call it “publicity.”

Confessions from a daily newspaper editor

Pitching major news outlets requires skill and finesse. A poorly constructed pitch can really harm your company’s reputation. To effectively pitch a major media outlet, it’s important to put yourself in the journalist’s shoes. Here are 10 tips from the newsroom for getting noticed and earning that coveted major media outlet coverage for your company.

When it comes to public relations, the term media relates to different channels a brand might use to attract new customers.

There are four types of media:

• Paid (advertising)
• Earned (news coverage)
• Shared (social media)
• Owned (web content)

Public relations experts share their best social media tips and tricks

When used correctly, social media opens opportunities to network and grow for most companies. Social media experts offered their best practices, strategies and tips in order to help your company maximize its online presence.

Every company wants to save money. However, no company ever grew from cutting its public relations efforts. There are smarter ways to save.

Building relationships with reporters and editors is key to helping your clients’ news releases become inspirations for news coverage. Sending news releases and making friendly, engaging follow-up contacts is a common-sense approach all PR people should know. However, it’s critical that you also build trust and respect with journalists to get your stories on the air, in print and online. Here are five tips that will help.