The Public Relations Blog

A guide to the five types of media your company needs

Before diving head-first into the different types of media, it’s important to first dip your toes in the water and learn what media is. Media is a communication tool used to deliver information. The three types of media are commonly known as news media, social media, and web media, but you might also see them referred to as earned media, shared media, and owned media. 

Some other forms of modern media are print media, television, movies, and video games. 

How earned media has changed, and what we have learned from it

Earned media is any material that has been written about you or your business that you haven’t paid for. It can be written off as “free publicity” for your company. Over the years, it has changed and is now presented through different media channels. Before, it used to be a 90-minute segment on a news channel, but now it can be seen as a 60-word tweet. 

Nonetheless, earned media can get confusing when it involves publicity. When you pay a news source to write a piece on your business, that is known as paid media. When you write an article for your website, that is known as owned media. 

Today, customers are heavily influenced by things they see on social media. Earned media plays a huge role in what is shared online, and we can learn a lot from it. 

Less page requests can mean more traffic

How many times have you visited a website and found it slow to load? Is your own company’s website also one that tends to drag as it loads? A website that is slow to load negatively impacts the user – your client’s – experience. It can impact the overall experience so much that prospective clients may leave your site and go find or fill their needs elsewhere. 

You ask yourself (and your IT team) why this is happening. Most likely it’s not because your internet speed isn’t good but rather because there are too many page requests or hypertext transfer protocol requests. 

Know how to best share your company’s message

Earned media coverage is built awareness about your company through efforts like media relations (connecting with reporters), blogger relations, influencers, and word-of-mouth. It’s counterpart is paid media, which is advertisements that you or your company creates or pays for about itself. We have many clients ask us the difference between earned and paid media, and in the same breath, they also ask us to create a press release to earn media coverage.

Don’t make this distribution mistake when pitching to the news media

PR and marketing departments get busy. They know they need to share their company’s news with the media but far too often, they simply get caught up in day-to-day tasks. When your PR and marketing departments get busy, then they can get lazy about distributing news to the media. Here’s a mistake your team may be making, why it’s a mistake, and the right way to handle it. 

Do you know about the freshness factor? 

It is an element of search engine algorithms that prefers web pages with fresh and updated content over outdated ones.

This is where website management triggers your online visibility. It informs search engines that you have new and relevant content for its users. When the bots index your web pages, Google rewards you with top rankings on the SERPs. 

There’s more to why you need an updated website with SEO-friendly content. Let’s discover what!

Here are seven types of premium content to guide a lead through the buying process

When it comes to capturing leads, it all boils down to providing value. Why would your visitors give you their priced personal information? They will only if you offer them something equally valuable that can be swapped with their confidential data.

But what information is more treasured than regular content?

The term CTA is often used when discussing media pitches, website engagement, and social media marketing. For such an important term in the public relations and marketing industry, many people don’t know what CTA stands for or its importance, so let’s break it down. 

CTA stands for call to action. It originates from the marketing industry, referring to a piece of content in the form of an image, specific text, or website button.

The use of this particular content was intended to elicit a specific action from the viewer. It was typically created as a way to provide direction or instruction, such as “sign up here,” “buy now,” “follow,” etc.

Keeping your company’s website updated is an important factor in driving traffic and revenue. According to Adobe, given 15 minutes to consume content, two-thirds of people would rather read something off a beautifully designed page than plain text. Fifty-one percent of people feel that “thorough contact information” is the most important element missing from many company websites. Thirty-nine percent of people will stop engaging with a website if images won’t load or if they take too long to load.

How to easily boost your company’s SEO

Many companies want to believe that search engine optimization is a thing of the past. This is far from true. Google changed its algorithm. So, while SEO has changed, it remains a critical factor in your company’s ranking on Google.