Paid, owned and earned media, explained
The short answer
Paid media is attention you buy, owned media is channels you control, and earned media is what other people say about you without being paid to.
| Type | What makes it that type | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Paid | You pay for the placement | Ads, sponsored posts, paid influencer deals |
| Owned | You control the channel | Your website, email list, your own Instagram account |
| Earned | Someone chose to talk about you | Press, reviews, customer posts, word of mouth |
What is the difference between paid, owned and earned media?
Who paid, and who controls it. Paid media stops the day the budget does. Owned media is yours for as long as you keep it running. Earned media is the only kind you cannot switch on, which is why it is the most believed and the hardest to get.
A brand's own Instagram post is owned. The same post boosted with ad spend is paid. A customer's photo of the product, posted unprompted, is earned.
Is influencer marketing paid or earned?
Paid, if the creator was paid or given free product in exchange for a post, and in most markets the post has to say so. An influencer who buys the product and posts about it with nothing in return is earned. Gifting without an obligation sits in between, and is where most of the arguments happen.
Why earned media is hard to measure
Paid and owned media report themselves: the ad platform and your own analytics hand you the numbers. Earned media is scattered across other people's accounts. Counting it means finding it first, through hashtags, tags and plain mentions of the name, and a lot of it is never tagged at all.
Counting earned media on Instagram
That counting is the job Monitor Mentions does. For each tracked brand we collect posts by other accounts that tag, hashtag or name it, so earned media on Instagram becomes a number with a date, and a feed you can read.
Paid media vs Earned media: questions people ask
What is an example of earned media on Instagram?
A customer posting a photo of a product and tagging the brand without being paid or gifted. A news account covering a launch is earned too.
Is a brand's own Instagram account owned media?
Yes. The account and what it posts are owned media. Paying to boost a post turns that placement into paid media.
What is shared media?
Some frameworks add a fourth type, shared media, for social posts that get passed on. Most teams fold it into earned.