Owned, paid and earned social media: What are they, and why do they matter?

Understanding today’s social media landscape 

With an estimated 5.17 billion total users worldwide in 2024, social media is one of the most important marketing channels there is. Over the years, social media marketing has evolved – what were once just platforms to stay in touch with friends and family have become an all-encompassing alternative reality – whether that’s reading new stories, watching sports highlights or just finding funny clips to share with their friends. Because of this, the only brand messages that can cut through the noise are the ones that swap sales messages for entertainment, educational or shocking content – think of Ryanair or Duolingo for example.

But in today’s market, it isn’t enough to just set up a profile and post a few sales messages. Social media is more than just a way to fill out spare time, it’s  an all-encompassing alternative reality where people consume news stories, interact with influencers, and decide whether they want to trust their brands by the interactions they have with them on various platforms.

Here, we will break down each form of social media, offer examples and explain what common KPIs and goals each one can be used to target.

Owned social media: What is it?

Owned media, and owned social media, simply means any content created by you and your brand. Also known as organic social media, this messaging can take many forms depending on your type of business. For some, this may be product messages, offers and new launches, while for others it may be staff highlights, videos that follow trends or snippets of advice. So long as the content comes from your team, and you don’t pay a platform to post, it is classed as owned social media.

Owned social media: How is it used and measured?

Owned social media forms part of a brand’s day-to-day messaging and is used to build trust with the followers. Because of the developments of many social media platforms, and the behaviours of social media users, owned/organic social media is unlikely to drive direct sales. 

An effective social media strategy using sales messaging should be kept to paid media, while owned messaging should be used to create a foundation of brand awareness that builds trust, likeability, and familiarity with the followers after they engage with an ad.

Because owned social media isn’t a sales tool, many people do not see the value in it – but it does play a crucial role in brand awareness. As an example, if an Instagram user finds your ad and is interested in a product you’re selling, they often check out the profile before deciding whether to spend their money. If they land on a profile, with few good organic posts, the chance of them purchasing the product is very low as it may come across that the brand is either a scam or no longer exists.

When reporting on owned social media, consider the following metrics:

• Engagements
– Likes/Reactions
– Comments/Replies
– Shares
– Saves
• Engagement rate
• Impressions/Reach
• Follows

Owned media on other formats

In general, owned media relates to other platforms where you have complete control – like a blog, email campaign or a podcast you host.

Paid media: What is it?

Paid media is exactly what it says it is – any content backed by a budget to help you reach your audience. On social media, this takes two forms: boosted posts and ads. 

Boosted posts are often owned media messaging that a brand adds money to once published. The reason a brand might do this will either be to make sure that the organic message is seen by the right people, or if a post is already performing successfully and wants to continue the flow of engagements.

Ads, on the other hand, are standalone promotions with a goal in mind – such as to attract new followers, drive traffic to a website, or increase the number of form fills. 

Paid social media: How is it used and measured?

Since paid social media guarantees your content will be seen by social media users, brands can be more upfront with their promotional content. Paid social media is often used to push towards a certain goal – usually decided by internal sales targets.

Unlike owned social media, paid allows you to target individuals based on their demographic details, location and behaviours, so messaging can be more direct and tailored to your audience’s interests or behaviours.

When reporting on paid social media, use the following metrics (depending on the goal of your ads):

• Clicks
• Cost per click
• Conversion rate
• Reach

Paid media on other formats

Paid media also refers to search engine advertising (Google Ads) or influencer marketing – whether an influencer is given a gift, fees or a discount.

Earned media: What is it?

Earned social media is a difficult area for a lot of brands as it consists of any content that you have less control over. This type of social content is any messaging that another user organically posts – meaning you didn’t pay or ask them to create.

This type of content can often be found in your tagged tab on Instagram, through hashtag or location searches, or as review videos on YouTube. Another form of earned social media is Employee Generated Content (or EGC). This is when a staff member posts about the business or their work on their own social media platform and is the most effective when used on LinkedIn as you can use their content and influence to create individual thought leaders in your team.

Earned social media: How is it used and measured?

While you can shout out about your great products and services as much as you want through owned and paid media, the real test is  what your customers, partners and employees say about you. 

Earned social media is one of the best ways to build trust quickly, develop brand awareness and grow your presence on social media as it is real life reviews from the people that matter. You should aim to interact and share any positive reviews and comments from customers and followers when possible to show that you are active as a brand. While on the surface negative interactions can be damaging to the brand, responding to them in a proactive and constructive  way demonstrates that you listen to feedback, which builds trust.

This form of social media is the hardest to measure as you won’t have access to all of the metrics available from those sharing content about your business. While some channels, like Instagram and Facebook, will allow you to see such things as comments and likes, you won’t have access to impressions or reach. In this case, you can look into the following metrics and measure the change between a week or month long period after the earned social media post compared to the same time period before it was posted:

• Profile visits
• Story views
• Impressions/Reach
• Engagements/Interactions
• Engagement rate
• Clicks
• Follows

Earned media on other formats

Earned media on other platforms can often refer to reviews. This may be from customers leaving a Google or Trustpilot review, or from employees leaving Glassdoor comments.

How to use all three in an effective social media strategy

While each of these forms of media can be used by themselves to generate results, brands that combine all three effectively will have the biggest chance of success.

Using paid media to push sales messages and follower campaigns, brands should then try to use their owned social media to push their employees through engaging video content that showcases their personality and expertise – especially in the case where customers deal with them regularly as sales assists for example. With this, you will be able to drive traffic to your website using your ads, while building trust through your owned media. When customers have a positive experience with your brand, the number of earned media opportunities should rise too – allowing you to leverage the positive sentiment and their followers when you like or share a post.

Read more from our social media experts here, or get in contact with the team at Tank to see how we can help your business grow with social media.