Brands know that creating valuable content isn’t easy – particularly if they want it to be shared. Back in 2009, Nokia marketer Dan Goodall proposed the now-famous Owned, Bought and Earned model for digital media to highlight ways to distribute that content.
It identified how brands can direct and channel their marketing efforts: owned media is what the brand itself controls (e.g. its website and blog); bought or paid media is the space it buys (e.g. advertising and paid search); and earned media is the word of mouth, viral buzz and sharing that they hope the first two generate.
But time doesn’t stand still and the world changes. For digital in particular, the entire universe seems to shift dramatically every few months. As a result, many brands have been looking at the more detailed PONBE (Paid, Owned, Network, Borrowed and Earned) model that adds borrowed and network media to the mix.
Network media is about media and blogger relations – influencing people to write and talk about the brand. And digitally speaking, borrowed media is the social world: Facebook, Twitter and the rest.
These social spaces no longer, despite what some brands think, generate earned media where their content can be shared freely and without restraint. The social platforms, in an effort to monetise their platform and encourage paid social activity, have been making the ‘organic reach’ and sharing that many brands took for granted much harder to achieve.
For example, Facebook’s recent algorithm changes to reduce the number and frequency of brand posts in consumers’ news feeds have caused disquiet among some marketers. Meanwhile, the likes of Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest are moving in the same direction. The ‘third tier’ of smaller social networks may still have opportunities for brands to build communities and share content without paying for the privilege, but the writing is very much on the wall.
But what network and borrowed media have in common with paid and owned media is that brands can still plan for them (although obviously, the level of editorial control differs considerably) – and all four target a first generation of audiences.
Earned media is, and remains, the Holy Grail for any content produced by a brand, because it’s the only way to reach the second generation and beyond. A lot of the time it’s shared via social networks because they make sharing so convenient, but simply posting content to a brand page isn’t enough.
There isn’t a sure fire way to generate word of mouth or make a video go viral, but one of the best approaches is through storytelling. Brands aiming to reach beyond the first generation need advocates and stories seen through the eyes of their customers. Identifying and curating those advocates and building stories around them may well turn out to be the most important development in content marketing for years to come – and allow brands to employ all parts of the PONBE model more effectively.
By Steve Sponder, managing director of Headstream.
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