Glossary

Marketing

What is Earned Media?

Earned media is exposure a brand receives without paying for placement — coverage, shares, and content made about it by others, as distinct from owned channels and paid advertising.

The classic taxonomy splits media into three kinds. Owned is what you control — your site, your list, your accounts. Paid is what you rent — ads, sponsorships, placements. Earned is what others give you — coverage, word of mouth, and content made about you.

Earned media is the hardest to manufacture and the most durable once it exists. It does not vanish when a budget is switched off, and it carries the credibility of coming from someone other than the brand.

Clip marketing is a way of deliberately cultivating earned reach at scale: independent clippers make and post the content, and it lives on their accounts, not the brand's.

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