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The Three Pillars of Media (and Marketing)

Use this simple framework to understand how media and marketing work together

Published on October 27, 2019

For Professional Marketers, most know the trinity of Earned, Owned, and Paid Media.

However, for small businesses with little to no exposure to Marketing™, the concepts may have little to no integration in your day-to-day workflow.

Let’s break down the three core pillars of media that every small business should know.

Owned Media

Owned Media represents marketing assets, channels, and content that “belong” to your business.

Examples of Owned Media include your website, your social media pages — such as Facebook and Instagram — and your Retail store. Additional examples of Owned Media include proprietary content, such as photography, video, audio, and data.

Owned Media creates a universal understanding of what a brand actually “owns” and, most importantly, does not have to license, rent, or otherwise attribute to other sources.

Earned Media

Earned Media represents marketing assets, channels, and content that invoke your business in a positive (or negative) light.

Examples of Earned Media include a news article written about your business, a review given by a customer, or a social media post published by a follow of your business on Facebook or Instagram — often called User Generated Content (UGC).

While Earned Media does not technically “belong” to your business, it is often deemed the most trustworthy and reliable form of advertising given the authenticity and organic nature by which it is produced and distributed.

Paid Media

Paid Media, as you can imagine, are marketing assets, channels, and content that is subsidized by your business but is not necessarily “owned.”

Examples of Paid Media include a promoted post on Facebook, a full page advertisement in the local newspaper, or a sponsorship of an industry event.

While Paid Media can seem daunting to a small business, it is important to remember that Paid Media often complements and supplement investments in Owned Media and Earned Media.

The Three Pillars in Practice

Now that we understand each of the three pillars of media, let’s walk through an example of how they work together.

Let’s pretend we are a local real estate brokerage aiming to differentiate ourselves from the local competition through thought leadership.

With non-identifiable customer data of past sales (an Owned Media asset), the real estate brokerage could create a “trends” report that will live behind a gated landing page on its website (another Owned Media asset).

Along with submitting a Press Release to local news sources — an opportunity to generate Earned Media exposure — the real estate brokerage may also want to create a paid advertising campaign on Facebook to promote the report to an audience of website visitors.

In this manner, we can see how Owned Media, Earned Media, and Paid Media play together in the larger context of building brand awareness and engagement.

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