What is earned media?
Earned media is all the attention your brand earns in channels owned by others, without paying for it: press articles, blogger mentions, reviews, and shared posts. In the PESO model it sits opposite paid media (bought attention) and owned media (your own channels).
Written by Timon Hendriks · Last updated on 12 July 2026
How it works in practice
You earn media by doing or saying something others find worth sharing. For the press that means a story with news value; for customers, a product or experience they want to talk about. You steer it with press releases, pitches, and good relationships with journalists, but the attention itself remains earned and therefore never guaranteed.
The strength of earned media is credibility: an independent article or a genuine review persuades more than your own ad. The flip side is that you do not fully control the message. Smart communication teams therefore combine earned media with their own channels, so earned attention carries through to their website and socials.
Example
A Portland coffee roaster develops a resealable bag made from compostable material. A sustainability blog writes about it, a national paper picks the story up, and customers share their experiences on social media. None of those mentions were paid for or scripted. All that attention together is the roaster's earned media.
Common mistake
Judging earned media as if it were an ad. If you expect a journalist to copy your message word for word, you will be frustrated. The value lies precisely in the independent judgment, even when the headline reads slightly differently than you hoped.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as earned media?
Editorial articles, interviews, reviews, mentions by influencers and bloggers, and posts by others on social media. In short: any attention in someone else's channel that you did not pay for.
How do you measure earned media?
With media monitoring you track where your brand is mentioned, in which outlets, and with what sentiment. You also look at the reach of those outlets and the traffic mentions send to your website.