There was a time when there was no such thing as social media and the only aim of public relations and press release distribution service was to convince the journalists or a third party to report in the favor of a client or an organization. In those times the news and information disseminated by the journalists was considered to be valuable and authentic because journalists used to spread unbiased information as they had no link or affiliations with the PR practitioner or his organization. But things have changed since social media stepped in the world and public relations is changed on a whole another level because not the professionals use different media and sources to spread information.
The mediums used by PR practitioners are broken down into three main groups;
1-Paid Media
2-Owned Media
3-Earned Media
1-Paid Media
As the name depicts, paid media is the media space you pay for. Cheap press release distribution service providers & companies are good example of paid media. However, not all press release services are created equal. You have to choose the best press release distribution service. It can be the airtime that you buy or the print space, but it’s basically all paid. Now, a lot of people out there don’t use this method much mainly because they have to pay for it. So, instead people and organizations use other unpaid media to disseminate their story. As far as the advantages of paid media are concerned, well it helps you control the size of the content, the placement along with the frequency and reach too. Paid media is a good option for those who know their target audience and know how much frequency of their ad should be to bring out some positive results. However, there are a few minuses to the paid media too, especially the fact that your ads are not credible enough to be published through word of mouth or your content is not interesting enough that the journalists and the press reach out to you themselves and request you to permit them to publish your story.
2-Owned Media
You don’t need to own a channel or a whole broadcasting network to own the media. Now, we have the social media and here you can become your own boss without breaking a bank. For example, you can now have your owned media in the form a blog or a website or Youtube channel or Twitter accounts. The biggest benefit of owned media is that you don’t have to pay much to use it and above everything, you can control your content here. The cost of ads on Facebook and Twitter etc is extremely less than the one you have to pay to the channels and the print media. The downside again is that your information is not concerned much authentic or credible.
3-Earned Media
The best type of media is the earned media where you just have to focus on the content you are providing and then you will see the journalists and media organizations rushing towards you to publish your story. It is so far the best and the most positive way to publicize a company and above everything the news in earned media is considered to be valuable and authentic too.
These are a few types of media that are being used by the PR practitioners nowadays. We hope you are now able to identify the source or medium you need to choose in order to do some PR for your organization or company.
