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"Of the three media types you\u2019ll find in social marketing \u2014 paid, earned and owned \u2014 earned media is the holy grail because it fulfills the unique promise of creating authentic social proof for your brand. Facebook users want to do, see, and buy what they see other users doing, seeing, and buying. In fact, 68% of Facebook users are more likely to buy based on an earned media recommendation from a Facebook friend.\nThere\u2019s a catch though: You can\u2019t buy or create earned media directly. Your brand\u2019s Facebook page will have to organically develop earned media \u2014 likes, shares and comments \u2014 which means you must run marketing campaigns that are optimized for engagement and sharing activity.\nHere are three simple ways you can design social media campaigns that influence users to create earned media.\n1. Play Up the Personality\n\n\nUsers who interact with branded applications (apps) are more likely to elect to share their interactions via their news feeds if the apps reflect their style, aptitude, or personality. Recent data shows that the top apps users are likely to broadcast results for pick-your-favorites, quizzes and trivia. In fact, when interacting with a branded quiz app, participants are three times more likely to share the results to their news feeds versus when they participate in a video contest or enter a sweepstakes.\nSo when putting together a plan for your next social marketing campaign, consider how you can plan the content or application to allow users to express themselves. If you\u2019re putting together a voting app, for instance, think through how you can set it up so that users are voting on something that expresses an opinion they\u2019d feel proud to share, and make sure the app includes a mechanism for sharing their voting outcome via a news feed message.\n2. Make Sharing Worth Their While\n\n\nUsers on Facebook are very conscious of clutter in their feeds. They don\u2019t want to be a source of spam to their friends. Keep this in mind as you screen potential interactions that a user could have with your Facebook applications and content, and you will have a good idea of what\u2019s inherently shareable and what isn\u2019t. The main question to ask yourself when crafting content is, \u201Cif I posted about my interaction with this content, what would be in it for me? What would be in it for my friends?\u201D\nIn the example below, a user might share the results of a quiz she took because: She gets to display results to her friends that prove she is trustworthy and practical, which is consistent with her own self-image; She thinks her friends might also find the quiz entertaining; Or she wants to publicly align herself with a cause that users can rally around, like tree planting in Haiti. \n3. Mix It Up\nCertain marketing campaigns naturally inspire users to broadcast their interactions with a brand. But often, the types of marketing campaigns that are most entered by users are not the same as the campaigns that are most heavily shared by users.\nPopular campaigns like sweepstakes, giveaways, and coupons are proven to get users to enter, but entrants are less likely, for example, to voluntarily share the fact that they just entered a sweepstakes. That means these campaigns types typically generate less earned media from each entrant.\nA few reasons for this may include that there is often an inherent disadvantage to sharing when your odds of winning a sweepstakes are in direct proportion to the number of entrants. Also, there is often no incentive to share, meaning no perceived advantage or value-added from the user\u2019s perspective. And sometimes, users just don\u2019t want to clutter their friends\u2019 news feeds.\nThis is no reason, however, to shut off the tap on sweepstakes and contests. Different marketing goals are achieved by different means, including your social media campaigns. While your goal with one campaign might be engagement, another might be sharing and earned media. And just as paid media campaigns should be adapted to drive different types of user activity, so should custom content initiatives. A well-rounded social media marketing program includes a steady drip of varied applications and content designed to influence a range of user interactions. Don\u2019t rely on just one or two campaign types. \nIn the example below, Delta has more than six custom content applications available for users to interact with. Each tab does something different, and while the activity offered on one tab will perform better at enticing user signups, another tab will be best for inspiring user-generated content submissions and sharing.\n\n What campaign initiatives that you\u2019ve run for your brand(s) in the past have been the most successful at generating earned media from users? Tell us in the comments.\nImage courtesy of iStockphoto, sodafish"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/06/07/grow-earned-media/>