PESO

Paid • Earned • Shared • Owned
PESO stands for
Paid
Earned
Shared
Owned
media
It serves as a means of segmenting all of the marketing channels at a brand's disposal into discrete groups for a truly IMC approach.
The goal is to merge these together for an integrated — and measurable — communications program.

Over a decade ago media channels used to be thought of in siloed ways:

Paid media was the primary focus of advertising.

Earned media was the primary focus of PR.

Shared and owned media was the primary focus of … no one.

Today, there is (and should be) little distinction between media types in “the converged media imperative.”

“Agencies are often specialized and don’t feel their counterparts in other focus areas are competent in integration. Digital agencies claim social agencies lack larger brand perspective (not enough top-down?), while social agencies say media buyers ignore long-term engagement (too much top-down?). In any case, not integrating, agencies are missing opportunities.”

Even though we have
this 4-part structure
There's less agreement on what falls under each specific heading than you might think.

Shouldn’t social media be under shared?

  • Maybe.
  • Lots of places do put it there, but when engagement has dropped to less than 2% (or even 1%), are we really sharing?
  • And when we rarely hit the more button (less than 15%), and when most people (10% at best) scroll past the top 3 comments, we are redefining what shared really means.
  • ———–
  • With most of the competitions and guides are students participate in, they typically put organic social media under Owned media – as its an asset controlled by the brand.
  • Of course, once people start to like, comment, and share, then it becomes a form of Shared media.

What about Influencers?

This one is tricky, and you might see it placed anywhere and everywhere.

Could they be?

  • Paid – Yes. Because on a balance sheet this is where they show up. Whether you’re giving them cash or some kind of trade-out, influencers don’t post for your brand without compensation.
  • Earned – Yes. Because you are earning the right for them to be your 3rd-party spokesperson (at least temporarily). Some take cash from anyone, but they have a reputation to uphold and most monitor who they partner with.
  • Shared – Yes. Because this content is more likely to be shared or commented on than other media.
  • Owned – Yes. Because lots of times you set the contract where you own the content they generate. Plus, you might want to post that exclusive video or comment on your website where not just X number of people see the post on a Monday, but where it can live forever. (Often referred to as evergreen content).
Pros & Cons
Of each of the four.

Pros

Cons

P

Paid Media
  • Scalable: more money equals more distribution
  • Reliable: guaranteed exposure for your message
  • Fast: media can be placed in front of your audience today
  • Low trust: everyone is a bit skeptical of a paid placement or ad
  • Expensive: as reach or frequency increases, so does cost
  • Ephemeral: (short term) once you stop investment, returns will drop off quickly
E Earned Media
  • Authoritative: you are vouched for by a third-party authority
  • Cost-effective reach: leverage the size and trust of an established audience
  • Long-term benefit: past press mentions or placements can be referenced to create long-term SEO benefits
  • Unreliable: you can never guarantee a press mention or placement
  • Hard to scale: does not scale well to global efforts or high volumes of messages
  • Expensive: an effective PR program takes time and / or money to build
S Shared Media
  • High trust: people trust peers more than the media or an ad
  • Low cost: the amplification of your content is tied to its quality, not the dollars behind it
  • Unreliable: it is hard to predict what will be shared in advance
  • Unscalable: simply producing more content doesn’t always mean more shares
O Owned Media
  • Low risk: you can’t be shut down when policies change or the platform dies
  • Long-term asset: evergreen content will draw audiences as lomg as it’s relevant, your audience will serve you as long as you nurture it
  • Slow: it takes time to build an audience
  • Not independent: requires combination with paid, earned, or shared to build an audience
A key
to the PESO model
Creating an editorial calendar for all of your assets.

Yes, the example below might be hard to read, but it shows creating Owned content like blog posts and organic posts, with places to mark when you would want to amplify that content with Paid media, specifies times to respond to Shared media, and opportunities for Earned media.

An editorial calendar also allows you to “see the big picture” and develop content/opportunities to reach out to your more active core, and your less active “lookie-loos.” #Balance

The article to the right lists a variety of social media calendars.

Some are very Excel-like, and some are very visual, including thumbnails of actual posts.

Some of these require you to build the template in an offline program, like Excel. Others are built into CoSchedule, Buffer, Social Sprout, etc., which you might use to post from a central app, rather than logging into Instagram FaceBook, or Twitter individually.

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