Have Publishers Let Competitors Position Their Media?:
Media buyers who buy the products publishers sell now divide the media they manage into three categories.
Earned media, largely social media where organizations "earn" exposure by posting content on services like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter.
Owned media, media a marketer owns like their company website, newsletter, or blog.
Paid media, third party media, which is most of what publishers sell to marketers.
How did this happen? These category names came into common use around 2008 when social media was being added to media budgets. With the need to contrast social media with traditional media, the social media centric thinking of the time renamed traditional media as it contrasts to social, suddenly we became "paid media." This label casts a negative implication every time it is used.
