The Old Model vs. The New Reality
The traditional POEM model categorized media into three types:
- Paid Media: Advertising you pay for, like social media ads or search engine marketing (PPC).
- Owned Media: The channels you control, such as your website, blog, and social media profiles.
- Earned Media: Unpaid exposure gained through word-of-mouth, shares, or reviews.
While these categories still exist, I believe this model is no longer sufficient. The quality of your owned media, specifically your organic social media creative, now has a direct impact on the effectiveness of your paid and earned efforts.
Why Organic Creative Is the Foundation
You can no longer simply pay your way to relevance. The creative itself must be good enough to earn attention on its own. My approach is based on a new strategy:
- Start with Organic: Focus on creating high-quality, contextual content that truly resonates with your audience on each social platform. This means making content that looks and feels native to TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube, rather than just repurposing a generic ad.
- Test for Success: Publish a high volume of this creative content organically to see what performs best. The content that gets a lot of free engagement (views, likes, shares, comments) is the creative that has proven its worth.
- Amplify the Winners: Once you’ve identified a piece of creative that is performing exceptionally well organically, that is when you should invest in it. Paid media becomes a tool to amplify a proven winner, rather than a gamble on unproven content.
In my view, paid ads are not the way to go if you’re using them to prop up bad content. Instead, they should be used to supercharge great content that has already proven its worth through organic media.
With Love, Laney
