Why Do I Need A Website When There's Facebook?

So, let's say you're Donald Trump. I know, perish the thought, but just for a second imagine: you've spent your life building huge powerful brands, amassing an audience of tens of millions, and you've achieved so much success that you can sell products simply by affixing your brand name.

But somewhere along the way you made a mistake and opted to commit to a third party platform to carry your messaging into the world. This seemed like a great idea for awhile. The platform offered you access to a huge audience, allowing you to grow your following and amplify your signal exponentially. And this could have worked out for you if only, IF ONLY, if only you had the wherewithal to carry that audience back to your "owned" media.

But you didn't, because you're Donald Trump, and you were too busy planning a self-coup to worry about stuff like owned media. Unfortunately, the third party platform that you relied on to develop your audience and amplify your messaging wasn't on board with your evil masterplan and decided to ban you, and now all your hard work, your investment of precious time and resources, all of it squandered.

Of course, hopefully, you're not Donald Trump, or anything like him. And obviously, few of us are. But that doesn't mean that the social media or other platforms that promise us the world are a stable foundation for building a long term content marketing strategy.

While the temptation is high, because the rewards dangled like tasty carrots on a string are high, there are plenty of downsides to keep in mind when designing your content marketing mission. If you are going to take the time to build a sustainable business initiative, you should be able to reap your rewards in perpetuity. Doing so means owning the farm, not betting it on the addled whims of some schmuckerberg.

What to do?

The answer is simple: own your media. Marketers have long used the tripartite axiom—"paid, earned and owned"—to parse the strategic opportunities available in the media universe.

Paid media is just that, media exposure you pay for. This is traditional advertising, PR, etc. If you separate yourself from budget to gain exposure, you're doing paid media strategy. Great if you have more money than brains, but always at best a flash in the pan, and not a sustainable long term approach.

Earned media are media mentions you receive from outside sources, preferably authoritative ones with a big audience, so that their referring to your work actually drives impact. This is also great, if you can get it. But in order to do so, you're going to either need to get very, very lucky, produce mind blowing stuff, or have lots of friends in the media business. And by all means, if you've got it, flaunt it! But for most of us, this is unattainable, especially in our earlier stages of development, and to be honest—while it can definitely help build brand reputation—its impact is mostly just as shortlived as a paid media splash.

Owned media is where it's at. It's your house. It's your nest egg. It's the stable, responsible, long term life-partner your parents told you to date when you were a kid. Maybe not as exciting at first glance, but if you're honest with yourself, it's the future you want for yourself and your brand. So, you must be wondering, then:

How Do You Build Owned Media?

This is a great question. And there are many ways to answer it. The easiest approach, the lowest hanging fruit, is to make sure you own a website. You make sure you own a domain that matches your brand name. But it's more than that. It's owning a brand position. Owning your value proposition. In short, owning a symbolscape.

Contact us today to learn more about how we help our clients do just that.