For years, earned media value (EMV) has been a staple for marketers trying to measure the impact of their social media efforts, especially for influencer marketing and organic social media efforts. But in today’s data-driven world, where we can track everything from website clicks to conversions, is EMV still a relevant metric?

The answer, as with many marketing questions, is a bit more complex than a simple yes or no. While EMV is a great tool for understanding your brand’s social presence, it’s just that—a tool.

This blog post will explain in detail, explaining its benefits and its limits. It will also help you understand why a complete approach to measurement is important for showing social media ROI.

What is earned media value?

Earned media is any content that mentions your brand that your business didn’t paid for. In simple terms: Earned media means earned engagement by your “digital word of mouth,” not engagement from your own media channel or bought through paid promotions or advertising of content.

Earned media is most commonly relevant in the realm of social media, where user-generated content, influencer collaborations and online conversations can significantly impact brand perception. It also is relevant in public relations, content marketing and event marketing. But today, we are going to focus on earned media value in the world of social media.

Earned media value, or EMV, is a way to value the different actions people take when they interact with different social media content. These engagement actions include comments, likes, shares and mentions. These actions are then projected to be worth a numerical dollar value to your business.

So, for example, if a creator receives 1,000 likes on an Instagram post, using a customized EMV benchmark of $0.10 per like, that post would provide an estimated value of $100.

Is it worth measuring EMV for your brand?

The answer to that question depends on your specific social media marketing goals and objectives.

While earned media value can provide valuable insights into the impact of your social media efforts, it isn’t the only metric that should be considered. It’s important to also track other key performance indicators, such as reach, engagement rate and conversion rate. This will help you to get a more comprehensive understanding of your social media success.

Ultimately, using EMV as a tool together with other metrics can still help guide you in guaging the effectiveness of your social media strategy.

Earned media value can be a useful metric for:

  • Benchmarking: Track your brand’s performance over time and compare it to competitors.
  • Identifying trends: Spot spikes in EMV that might indicate successful campaigns or viral content.
  • Reporting to stakeholders: Provide a high-level overview of your social media impact.

However, keep in mind that EMV has its limitations. It doesn’t directly correlate to business outcomes like sales or leads, and it can be influenced by factors outside your control (like changes in platform algorithms).

What to look out for when earned media value is calculated

When reporting to stakeholders about your social media impact, it’s valuable to include a high-level overview of your earned media value.

While earned media value can be a useful measure for evaluating the success of your social media efforts, it’s important to keep in mind common challenges around earned media value formulas.

Here are a few key things to watch out for around how earned media value is calculated:

  • Common calculation inconsistencies: The challenge with EMV calculations is that there is no standard way to assign a monetary value to social media engagements. Some methods rely on advertising equivalents, like cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-engagement (CPE), while others use arbitrary multipliers based on perceived value. Not to mention, the calculation of earned media value can vary significantly between different social media platforms and partners. This can lead to inconsistencies and make it difficult to compare results across platforms.
  • Lack of transparency: Be wary of partners who are vague about their approach to calculating EMV. Some may claim their calculations are based on a “proprietary algorithm” or a “trade secret.” This lack of transparency makes it difficult to determine the accuracy and reliability of their results.
  • Misaligned KPIs: Ensure the EMV calculation aligns with your specific goals. Misalignment can lead to skewed earned media value figures and make it challenging to accurately measure the success of a campaign. It’s crucial for companies to carefully choose and align their KPIs with their EMV calculations to get a more accurate understanding of their campaign’s effectiveness.
  • Over-reliance on EMV: Don’t fall into the trap of relying solely on earned media value. In today’s sophisticated marketing landscape, we have access to far more granular data and attribution models that can paint a bigger picture on ROI than this one calculation.

Looking for the best way to capture your social media data across various social platforms accurately for calculating your social ROI and overall EMV?

Enter: Sprout Social, the all-in-one social media management platform.

Under Sprout Social’s Premium Analytics, Sprout seamlessly integrates reporting across various social media platforms for you. This integration ensures that you have a comprehensive view of your social media engagements for your various accounts across multiple social media networks. It enables you to analyze accurate data for seamless EMV calculations. Additionally, with Sprout Social’s reporting, you will find a repertoire of invaluable data tracking and visualization to present your social media ROI to stakeholders.

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How to calculate earned media value

As previously mentioned, calculating earned media value does not look the same for everyone. A common approach we can easily recommend, however, is as follows:

  1. Determining your average cost-per-engagement (CPE) for paid social media. This provides a baseline for valuing organic engagement.
  2. Assigning weights to different types of engagement. For example, a share might be weighted more heavily than a like.
  3. Multiplying the number of engagements by their respective weights and your CPE.

Let’s give you an example. We’ve decided that our average CPE is $0.50.

You receive 100 likes, 50 comments and 20 shares on a post.

You assign weights of 1 to likes, 2 to comments and 3 to shares.

  • Likes: 100 likes x 1 x $0.50 = $50
  • Comments: 50 comments x 2 x $0.50 = $50
  • Shares: 20 shares x 3 x $0.50 = $30

Total EMV for the post: $50 + $50 + $30 = $130

Important Note: This is a simplified example. More complex calculations might factor in reach, content type and other variables.

Leverage powerful social media analytics to prove ROI

To sum up, earned media value is a useful metric for benchmarking, identifying trends and reporting to stakeholders. However, it isn’t the be-all and end-all of social media measurement. To truly maximize your social media strategy, it’s essential to integrate EMV with other metrics that provide a more complete picture of your efforts. By understanding the nuances of EMV calculations and leveraging tools like Sprout Social’s reporting tool, you can ensure that your social media strategy is data-driven and aligned with your business goals.