Discover the PESO Model
Have you ever heard of the PESO Model (formerly known as POEM)?
What does this have to do with our audit?
The objective of this model is to categorize all the media that have a connection to your brand. This will greatly help you identify the material you are interested in and not forget any.
Later on, it will also be a helpful tool to identify the least used or least performing media categories.
Paid Media
Paid media corresponds to the media where you appear as part of your marketing communication campaign.
To retrieve the data related to your campaigns, you may have to go through the person in charge of tracking them.
Do you have Google Ads campaigns running? Ask your digital agency to tell you the number of impressions, clicks, click-through rate, quality score, cost-per-click, conversion rate, etc., for your ads.
Do you have ads on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.? You should be able to access the statistics, but don’t be afraid to ask your digital agency for help getting the conversion volume and the conversion cost.
Have you undertaken an influencer campaign? Approach your PR agency.
Earned Media
Let’s move on to the most exciting part - the one you know the least about but is so valuable to internet users: earned media. These are all the external sources that are mentioning you.
Did you know that 83% of buyers no longer trust advertising while 90% of consumers rely on online user recommendations? That makes it important to look at earned media. 😊
What sites can we use to set up monitoring on these consumer conversations?
Forums and Blogs
The best-known forums, such as Quora (300 million users) or Reddit (400 million visitors), generate thousands of messages daily. Others, such as Airbnb, Trustpilot, and Tripadvisor, run their own discussion spaces on their sites.
The advantage of these platforms is that they specialize in specific areas, which is ideal for reaching a community of enthusiasts!
In addition to the article, a blog is an open space for comments where brand discussions can take place.
However, before you get involved in a discussion, ask yourself the right questions:
Where are the conversations around my brand? How many mentions does this represent?
What is it saying? What are the main themes or questions that appear most often? Is the tone of the exchanges positive/negative/neutral? Analyze the keywords and expressions used.
Do you have the answers to these questions? If so, are they available online? In an FAQ on your site, for example.
How do you know when to respond to comments?
Review Sites (Trustpilot, Amazon, etc.)
Review sites are “The place to be” to check what internet users think of you.
Among the best known, visit Tripadvisor, Yelp, Google, Amazon, Trustpilot, or Which?.
List the review platforms where your brand is mentioned.
Count the number of people who took the time to leave a review, then the ratio of positive to negative.
Assess the quality of the mentions. Is the written review a good read? Well argued? Or, on the contrary, messy and not very credible?
Analyze the keywords and expressions used.
Unlike forums and blogs, I encourage you to respond to all reviews (positive and negative).
If the review is positive, thank them, add a nice comment, and avoid copying and pasting if possible.
If the review is negative, analyze whether the criticism is constructive. If it is, apologize and offer to continue the conversation by phone or email via the after-sales service to understand what happened. The goal? Show other users that you care about their feedback. Even when there’s been a bad experience, making mistakes is human, and your customers will be more willing to give you another chance if you do this.
Online Press, Influencers, and Key Opinion Leaders
What do the following have in common - a press article published on The Washington Post website, a story posted by YouTuber Casey Neistat, and an expert opinion published on LinkedIn?
All three formats will have a strong impact on their public followers. But not only them! Considering the awareness of each of them and the significant potential for shares, they are likely to reach a huge audience. They are authority figures who you should not neglect when it comes to your online reputation.
Let’s Recap!
Using the PESO Model, determine which platforms to audit by media category (paid/earned/shared/owned).
Include your current advertising campaigns (Google Ads, social media Ads, etc.) performance in your audit: paid media.
List all external resources that mention you in your audit (forums, blogs, specialized review sites, online press, influencers, key opinion leaders, etc.): earned media.
You know the first two types of media from the PESO Model now. In the next chapter, we’ll look at the shared and owned media.
