Every Team Should Know Its Earned Media Value — Here’s Why – InstantFollowerz

Most brands chase exposure. They pour money into ads and PR, hoping to buy attention. And, it works if you have deep pockets. But if you don’t?

Then, you’ve got a bunch of tactics to gain earned media value without paying for every mention. Here’s where your whole team will help you gain EMV.

In this article, I’ll break down what EMV is, why EMV isn’t just your marketing team’s concern, how to calculate EMV to prove its impact, and real-world examples of brands doing it right.

Table of Contents

What is earned media value?

Earned media value (EMV) is the estimated dollar worth of all the publicity your brand gets — without paying for ads. It’s free exposure from media coverage, SOCIAL MEDIA mentions, shares, and good old-fashioned word-of-mouth.

EMV is usually calculated by comparing it to the cost of running ads with the same reach and impact. In other words, how much would you have to spend on advertising to get the same level of attention?

Channels That Drive Earned Media Value

• Public relations (PR): Getting your brand featured in news articles, magazines, TV, or radio through strategic outreach — for free.
• SOCIAL MEDIA mentions and shares: When people talk about your brand on platforms like Instagram, X, LinkedIn, Reddit, or Facebook.
• Influencer marketing: When influencers, bloggers, or vloggers organically hype up your product/service to their audience.
• Word-of-mouth: The strongest marketing tool — people recommending your brand to friends, family, business partners, teammates, etc.
• UGC: Customer reviews, unboxing videos, testimonials, and any content created by real users.
• Guest blogging and podcasts: Being invited to share your expertise on external platforms to tap into new audiences.
• Awards and recognitions: Industry accolades that increase your brand’s credibility and authority.

In short, EMV happens when people talk about your brand because they want to — not because you paid them. It’s real influence, not rented space.

Why should your team know your earned media value?

Earned media isn’t just a vanity metric. It’s an indicator of brand trust, customer engagement, and marketing effectiveness.

Here’s why your team needs to track and understand it.

Builds brand authority and trust.

Earned media builds the strongest trust between a brand and its audience. When a brand’s message comes from a third party, it instantly feels more credible.

Costco is a great example of a company that makes the most of earned media. Its high-quality Signature Select products and dedication to its $1.50 hot dog combo have bred brand loyalty. You may have heard of the Costco guys, a father-and-son duo that reviews the company’s products. My personal favorite is the band The Never Ending Fall’s series, “Can It Kirkland?” In each video, they compare name-brand and Coscto-brand alcohol.

@neverendingfall

Can it Kirkland? ONE LAST TIME 🥺 LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH. Thanks for all the laughs 🥹 (come find us on the gram) ❤️#costco #kirkland #fyp #xyzbca #canitkirkland

♬ original sound – TheNeverEndingFall

Actually, Costco doesn’t spend on advertising. Instead, the company relies heavily on earned media and word of mouth, leading to a brand value of $48.3 billion in 2024.

Boosts visibility and referrals.

Thanks to EMV, your brand spreads naturally through shares, organic mentions, and referrals. For instance, 14.28% of Coca-Cola’s traffic comes from referrals only.

In fact, Facebook alone accounts for 51.23% of Coca-Cola’s total SOCIAL MEDIA referrals, highlighting the impact of organic reach on brand visibility.

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But how does it work for smaller brands?

I talked to Mia Jozipović, content and marketing strategist for Siterice.hr. She recently pulled off a great PR campaign and shares her tips:

“We ran a study using data from our platform on the average costs of childcare, pet care, and cleaning services in Croatia for 2025. I sent the data to media outlets I thought would find it interesting, and it led to tons of PR articles — completely free,” she said.

“For example, Net.hr and Lider Media — some of Croatia’s biggest sites gave us free media coverage. Did we deserve it? Absolutely! I gave them something juicy they simply could not resist.”

This case means your analysts or coders have to roll up their sleeves and aid marketing folks in preparing research. Most importantly, they have to understand the “why” and its business impact.

Improves strategy and budget allocation.

Tracking EMV data means understanding what’s working and where to adjust. The right platforms, content types, and influencers can drive serious value, but without a clear measurement strategy, it’s easy to misallocate resources.

Olivia Tian, marketing and innovation manager at Raise 3D, an industrial 3D printing company, shared a great example of this in action.

She told me about a product launch where they heavily relied on PR and assumed media coverage alone would generate conversions. While they secured solid placements, engagement stalled.

Next, she amplified it through LinkedIn thought leadership posts, nurtured it via email marketing and integrated it into sales enablement materials.

This one adjustment — embedding media mentions into outbound sales efforts — led to a 30% increase in email response rates.

Tian wraps it up by saying:

“Don’t just chase PR wins — ensure earned media is woven into your broader marketing and sales funnel for long-term impact.”

The lesson: EMV campaigns include salespeople, too, to spread the word.

The Earned Media Value Formula

EMV helps brands put a dollar amount on unpaid publicity. While there’s no single standard formula, marketers generally calculate it by estimating how much they would have spent on ads to get the same reach and engagement.

The basic EMV formula is:

1. Total Impressions — Includes views from SOCIAL MEDIA, press coverage, influencer mentions, and user-generated content.
2. CPM for Paid Ads — Look at industry benchmarks or your past campaigns to see how much brands typically pay per 1,000 impressions in your space.
3. Multiply Impressions by CPM — Gives you an estimated dollar value of what your earned media exposure would cost if it were paid advertising.

Alternative Ways to Measure EMV

Sometimes, you can tweak the formula to make it more accurate depending on the channel and engagement metrics. Here are a few other approaches:

1. Engagement-Based EMV Formula

Since impressions alone don’t show true impact, some marketers factor in engagement (likes, shares, comments) to get a more accurate value:

• CPE (Cost per Engagement) represents the average cost of a like, share, or comment in paid media campaigns.

2. PR Value Formula

For press coverage, PR teams often use an Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE) model:

• This works well for traditional media (newspapers, magazines) by estimating what it would cost to buy that same amount of space in ad form.
• Multiply it by a credibility factor (typically 2-5x).

3. Influencer EMV Formula

For influencer partnerships, brands usually calculate EMV using engagement rates and influencer pricing models:

• CPE (Cost per Engagement) and CPV (Cost per View) vary by industry and influencer tier.

“Our most successful EMV campaign involved partnering with micro-influencers in our niche who created authentic content showcasing our product. We calculated impact using: (Estimated Advertising Value) x (Quality Multiplier) x (Engagement Rate),” says Lisa Benson, marketing strategist at DeBella DeBall Designs.

“For example, a post reaching 10,000 people in our target audience with high engagement would be calculated as: (Cost for equivalent paid reach) x (1.5 for positive sentiment) x (engagement rate of 6%). This formula helped us demonstrate that earned coverage was delivering 3x the value of our paid channels,” Benson said.

4. UGC EMV Formula

For user-generated content, you can calculate EMV based on engagement and reach:

Natalia Lavrenenko, UGC manager at Rathly, offers her way to calculate UGC impact and shares tips for result-driven campaigns.

“High engagement beats high follower count every time. Before launching, test different creators with small-budget activations to see who actually converts. One campaign stood out by turning UGC into brand momentum,” she said.

“A giveaway encouraged customers to share their experiences, leading to thousands of organic posts. EMV was calculated using: (Total Mentions x Average CPM) + (Engagements x Value per Interaction) = Earned Media Value.”

Which EMV formula should you use?

It depends on your brand’s goals:

For SOCIAL MEDIA: Engagement-based EMV works best.

For PR and press coverage: AVE gives a solid estimate.

For influencer marketing: Use engagement + view-based EMV.

While EMV isn’t a perfect science, tracking it helps brands understand the real impact of organic buzz. Choose a formula that aligns with your strategy and tweak it as you gather more data.

Pro tip: HubSpot’s free Paid Media Template helps you track and organize media placements across channels like paid search, SOCIAL MEDIA, TV, and more. Easily calculate metrics like CPC, CPM, CPA, and ROAS, while analyzing performance to see which channels deliver the best results for your business.

Earned Media Value in Action

Let’s get practical and walk you through a made-up example of an EMV campaign from the very beginning.

Scenario: A marketing manager tasked to attract new gym visitors for an indoor rock climbing gym. They need to create a viral campaign that will be lifted by pros and newbies and local sports news for free.

Implementation: The gym hosts a special event where a 10-year-old climber completes a challenging route meant for pros. A spectator records the moment and posts it on Instagram and TikTok, tagging the climbing gym. The video gains:

• 1.5 million views.
• 75K likes.
• 4K shares.
• 800 comments.

The marketing manager takes it to local news and a national sports magazine. They agree to post the story for free, which triggers an avalanche of fitness bloggers picking up the story — all without the gym spending a dime on ads.

EMV Calculations

Here, we use the formula :

EMV = (Impressions × CPM) + (Engagements × CPE)

Where:

• CPM (Cost per 1,000 impressions) = $8 (industry average for fitness ads)
• CPE (Cost per engagement) = $0.40

Applying the Formula

1. Impressions Value

(1,500,000÷1,000)×8=12,000

2. Engagement Value

(75,000+4,000+800)×0.40=31,120

3. Total Earned Media Value

12,000+31,120=43,120

This means that the final EMV accounts for $43,120 worth of exposure.

Why does this matter?

If the marketing manager chose paid ads to attract new leads and gain exposure, they would’ve needed a significant budget to reach the same audience.

And to be honest, I can hardly imagine the climbing gym investing over $43K in paid ads in one month.

3 Examples of Earned Media Value

Now that we know what EMV is and how to calculate it, let’s check out a few brands that really know how to make the most of it.

1. How did the Barbie movie spark organic buzz?

The marketing campaign for the Barbie movie, released in 2023, became a standout example of earned media success.

Warner Bros created an immersive and catchy campaign, including the “Barbiecore” aesthetic that dominated SOCIAL MEDIA platforms (TikTok and Instagram especially).

Source

The campaign sparked organic conversations, with influencers and fans sharing their own Barbie-inspired outfits, memes, and experiences. This led to an avalanche of free publicity across SOCIAL MEDIA, news outlets, and pop culture discussions.

Why I like it: The campaign blended nostalgia with modern trends, encouraging UGC content that extended its reach far beyond paid ads. It shows how aligning your brand with cultural moments can create a massive earned media impact.

2. How does Duolingo turn trends into attention?

To follow up on the Barbie trend, I can’t skip mentioning Duolingo’s perfect timing with their owl mascot, who transformed into Margot Robbie. Duolingo made a splash with a pre-film ad inspired by Barbie and a presence at a movie premiere in LA:

It didn’t just turn out bold but resulted in tons of likes and comments, with some of the most popular media outlets and influencers making stitches of these videos, giving Duolingo even more exposure.

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In fact, Duolingo’s TikTok has become a masterclass in viral content, consistently generating earned media. Their owl mascot, featured in funny and relatable videos, regularly racks up millions of views and shares.

Why I like it: Duolingo proves that even tech brands can humanize themselves through humor and relatability. And by jumping on trends at the right time, they get noticed by influencers and media.

3. How does Semrush amplify its event reach organically?

Global Marketing Day, hosted by Semrush, is a 24-hour online marketing conference that brings together top experts from major brands like Google, TikTok, Pinterest, and Vogue Business.

The event streams live from studios in New York, London, and Dubai, offering 48 sessions on topics like SEO, branding, AI, and more.

Semrush generated SOCIAL MEDIA buzz and UGC content throughout the event, earning media exposure across different platforms.

Source

The results from the 2023 conference speak for themselves:

• Reached over 5 million people across all posts.
• Generated 2,700 tweets with #globalmarketingday.
• Attracted 90,000 registrants.
• Secured 55,000+ leads.

Why I like it: When you invite experts from different companies, you’re pretty much guaranteed a lot of shares from their teams and connections. A snowball effect — more shares, less effort. Word of mouth takes over.

Also, by inviting SMEs, Semrush shows they’re not just throwing an event, they’re solidifying their spot as a leader in digital marketing education.

Don’t Buy Attention — Earn It

Is it easier to get a mention when you pay? Yes. But is it more valuable? No.

Paid mentions can bring quick results or flop, but the real value lies in EMV. Every brand should aim for a long-term game — great content and smart promotion on their own end to make the media or an influencer notice them.

Get these things right, media attention comes naturally.

Monitor the value of organic mentions. Use AI to track brand mentions, and never forget to thank the media that featured you.

Build those relationships. Earn that attention, nurture it, and watch it compound.