There are a variety of owned media platforms out there. Not only article content, but also video content, audio content, and other content expression methods are becoming more diverse. There has never been an era where it has been so easy for companies to disseminate information, and it feels like a profusion of options.
However, having too many options makes it harder for people to understand. Also, both owned media and content use relatively new katakana English, and the greece telegram phone number list interpretation varies quite a bit depending on the site, so some people may be left feeling unsure of what each word means.
Therefore, in this article, we would like to clarify the meaning of "owned media" and "content," their relationship, and the various types, so that you can have a clear understanding.
What is owned media?
Owned media is derived from the following English word and means "media that you own." For a company, it is media that is operated by the company itself.
Media is a word with a broad meaning, including medium, agent, and method .
Because the owned media boom started with business blogs, there is a general impression that owned media = blogs, but there are actually a variety of owned media, as listed below.
Blogs, knowledge sites, e-mail newsletters, press releases, white papers, SNS posts, PR magazines, in-house newsletters, company guides, etc.
Since owned media is operated by your company, you can edit your message freely. In addition, the content can be posted semi-permanently, so it can become a company asset.
On the other hand, media in which content is posted by paying other companies, such as advertising, is called paid media, while media in which word of mouth and reputation are gained on other companies' platforms, such as social media, is called earned media.
Paid media, earned media, owned media, the triple media definition is explained by note producer Tokurik Motohiko (tokurik) , so I will quote the diagram below. As there are areas where the circles intersect, in recent years, there has been an increase in media that combine two or three characteristics.Triple media diagram
(Quote: Regarding the definition of "owned media," the English Wikipedia also lists offline cases, so I'd like to introduce them here - Tokuriki Motohiko's note )
First of all, what is "content"?
Next, we will explain the meaning of content. The origin of the word content is as follows, and it means "content" or "substance".
contents (plural of content): contents, content, meaning, table of contents (alc.co.jp)
Content of owned media = the contents of the owned media. In other words, for a blog, it is the article, for SNS, it is the post content, and for a seminar, it is the seminar content. It has also traditionally meant "table of contents."
In Japan, the word "content" became widespread during the IT boom of the 1990s, and due to the history of the " Law for the Protection and Dissemination of Digital Content " being enacted, it is also often used with the nuance of "copyrighted work."
The word has many different meanings, but in the marketing field, if you remember that content means "substances" or "works," you will be able to communicate smoothly in most contexts.
Common misconceptions about owned media and content
Both owned media and content are still new katakana English words, so there are many misunderstandings about them. Here are some typical examples.
Misconception 1: Owned media = blog
Many people mistakenly think that owned media is business blogs, but a business blog is just one type of owned media for a company.
This is probably because, as mentioned above, when the term owned media first started to spread, many companies started with blogs. Also, knowledge-based blogs and the like are edited in a way similar to existing paper media, where you look at the overall table of contents and then look at the pages that interest you, so it may have been easy for many people to recognize them as media.
However, owned media refers to media that an organization owns. Owned media is diverse, including not only blogs but also white papers, e-mail newsletters, press releases, public relations magazines, in-house newsletters, and company guides.
Misconception 2: Content = SEO
There is a common misconception that content = SEO. SEO is an abbreviation for "Search engine optimization," which means search engine optimization or search engine countermeasures, and there are various approaches.
It is true that Google highly values sites that provide high-quality content for users and displays them at the top of the results, but in Japan, many SEO support companies have begun to focus on SEO strategies using keyword-focused content, and I think this has led to the widespread misunderstanding that content = SEO.
Corporate content is not created solely for SEO purposes, and SEO-first content goes against the true definition of content marketing .
In content marketing, content is a sincere message from a company to the people it wants to meet and to those it wants to understand. It is because the content of the content is excellent that SEO results, not the other way around.
Myth 3: Owned media and content are digital
There is also a misunderstanding that both owned media and content are terms that refer to the digital domain.
There is also real owned media and content.
For example, company guides, employment guides, newsletters, and paper press releases are all owned media. Company seminars and events are also owned media, and all of the content is content. It is expressed as article content, seminar content, etc.
However, unlike laws, the definition of a word will become established as the correct meaning if more people use it. If the majority of people misunderstand it as above, it may be possible that it will be recognized as the correct meaning. However, companies tend to expand the definition of owned media and content.
For example, Daiwa House Industry, which is focusing on owned media, says that it considers all customer contact points it has as owned media, such as product catalogs, housing exhibitions, model homes, construction sites, sales representatives, etc. Panasonic also says that the ideal situation would be for each employee to become an owned media .
I think that in the future we will see the emergence of a variety of owned media in both the digital and real worlds.
Examples of various types of owned media and content
There are various types of owned media and content. Since we often introduce digital examples, this time we will focus on non-digital owned media and content.
Examples of different types of owned media
First, there are the following types of non-digital owned media:
* Please see this article for examples of digital owned media .
Owned media example 1: Company history
Corporate histories are one of the oldest forms of owned media. The Kanagawa Prefectural Kawasaki Library, known as the "holy land of corporate histories," has more than 20,000 volumes of corporate histories. The museum also considers corporate histories to be a part of Japanese culture .
A company history is an owned media that can communicate a company's entire story to the world, including what social conditions the company has faced since its founding, what products it has offered to the world, and the thoughts and feelings behind them, as well as the stories behind them.
For long-time employees and people with long-standing business relationships, a company history is a medium that allows them to look back on their own journey, and for younger employees, it is a medium that allows them to learn about the company's purpose, or in modern terms, why the company exists.
Perhaps for this reason, in recent years, even young venture companies have begun creating company histories to improve engagement. Since company histories do not need to be updated in real time and are intended to be preserved as documents, digital company histories are available, but book-style histories are still popular.
