Earned media
Earned media is coverage of your brand that someone else chose to publish, like reviews, news stories, list articles and forum posts.
Earned media is coverage of your brand that someone else chose to publish: a review, a news story, a "best of" list, a forum thread, a blogger's write-up. You didn't pay for it and you don't control it. That's what gives it weight.
In AI search, earned media is a large part of what the platforms read. When someone asks which brand to choose, the answer is often built from what independent sites say, so your earned media shapes how you come across.
Earned, owned and paid
Marketers have long sorted media three ways. Owned media is what you publish yourself, like your website, your blog and your social accounts. Paid media is what you buy, like ads and sponsored posts. Earned media is the rest: what others say about you because they wanted to.
The lines blur sometimes. A sponsored review is paid, even when it looks earned. A guest post you wrote for a trade site sits somewhere in between.
Why AI platforms lean on it
An AI platform answering "which is the best coffee grinder under £200?" needs sources that compare brands. Your own site won't do that fairly, and the platform has no reason to assume it will. Review sites, list articles and forums do compare, so they get read.
For example, say answers to Kestrel Roasters' prompts this week used 50 pages. 8 were Kestrel's own pages, 6 were competitors' sites, and 36 were reviews, news, directories and forum threads. Most of what shaped those answers was earned media, and most of it Kestrel can only influence, never edit.
Earned media in AnswerOrbit
Sources sorts every page an answer used by who owns it, and groups the sites that aren't yours or your competitors' by type, such as press and publications, community and social, or reference. You can change a domain's group if it's in the wrong one. The Review sites tab in Perception compares what your reviews say with what the answers say.