Earned Media

Seems like every week someone coins a new buzzword.

One term that's been a round for a while that I'm seeing/hearing a lot more of lately is 'earned media'.

Once upon a time we used to called that press coverage. But there's so much more to coverage in the media these days.

There's chatter on Twitter, Facebook groups, Fan pages, blogs and all the other channels we now call social media.

So what's the difference between social media and earned media?

After all it's hard to generate earned media without using social media.

And if a social media campaign doesn't generate enough buzz is it a failure or has it simply not earned enough media to be considered a success?