Stop Chasing Media Coverage, and Start Doing This Instead

Earned media coverage is harder to secure than ever before. With the fragmentation of media, there are now thousands of outlets, influencers, newsletters, podcasts, Substacks and creators all competing for the same attention. At the same time, newsrooms are shrinking and publications are continuously letting go of staff writers in favor of freelancers, e-commerce writers and social strategists.

So for top-tier outlets (the mainstream magazines, TV shows and podcasts we all know) getting a journalist to pick up your story can sometimes feel like winning the lottery.

That being said, if earned media is a priority and a real growth lever for your brand, it’s more important than ever to have a strong PR consultant or communications team that understands the current media landscape and can help position your story in the right way. But when it comes to securing meaningful media coverage, the answer usually isn’t sending more pitches or hiring an agency solely for their “contacts.”

The key is having a story worth telling in the first place.

The brands consistently getting coverage today aren’t necessarily the brands with the biggest PR budgets. They’re the brands creating narratives, campaigns and conversations that already have momentum before the media even gets involved.

So instead of obsessing over earned coverage and sending hundreds of cold pitches every month, here’s what brands should focus on instead.

Understand and Define Your UVP

This sounds obvious, but before venturing into earned media, it’s crucial that you actually understand your brand’s unique value and how it stacks up against your competition. This is where a great PR consultant can come in and figure it out.

If you’re not able to clearly articulate what makes your brand different, culturally relevant, innovative or even just interesting, it becomes incredibly difficult to break through the noise. Most brands can explain what they do. Very few can explain why people should care.

And journalists are asking themselves that exact question every day. A lot of founders think media coverage will create a compelling brand story for them, when in reality it works the opposite way. Strong media coverage is usually the result of a compelling brand story already existing.

Your UVP shouldn’t just live in a pitch deck or on an “About” page. It should shape your campaigns, your partnerships, your social content, your visuals and the way your brand participates in conversations online. When all of those things align, your story becomes much easier for media to understand and cover.

Build Your Owned, Paid and Shared Content

Your brand’s external identity is typically defined by four channels (also known as the PESO model): paid, earned, owned and shared. Earned media falls under the “earned” category because you’re convincing an outlet to cover your brand or story without payment.

But journalists don’t rely solely on publicists and inbound pitches to discover stories anymore. They’re on TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit and Substack. They’re paying attention to what people are talking about in real time. They’re researching trends, audience behavior and online discourse to find stories that already have traction.

That’s why brands can’t treat social media and content as separate from PR anymore; they have to work together.

One of the best recent examples is Aerie’s “No AI Models” campaign featuring Pamela Anderson. The campaign centered around the decision not to use AI-generated models in its marketing, tapping directly into broader conversations around authenticity, beauty standards and the growing use of AI in advertising.

In return, the brand received coverage from Vogue, Business Insider, Fortune, WSJ and countless others, even weeks after the campaign launched. Not because Aerie randomly emailed reporters saying “we don’t use AI,” but because they created a campaign, visual assets and a broader cultural conversation around the topic first.

It also worked because the campaign aligned with Aerie’s existing brand identity and expanded naturally on its long-standing “real bodies” positioning. It didn’t feel random or forced.

That’s the missing piece so many smaller brands overlook. They focus entirely on trying to “get press” without first creating something interesting enough to warrant coverage. But earned media works best when it amplifies momentum that already exists.
Today, it’s more important than ever for brands to actively create content, campaigns, collaborations and moments that are engaging, differentiated and relevant to the conversations people are already having online. Build a world around your brand that exists beyond your website.

From there, earned coverage becomes far more natural — and truly earned.

Create Moments, Not Just Announcements

One of the biggest mistakes brands make is treating PR like a distribution channel for announcements.

A new product launch, a new hire or a new location might matter internally, but on their own, those things usually aren’t enough to capture media attention anymore. Reporters need a larger angle, cultural relevance or audience interest to justify covering something.

The brands that consistently break through understand how to turn ordinary updates into larger moments. They create campaigns tied to trends, unexpected partnerships, community experiences, data insights or timely conversations that give people a reason to engage.

A strong media story often sits at the intersection of:

• brand relevance

• timing

• audience interest

• and cultural conversation

That’s why some smaller brands with limited budgets still manage to generate massive attention. They understand how to package a story in a way that feels bigger than the brand itself.

Think Like a Media Company

The most successful modern brands don’t just sell products or services; they operate like media companies. They consistently create content, develop a recognizable point of view and build an ecosystem people actually want to follow and engage with. Over time, this creates familiarity and trust, which naturally increases media interest as well.

Journalists are much more likely to cover a brand that already has:

• a clear identity

• an engaged audience

• strong visuals

• cultural relevance

• and ongoing conversation around it

That doesn’t mean every brand needs to go viral. But it does mean brands should stop thinking about PR as a one-time tactic and start viewing it as part of a larger communications ecosystem.

Earned media still matters. In many ways, third-party validation is more valuable than ever. But the way brands earn that coverage has fundamentally changed.

The brands winning today aren’t just pitching harder, they’re creating stronger narratives, better content, more interesting campaigns and real cultural relevance that journalists want to tap into. Media coverage shouldn’t be the starting point of your brand strategy. It should be the amplification of a story that’s already resonating.