Rhode to Be Acquired by Elf Beauty for $1 Billion

Reminding followers to scoop up big deals with the #PrimeDay hashtag worked well for Health & Beauty brands on Instagram this year, as did tutorial and behind-the-scenes hashtags. Health & Beauty brands tweeted less than ever this year, but were more likely to post a photo than any other tweet type. Health & Beauty brands doubled their rate of Reels per week this year, which paid off with strong engagement for that post type. Image-based post types performed twice as well for Health & Beauty brands as text-heavy links and status updates.

For brands in 2026, the question is not whether earned media drives AI citations. The GEO-16 paper explicitly stated that even high-quality pages may not be cited if they reside on vendor blogs. The brand that is not cited when a buyer asks their AI assistant who the category leaders are is absent from the consideration set. This means earned media earned media placement is not just about reach to human readers. A study presented at the International Public Relations Research Conference found that 47% of all AI citations in responses came from journalistic sources, with 89%+ of cited links from earned media and 95% from unpaid sources.

As we’ve mentioned, earned media is considered the more cost-effective option because you don’t have to continuously pay for ad placement. In general, a marketing approach that combines paid and earned media is best because it gives you the benefits of each option rolled into one effective strategy. Instead, earned media is usually better for building trust with consumers because it comes from a third party, like a journalist or another customer’s testimonial.

While cocktails were king on Instagram, Alcohol brands were all about the beer with their hashtags on TikTok this year. Alcohol brands were all about mixed drink hashtags on Instagram this year, with the #cocktail hashtag performing nearly twice as well as the next most engaging hashtag by rate. Status tweets were a surprise hit for Alcohol brands this year on Twitter, but photo tweets were also a tried and true source of engagement. Carousels grabbed the highest engagement rates for Alcohol brands, who were much likelier to post photos on Instagram.

Traceable, defensible insights

• Notable brands in this year’s report include Derma E, Florence By Mills, Glow Recipe, ORLY, Stila, and Tom Ford Beauty.
• “As organizations adapt to new audience search behaviors, PR and earned media budgets must increase to ensure optimal AI search visibility,” it maintained.
• No surprise here that Fashion brands used hashtags on Instagram like #BlackFriday and #CyberMonday to remind followers about opportunities to shop.

So, how can you measure the impact of earned media? Depending on your goals, sometimes a trade publication with a niche audience is worth more than an outlet with millions of impressions. Regardless of how prominently your company is mentioned, it’s important to consider how your company is perceived. You could even set up your back-end analytics to track how much site traffic comes from your news. So, how do you measure the quality of your work? Since you’re paying for the release distribution and controlling the message, we categorize press release pick-up as paid media.

Track, Analyze and Share Your Earned Media Coverage With Critical Mention's

This moves earned coverage from output to strategic signal that can influence decision-making. As outlined in Onclusive’s Coverage to Capital whitepaper, third-party media coverage plays a growing role in how brands are surfaced, summarized, and recommended by AI-powered systems. Earned media no longer influences only people.

With so many paid media platform options available, almost anyone can create professional digital advertising without experience. In addition, audience targeting is more cost-effective because it allows you to focus only on those most likely to purchase your products. On the other hand, earned media takes time, even if you have something newsworthy to share with the public. However, it’s important to note that true costs may vary when working with a public relations firm.

Another big difference is that with earned media, brands have limited control over the messaging and placement, while paid media offers full control over the content, placement and audience targeting. While earned media allows you to connect with specific audiences by reaching out to journalists in a particular niche, paid media allows you to precisely target specific audiences. But with the right metrics and tools, you can absolutely track the impact of earned media on your brand’s growth. The return on an earned media asset often grows over time, while paid media stops the second the budget does. Many brands purchase exposure to reach wider audiences and grow their business through paid traffic and brand awareness.

We understand exactly what search engine algorithms and LLM’s look for, and we’ve crafted a proven, data-driven process designed to boost your pages to the top of search results—and keep them there. Title tags, meta descriptions, and headings act as informative labels for search engines and users. Keyword research acts as your compass, identifying the terms your target audience uses to find information. We craft and execute SEO strategies that build trust with both the audience and the engine algorithms, ensuring long-lasting results. Powerful SEO strategies bring net-new users to your website, users that are already looking for your products and services and likely ready to convert. In November 2023, Trump Media sued 20 media outlets, including Forbes, for reporting that included calculations of its financial results while still a private company.

Lapid was set to attend the Marseille International Film Festival in July as part of the jury, but pulled out following pressure from pro-Palestinian filmmakers. Looking to watch Bonnaroo live in-person or from the comfort of your couch? Zen is creative about the approach to gain new business—Here at Nouveau/ImageWear Frame Company we are a B2B organization delivering eyewear to the eye care professional.

The platform offers unified dashboards that enable users to analyze and visualize media, social, and consumer intelligence data in ways that suit their specific needs. Meltwater's AI engine surfaces real-time insights, reducing manual task time by up to 25%. It delivers enhanced accuracy in classifying both positive and negative content, reducing false-neutral or misclassified articles. Unify reporting, automate insight, and prove impact across channels. Deliver weekly and monthly updates without rebuilding the story every time.

Shared sentiment and narrative models help teams work from the same definitions across brands, regions, and business units. Evaluate paid campaign impact and creator performance within the same reporting environment. Measure engagement, audience response, and content performance across owned and social channels. Track coverage, reach, sentiment, and share of voice alongside the signals shaping perception. See performance, understand narrative, and measure competitive position in one place. More complex calculations might factor in reach, content type and other variables.

Aside from Bieber’s pull, Rhode’s strategic roadmap includes a streamlined product assortment, calculated expansion into makeup and body care, performance-driven marketing, viral social media execution, and selective retail partnerships, all of which have made it a compelling blueprint for M&A in today’s turbulent and uncertain market. Increasingly, celebrity-founded brands need to demonstrate that they can succeed independent of their star ties. The CEO hopes that Elf Beauty will help maximize the brand’s dollar share, given its 20-year industry expertise and 25 consecutive quarters of growth, as well as expand the brand into new territories (Bieber referenced demand for Rhode in markets such as Brazil).

Create interesting & engaging content

Credibility is the lowest of the three because audiences know it’s an ad. Earned media sits alongside paid media (advertising) and owned media (a brand’s own website, blog, and social accounts) in the standard marketing framework. Audiences trust earned media because it comes from third parties, and it’s cost-effective because you don’t pay for it directly. We have global reach, but local expertise, and you’ll always know how your earned media strategy is performing. ” is that it’s only as good as the tools you use. The main difference between earned media and owned media lies in ownership and control.