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Difference Between Social Marketing and Social Media Marketing

Difference Between Social Marketing and Social Media Marketing

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Today we will talk about the Difference Between Social Marketing and Social Media Marketing. Marketing is often related to the success of a business or project. 

While we cannot deny this, different marketing strategies tend to produce different results. Identifying the target market and designing a way to communicate the intended message may not be easy for most marketers. 

Especially on online platforms, marketers need to be familiar with new trends, jargon, and even new applications. Almost every business is engaged in social media marketing these days, and the few that don’t catch these trends are missing out on many potential customers. 

While many businesses market to gain more prospects, others engage in marketing to change aspects of society or to convey basic messages, often referred to as social marketing. 

However, what many people may not know is that there is a clear difference between social marketing and social media marketing.


What does social marketing mean?

This is the use of marketing principles and strategies to build awareness of social issues in order to change people's attitudes and behaviors for the betterment of society. For example, campaigns based on the importance of protective sex, the importance of recycling, the health effects of smoking, and the dangers of drinking and driving are examples of social marketing.

These activities are long-term and carefully planned to change human behavior.

Although anyone can engage in social marketing, they are mostly carried out by nonprofit organizations, governments, professional associations, and corporations.

Social marketing applies the same principles as business marketing. 

These include:
  • Product - Here, a product is a change in attitude or a change in behavior.
  • Price - This is the cost of changing said behavior.
  • Location - This is the target population that needs to be reached.
  • Advocacy - In an effort to change human behavior, advertising strategies such as placing roadside banners to discourage drink-driving are often used.
  • Policy - Any social marketing must have the intent to promote positive behavior change.

What is social media marketing?

This is using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to reach potential consumers. With the advent of the internet age, social media is not only considered beneficial but also essential for any business looking to tap into a wider market.

Some of the benefits of using social media as a marketing channel include:

  • Create and increase brand awareness - social media is an effective and fast medium for making your brand known globally
  • Increase traffic - When people see a product or service on social media, potential customers are likely to reach out to learn about the product and service on offer.
  • Promotion of products and services – Businesses can easily promote their products and services, leading to more prospects.
  • Build conversions – Social media marketing helps businesses move leads from the awareness stage to the conversion stage.
  • Improve engagement and communication with audiences - Social media marketing provides a platform for interaction between brands and consumers
While social media marketing can help drive business growth, it can also fail. 

Therefore, brands should implement five core pillars, namely:

  • Strategy - Before entering the field of social media marketing, businesses should define their strategy. This should be based on business goals and the social media channels that are appropriate for the business. For example, while one brand might be successful on Instagram, another brand will thrive on YouTube but fail on Instagram.
  • Content - People are often attracted to a brand based on the content posted. Brands should also be consistent in this regard.
  • Engagement – ​​Potential customers will always find ways to engage with a brand by commenting on posts, sending direct messages, or even sharing posts. It's important to keep interacting with these people.
  • Analytics - Businesses should use the information provided by social media platforms to measure the performance of a brand's social media marketing.
  • Advertising – To reach a wider audience, brands should implement social advertising and tailor the target audience.

What are the disadvantages of social media marketing

Competition is fierce. Although there are many social media platforms, there are only a few mainstream social media platforms, and there are so many brands that want to market, so the competition is very fierce. If you want to stand out from the many marketing, you must have a novelty idea.

More need to focus on the innovation of content. In the process of social media marketing, if you do not pay attention to the innovation of content, it is easy to be overwhelmed by other massive content, and you need to continuously manage the marketing process in the later stage, so as to pay more attention to interactivity and create higher Quality marketing process.


Similarities Between Social Marketing and Social Media Marketing


  • Both are designed to convey a message to the target audience


Difference Between Social Marketing and Social Media Marketing

  • definition: Social marketing refers to the use of marketing principles and strategies to build awareness of social issues in order to change people's attitudes and behaviors for the betterment of society. Social media marketing, on the other hand, refers to the use of platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to reach potential consumers.
  • Purpose: Social marketing aims to change people's attitudes and behaviors for the betterment of society, while social media marketing aims to increase brand awareness and increase conversions by reaching out to a wider market.
  • method: Whereas social marketing focuses on understanding your target audience and then tailoring campaigns for them, social media marketing focuses on introducing new products to your audience.
  • scope: Social marketing is very focused on a specific location, niche, or certain behavior. On the other hand, social media marketing focuses on the wider market.
  • the measure of success: While the success of social marketing depends on the impact of a campaign on an individual, the success of social media marketing is based on analytics such as sales, clicks, and views.

How to do Social Media marketing more effectively?

With the development of science and technology and the surge in the number of users, Social Media plays an increasingly important role in people's daily life, and network marketing has gradually become an important and effective marketing method. How to do a good job in network marketing has always been a topic of discussion. 

One: Social Media Marketing

social media refers to websites and technologies that allow people to write, share, rate, discuss, and communicate with each other. 

Marketing is to provide products to customers who need them through sales means. So social media marketing has two meanings, one is that these media market themselves, and the other is that other companies use these media to market their own products.

Social media marketing is no longer an unfamiliar word. For many companies, social media such as official have a must-have item for corporate marketing. However, the survey shows that most companies do not have a clear social media marketing strategy, let alone precise marketing.

(1) Precise positioning

First of all, enterprises should understand their own positioning and target groups. Different social fields have different user group characteristics. The first step for enterprises is to judge and choose the social field that is suitable for the enterprise according to their own positioning and customer group characteristics. Where are the customer groups? Where should the business be?

(2) Comprehensive strategy

Social media marketing is not as simple as imagined. It is far from enough to create an account and send news. From the establishment of the accounting matrix, the planning of the content, the establishment of the interactive feedback mechanism, and the crisis public relations, enterprises need to carry out detailed analysis and planning. Establishing a comprehensive marketing strategy and maintaining it for a long time will definitely bring value to the enterprise.

(3) Data monitoring and reporting

In addition, real-time monitoring and regular data analysis are essential. Enterprises need to have a set of monitoring mechanisms to serve and find concerns and related people. Which customers mentioned themselves on social networks? How did they rate the brand? Who cares about them, and do they need to consume? Businesses need to find this content and give it back. At the same time, regular reports and summaries are also the keys to promoting corporate social marketing. Information on the Internet is ever-changing, and corporate marketing strategies should also be adapted to it. It is worth affirming that the social marketing of most enterprises is still very planned. The positioning of the brand and the choice of media are in line with the brand characteristics. It should be noted that enterprises need to strengthen the establishment of monitoring and feedback mechanisms or adopt technical means to support them to achieve precision marketing.

Two: Social marketing

Large user base and low cost. On major social media, the number of users has exceeded 1 billion, which can become a natural audience. Compared with traditional media, it can use a smaller budget to quickly build a brand reputation, so that more people can use it in a short time. Learn about the brand in the time. In the state of the same marketing effect, using traditional media may require more costs.

Ability to precisely target your target audience. Through social media marketing, the target audience can be accurately positioned. There are different types of users on various social network platforms. 

Through different platforms, you can quickly understand your audience and conduct more accurate marketing.

Ability to perform comprehensive data analysis. Through social media marketing, comprehensive data analysis can be carried out, and the powerful data analysis function of social media can be used to achieve more scientific data and analysis support.


Summary of Social Marketing and Social Media Marketing

Social marketing refers to the use of marketing principles and strategies to build awareness of social issues in order to change people's attitudes and behaviors for the betterment of society. 

Social media marketing, on the other hand, refers to the use of platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to reach potential consumers. 

While social marketing and social media marketing may have different purposes and methods, both are important aspects of communicating a message to a target audience.
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